Should teachers use Platonic or Aristotelian dialogues for the moral education of young people?

This article evaluates the claim by Mark Jonas and Yoshiaki Nakazawa that a neo-Platonic theory of moral education, which employs dialogues to induce epiphanies in students, is superior to a neo-Aristotelian approach for educating young people, especially those with vicious characters. By examining Aristotle's broader corpus, including his works on logic and the dialogical form of the Nicomachean Ethics, the author argues that Aristotle's philosophy does incorporate dialogue as a pedagogical method that can engage students' emotions and practical wisdom, though it may not produce epiphanies or convert deeply vicious adults. The paper suggests that Aristotelian dialogues, which combine reflective and deliberative elements, offer a structured and reliable classroom method for moral development, complementing habituation, imitation, and role-modeling. Ultimately, the author contends that Aristotle's and Plato's accounts of dialogue share more common ground than Jonas and Nakazawa acknowledge, and that both traditions can jointly inform contemporary moral education.