Study Guide
Quiz Oct 1
1. Who said he was most at home with earthly happiness?
Voltaire
2. What does Lenoir see as the main difference between ancient and contemporary quests for happiness?
Separating individual good from common good
3. What are the novels of Michel Houellebecq about?
Narcissistic individualism
4. What obsession thwarts happiness?
Obsession with happiness
5. Depression is allegedly symptomatic of what?
A depressed individual is an individual free of all religious and social tutelage. Still trying to reach modern values.
6. What adaptive quality may be our greatest obstacle to happiness?
Dissatisfaction
Quiz Oct 6
1. Buddhist and Stoics agree: irritation comes not from other people but from what?
It aims to attack the source of the problem by proposing to eliminate the thirst, the attachment
2. Recognizing the First Noble Truth means admitting what about the world?
We cannot bend the world to our desire.
3. Is samsara an objective condition of reality?
No the world in itself is not suffering.
4. What did the Stoics invent?
Cosmopolitanism- All human beings are citizens of the world and have equal rights.
5. Montaigne and the Taoists agree: to be happy we must do what?
We need to learn to love life and adapt to it in accordance to our natures.
6. What are the paradoxes of Taoist wisdom?
The true nature of things contains both good and bad.
Quiz Oct 8
1. Spinoza's symbol of continuity was what?
The bed that he was born in.
2. From what "cruel illusion" did Spinoza want to free us?
Free Will
3. For Spinoza there's nothing more absurd than what?
Universal rules of actions or behavior
4. What is the role of reason in securing happiness, for Spinoza?
Humans are not born free they are made free through reason.
5. Beyond eliminating obstacles, what must we do to be happy?
Organize our life in tune with what makes us grow.
6. What does Spinoza mean by "joy"?
When an affection increases your power of acting.
Quiz October 15
1. David Hume's "really great" anti-Cartesian idea about the self, says Alison Gopnik, is that it does not require what?
No metaphysical foundations, experience is enough.
2. Like Hume, Gopnik says, she found her salvation where?
Curiosity and variety of human mind and experience
3. Hume's _____ (mitigated, exaggerated) skepticism aimed to counter the "overconfidence and dogmatism [that] led to intolerance, to faction, to a lot of the crimes of human history."
Mitigated
4. What is Hume's "pragmatic insight" about reason, the passions, and action, as summarized in his credo "be a philosopher, but... be still a man"?
We have to acknowledge our natures.
5. Hume's essays on happiness include the perspectives of a stoic, an epicurean, a platonist, and a what?
Skeptic
6. Hume believes that_____ is the medicine of the mind, an antidote to the miseries caused by superstition and false religion.
Philosophy
Quiz October 20
1. To what question did young J.S. Mill's "No!" result in (or reflect?) a personal crisis?
If you got everything you wanted would you be happy?
2. What does Mill say is the best theory of happiness for the great majority of us?
Treat something other than happiness as your goal
3. What poets and composers made Mill happy?
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Weber, Mozart
4. What are we unwarranted in saying to one another?
People shall not do with their life what they want.
5. How is "utility" commonly misunderstood?
Utility comes without pleasure
6. What is Mill's reply to the criticism that there's not time to calculate the impact of specific actions on happiness?
We can draw on the history of human species.
Thanks, Blake!
ReplyDeleteExam 2 will include Myth of Sisyphus (though we may not get to it 'til Thursday). Post your extra-credit mini-essays before then.
and Nietzsche.
DeleteExtra Credit Essay
ReplyDeleteWork Smarter, Not Harder: How Happiness Works for Us
http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work
While I very much enjoyed my group’s midterm project (Music and Happiness), I also have a fascination with TED talks. The one I shared above is from Shawn Achor, “The Happy Secret to Better Work.” His issue is one I feel is extremely salient today. The vast majority of us want two things: to be happier and to be more successful. What Achor suggests is that there is a correlation between these two desires. His talk is funny, fast-moving, and only twelve minutes long. It is one I highly recommend for the simple reason that it is well worth watching for anyone with the two goals I mentioned above.
Shawn Achor is a Positive Psychologist, who wants to change the system of how we learn, develop, and work. Rather than “tailoring to the average,” he says, we should seek to raise the average. How can we do this? By becoming happier, of course! According to his data, only 25% of job success is determined by IQ. The other 75% is due to optimism levels, social support, and the perspective of stress as a challenge and not as a threat. Therefore, instead of trying to work harder in order to become happier, we should essentially become happier to work smarter. When dopamine is released in the brain, it not only performs its happiness function, but it also turns on all the learning centers of the brain. As a side note, this, in part, explains why music affects the brain so powerfully. So rather than trying to work toward success to make us happy, we should be making ourselves happy in order to be more successful. Because even if every aspect of a person’s external environment can be accounted for, those factors only predict about 10% of that same person’s long-term happiness. Clearly success alone can’t make us happy!
Since Achor is a Positive Psychologist, he, of course, has a positivist’s solution. He posits that if we rewire our brains for happiness, we can reach the potentials we have set for ourselves. A simple system of two minutes a day for twenty-one days, he asserts, is enough to retrain our brains. Writing down three different things we’re grateful for each day teaches our brains to look for the positive over the negative. Journaling a positive experience every twenty-four hours works in much the same way. Exercising demonstrates to our psyches that our actions and behavior matter. Meditation helps us learn to focus and de-stress. Finally, random acts of kindness generate compassion. All of these straightforward disciplines work together so that we can be happier and more successful.
Caroline Duncan
ReplyDeleteExtra Credit (Exam 2)
10.29.15
DQ: What poems (and other literary works/authors) and music (musicians) make you happy?
In the past year or so I’ve started to really grasp on to classical music…at this point in my listening I do not have a favorite composer. Well maybe one, Erik Statie Gymnopedie no.1 would have to be my go to song right now: even as I write this. I do not know what it is about this song, but every time I listen to it I can’t help but fade away in a relaxed calmness that takes over all my worries. I am dawned into the beauty of the piano, how could one ever be in a bad mood when listening to classical music? Satie would be my ‘favorite’ composer if I had to pick one. When around the house, waking up in the morning, drinking coffee, reading etc. classical music allows my mind to soften and gain a sense of flow when prolonging in my activities. It is beautiful, to watch yourself react to a piece of classical music. If you’re aware of how it really is affecting your overall being in that moment.
A literary work in which brings me to a sense of happiness is the Bible. Not because of religious affiliations, but because of the fairytale, mystical aspect that the bible brings into my daily life. A ‘world’ 2000 years ago, vastly different but the dreams in which it brings into our world now is so beneficially comparable how could I not enjoy reading it? It’s like planting yourself in each of these stories told by a man who claims to be all powerful, and returning if you just follow the ways to this ultimate ‘kingdom’ where all treasures will be 1000x better than earthly. The stories of this book relate us to the wicked world in which we live, the ups and downs of humanity but it offers a sense of hope to those suffering. I think it is a beautiful story, and when I read it, again just like listening to classical music my mind gains this state of flow where I continue to let go and let the words take over.
Extra Credit Essay
ReplyDeleteIs anything worse, in your experience, than futile, hopeless labor?
There is nothing worse than futile, hopeless labor. But, we are all condemned to this futile, hopeless labor. Life inherently has no meaning. We are all Sisyphus rolling the rock up the hill. You must create your own meaning. Life has no meaning so you are free to give it whatever meaning you want to. So don't let the futility of existence get you down. Embrace futility dance with the absurdity and see that through the absurdity and meaningless of your existence comes with the infinity of existence.
Yes, but...
DeleteA life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities…”
― Christopher Hitchens
And consider...
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNgMu8z2Ryc
And...
Deletehttps://www.brainpickings.org/2013/07/08/carl-sagan-meaning-of-life/
Extra Credit Essay
ReplyDeleteHow often do you contemplate the happiness impact, for yourself and others, of your actions and choices?
The way in which decisions directly affect my well-being is constantly being considered. With all the choices I make, the way those choices impact my life and most importantly my happiness is always on my mind. For example, the way I get myself through completing each classes’ assignments is telling myself that it will all be worth it to have more knowledge than I had before. This thought makes me happy so the happiness impact was contemplated. Another thought that comes to mind is when I give advice to friends that ask me what to do when they have relationship problems. My friend, Altima, recently had trouble in paradise and asked me what to do. I explained to her that she needs to take into consideration the amount of compromising that she had done and he had not. With that knowledge, she realized that she would be happier without her boyfriend in her life. As her friend, I wanted her to be happy in the end of our conversation so the happiness impact was contemplated here as well.