Happiness Fall 2016 Reading Schedule

AUG 30

Course Introduction

Introductions

Course websites: alfino.org and wiki: Grading Schemes, Assignments

Happiness - Introduction to Course Topic and Content

SEP 1

Readings: McMahon, Ch. 1, "The Highest Good; Cahn & Vitrano, "Living Well"

Focus: McMahon is writing an intellectual history of happiness. This helps up see how happiness has a culturally variable dimension. In general with McMahon you should identify key turning points and developments, along with major figures associated with them. Here, notice how he contrasts Greek culture with the radical new philosophical teachings of the classical philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The Cahn & Vitrano article gives you an introduction to happiness from the perspective of contemporary academic philosophy. What does the comparison of Pat & Lee's life help us explore about happiness?

SEP 6

Readings: Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book 1; Vitrano, "The Subjectivity of Happiness

Focus: You might remind yourself of Aristotle's view as summarized in McMahon before reading this. Section 6 can be skipped unless you are a philosophy minor or major. Notice also Aristotle's "method" in his investigation. How does he mix rational argumentation with empirical observation

SEP 8

Readings: Haidt, Ch. 5, "The Pursuit of Happiness";

Focus: Jonathan Haidt will give you a broader view of happiness which anticipates some topics we read more about later in the course. Notice how he is trying to connection classical thought on happiness with contemporary psychology.

SEP 13

Readings: Schimmack, Ch. 6, "The Structure of Subjective Well-Being"

Focus: Schimmack is a challenging and detailed text. You should double or triple your usual time for reading it. As with a lot of research intensive articles, the focus should be on how specific research results support theoretical hypotheses about happiness. You don't need to have a technical knowledge of the experiments being discussed, but you should understand the theoretical implications for happiness from any experimental conditions or survey research.

SEP 15

Readings: Haidt, Chapter 1, "The Divided Self”

Focus: Apologies to those of you who have read this in other classes. It's a pretty useful text for me because it reminds me that organism we're thinking about the happiness of has this sort of brain. That doesn't mean that the structure or natural history of our brains determines happiness, but try to look for ways that it might constrain it

SEP 20

Readings: Michael Argyle, "Causes and Correlates of Happiness"

Focus: With Argyle you are getting a broad research-based introduction to happiness. Try to summarize the main findings from category or causes considered, such as Age, Education, Social Status, Income, Marriage, Ethnicity, Employment, Leisure, Religion, and life events.

SEP 22

Readings: Diener and Suh, "National Differences in Subjective Well-Being"

Focus: Diener and Suh take us into the international research literature. Try to track their methodological issues at the begining, then track some of the factors that correlate with happiness cross-culturally, as well as differences. Consider their models for explaining differences.

==SEP 27

Readings: Epictetus, "The Enchiridion"

Focus: Epictetus is a later stoic, but leaves a relatively complete statement of the stoic philosophy. Our goal will be to understand it and then consider it's implications for happiness. As read, you may ask yourself if the stoic is really so concerned about happiness.

SEP 29

Readings: Epicurus, "Letter to Menoeceus"; "Principal Doctrines"

Focus: Here we have the founder's word, though again so much from these Hellenistic schools has been lost (or not yet found). Keep reminding yourself that this is hedonism, because it won't always sound like it. Consider the implicit analysis of desire in Epicurus' doctrines.

OCT 4

Readings: Irvine, Chs. 4+5, "Negative Visualization" and "The Dichotomy of Control"

Focus: With Irvine we get a modern effort to develop Stoic thought and psychology. Focus on the concept of "negative visualization" in Chapter 4. In chapter 5, Irvine discusses and suggests a revision to the stoic doctrine of the "dichotomy of control". Try to follow the reasoning for the revision he proposes.

OCT 6

Readings: McMahon, Chapter 2, "Perpetual Felicity"

Focus:In McMahon, focus on the contrast he develops between classical and Christian views of happiness. The story of Perpetua and Felicitas seems important.

OCT 11

Readings: McMahon, Chapter 3, "From Heaven to Earth"

Focus: Chapter 3 takes us from the renaissance (14-15th centuries in Florence) right up to the Enlightenment. We get to see the emergence of modern symbols and cultural markers of happiness, such as smiles in paintings, but also the interaction of theology with the emerging view. Note that this is a time of growing wealth in Europe.

OCT 13

Readings: Miller, "Introduction: Yoga: Discipline of Freedom"; Fahri, "Cleaning Up Our Act: The Four Brahmavihara"

Focus: Barbara Miller gives us an overview of Pantjali's Yoga Sutras. Make sure that you can identify the aims and methods of yoga and think about the relationship between them. In the Fahri reading, the focus will naturally fall on the four brahmavihara.

OCT 18

Readings: Siderits, "Early Buddhism"; Buddha, Pali Canon, "The Greater Discourse on Mindfulness"

Focus: In Siderits, make sure you focus on the basic account of Buddha's life and the four noble truths. Understand the Buddhists diagnose of unhappiness and the remedy suggested. The Greater Discourse on Mindfulness should reinforce the account in Siderits, giving you an example of an historic teaching on the four noble truths.

OCT 20

Mid-term Exam today for those of you who have this in your grading scheme.

OCT 25

Readings: Ricard, Chapters 6 and 7, "The Alchemy of Suffering" and "The Veils of the Ego"

Focus: As with Donna Farhi, Ricard gives us an explication of suffering, the ego and the self in a contemporary idiom. You might check out Ricard's life. He's pretty interesting as well.

OCT 27

Readings: Bryant, Ch. 1 "Concepts of Savoring"; Emmons, Ch. 23, "Gratitude, Subjective Well-Being, and the Brain"; Bryant, Chart, Types of Savoring

Focus: Alot of the work in Bryant Ch. 1 is definitional and theoretical. Try to follow the process Bryant takes you through in defining savoring. Emmons spends less time on definition, but some. Note both claims about how savoring and gratitude function, as well as efforts to manipulate it.

NOV 1

Readings: Bryant, Ch. 8, "Enhancing Savoring"; Watkins, "Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being". Gilbert, Chapter 1, "The Journey to Elsewhen"

Focus: Watkins gives us more research on gratitude. Bryant Chapter 2 is more of a practical guide to savoring experience. Savoring practicum students should take particular note here. Gilbert is making an interpretation about happiness from psychology research. So in reading him, you need to track both the point of the specific research results he discusses (almost all non-technical) and the argument he's making about them.

NOV 3

Readings: Gilbert Chapters 2, 3, and 4, "The View from In Here," "Outside Looking In," and "In the Blind Spot of the Mind's Eye"

Focus: These two chapters take us into Gilbert's view further. In 2, focus on the question of the objectivity of happiness given different "scales" we might use to report it. Chapter 3 is meant to undermine some of our assumptions about awareness. Focus especially on evidence of discrepancies between our experience and awareness.

NOV 8

Readings: Csiksentmihayli, Chapters 1, 2, 3, "The Structures of Everyday Life," "The Content of Experience," and "How We Feel When We Do Different Things"

Focus: Csiksentmiahlyi focuses us more concretely on the emotional qualities that everyday life activities have. He's also presenting his main theoretical concept in these readings: flow.

NOV 10

Readings: Csiksentmihalyi Chapter 6, "Relationships and the Quality of Life"; Diener and Diener, Chapter 4, "Happiness and Social Relationships", Haidt, "Divinity with or without God"

Focus: Here you get two theoretical approaches to the importance of relationship, the humanist psychological and a more quantitative model. Haidt's "Divinity with or Without God" is back on the reading list this term. It's quite insightful about our capacity, psychologically, to have a relationship with God. Feel free to disagree!

NOV 15

Readings: Haidt, Ch. 6, "Love and Attachments"; de Botton, "Lovelessness" (vi - 10 - first few pages of the pdf, but feel free to read more), Brooks, "The Social Animal"

Focus: Here we'll focus on love as a distinctive "domain" of happiness. From Haidt we get some contemporary psychological accounts of love, especially attachment theory. The de Botton reading is short (for today's class) and makes a very specific point. Brooks raises the question of what "levels " there may be to love as a natural phenomenon.

NOV 17

Readings: Fenton Johnson, "Going it Alone", McMahon Chapter 6, "Liberalism and Its Discontents;

Focus:

NOV 29

Readings: Gilbert Chapter 5, 6, and 7, "The Hound of Silence," The Future is Now," and "Time Bombs"

Focus:

DEC 1

Readings: Montaigne, "That to Philosophize is to Learn How to Die;" Flemming, J. "HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY," To the Best of Our Knowledge, Feb. 13, 2005 (mp3):

Focus: Fleming podcast includes the following segments: Happiness Studies - Dave Myers, History of the Smile - Angus Trumble, Progress Paradox - Gregg Easterbrook, 21 Grams - Guillermo Arriaga, Coping with Death - Loren Ladner. We are primarily interested in the last two segments (the interview with Arriaga and Ladner), but you may want to listen to the whole thing (about 55 minutes).

Look at a couple of Wikipedia articles to get some quick knowledge about the Barod Thodol and "momento mori"

"To love that well, which thou must leave ere long" Sonnet 73, Shakespeare

DEC 6

Readings: Gilbert 8 and 9, "Paradise Glossed" and "Immune to Reality"; Discuss papers

DEC 8

REVIEW