Philosophy Teaching and Virtue Epistemology: for a philosophical education based on intellectual virtues
The present work derives from the following question: what can be the formative purposes of teaching philosophy in Basic Education? It seeks to establish a dialogue between two fields of philosophical research: first, Philosophy Teaching, and second, Virtue Epistemology. The hypothesis to be argued is that some of the formative purposes conceived within the scope of Philosophy Teaching can be achieved through educating for intellectual virtues. To defend this idea, the following path is developed: in the first chapter, three formative purposes for the teaching of philosophy are presented - citizenship education, critical thinking, and the appropriation of philosophical content; in the second chapter, the consequences of applying the theoretical framework of Virtue Epistemology in education are investigated, in order to argue that developing and cultivating intellectual virtues is a desirable and achievable goal for Basic Education; in the third and final chapter, an analysis is conducted on how this objective can contribute to the realization of the formative purposes of philosophy education presented earlier.