Abstract

This study examines the idea of the university by reconsidering the contrast between liberal education—understood not in political terms but as a form of intellectual and moral formation—and vocational education. Rather than locating this contrast in the familiar theory–practice or mind–body dualisms, the article advances a relational account that challenges inherited dualisms while locating the central divergence between liberal and vocational education in their respective approaches to character formation. Drawing on Aristotle’s historically situated distinction between practical and productive knowledge, the ethical and oratorical dimensions of liberal education, and the cognitive demands embedded in vocational practices, the study develops a more nuanced account of both traditions. It argues that, while vocational education may cultivate character-related dispositions indirectly through professional contexts, liberal education treats character formation as an explicit and constitutive educational aim. On this basis, the article suggests that the idea of the university is more coherently understood through the liberal education tradition, insofar as it treats character education as a commitment to the intentional intellectual and moral formation of the individual.