PHIL 3160 – Philosophy of Happiness

What is it, how can we best pursue it, why should we? Supporting the study of these and related questions at Middle Tennessee State University and beyond. "Examining the concept of human happiness and its application in everyday living as discussed since antiquity by philosophers, psychologists, writers, spiritual leaders, and contributors to pop culture."

Thursday, September 9, 2021

Epicurean citizens

 LISTEN. Ted Simmons gave quite a nice Hall of Fame induction speech, thanking his friends the (Jon) Hamm family and invoking the Beatles  ("the love you take" etc.). But what a stark illustration of today's poem: “How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth/Stol’n on his wing my three and twentieth year!” #23 was eternally young in memory. Time!


In Happiness we turn to the Epicureans, who I generally and favorably distinguish from their Stoic cousins as more assertively pursuant of happiness, less accepting of unhappy fate, more inclined to assign disappointment not to an abstract "nature" with which we've failed to "harmonize" but to a correctable failure to identify and deconstruct our various worries and fears. The Stoics and Epicureans both offer good therapy, but the Stoics sometimes seem too quick to accede to conditions we might have hoped to alter. Acceptance, when all attempts to ameliorate an unwelcome status quo have failed, is admirable. Premature acceptance is unfortunate... (continues)

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