Happiness in World History traces ideas and experiences of happiness from early stages in human history, to the maturation of agricultural societies and their religious and philosophical systems, to the changes and diversities in the approach to happiness in the modern societies that began to emerge in the 18th century. In this thorough overview, Peter N. Stearns explores the interaction between psychological and historical findings about happiness, the relationship between ideas and popular experience, and (...) the opportunity to use historical analysis to assess strengths and weaknesses of dominant contemporary notions of happiness. Starting with the advent of agriculture, the book assesses major transitions in history for patterns in happiness, including the impact of the great religions, the unprecedented Enlightenment interest in secular happiness and cheerfulness, and industrialization and imperialism. The final, contemporary section covers fascist and communist efforts to define alternatives to Western ideas of happiness, the increasing connections with consumerism, and growing global interests in defining and promoting well-being. Touching on the experiences in the major regions of Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America, the text offers an expansive introduction to a new field of study. This book will be of interest to students of world history and the history of emotions. (shrink)

Kierkegaard is an exegetical interpretation of Søren Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Vivaldi Jean-Marie elaborates on the philosophical and religious arguments of the pseudonym Johannes Climacus to demonstrate that history is propatory toward the achievement of eternal happiness. The author emphasizes Kierkegaard's heritage in the Post-Kantian tradition by discussing his critique of the Romantics and German Idealists. The exposition of Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript is carried out on the basis of the ongoing conversation between (...) Climacus and the Post-Kantian tradition to argue that Climacus wishes to show the limitation of history and philosophy and the necessity of subjective appropriation to transcend the shortcoming of history and philosophy. Climacus's assessment of the prevailing Christian attitudes of the 19th century maps out the possibility of subjective religious experience in freedom. (shrink)

What can well-meaning people do about terror and genocide? The more we fight against systems of violence, the further we seem to sink into them. This book explores the lives and letters of ordinary and intellectual Germans who faced the ethical challenges of the Third Reich. Trained in history, literary criticism, philosophy, and theology, its four authors look at the role of myths, lies, non-conformity, irony, and modeling in cultivating a self. They explain how we might use these ordinary (...) strategies of selfhood to bear the burden of historical responsibility and be happy doing so.". (shrink)

In this brief history, philosopher Nicholas White reviews 2,500 years of philosophical thought about happiness. Addresses key questions such as: What is happiness? Should happiness play such a dominant role in our lives? How can we deal with conflicts between the various things that make us happy? Considers the ways in which major thinkers from antiquity to the modern day have treated happiness: from Plato’s notion of the harmony of the soul, through to Nietzsche’s championing (...) of conflict over harmony. Relates questions about happiness to ethics and to practical philosophy. (shrink)

Happiness is a large idea. It looms enticingly before us when we are young, delivers verdicts on our lives when we are old, and seems to inform a responsible engagement with children. This chapter briefly talks about happiness, as its largeness—including its large history—deserves. Despite numerous refinements, the author believes the science of happiness also lacks the richness we need if we are to claim and retain this large idea. Whether we want to do so should (...) be seen as an open question, requiring in the first instance a distinction between rich and poor conceptions. The chapter examines what a rich conception might look like. To defend a theory of happiness is to attempt to tell people ‘what to think’ about a matter that properly belongs to first person enquiry and conversation. Finally, the chapter explores into what is for a philosophy of happiness, untypically, to avoid doing this. (shrink)

_The Promise of Happiness_ is a provocative cultural critique of the imperative to be happy. It asks what follows when we make our desires and even our own happiness conditional on the happiness of others: “I just want you to be happy”; “I’m happy if you’re happy.” Combining philosophy and feminist cultural studies, Sara Ahmed reveals the affective and moral work performed by the “happiness duty,” the expectation that we will be made happy by taking part in (...) that which is deemed good, and that by being happy ourselves, we will make others happy. Ahmed maintains that happiness is a promise that directs us toward certain life choices and away from others. Happiness is promised to those willing to live their lives in the right way. Ahmed draws on the intellectual history of happiness, from classical accounts of ethics as the good life, through seventeenth-century writings on affect and the passions, eighteenth-century debates on virtue and education, and nineteenth-century utilitarianism. She engages with feminist, antiracist, and queer critics who have shown how happiness is used to justify social oppression, and how challenging oppression causes unhappiness. Reading novels and films including_ Mrs. Dalloway_, _The Well of Loneliness_, _Bend It Like Beckham_, and _Children of Men_, Ahmed considers the plight of the figures who challenge and are challenged by the attribution of happiness to particular objects or social ideals: the feminist killjoy, the unhappy queer, the angry black woman, and the melancholic migrant. Through her readings she raises critical questions about the moral order imposed by the injunction to be happy. (shrink)

Why, since happiness is so universally sought after, are so many people so miserable? The answer can be found by unpacking the wisdom of two of history's intellectual giants who set out to answer the question that has confounded man from time immemorial: What makes us happy? Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas existed sixteen centuries apart, yet each reached similar understandings about what makes a person happy and what makes him miserable. In these enlightening pages, Dr. Charles Nemeth synthesizes (...) the judgments of history's two greatest thinkers to present for you a life plan that inevitably leads to a happy human existence, whatever your ethnicity, religion, or citizenship. You will explore what it means to be happy and will come to understand the limitations of happiness. You'll learn how to live in accordance with your basic nature so that your inclinations will not conflict with that which makes you flourish. And you'll calibrate your compass so that you will be able to navigate your way into a state of life that makes you truly happy. Moreover, you'll discover why happiness is obtained through action and not mere desire and why wealth and fame do not -- and cannot -- buy happiness. You'll also learn why the body, despite providing avenues for sensory and intellectual pleasure, is incapable of providing true happiness. Strikingly, none of the suggestions in this book have ever been shown to be flawed. These timeless recommendations for a happy life never go out of favor and never change. Instead, they remain a constant, permanent, universal set of criteria on how to achieve a happy existence. You'll also learn: The benefits of moderation, sensibility, and equilibrium The source of ultimate happiness and the means to attain it The formula for fostering contentment -- what to strive for and what to avoid The essence of true goodness, happiness, and beauty Human excellence and different levels of happiness With this Rosetta stone of a book, you will find solutions to fortify your soul and bring you peace. You will be equipped with a new sense of direction, hope, and healing that will guide you closer to lasting happiness. (shrink)

Ziyad Marar presents a brief history of the quest for happiness, and of its relation to philosophy.

Solon's cryptic injunction : "Call no man happy until dead" -- A mourning happiness : the Athenian funeral oration -- Difficult happiness : the case of tragedy -- Aristotle's hermeneutic of happiness : the first forgetting -- The trial narrative in Richardson's Pamela : suspending the hermeneutic of happiness -- Effects of the trial narrative on the concept of happiness -- Marriage plot -- The tragedies of sentimentalism -- Kantian ethics and the discourses of modernity (...) -- Happiness in revolution : erasing the political concept of happiness. (shrink)

Despite the enormous growth in happiness research in recent decades, there remains a lack of consistency in the use of the terms happiness, satisfaction, contentment and well-being. In this article I argue for a sociologically grounded distinction between happiness and contentment that defines the former as positive affect and the latter as positive reflection. Contentment is therefore understood as a fulfilling relationship with the self and society and happiness involves pleasurable experiences. There is a history (...) of similar distinctions in philosophy and psychoanalysis, but much of the contemporary discourse fails to distinguish between individual and collective definitions of happiness. This article will argue that happiness and contentment ought not to be treated as competing approaches to the good life, but as complimentary forms of emotional experience. Further, I argue that the current interest in happiness can be linked to larger culture shifts involving neoliberalism and individualism. (shrink)

Examining the fundamental thinking underpinning the foundation for economic studies of happiness, this book explores the theories of key economists and philosophers from the Greek philosophers to more modern schools of thought. Lall Ramrattan and Michael Szenberg explore the general measures of happiness, utility as a method, metrical measures of happiness, happiness in literature, and the scope of happiness in this concise book. Fundamentals of Happiness builds on major moral and philosophical theories from the (...) ancient, medieval, and modern schools that form the foundation of utility analysis. The authors classify the economics of happiness based on psychological, individual, social, and institutional views of happiness, revealing how historical schools of thought implicitly or explicitly deal with this. The book also focuses on the relationship between happiness and society and welfare, analysing the measurement of subjective well-being. This will be an invigorating read for economics students, in particular those studying the history of economic thought, looking to understand the basic principles underlying the economics of happiness. (shrink)

A colorful history of utilitarianism told through the lives and ideas of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and its other founders In The Happiness Philosophers, Bart Schultz tells the colorful story of the lives and legacies of the founders of utilitarianism—one of the most influential yet misunderstood and maligned philosophies of the past two centuries. Best known for arguing that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong," utilitarianism (...) was developed by the radical philosophers, critics, and social reformers William Godwin, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart and Harriet Taylor Mill, and Henry Sidgwick. Together, they had a profound influence on nineteenth-century reforms, in areas ranging from law, politics, and economics to morals, education, and women's rights. Their work transformed life in ways we take for granted today. Bentham even advocated the decriminalization of same-sex acts, decades before the cause was taken up by other activists. As Bertrand Russell wrote about Bentham in the late 1920s, "There can be no doubt that nine-tenths of the people living in England in the latter part of last century were happier than they would have been if he had never lived." Yet in part because of its misleading name and the caricatures popularized by figures as varied as Dickens, Marx, and Foucault, utilitarianism is sometimes still dismissed as cold, calculating, inhuman, and simplistic. By revealing the fascinating human sides of the remarkable pioneers of utilitarianism, The Happiness Philosophers provides a richer understanding and appreciation of their philosophical and political perspectives—one that also helps explain why utilitarianism is experiencing a renaissance today and is again being used to tackle some of the world's most serious problems. (shrink)

A huge bestseller in Europe, Frederic Lenoir’s Happiness is an exciting journey that examines how history’s greatest philosophers and religious figures have answered life’s most fundamental question: What is happiness and how do I achieve it? From the ancient Greeks on—from Aristotle, Plato, and Chuang Tzu to the Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad; from Voltaire, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer to Kant, Freud, and even modern neuroscientists—Lenoir considers the idea that true and lasting happiness is indeed possible. In clear (...) language, Lenoir concisely surveys what the greatest thinkers of all time have had to say on the subject, and, with charming prose, raises provocative questions: · Do we have a duty to be happy? · Is there a connection between individual and collective happiness? · Is happiness contagious? · Is there a difference between pleasure and happiness? · Can unhappiness and happiness coexist? · Does our happiness depend on our luck? Understanding how civilization’s best minds have answered those questions, Lenoir suggests, not only makes for a fascinating reading experience, but also provides a way for us to see us how happiness, that most elusive of feelings, is attainable in our own lives. (shrink)

This essay reviews the main themes and ideas of a couple of recent books on liberalism written by two intellectual historians, Alan S. Kahan and Nathaniel Wolloch.Their books shed fresh light on the internal diversity and complexity of the liberal tradition, especially in relation to the Radical and Moderate Enlightenment as well as the French Revolution. Wolloch and Kahan show that many of the ideas and aims of the Radical Enlightenment ended up being implemented by thinkers who belonged to the (...) tradition of moderate liberalism. The essay also argues that two books offer a timely opportunity to revisit the limits and virtues of liberal principles and respond to their recent critics. (shrink)

How should we evaluate the success of each person's life? Countering the prevalent philosophical perspective on the subject, Steven M. Cahn and Christine Vitrano defend the view that our well-being is dependent not on particular activities, accomplishments, or awards but on finding personal satisfaction while treating others with due concern. The authors suggest that moral behavior is not necessary for happiness and does not ensure it. Yet they also argue that morality and happiness are needed for living well, (...) and together suffice to achieve that goal. Cahn and Vitrano link their position to elements within both the Hellenistic and Hebraic traditions, in particular the views of Epicurus and lessons found in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Written in an accessible style and illustrated with incisive vignettes drawn from history, literature, films, and everyday life, _Happiness and Goodness_ is a compelling work of philosophy for anyone who seeks to understand the nature of a good life. (shrink)

American parents greatly value children’s happiness, citing it well above other possible priorities. This commitment to happiness, shared with parents in other Western societies but not elsewhere, is an important feature of popular emotional culture. But the commitment is also the product of modern history, emerging clearly only in the 19th century. This article explains the contrast between more traditional and modern views, and explains the origins but also the evolution of the idea of a happy childhood. (...) Early outcomes, for example, included the novel practice of hosting parties for children’s birthdays, another mid-19th-century innovation that has expanded over time. Explaining the intensification of the happiness commitment also reveals some of the downsides of this aspect of popular emotional culture, for example in measurably complicating reactions to childish unhappiness. The basic goal of the essay is to use this important facet of modern emotional history to evaluate a commitment that many modern parents assume is simply natural. (shrink)

“Happiness” is an evaluative, not a value-neutral psychological, concept.

Ives, Rosslyn Review of: Murphy's law and the pursuit of happiness: A history of the civil celebrant movement, by Dally Messenger III, Spectrum Publications, Melbourne 2012. $35 p and p.

The philosophical tradition in the West has always subjected life to conceptualdivisions and questions about meaning. In Vital Nourishment, François Jullien contends that althoughthis process has given rise to a rich history of inquiry, it proceeds too fast. In their anxietyabout meaning, Western thinkers since Plato have forgotten simply to experience life. In thisinstallment of his continuing project of plumbing the philosophical divide between Eastern andWestern thought, Jullien slows down, and, using the third and fourth century B.C.E. Chinese thinkerZhuanghi (...) as a foil, begins to think about life from a point outside of Western inquiry.The questionof how to "feed life," or nourish it, is the point of departure for the Chinese traditionthat Jullien locates in Zhuanghi. Life passes through each of us, and we have a duty to becomeamenable to its ebbs and flows. We must cultivate a sense of being adequate to it so that we canhouse it. Exploring notions of breath, energy, and immanence, Jullien reopens a vibrant space ofintellectual exchange between East and West. In doing so, he refuses to commit to a rigid frameworkof meaning, and his text unfolds as an elegant process that mirrors the very type of thought heexplores. Pointing out that it seems intellectually and politically imperative today to reinvigorateWestern thought with ideas from the East, Jullien seeks to create a space of mutual inquiry thatmaintains the integrity of both Eastern and Western thinking. Vital Nourishment is both a richintellectual historical journey and a text very much attuned to the philosophical politics of thepresent.François Jullien is Professor at the Université Paris VII-Denis Diderot and director at theInstitut de la Pensée Contemporaine. He is the author of Detour and Access: Stratgies of Meaning inChna and Greece, The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China, and In Praise ofBlandness: Proceeding from Chinsese Thought and Aesthetics, all published by Zone Books. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas is commonly thought to hold that human beings will happiness and do so necessarily. This is taken to mean first that human beings are not able to will misery for the sake of misery and therefore not capable of pursuing misery for its own sake. Secondly, everything that human beings do will they will for the sake of happiness, and since human beings are moved to act on the basis of what they will, all of their (...) actions are performed for the sake of happiness. This claim is subject to doubt because it seems to many to be false on empirical grounds. Often, people choose things that they know and are willing to admit do not make them happy. Often, people choose things without even thinking about their happiness. Aquinas’s theory must deal adequately with such apparent counterexamples. But his account faces an objection of a different nature, an objection raised by John Duns Scotus. (shrink)

Happiness is multiple, conflicting ideas - often changing from context to context with each change presaging a cascade of different meanings and interpretations. In this essay I shall try to link a number of them in a manner that is not causal but, I hope, rather evocative. I want to begin with a specific "Jewish" turn in the history of the concept of happiness at the close of the nineteenth century - one that turns out not to (...) be very "Jewish" in its origin - and conclude with some thoughts on Michael Jackson and our need to understand happiness in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Disillusioned with college, Everett takes a position teaching philosophy to kids at an innovative summer enrichment academy on an island off the New England coast. The academy is run by fellow student Juniper’s Aunt Laura, and at Laura’s recommendation, Everett uses as his curriculum an exploration of the concept of happiness as described by ten of history’s most significant philosophers. This idea is sparked by a collection of readings saved by Laura’s grandmother, a teacher who originally owned the (...) mansion in which the academy is housed. But along with those readings is a set of clues that lead to a rare historic work by an ancient Greek philosopher—a codex—that is hidden in the mansion. So Everett sets to work preparing the readings for his students while simultaneously solving the clues with Juniper to find the codex. -/- What Everett doesn’t know, however, is that he and Juniper are not the only ones on the hunt for the codex, and the stakes are high. The book is extremely valuable, and there are plenty of people who would like to get their hands on the money it would bring at auction, including the people who are funding Laura’s academy. The question of rightful ownership and the mystery of the codex’s location deepen as Everett and Juniper solve the riddles to find the keys that will open whatever safe contains the ancient text. And all the while, Everett finds himself falling for Juniper. -/- He’s also working through the collection of philosophical readings about happiness, taking each one in turn and presenting it in clear, concise, modern English to his students, who are eager to discover how to lead a happy life. Everett is equally eager to make the same discovery, and he carefully considers each philosopher’s thinking on the matter, applying the concepts to his own life in an effort to understand them in the context of a young person in the real world struggling to figure out what he wants to do with his future. -/- As Everett gains clarity on what he wants out of life, however, the mystery of the codex takes a dark turn, and everything he thought he knew is turned upside down. Who will end up with the codex? What will happen to the academy? And will Everett be able to take everything that he has learned—both the good and the bad—to build a life for himself that will bring him the most happiness? -/- There is an accompanying guidebook for this novel. (shrink)

Happiness is multiple, conflicting ideas - often changing from context to context with each change presaging a cascade of different meanings and interpretations. In this essay I shall try to link a number of them in a manner that is not causal but, I hope, rather evocative. I want to begin with a specific "Jewish" turn in the history of the concept of happiness at the close of the nineteenth century - one that turns out not to (...) be very "Jewish" in its origin - and conclude with some thoughts on Michael Jackson and our need to understand happiness in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Outline: the Development of Dynamic Structure Platonic Structures of Harmony and Nature Aristotelian Nature Stoic Attitude Developments since Antiquity The Kantian Critique of the Concept of Happiness Dynamic Conceptions.

This chapter contains section titled: Discovering Happiness Some Agreement about Happiness and Some Disagreement Empiricism, Science, and Policy Measurement: Happiness and Other Concepts Obstacles to Empiricism about Happiness.

In philosophy happiness occupies a dominant position. From the beginning of philosophy, we find the scholarly engagement of philosophers in search of happiness for human being. It is actually a perennial search of mankind throughout history. My attempt in this paper is to become a part of that august journey. I will try to focus some points in my paper. At first, I will try to give an analytic presentation about the nature of happiness with references (...) to different philosophers and philosophical schools. In this part I will attempt to find out the root causes of the changing patterns of happiness by maintaining a chronological order. In the next part I will try to depict some significant debates regarding the pursuit of happiness. The question of enigma and reality will be dealt here in a comparative fashion. And finally, I will try to give some recommendations and suggestions for a happy life.As this is a qualitative work, here I confine myself within some relevant textbooks of philosophy and recent research articles on the pursuit of happiness. Content analysis, comparative discussion with a critical outlook and philosophical speculation will be within the research methodology of the paper. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#71-72; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2022 P 129-151. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the numerous critiques that have been leveled at the field of positive psychology over its short history, the field and its practitioners continue to enjoy substantial growth and popularity. Although several factors have no doubt contributed to their advancement, work in the field of science studies suggests that rhetorical demarcation in scientific writing, by which scientific fields establish their domains and distinguish themselves from other forms of intellectual activity, may be equally significant. Such “boundary work” is an important (...) means through which fields defeat their competitors, persuade their public, and compete for legitimacy. In light of this, I examine the discursive demarcation and legitimization of positive psychology as performed through historical narratives of its origins in its own writings. I offer an analysis of the ways in which these narratives exploit alternating and contradictory images of scientists, legitimate scientific activity, and in particular, images of American society, to perform the ideological and rhetorical work of describing, and making visible, the kinds of issues and problems for which positive psychology presents itself as the natural solution. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Happiness and Morality The Conflict in Antiquity Later Obstacles to the Articulation and Explanation of the Conflict Pre‐Kantian Modern Articulations of the Conflict The Kantian Articulation of the Conflict Plato and Kant Compared Reactions to Kant and to the Conflict The Fragmentation of the Concept?

The author argues that Plato’s “proof” that happiness follows justice has a fatal flaw – because the philosopher king in Plato’s Republic is itself a counter example.

This article focuses on the emergence of a new subfield of emotion research known as “history of emotions.” People’s emotional lives depend on the construals which they impose on events, situations, and human actions. Different cultures and different languages suggest different habitual construals, and since habitual construals change over time, as a result, habitual feelings change, too. But to study construals we need a suitable methodology. The article assumes that such a methodology is provided by the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (...) (NSM) and it applies the NSM approach to the history of “happiness,” an emotion which is very much at the forefront of current debates across a range of disciplines. The article shows how the “history of emotions” can be combined with cultural semantics and why this combination opens new perspectives before the whole interdisciplinary field of emotion research. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a tremendous surge of academic interest in happiness. It seems that just about every week there is an announcement of a new book on the nature of happiness, or the measurement of happiness2, or the causes of happiness, or the history of happiness3. Some of these books have been written by philosophers. Others have been written by psychologists, economists, sociologists, and other empirical scientists.4 The surge of interest in happiness (...) is truly interdisciplinary.5 Everybody wants to get into the act. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 151-154 [Access article in PDF] Book Review The Happiness Project: Transforming the Three Poisons that Cause the Suffering We Inflict on Ourselves and Others The Happiness Project: Transforming the Three Poisons that Cause the Suffering We Inflict on Ourselves and Others. By Ron Leifer, M.D. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion, 1997.313 pp. This book focuses mostly on Buddhism and psychotherapy, but it ranges (...) widely and includes many reflections on Christianity. Today there are many good books that compare Buddhism with Western psychology, but this one is not to be missed by anyone interested in the topic. Leifer (a former colleague and friend of Ernest Becker, who wrote TheDenial ofDeath) is obviously a very experienced psychiatrist, with deep knowledge of psychoanalytic theory to supplement his many years of practice [End Page 151] as a therapist. This book is many things: a primer on demythologized Buddhism; a superior "self-help" book; a history of psychotherapy, including a critique of its modern medicalization; a speculative account of the evolution of human consciousness; and, not least, the most insightful interpretations of the Job, Oedipus, and Eden myths that I have encountered. The prose style is lucid, and only space limitations keep me from quoting it at length.The title turns out to be ironic, since our Happiness Projects are the main source of our unhappiness. Our selfish strivings for happiness are, paradoxically, the main cause of the suffering we inflict on ourselves and others.What we "fail to see" (avidya)is not some great mysterious wisdom. "The core of the esoteric knowledge we seek consists of secrets we hide from ourselves. We hide from them because they are not what we want them to be. The world is not what we want it to be. Life is not what we want it to be. Others are not what we want them to be. We are not ourselves what we want to be. We hide from these truths because they mystify and terrify us" (12). The basic "secret" of happiness is that the three poisons--greed, ill will, and ignorance--are the source of our pain and suffering, by creating rebounding karmic ripples. The ego is a trickster who is continually the victim of his own trickery. True happiness can only be the product of an inner transformation that changes our habitual patterns of thought and action, enabling us to "relax into existence." Leifer's psychologized Buddhism is a therapeutic path cleansed of the mystical and paranormal; there is no place here for psychic powers or any transcendental salvation (nirvana is not discussed). The focus throughout is on how we are bedeviled by our own desires.The book is organized into four main parts. The first offers Leifer's understanding of the first two Buddhist truths. The second part, "Western Views of Suffering," includes profound interpretations of Job and Oedipus Rex. Job's suffering illustrates the first truth, that life is suffering, and his patience is virtuous, even heroic, in its refusal to demand that life be different than it is--an endurance that allows him to avoid making life worse: "Patience is the willingness to suffer without aggression" (131).The key to the Oedipus story is in his answer to the Sphinx's riddle: humans are the creatures who walk on four legs as infants, on two legs as mature adults, and then on three legs (with a cane) in old age. The riddle is a metaphor for the truths of our impermanence, old age and death. But Oedipus cannot accept it. "From a Buddhist point of view, the story of Oedipus is a metaphor for neurotic mind. Oedipus was the victim of his own grasping ego--of his desires and aggressions. His fate was sealed by his own efforts to escape it. The source of Oedipus' pain and tragedy were his own ignorance, passion, and aggression: the three poisons" (135). His desire for Mom is better understood as a symbol of human desire generally: our refusal to grow up... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 33.2 (2005) 42-70 [Access article in PDF] "O Happy Living Things" Frankenfoods and the Bounds of Wordsworthian Natural Piety Anne-Lise François With all the flowers Fancy e'er could feignWho breeding flowers will never breed the same. —John Keats, "Ode to Psyche" And I could wish my days to beBound each to each in natural piety. —William Wordsworth, "My heart leaps up" O happy living things! no tongue Their (...) beauty might declare:A spring of love gusht from my heart, And I bless'd them unaware!Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I bless'd them unaware. —Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" "O happy living things!"—vitamin-enriched grains; potatoes equipped to kill their predators; silk-producing goats; fast-growing salmon that hardly require feeding. Is it possible to predicate the breathless exclamation that escapes Coleridge's mariner, unaware not of water snakes but of the fantastic array of genetically modified creatures—animals and plants—currently under design or production by biotech industries? Already in May 2000 a New York Times article was announcing the imminent arrival of "fast-growing trout and catfish, oysters that can withstand viruses, and an 'Enviropig,' whose feces are less harmful to the environment because they contain less phosphorus." An article inset describes the emergent production of "pharm-animals":These domesticated beasts—cows, pigs, goats, sheep, and chickens—have been given the ability to produce pharmaceuticals and other valuable substances in their milk, eggs or semen. Endowed by scientists with foreign genes, often taken from humans, these animals, or bioreactors, as they are also known, earn their keep as living chemical factories. Two companies, the Genzyme Corporation of Cambridge, Mass., and PPL Therapeutics, a Scottish company, already have products from pharm animals being tested in clinical trials supervised by the Food and Drug Administration. Many other animals are [End Page 42] still in the development stage. For example, Nexia Biotechnologies in Canada is working on a goat that carries a gene from spiders allowing it to produce spider silk in its milk. When the spider silk, which consists of extremely strong, light proteins, is extracted from the goat's milk, the substance, potentially, can be used in applications like bulletproof vests. [Yoon] This last sentence is intriguing. The genetic revolution often bills itself as a second green revolution that will prevent starvation and alleviate disease, promising to feed the world's growing population in terms that tend to essentialize poverty and hunger as inevitable symptoms of a human condition, rather than understand them through the lens of specific colonial and postcolonial histories. But bulletproof vests? The indignant leftist response here would be to deride the collusion between biotechnology and the military-industrial complex—bulletproof vests leaving little doubt as to whose desires count as universal, timeless needs. Yet such a response is perhaps too quick to attribute reason to these genetic experiments in cross-species breeding, and too quick to accept the terms in which biotechnicians present themselves—as the instruments of reason, whether of global capitalism or universal human progress. Part of what this essay wishes to suggest is that to dream up such things and to think of wanting to do them—make a goat produce spider silk in its milk—involve particular fantasies, fantasies not simply about recreating the world in one's image, but about learning to desire the world again, to be excited by it or "surprised" by its existence, to borrow a phrase from Stanley Cavell. The journalist's parenthetical "potentially" indicates that no use has yet been determined, no burning need fuels such experiments, and hints at the boredom behind them—what William Wordsworth might have called the "state of almost savage torpor" in which desire itself has to be invented.As the New York Times writer's double metaphor of animal as laborer- and factory-in-one suggests—"these animals, or bioreactors, as they are also known, earn their keep as living chemical factories"—the binaries animal-human, machine-animal... (shrink)

Aristotle describes human happiness as a life of virtuous activity in Book One of the Nicomachean Ethics but as a life of contemplative activity and a life of ethically virtuous activity in Book Ten. In which kind of life does Aristotle ultimately believe that happiness consists? The answer lies in the role of philosophical wisdom within ethically virtuous activity. I argue that philosophical wisdom has a dual role: its exercise is the end of ethically virtuous activity and the (...) virtue by which that end is rationally apprehended. Just as ethically virtuous activity depends on the exercise of philosophical wisdom in this dual way, so human happiness can be understood as a single life of virtuous activity whose end is the exercise of philosophical wisdom in contemplative activity. The exercise of philosophical wisdom will include ethically virtuous activity as an end that includes what is desired for its sake. (shrink)

In such works as A Short History of Ethics, Against the Self-lmages of the Age, and After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre has argued that the intelligibility of the moral life hinges upon viewing the moral life as essential to the happy life, or eudaimonia. In my article I examine the reasons he gives for saying this, arguing that this thesis is not sufficiently defended by MacIntyre. I also draw connections between this thesis about the intelligibility of the moral life and (...) other aspects of MacIntyre’s thought, such as his communitarianism. In concluding I note that several of MacIntyre’s more significant claims about morality might well be true even if his thesis about the intelligibility of the moral life is false. (shrink)

In such works as A Short History of Ethics, Against the Self-lmages of the Age, and After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre has argued that the intelligibility of the moral life hinges upon viewing the moral life as essential to the happy life, or eudaimonia. In my article I examine the reasons he gives for saying this, arguing that this thesis is not sufficiently defended by MacIntyre. I also draw connections between this thesis about the intelligibility of the moral life and (...) other aspects of MacIntyre’s thought, such as his communitarianism. In concluding I note that several of MacIntyre’s more significant claims about morality might well be true even if his thesis about the intelligibility of the moral life is false. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-BeingDaniel H. FrankHava Tirosh-Samuelson. Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 596. Cloth, $50.00.Franz Rosenzweig tried hard to convince the neoKantian Hermann Cohen of the merits of Zionism and the normalization it would bring to Jews and Jewish life. His attempt met with this response from Cohen: "Oho! So (...) the gang now wants to be happy, does it?" For those ignorant of the history of Jewish philosophy, one might imagine that Jewish philosophers, no less than their non-philosophical kinsmen, were so weighed down by the burdens of history and persecution that happiness could play no role in their theorizing. But happiness plays a key role in the history of Jewish moral and political philosophy, especially in the premodern period. Even Spinoza, the last of the medievals and the first of the moderns, the great critic of the rabbinic tradition and of Maimonides in particular, is concerned in his Ethics with identifying those activities that together constitute human well-being and the good life. Only lately, since the Enlightenment and Kant, has non-eudaimonism been a live option for Jewish thinkers. Only with the rise of (modern) Orthodoxy, and its predilection for construing goodness as rectitude and rule-following, has eudaimonism fallen out of favor. But with Tirosh-Samuelson's weighty volume on happiness in premodern Judaism, there can be no excuse in the future to imagine that all Jews are, or must be, closet Kantians, strict deontologists. To think otherwise seems to come close to taking on the classical (anti-Semitic) dichotomy of legalistic Judaism vs. spiritual Christianity. In it own way, Happiness in Premodern Judaism is a critique of such a one-sided, monochromatic view of Judaism, whether from the Christian or even from the Jewish side.Tirosh-Samuelson writes explicitly as an intellectual historian, rather than as a philosopher. She understands herself and her project as one that presents just the facts, without evaluating them. While one may cavil at a lost opportunity, in the present case this would be churlish, given the enormous erudition on display. After an introductory chapter outlining the foundational moral theories of Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic philosophers, the text presents the (Greek-inspired) areteic wisdom literature of the Second Temple period, the teleological theocentrism of the rabbis, the Greco-Arabic Islamicate culture that nurtured Jewish philosophers from Saadia in the tenth century to Maimonides in the twelfth, the rabbinic and kabbalistic critiques of the philosophical ideal of happiness commencing [End Page 338] with the translation (into Hebrew) of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and finally, very important and the focus of much recent scholarly work, the transformation of Jewish eudaimonism through direct contact with Christian Scholasticism and later with the humanist Renaissance. All in all, a millennium and a half of Jewish intellectual history is presented in a sober and scholarly way.Not surprisingly Maimonides plays a pivotal role in the story that Tirosh-Samuelson relates. A Janus-like figure, he represents the culmination and height of accommodation with Greek and Greco-Arabic philosophical culture. However, with the gradual worsening of the socio-economic condition of European Jewry in the thirteenth century, his accommodationism seemed traitorous, and as a result generations of thinkers, mystics and philosophers alike, strove to critically distance themselves from Maimonidean Aristotelianism. Tirosh-Samuelson is admirably clear in pointing out that such anti-Maimonidean tendencies are ill-characterized as anti-philosophical. Hasdai Crescas in the late-fourteenth and early-fifteenth centuries launched a massive critique of Maimonides' physics, metaphysics, and moral philosophy, but did so in as rigorous a manner as any philosopher would. The picture that enfolds over the course of the text is one of vigorous dialectic between partisans of 'alien' (Greek) wisdom and those who viewed such wisdom with considerable suspicion. Such a dialectic parallels, not surprisingly, developments in Christian philosophy.The trajectory of the story of premodern Jewish musings on happiness is from the centrality of reason and intellect, and the contemplative activity that is reason's preeminent actuality, to the primacy... (shrink)

There has been a long history of arguments over whether happiness is anything more than a particular set of psychological states. On one side, some philosophers have argued that there is not, endorsing a descriptive view of happiness. Affective scientists have also embraced this view and are reaching a near consensus on a definition of happiness as some combination of affect and life-satisfaction. On the other side, some philosophers have maintained an evaluative view of happiness, (...) on which being happy involves living a life that is normatively good. Within the context of this debate we consider how people ordinarily understand happiness, and provide evidence that the ordinary understanding of happiness reflects aspects of both evaluative and descriptive views. Similar to evaluative views, normative judgments have a substantive role in the ordinary understanding of happiness. Yet, similar to descriptive views, the ordinary understanding is focused on the person’s psychological states and not the overall life they actually lived. Combining these two aspects, we argue that the ordinary understanding of happiness suggests a novel view on which happiness consists in experiencing positive psychological states when one ought to. This view, if right, has implications for both philosophical and psychological research on happiness. (shrink)

This essay resists steering an unhappy third-way between avowedly “critical” approaches to happiness (Freud, Žižek) and more “positive” perspectives (Benjamin, Badiou), and instead turns the tables. In the first half, focusing upon Thomas Mann’s short story “The Will to Happiness,” it examines neurotic hedonism—a more sophisticated variant of the hysteric’s old game of deriving satisfaction from unsatisfied desire itself—and some of the “necessary fictions” which undergird it. In the second half, it explores what it might mean, at least (...) in theory, to move beyond neurotic hedonism by embracing a different perspective: dialectical pessimism. This pessimistic outlook is allied to the activity of critique, but it also requires a specific conception of the self; namely, the self as the “manure” (Gramsci) of history. How can the very idea of happiness be rethought from this “excremental” perspective? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean EthicsCharles M. YoungGabriel Richardson Lear. Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Pp. ix + 238. Cloth, $35.00.Suppose that you and I are friends. I need a ride to the airport; you offer to take me. You might do this for any of a number of reasons: (...) because you want to place me in your debt, because you want to impress bystanders, etc. But you might also do it for none of these reasons. You might do it, instead, because, understanding what resources are and what resources are for, you see taking me to the airport as an appropriate use of your resources (your time and your car), given our relationship and the circumstances in which we find ourselves.That's the Readers' Digest version of one story one might tell, on Aristotle's behalf, by way of connecting up friendship, virtuous action, practical and theoretical wisdom, action for its own sake, and action for the sake of the fine in the Nicomachean Ethics. I myself think it is a good story. It is also a story, I think, that Gabriel Richardson Lear tells, at least some of the time, in Happy Lives and the Highest Good, though she tells it with respect to courage, temperance, and magnanimity, not liberality and friendship.Most of the time, however, Lear tells another story. According to it, your taking me to the airport makes clear your commitment to make use of your resources to promote my good. Since we are friends, however, my good is bound up with yours, so in promoting my good you also promote your own good. But according to Aristotle the good for each of us is a life in which rationality is realized in thought and action. Hence your taking me to the airport counts as fine because it shows your commitment to that sort of life. But, again according to Aristotle, the centerpiece, and source of value, of that sort of life is contemplative activity, so you act for the sake of contemplation, whether you know this or not. And, in view of its expression of practical reason and truthfulness, your liberal activity is structurally similar to and so approximates to contemplative activity, and this allows us to say that you did what you did for the sake of contemplation.This is, so far as I know, an entirely new approach to the problems raised by Aristotle's identification of happiness with contemplation in NE X. Lear's story, and the arguments in its support, deserve and will repay serious attention. I limit myself here to four concerns about some of the details.First, our first story locates what is fine about virtuous action in the fit exhibited among the agent, her action, and her situation. Lear's story locates what is fine about virtuous action in its promotion of a certain kind of life. The first story thus sees what is fine about [End Page 118] virtuous action as something intrinsic to it, while Lear's story sees it as something external to it that it promotes. The first story seems to me to be looking in the right place.Second, the first story has it that virtuous activity is an expression of understanding, Lear's story that it is an expression of a commitment to understanding. Again, the first story seems to me to be looking in the right place.Third, Lear thinks that the liberal person can be said to act for the sake of contemplation when contemplation is the source of value for what she does, even when it is not the conscious aspiration of her action. That may be true, but I do not see that it is enough. What needs explanation is rather that she can be said to choose liberal activity for the sake of contemplation, and it is unclear how this could be unconscious.Finally, Lear's appeal to approximation may prove too much. The crafts, according to Aristotle, involve practical reason and truthfulness. But Aristotle doesn't believe that craft... (shrink)

One of the mantras of progressive education is that genuine learning ought to be exciting and pleasurable, rather than joyless and painful. To a significant extent, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is associated with this mantra. In a theme of Emile that is often neglected in the educational literature, however, Rousseau stated that “to suffer is the first thing [Emile] ought to learn and the thing he will most need to know.” Through a discussion of Rousseau's argument for the importance of an education (...) in suffering, Avi Mintz contends that the reception of Rousseau by progressives suggests a detrimental misstep in the history of educational thought, a misstep that we should recognize and correct today. We ought to revive the progressive tradition of distinguishing the valuable educational pains from the harmful ones, even if we disagree with the particular types of pain that Rousseau identified as educationally valuable. (shrink)

The central subject of Aristotle's ethics is happiness or living well. Most people in his day (as in ours), eager to enjoy life, impressed by worldly success, and fearful of serious loss, believed that happiness depends mainly on fortune in achieving prosperity and avoiding adversity. Aristotle, however, argues that virtuous conduct is the governing factor in living well and attaining happiness. While admitting that neither the blessings not the afflictions of fortune are unimportant, he maintains that the (...) virtuous find life more satisfying than other people do and, with only modest good fortune, they lead happy, enjoyable lives. Combining philological precision with philosophical analysis, the author reconstructs Aristotle's defense of these bold claims. By examining how Aristotle develops his position in response to the prevailing hopes and anxieties of his age, the author shows why Aristotle considers happiness important for ethics and why he thinks it necessary to revise popular and traditional views. Paying close attention throughout to the internalist dimension of Aristotle's approach - his emphasis on how the virtuous view their own lives and actions - the author advances new interpretations of Aristotle's accounts of several major virtues, including temperance, courage, liberality, and 'greatness of soul'. This work sets Aristotle in the broader cultural context of his time, tracing his attemps to accommodate and amend rival views. The author examines literary and historical sources as well as philosophical texts, showing the inherited values and traditional ideals that inform Aristotle's discussions and provide some of the basis for his conclusions. Presupposing no knowledge of Greek or specialized philosophical terminology, the book is designed to be accessible to all students of philosophy or classical antiquity. All quotations from ancient texts are translated. (shrink)