Learning, language, and moral character: to what degree does education, in humanities or the sciences, influence our moral progress?

Their own weakness, however, is not the only factor which can make students of philosophy waver and double back. The earnest advice of friends and the mocking, bantering attacks of critics can also, on their occurrence, warp and sap resolve, and have been known to put some people off philosophy altogether. Therefore, a good indication of an individual’s progress would be equanimity when faced with these factors, and not being upset or irritated by people who name his peers and tell him how they are prospering at some royal household, or are marrying into money or are going down to the agora as the people’s choice for some political or forensic post. For anyone who is not dismayed or swayed in these circumstances has clearly been suitably and securely gripped by philosophy, since it is impossible to stop trying to conform to behavior the majority of people admire unless one has become accustomed to admire virtue instead; even anger and insanity give some people the ability to stand up to others, but disdain for affairs commonly admired is impossible without a high purpose, truly and securely held….

Anyway, when the contrast between virtue and externals has enabled you to eliminate from yourself envy and jealousy of others, and all the things which commonly irritate and undermine beginners in philosophy, you can take this too as a clear indication of your progress.

Another not unimportant sign is a certain change where arguments are concerned. Almost without exception, beginners in philosophy tend to look for ways of speaking which will enhance their reputation. Some behave like birds: because they are lightweight and ambitious, they swoop down on to the brilliant heights of science. Others behave ‘like puppies,’ as Plato says: ‘they enjoy dragging things around and tearing them apart,’ so they head for controversies and puzzles and sophisms.1 A great many beginners immerse themselves in philosophical arguments and use them as ammunition in casuistry. Occasionally, beginners go around collecting quotable phrases and stories, but just as Anacharsis used to say that, in his experience, the only reason the Greeks have money is to count it, so these people – in respect to the arguments they employ – are short-changed and short-change others, and accumulate nothing else which might do them good.

The result of this all this was illustrated by Antiphanes’ saying, in it application to Plato’s circle. Antiphanes used to tell an amusing story about a city where, as soon as anyone spoke, the sound of his voice was frozen solid, and then later, when it thawed out in the summer, they heard what had been said in the winter; likewise, he added, what Plato said to people when they were still young only just got through to most of them much later, when they were old. People also have this experience when faced with philosophy in any form, and it stops only when their discrimination becomes sound and steady, and begins to encounter the factors which instill moral character and stature, and starts to seek out arguments whose tracks (to borrow Aesop’s image) tend inwards rather than outwards.2 

Plutarch, “On Being Aware of Moral Progress,” trans. R. Waterfield

1. Republic 539b↩

2. The Lion and the Fox↩