Abstract

Rational education is one of the important topics in the field of education. This study aimed to analyze the concept of rational life in the grace-oriented approach in order to formulate the goals of rational education from Plotinus’s perspective. We used Frankenna’s practical analogy for this qualitative, descriptive, conceptual analysis. Our results revealed that the main purpose of rational education is the rational unity of the soul with its origin through the human soul’s attainment of rational life and spiritual experiences, which is realized through the following intermediate goals: meditation and the virtue of the soul, which refers to the sanctity and moderation of the spiritual aspects; the development of self-knowledge and rationality, which refers to the authenticity and inwardness of the spiritual aspects, and the cultivation of love and imagination, which refers to the attraction of the beauty and dynamism of the spiritual aspects, and finally, benevolence and unity-seeking of the soul, which refers to the transcendence and splendor of the spiritual aspects. Educating and cultivating the human soul and the purposefulness and meaning of life is the result of the realization of these goals. From Plotinus’s perspective, rational life is a perfect life with cognitive, practical, volitional, skillful and aesthetic aspects. The basic and normative proposition of this research is the acquisition of a rational life of the human soul, the realization and benefit of which depends on cultivating intermediate goals, including various dimensions of the intellectual life in cognitive, practical, emotional (attitude), voluntary aspects in learners.