Spring 2008 Professor's Blog - Happiness

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Next Morning Blogs

Jan 15 2008

Well, I hope we raised alot of the big course questions and that you're as excited about getting underway as I am. Please start organizing your reading for next week now. As you may know, with once-per-week courses, it's easy to "forget" about the course until the night before it happens each week. On the bright side, meeting once per week gives you more control of your time, and that class can become more of an event. But some of that is up to you.

I forgot to mention that my exams are based completely on the study questions we identify in the course schedule. We'll adapt some of last year's questions, so follow this each week. You can see the updated study questions from our first class on the schedule now as an example. My strong advice is that you make notes on these questions each week after class. That will be your study guide for the exam.

Please go ahead and logon to the course site and start building your grading scheme. You can change items in your grading scheme up until you turn them in.

I was really struck (again) by how much our images of happiness seems to involve specific situations of tranquility, satisfaction, and enjoyment. Here are some ancient greek terms that get at similar states:

hesychia - quietness athembia - absence of pain in the soul (psyche) eustatheia - stability euthymia - tranquility experienced as pleasurable kara - joy eudaimonia - being guided by or possessing a happy spirit (daemon)

As we start to explore the views of happiness of some large ancient cultures, you'll see some of these concepts (which we also find in sanskrit) informing philosophical accounts of wisdom and happiness. As you dig into your reading for next week, if you find terms or concepts that you don't completely understand, consult some quick reference sources such as www.wikipedia.com or, in philosophy, the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (which is online through Foley). There are great, concise articles on both sources.

Well, it was great to meet you all last night. Please do stop in (Rebman 203) at some point to introduce yourself. My office hours are MW 10-11 and Th 10:45-12:00, and by appointment.

Mark Alfino

Jan 22, 2008 - Second Class - Models of Happiness in Global Traditions & Causes and Correlates of Happiness

Sorry about being in a bit of a fog last night from my cold. Last night after class I realized that I left a few things out and failed to underscore a couple of other things, so I'll use this "next morning" blog to take care of that. On the whole I thought your discussion was good and that most of the topics we started to discuss could have developed into longer discussions. Sorry if any of you felt skipped over. I'll continue to try to balance participation opportunities. We'll be doing more small group discussion in the coming weeks (especially when our reading volume settles down).