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Teaching across thresholds:
Radical virtue epistemology in secondary and higher education

Radical virtue epistemologists argue that our current educational practices motivate students to acquire a type of knowledge that is static and drastically separated from life. Knowledge, they claim, is not just an inanimate thing to be obtained, stored, and defended however. It is also a dramatic moment, a lived experience, and a passionate embodiment of our most deeply held values, and our teaching needs to change to reflect this view.

This active workshop:

  • explored precisely what a radical, virtue approach to epistemology and knowledge entails for education;
  • examined whether the threshold moments that exist in and between secondary and higher education are ripe for engaging students with lessons based on this model of knowledge;
  • helped participants design their own epistemically radical lessons.
About the faciliator

Phil GaydonPhil Gaydon is completing his PhD at Warwick and now teaches philosophy at St Paul's School, London. During his time here, he was actively engaged in Warwick's academic life, particularly through his extensive involvement with IATL. It was through this work that he was nominated several times for a Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence and holds the honour of being the only person to win WATE PGR twice (2017, 2017).