Virtuous Minds: Intellectual Character Development

by Philip E. Dow

Publisher:

IVP Academic

, 2013

Overview

Templeton Foundation Character Project’s Character Essay and Book Prize Competition award winner

What does it mean to love God with all of our minds?

Our culture today is in a state of crisis where intellectual virtue is concerned. Dishonesty, cheating, arrogance, laziness, cowardice--such vices are rampant in society, even among the world’s most prominent leaders. We find ourselves in an ethical vacuum, as the daily headlines of our newspapers confirm again and again. Central to the problem is the state of education. We live in a technological world that has ever greater access to new information and yet no idea what to do with it all.

In this wise and winsome book, Philip Dow presents a case for the recovery of intellectual character. He explores seven key virtues--courage, carefulness, tenacity, fair-mindedness, curiosity, honesty and humility--and discusses their many benefits. The recovery of virtue, Dow argues, is not about doing the right things, but about becoming the right kind of person. The formation of intellectual character produces a way of life that demonstrates love for both God and neighbor.

Dow has written an eminently practical guide to a life of intellectual virtue designed especially for parents and educators. The book concludes with seven principles for a true education, a discussion guide for university and church groups, and nine appendices that provide examples from Dow’s experience as a teacher and administrator.

Virtuous Minds is a timely and thoughtful work for parents and pastors, teachers and students--anyone who thinks education is more about the quality of character than about the quantity of facts.

Key Features

• Presents a case for the recovery of intellectual character.
• Explores seven key virtues and discusses their many benefits.
• Brings a practical guide to a life of intellectual virtue.

Praise for the Print Edition

While the Aristotle-inspired pursuit of the good life has generated an enormous literature on moral character, its importance and its development, the other side of the person, intellectual character, has been astonishingly neglected by both academics and (more importantly) the general public. Yet excellence, or ‘virtue,’ in both components is essential for leading the best kinds of life open to humans; fine traits of heart alone, without fine traits of mind, cannot get the job done. It is high time that explicit attention was paid--by educators, by parents, by leaders, by all of us--to the habits of mind that help people grab hold of truth, and to what it takes to develop such habits. Virtuous Minds is to be applauded for prompting such attention, and in such an accessible and practical-minded way. May it find the readership it deserves!

-Lawrence Lengbeyer, United States Naval Academy

The book inspires the pursuit of intellectual virtue--it makes attractive a life characterized by the traits Dow discusses. I wanted to renew my efforts in the direction of intellectual virtue having read it. And I know my students, many of whom enter college with no real aim in sight beyond a degree which promises a high-paying position, would benefit from such inspiration. . . . I can easily imagine using it for an orientation course we offer to freshman philosophy majors.

-Gregg Ten Elshof, Biola University

It is far easier to be conformed than it is to be transformed. Dow’s book is a wake-up call for all of us to be diligent gardeners of our minds and souls.

-Philip Walker, president of International Christian Ministries

Product Details

• Title: Virtuous Minds: Intellectual Character Development
• Author: Philip E. Dow
• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Print Publication Date: 2013
• Logos Release Date: 2018
• Pages: 208
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subjects: Character; Education › Philosophy; Personality › Development
• ISBNs: 9780830884339, 0830884335
• Resource ID: LLS:9780830884339
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-06T20:47:32Z

About Philip E. Dow

Philip E. Dow (PhD, Cambridge University) is superintendent of Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi, Kenya. Dow has over a decade of classroom experience teaching advanced courses in social studies and history at the high school level. He is the author of “School in the Clouds”: The Rift Valley Academy Story.