Philosophy Shorts: the Virtues of the student
The Virtues of the Student
with Community Philosopher David Nowakowski
What we explored
What are the qualities of an excellent student? Or, as ancient Greek philosophers would put it, what are the virtues, or excellences, which belong to students in general, and especially to students of philosophy?
In this evening’s Zoom program we examined some short passages on this theme, written by thinkers at both ends of the thousand-year tradition of Hellenic philosophy. We began with a few short excerpts from Plato, in which Socrates compares the lackluster standards of Athens with the far superior pedagogy of the Persian royal court, and Aristotle on the special class of “intellectual virtues.” We then moved nearly 900 years forward in time, to visit with two of the last heads of the Platonic Academy in Athens: Proclus, who famously declares — in a rebuttal of Aristotle — that “the highest good is not contemplation,” and examined three key virtues of young Socrates as a student, and Damascius, who uses this same list of three virtues in some scathing critiques of the intellectuals of his day. Through lively conversation and dialogue — both with the ancient authors, and with each other — we explored the goals and methods of education in Hellenic philosophy, and the virtues (or excellences) that corresponded to that educational program. Some of the keypoints explored alng the way included:
- The relationship between physical and intellectual development
- Some virtues relevant to philosophical inquiry: wide experience, natural ability, and willingness/perseverance with: (a) wide experience helping to provide examples and patterns for understanding deeper principles, (b) natural ability involving a tendency/proclivity for looking beyond appearances, and (c) willingness/perseverance allowing students to follow difficult arguments and reason to completion
- The relational nature between teacher and student, moving from passive reception to active inquiry
- Stages of development, learning styles, and different educational approaches (and the role of teacher’s relative to adapting to these)
- Virtues across cultural and historical contexts
- The nature of studenthood and how this evolves throughout life
- The goal of self-direction/independent inquiry in their pursuit of knowledge
- Plato’s concept of forms and how philosophical inquiry seeks to go beyond appearances to underlying principles
- How various disciplines like logic, mathematics, and geometry can help train the mind for philosphical inquiry
- Concerns about artificial intelligence and its impact on students’ ability to develop perserverance
Resources
About Our Workshop Leader
David Nowakowski is a philosopher and educator whose professional work is dedicated to helping people of all ages and backgrounds access, understand, and apply the traditions of ancient philosophy to their own lives. David began studying ancient philosophies and classical languages in 2001 and has continued ever since. A scholar of the philosophical traditions of the ancient Mediterranean (Greece, Rome, and North Africa) and of the Indian subcontinent, reading Sanskrit, Latin, and classical Greek, he earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University in 2014.
