Enjoy

To all who've been stressing about exams or reports: please stop. Enjoy your education.

Study Guide

Study Guide

Happiness a Very Short Introduction CH: 1-2, "What Is Happiness?"

1.    What nation did Gallup find to be happiest in terms of daily experience?

Panama 

2.       What does Haybron say will most likely NOT be on your deathbed list of things you'd like to experience again before you go?

Mobile phone, Mall, Another day at the office. 

3.       Which of Haybron's three happiness theories is not mainly concerned with feelings?

Life Satisfaction 

4.       Your posture or stride reveals something deeper than what?

Emotion 

5.       Tranquility, confidence, and expansiveness are aspects of what state of mind/body?

Attunement 

6.       What famous western Buddhist says happiness is an optimal state of being, much more than a feeling?Matthieu  Ricard

CH: 3-4, "Life Satisfaction & Measuring Happiness”

1.   Is satisfaction with your life the same as thinking it's going well?

No

2. Does rating your life satisfaction provide reliably objective insight into your degree of happiness?

No

3. In what sense do "most people actually have good lives"?

Depends on local

4. Can the science of happiness tell us which groups tend to be happier?

Yes

5. What (verbally-expressed, non-numerical) ratio of positive over negative emotional states does happiness probably require?

Overwhelming predominance of positive over negative.

6. What percentage of American college students said they'd considered suicide?

More than half.

CH: 5-6 “The Sources of Happiness; Beyond Happiness: Well-Being”

1.   According to Haybron, is it credible to claim that genetics render some people incapable of being happier?

Even if people do have happiness set points, it is obvious that plenty of things can affect how happy we are.

2. What do studies show about consumerist materialism and intrinsic motivation?

Those with less materialistic values tend to be significantly happier. More broadly, people driven primarily by external rewards like wealth or status tend to be less happy than those who see their pursuits as intrinsically worthwhile, doing them for their own sake.

3. At what $ level do happiness and income "cease to show a pretty substantial link"?

$75,000

4. What does an Aristotelian nature-fulfillment theory of happiness find objectionable about the experience machine scenario?

The experience machine is not unlike being asleep. You can’t achieve real excellence in a catatonic state.

5. What do Desire theories have trouble explaining?

Mistakes

6.   How might a philosophical theory of well-being settle the strivers vs. enjoyers debate?

We find a right theory that picks striving over enjoying. It just depends on what brings out the best happiness for most people around you.

CH: 7-8  Happiness & The Good Life

1.   More important than whether you're happy, says Haybron, is what?

What you contributed.

2. What makes civilization possible?

Citizens willing to limit their rights voluntarily.

3. As a general rule, says Haybron, selfish and shallow people don't look _____.

Happy

4. A more demanding notion of the good life must meet what standard?

Justified Aspirations

5. Does Haybron recommend scheduling quality family time?

No

6. What does Kahneman say about "focusing illusions"?

Nothing is important as it is when we are thinking about it

Happiness: A Philosopher's Guide CH: 1-3 “Aristotle, Epicurus, Meaning”

1.   Are curiosity and awareness both prerequisite to living happily and well, according to Lenoir?

It is important to be aware of your happiness. You can ask too many questions and miss the present moment off happiness.

2.   Which French essayist said happiness is amplified when we take deliberate delight in it? Montaigne

3. What aspect of pleasure have post-Darwinian biologists emphasized?

Adaptive role of pleasure

4. For Aristotle, happiness requires what tandem quest?

Pursuit of pleasure.

5. Who said 90% of happiness depends on health?

Schopenhauer

6. How did Viktor Frankl differ from Freud on the question of meaning?

Frankl thought that human beings are driven by the pursuit of meaning

CH:4-6 Voltaire, Socrates, Jesus, Kant

1.   The direction of wisdom, says Andre Comte-Sponville, is what?

Direction of maximum happiness in maximum lucidity.

2.   What's Lenoir's definition (so far) of happiness?

Level of overall satisfaction that is enduring.

3. What's Matthieu Ricard's "primary aspiration"?

Find an aspiration that satisfies us so much that it makes us love life.

4. The pursuit of happiness demands what from us?

Intelligence and the exercise of will.

5. Who said "full and complete happiness does not exist on earth" but is an "ideal of imagination"?

Kant

6. What kind of happiness did Socrates and Jesus seek?

Higher values differed for afterlife.

CH: 7-9 Being Oneself, Schopenhauer, $

1. Who said the "process of individuation" often begins only at midlife or later?

Carl Jung

2. What was Plato's distinction of temperaments?

Duskolos- Pessimists Eukolos- Optimists

3. What was Schopenhauer's "curious contradiction"?

We can only learn to be better attuned with our natures but we cannot change.

4. How does Lenoir disagree with Schopenhauer ?

Inner Work is a way to improve yourself.

5. How much of our happiness does Sonja Lyubomirsky say is subject to volition?

40%

6. What did Seneca say about invidious happiness comparisons?

Avoid measuring yourself against happier or more prosperous people.

CH: 10-12 “The Emotional Brain; The Art of Attention; Dreaming”

1. Which molecules play an important role in well-being and emotional balance?

Enecephalon

2. What do dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin have to do with happiness?

Dopamine- Energy and Motivation, Oxytocin- Relieves Stress, Serotonin- Enjoyment of love and satisfaction.

3. What crucial point did the Stoic and Epicurean sages of antiquity underscore?

The quality of our attention to life.

4. Why did Montaigne ride his horse? (And a BONUS QUESTION: what startling equine event changed Montaigne's life?)

Brings feelings of reverie. He crashed on his horse and almost died getting over his fear of death

5. Aside from the importance of letting the mind wander, what important qualification does Lenoir attach to the primacy of the present moment?

It keeps us from ruminating which makes us feel more negative.

6. Who pioneered Positive Psychology?

Martin Seligman

Quiz Sep24

Th 24 - Lenoir 10-12 (The Emotional Brain; The Art of Attention; Dreaming)
Podcast: Passion for truth's nothing to apologize for, incivility is. 

1. Which molecules play an important role in well-being and emotional balance?

2. What do dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin have to do with happiness?

3. What crucial point did the Stoic and Epicurean sages of antiquity underscore?

4. Why did Montaigne ride his horse? (And a BONUS QUESTION: what startling equine event changed Montaigne's life?)

5. Aside from the importance of letting the mind wander, what important qualification does Lenoir attach to the primacy of the present moment?

6. Who pioneered Positive Psychology?

DQ:

1. Does it bother you to think of your happiness being governed by the "molecules of emotion"? Is this an objectionably reductive way of understanding subjectivity and the mind, or merely a strategically useful handle on one's state of well-being? Does it over-objectify experience, or imply a deterministic worldview at odds with your notion of free will (see my dawn post, below)?

2.Given the importance of diet, sleep, and emotional equanimity to happiness, what do you do to insure their adqeuate provision in your own daily habits and routines? What can't you do, that you wish you could?

3. If the quest for a "happiness gene" is misguided, is there a place for genetic engineering in the future pursuit of happiness? What regulations on such research would you impose, if you were Philosopher-King/Queen?

4. How do you cultivate the skill of attention? How "mindful" are you? Can every moment of life really be a source of happiness?

5. Do you agree with Woody Allen?

6. Are you temperamentally more American or French? Who's happier?
==
This morning's dawn post:
Choosing free will

More in class today on free will. Augustine's theological commitment to the concept is one hook, neuroscience is another. "Our brains take decisions before our minds are aware of them," reports the BBC podcast I've asked students to consider.

"But there's evidence that whether or not we have free will, believing in it is good for us." Some experiments support the claim that those who believe in free will, and act on that belief, are by various measures happier, healthier, more conscientious and ethically responsible, less liable to cheat, steal, and lie.

The "happier" claim is most arresting, or it will be for us in Happiness class this afternoon. William James, in his books but more impressively in the totality of his post-free will crisis lifetime, supports it too. One day he "just about touched bottom," the next he resolved that "my first act of free will shall be to believe in free will," and in subsequent decades he certainly seemed to find pragmatic vindication for the concept. In his own terms, he found it better for him to believe in free will. Far better. That's not proof, but neither is it irrelevant or illusory.

But is it an adequate answer to Gregg Caruso's contention (and Sam Harris's) that as a society we would be better off giving it up, even if some individuals like James would not be? Caruso:

I maintain that life without free will may actually be good for our well being, and our relationships with others, since it could tend to eradicate an often destructive form of moral anger, a kind of moral anger that's corrosive to our relationships and to our social policies...

We need to acknowledge the role that luck plays in our lives, who we are, and how we turn out... Let's give up the belief in free will, and with it, the pernicious belief in just-deserts, that people justly deserve what they get. Let's leave this adequate notion behind, lose our moral anger and stop blaming the victim. Instead, let's turn our attention to the difficult task of addressing the causes that lead to criminality, to wealth inequity, and educational inequity. Once we relinquish the belief in free will, this will allow us to look more clearly at the causes and more deeply at the systems that shape individuals and their behavior, and this will allow us to adopt more humane and more effective policies in education, criminal justice, and social policies.

 Sounds great. It might be the right choice, if we have one. But I don't think it would have got William James up off the floor, when he touched bottom. I'm not sure it would have got me up out of bed this morning at 5 am. I choose to suspend final judgment on this issue. Or think I do.

5:30/6:38, 61/88

==
Caruso's TED Talk, "The Dark Side of Free Will"
==

Sam Harris:

I briefly discussed the illusion of free will in both The End of Faith and The Moral Landscape. I have since received hundreds of questions and comments from readers and learned just where the sticking points were in my original arguments. I am happy to now offer my final thoughts on the subject in the form of a short book, Free Will, that can be read in a single sitting.

The question of free will touches nearly everything we care about. Morality, law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, feelings of guilt and personal accomplishment—most of what is distinctly human about our lives seems to depend upon our viewing one another as autonomous persons, capable of free choice. If the scientific community were to declare free will an illusion, it would precipitate a culture war far more belligerent than the one that has been waged on the subject of evolution. Without free will, sinners and criminals would be nothing more than poorly calibrated clockwork, and any conception of justice that emphasized punishing them (rather than deterring, rehabilitating, or merely containing them) would appear utterly incongruous. And those of us who work hard and follow the rules would not “deserve” our success in any deep sense. It is not an accident that most people find these conclusions abhorrent. The stakes are high... (continues)

==
For our (my) amusement:

Study Abroad course, July 2016: American Philosophy, British Roots

I'm happy to report "preliminary approval" by our school's Education Abroad office (pending academic committee confirmation) of the summer course in England I've been plotting for awhile now. If we get the green light and enough enthusiastic travelers, we'll be jetting to London in July for eleven days of peripatetic questing after the British roots of American philosophy. Among the sites we'll see and tread upon: Darwin's Down House and Sandwalk...

Henry James's Lamb House...


John Locke's Oxford...


Bertrand Russell's Cambridge...




the Yorkshire Moors...
and much more besides. Watch this space for details, and please share this with interested friends. For more info contact phil.oliver@mtsu.edu.


American Philosophy, British Roots: a walk across the pond
Syllabus - July 2016
An on-site exploration of specific British locales associated with philosophers and writers in the modern peripatetic (“walking & thinking”), empiricist, pragmatic, and other philosophical and literary traditions who’ve influenced and been influenced by their counterparts in America.

This course revives a tradition originally rooted in Aristotle’s ancient school in Athens, the Lyceum, whose students by legend were said to have roamed the campus grounds with their mentors during classes. Many philosophers and writers since have extolled the benefits of ambulatory thinking, and Britain in particular continues to nurture a vibrant walking culture whose leading lights have included philosophers like John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Bertrand Russell, novelists like Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Jane Austen, and poets like Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge and Keats.

Across the pond, meanwhile, prominent American peripatetics like Emerson, Thoreau, and William James have advanced novel versions of naturalism, transcendentalism, and pragmatic empiricism that both extend and confound their British ancestors. The resulting Anglo-American dialogue is rich in implication for the future development of all those traditions. The connecting thread is walking. We will follow in the footsteps of some of the British figures most closely linked with these traditions and that development, and interrogate their ideas in the style and manner that first gave them breath.

Our method will involve selected readings, specific questions pursued on the very ground where targeted British figures first conceived the ideas under scrutiny, and an opportunity for students to participate in the process of trans-Atlantic intellectual cross-pollination.

Before, during, and after each site visit, students will emulate the peripatetic method of discourse by splitting into small roving conversational groups of two or three to discuss issues prompted by assigned readings, discussion, and site-visit content. Each will then post summaries of their conversations and subsequent reflections on a blog-site created specifically for the course. They will then continue to engage with the instructor(s) and one another in ongoing face-to-face discussions and online discussion threads that will ultimately provide the core basis for a final written project directed by the instructor(s) and posted by each student within two weeks of our return.

Readings Students will read selections from the following texts, either in print or etext versions.

Amato, On Foot: A History of Walking - “Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling,” pp.101-124; “The Transformation of Walking from Necessity to Choice,” 255-278
Coverley, The Art of Wandering - “The Writer as Walker” & “The Walker as Philosopher,” 11-38; “The Return of the Walker,” 205-231
Gilbert et al (ed.), The Walker’s Literary Companion
Gros, “A Daily Outing-Kant,” and “Strolls,” in A Philosophy of Walking,153-167
Horowitz, On Looking (tba)
Hosler, [Darwin’s] Sandwalk Adventures
James, The Meaning of Truth (tba)
James (Henry & William), selected letters (tba)
Minshull (ed.), The Vintage Book of Walking - “Why Walk,” pp.1-28; “Walk With Me,” 239-269
Mitchell (ed.), The Joys of Walking - Stephen, “In Praise of Walking,” 18-38; Dickens, “Night Walks,” 43-56, and “Tramps,” 95-112; Trevelyan, “Walking,” 57-79; Hazlitt, “On Going a Journey,” 86-94
Nicholson, The Lost Art of Walking, on London, 86-113; “Walking Home and Away From Home,” & “Perfect and Imperfect Walks, Last Walks, and Walks We Didn’t Take,” 217-261
Orlet, “Gymnasiums of the Mind” in Philosophy Now, issue 44
Russell, An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth: the William James Lectures
Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (tba)
Schiller, Essays in Humanism - Preface; “Truth,” 44-61; “Reality and ‘idealism’,” 110-127, “Darwinism and Design,” 128-156, “The Place of Pessimism in Philosophy,” 157-165
Solnit, “The Mind at Three Miles an Hour” in Wanderlust: A History of Walking, pp.14-29
Sprigge, American Truth, British Reality - “Introduction,” 1-6; “Bradley contra James,” 363-370; “Conceptual Thinking as Distortive of Reality: James and Bradley,” 434-438; “Darwinist Critique of Christianity,” 558-561; Conclusion, 573-583
Thoreau, “Walking”
Toibin, The Master

In the weeks prior to departure, students will be expected to read Orlet, Solnit, and Thoreau, and as many of the paired readings below as they can manage. Additional pairings of text(s) and locale(s) may be appended during the course, in response to conversations and circumstances “on the ground”.

Itinerary & paired readings
Tue. Jul 12, 2016 Guide - will meet group members in arrival hall of London Heathrow airport and accompany them to hotel with a 2-hour panoramic tour en-route. Private minicoach - will arrive at London Heathrow airport and provide transfer to hotel with a full-day city tour en-route. Admission: Strawberry Hill (Horace Walpole’s Gothic Castle).
Admission: Dickens House (maximum of 15 people can visit at one time - 30min interval between timeslots - 1-1.5hrs duration per time slot) hrs 10am - 5pm. 3 Star Hotel Standard Room such as Bayswater Inn, Queens Park Hotel, Royal Eagle Hotel, Central Park, London, England. READ: Dickens, in The Joys of Walking

Wed. Jul 13, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times. London Oyster Card £20 Including Activation Fee. Admission: Highgate Cemetary (about 90 min total for tour of West Side and browsing East Side on own - grp tours only available weekday mornings and very limited availability). Admission: Keats House (prebooked groups Tuesday - Friday 10am to 12pm). Admission: Freud House (suggested to allow 1.5 hrs for visit - opening hours Wed - Sun 12 - 5pm). 3 Star Hotel Standard Room such as Bayswater Inn, Queens Park Hotel, Royal Eagle Hotel, Central Park, London, England. READ: “Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling,” in Amato.

Thu. Jul 14, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times. Private minicoach - will arrive at hotel and provide a full-day excursion to Kent and Sussex. Admission: The home of Charles Darwin (Down House). Admission: Lamb House. Admission: Restoration House, Rochester (the Satis House of Dickens' “Great Expectations”, the home of Miss Havisham). 3 Star Hotel Standard Room such as Bayswater Inn, Queens Park Hotel, Royal Eagle Hotel, Central Park, London, England. READ: Hosler, [Darwin’s] Sandwalk Adventures; James (Henry & William), selected letters (tba); Dickens, “Tramps,” in Mitchell.

Fri. Jul 15, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times.
Private minicoach - will arrive at hotel and provide a full-day excursion to Cambridge. Guide - meets group in Cambridge and provides a half-day walking tour. 3 Star Hotel Standard Room such as Bayswater Inn, Queens Park Hotel, Royal Eagle Hotel, Central Park, London, England. READ: Russell, An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth: the William James Lectures, and The Conquest of Happiness (tba).

Sat. Jul 16, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times. Free day - Optional trip to Paris for the day. 3 Star Hotel Standard Room such as Bayswater Inn, Queens Park Hotel, Royal Eagle Hotel, Central Park, London, England.

Sun. Jul 17, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times. Group makes own way to Bradford by train and then by public transit to local area attractions. Admission: Bronte Society and Bronte Parsonage Museum plus guided walk, Haworth. Taste of the Moors Walk - Approx 1.5 hours with guide (readings from Wuthering Heights) - Groups over 20 will be split into 2 groups. 3-4* hotel standard room such as The Dubrovnik Hotel, Bradford, England. READ: “The Writer as Walker” & “The Walker as Philosopher,” in Coverley.

Mon. Jul 18, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times. Group makes their own way by train to Stratford Upon Avon. 3 Star Hotel Standard Room such as Best Western Grosvenor, White Swan, Stratford-Upon-Avon, England. READ: The Walker’s Literary Companion (tba)

Tue. Jul 19, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times.
Admission: Shakespeare's Trust, entry to 2 properties. Group makes their own way to Oxford via train. 3 Star Hotel Standard Room such as Holiday Inn Express Oxford - Kassam Stadium, Oxford, England. READ: “Why Walk,” “Walk With Me,” in Minshull.

Wed. Jul 20, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times. 3 Star Hotel Standard Room such as Holiday Inn Express Oxford - Kassam Stadium, Oxford, England.

Thu. Jul 21, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times.
No transportation included. Guide provides morning walking tour in Oxford (Lewis Carroll orientated). Admission: Christ Church. Free afternoon in Oxford. 3 Star Hotel Standard Room such as Holiday Inn Express Oxford - Kassam Stadium, Oxford, England. READ: John Locke (tba); Lewis Carroll (tba)

Fri. Jul 22, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times.
No transportation included. Free day in Oxford. 3 Star Hotel Standard Room such as Holiday Inn Express Oxford - Kassam Stadium, Oxford, England. READ: Schiller, Essays in Humanism (tba); Sprigge, American Truth, British Reality (tba)

Sat. Jul 23, 2016 Breakfast included. Please check with hotel reception for specific times. Transfer from oxford hotel to LHR via private minicoach.
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For more info contact phil.oliver@mtsu.edu.