Abstract
In the contemporary philosophy of education, there are debates concerning education's primary epistemic aims. Many philosophers have argued that critical thinking is or should be the primary aim of education. In this chapter, we argue in favor of an alternative aim of education, one that is proposed by John Henry Newman in The Idea of a University. Newman's proposal is that the epistemic end of education is the perfection of the intellect. We argue that for Newman, the perfection of the intellect is a complete, comprehensive, and finally good mental state that, when regularly actualized, results in intellectual flourishing. We further argue that such a state is plausibly identified with what Newman calls philosophical knowledge or the philosophical habit of mind. Finally, we argue that adopting the perfection of the intellect as the primary epistemic aim of education can explain a number of features about education; for example, why we have the secondary epistemic aims in education that we do, why narrowly focused curricula in education are problematic, and why certain aims of education, such as critical thinking, may appear to be the fundamental epistemic aim of education. If this is correct, contemporary philosophers of education would do well to re-engage with Newman's Idea of a University.