Religious Studies Philosophy and Ethics

The Arete Project

The Arete Project is unique to Liverpool College. A bespoke course created, developed and delivered by specialised teachers, university lecturers and local clergy, it gives your child a marvelous opportunity to reflect on how best to live, engaging in spirited philosophical debate along the way.
The title of the project is not easily translated. In Ancient Greece, arete essentially meant being in a state of excellence, and the only way to be in a state of excellence was to live up to one's full potential. Anything could possess arete; for instance, a particularly well-made walking stick could possess arete if it did exactly what the walker needed it to do. The stick could be said to be operating at its full potential, excelling in the very thing that makes it distinctive.

The Ancient Greeks saw our capacity for reason - that is, structured analytical thought - as the thing which makes human beings distinctively human. If we are to live at our full potential, we must develop our ability to think about ourselves and the world, asking questions about how best to live our lives both private and public.

The course is divided into two parts. Through a detailed study of a range of lives of distinction, pupils engage with questions of identity and purpose, conscience, sacrifice and building community.

The second part runs in Years 10 and 11. The aim of the particular part of the project is to introduce pupils to a range of philosophical ideas about how to best achieve one's full potential. We start by looking at the idea of arete itself, then move on to looking at how best to conduct ourselves with others. This leads into a study of the vastly divergent methods of structuring society as suggested by Plato, Marx and others, something which necessitates a look at what we understand by terms such as 'authority', 'equality' and 'identity'.

Lastly, we will look at the philosophical implications of what science has to say about what makes us human, where we will see that in leading successful lives full of regard for our fellow humans, we not only meet our potential, but exceed it. This process of getting to grips with the uncertainties of existence does not always provide the answers we would like, but by helping us to use our capacity for reason by applying it to a wide range of concepts, it can very well lead us to being excellent at being human

We are taking full advantage of modern technology with the Project. Pupils have access to a central homepage, areteproject.org.uk , and they complete their work online, contriving to create an extensive blog which traces their development as independent thinkers.

As A.C. Grayling has noted, the average human life is less than 1000 months long. It is never to early to think about how to make the most of it!


areteproject.org.uk
gwilson@liverpoolcollege.org.uk

Website created by Rippleffect