Abstract
This paper considers the implications for education of a reworked ancient Greek ethics and politics of flourishing (particularly as found in Plato), where ‘flourishing’ comprises the objective actualisation of our intellectual, imaginative and affective potential. A brief outline of the main features of an ethics of flourishing and its potential attractions as an ethical framework is followed by a consideration of the ethical, aesthetic and political requirements of such a framework for the theory and practice of education, indicating the ways in which my approach differs from other recent work in the field. I argue that the teaching of philosophy in schools and philosophical approaches to the teaching of other subjects are ideally suited to meet the pedagogic requirements of individual and communal flourishing so understood, contributing greatly both to the understanding of what a well-lived life might be, and to the actual living of it. I further argue that these requirements are not only derived from ancient Greek philosophy but are in turn especially well-served by the teaching and deployment of Greek philosophy itself. My claim is not that Greek philosophy has all the answers, or that other philosophers and philosophical approaches should be excluded; it is simply that Greek philosophy offers rich resources for those seeking to introduce children and young people to philosophy and to foster thereby their flourishing in both childhood and as adults.
Highlights
You see how our discussion concerns that which should be of the greatest importance to any person, even if he has only a modicum of sense that is to say, how one should live. (Plato Gorgias 500c
This paper considers the implications for education of a reworked ancient Greek ethics and politics of flourishing as found in Plato where flourishing comprises the objective actualisation of our intellectual, imaginative and affective potential
Plato certainly seems to imply that this is both possible and desirable,4 and more recently the heavily Greek-influenced Nietzsche and Foucault have followed a similar path5. It is in addition an approach which requires us to consider the links between ethics and political theory and practice, in that Plato believes that the actualisation of potential, except in very rare beings of great gifts, can only occur in certain political and social circumstances
Summary
You see how our discussion concerns that which should be of the greatest importance to any person, even if he has only a modicum of sense that is to say, how one should live. (Plato Gorgias 500c). While few would agree with Plato s precise depiction in the Republic of what these political circumstances should be, the general underlying points remain pertinent: we need a good education and the opportunity to debate freely in order to develop our intellectual and moral potential, and a social setting in order to exercise virtues such as justice. As his pupil Aristotle succinctly expresses it the human is a political animal 8 in other words, humans are animals naturally suited to living in the context of the polis, or city-state, and, as a result, ethics is a branch of political theory.. I discuss the dialogic nature of Plato s philosophy in more detail below. 8 Politics 1253a2-3. 9 Ethics 1.ii 1094a26-b11
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