Platonic character education.

This article examines Plato’s theory of character education by connecting his treatment of virtue in the Platonic corpus to the contemporary discourse on character education, which distinguishes four domains of virtues: moral, intellectual, civic, and performance virtues. It highlights that Plato’s insights on virtue education predate and rival Aristotle’s, emphasizing habituation, desire, and stable disposition toward virtue, and that Plato’s dialogues serve as a curriculum shaping readers’ knowledge and desires related to epistemic, moral, and civic goods. The article discusses how Plato’s Socrates exemplifies intellectual virtues such as curiosity, humility, and integrity, moral virtues like courage and justice, civic virtues including dissent and law-abidingness, and performance virtues such as perseverance and self-control. It also addresses complexities in interpreting Plato’s political philosophy and the cultivation of civic virtues like solidarity (homonoia) within his ideal cities. Overall, the article argues that Plato’s work remains highly relevant to contemporary character education theory and practice.