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."

Friday, May 9, 2025

Can Happiness Be Taught?

Well, it can definitely be studied. And pursued. And at least occasionally enjoyed.

"…The nub is that [Arthur Brooks is] required, by the panic-stricken temper of the times, to insist that we can and must get better at being who we are. It could be argued that so positive an outlook is, and always has been, a by-product of any inquiry into the conduct of our earthly existence, although a self-help book by Schopenhauer would, perhaps, flummox more readers than it would assist. On the other hand, if anything yokes together the philosophers cited by Brooks, it is the willingness, or the unavoidable compulsion, to worry away at one moral conundrum after the next, like dogs unearthing a bone to have another go at the marrow. You could spend a lifetime, say, stubbornly chewing on what Aristotle, in the Ethics, means by eudaemonia. "Happiness" alone won't suffice. Aristotle himself, treading carefully, writes, "We have practically defined happiness as a sort of living and faring well." I am partial to the modesty of "human flourishing." Others prefer something like "the activity of a rational soul in accordance with virtue"—a daunting ideal that held sway for twenty-five hundred years, until it was roundly rebuffed by the creators of "Jackass."
…"

Anthony Lane
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/23/build-the-life-you-want-the-art-and-science-of-getting-happier-oprah-winfrey-and-arthur-c-brooks-book-review

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"The happiest people aren't necessarily those who have figured out their grand purpose in life. They are the ones who have found me...