Can epiphanies be taught?

If anything is of central importance to moral education then epiphanies: for they are ‘peak experience’ in which values in the world are or seem to be directly presented to us. In this paper, I reflect on the question whether and in what sense epiphanic experiences are teachable. My answer to the question is that there are many ways of making people more receptive to epiphanies, and engagement with poetry is one way; an extended example of this engagement is central to the paper. So an openness to epiphanies is certainly teachable—though the actual having of epiphanies is not. Just as we can teach people to fish in the sense that we can make them skilled at getting in a position to catch fish—but cannot thereby guarantee that any fish will actually come their way.

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Publication Details

Journal
Journal of Moral Education
Published
2025-10-22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2025.2552511
Citations
1
Primary Topic
African history and culture analysis
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
8.52
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article

Can epiphanies be taught?

Sophie Grace Chappell
1 citations
Journal of Moral Education
African history and culture analysis
8.52
article

Can epiphanies be taught?

Sophie Grace Chappell
article en
1 citations

Abstract

If anything is of central importance to moral education then epiphanies: for they are ‘peak experience’ in which values in the world are or seem to be directly presented to us. In this paper, I reflect on the question whether and in what sense epiphanic experiences are teachable. My answer to the question is that there are many ways of making people more receptive to epiphanies, and engagement with poetry is one way; an extended example of this engagement is central to the paper. So an openness to epiphanies is certainly teachable—though the actual having of epiphanies is not. Just as we can teach people to fish in the sense that we can make them skilled at getting in a position to catch fish—but cannot thereby guarantee that any fish will actually come their way.

Journal of Moral Education
The Open University (GB)
Openalex Percentile: Top 3%
African history and culture analysis
8.52
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