Philosophy of the Good Life

This course is a year-long argument through the transcendentals — the True, the Good, and the Beautiful — followed by meaning, synthesis, and a personal account the student must defend. It is the senior capstone of the philosophy strand: not a tour of opinions but a sustained examination of what a life is for, moving from knowledge and the contemplative life through eudaimonia, virtue, and the Stoics, then beauty as formation in the ancients and the education of feeling in the moderns, and finally what outlives a person. Every live question is presented with both sides at full strength, and then the house renders its verdict with the reasoning on the table — the student's job is to meet it with a better case, not to receive it — and each lesson pairs a long read with a steelman of the strongest objection and a short writing task.

The spine of the year is a single device. In the opening unit the student writes a First Answer to the question of what a life is for, seals it, and does not see it again until the last. The capstone is the Examined Account: the student steelmans their own view, drafts it, defends it orally and in writing, and conducts an honest audit of what changed between the sealed answer and the examined one.

The full course opens September 1. Founding Families watch the ladder fill in — at a price that never moves.