Thinking About Happiness: What Young People Can Learn About Life From the Classics of Western Philosophy PDF
Preview Thinking About Happiness: What Young People Can Learn About Life From the Classics of Western Philosophy
THINKING ABOUT HAPPINESS WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE CAN LEARN ABOUT LIFE FROM THE CLASSICS OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY RICHARD MORLEY MYERS CONTENTS Preface Socratic Thinking Virtue Love Pleasure Meaning The Wisdom of the Old Books About the Author Endnotes Copyright 2020 Cover Image, “Gray Concrete Pillar Pathway,” by David R. Jakab, courtesy Pexels.com ISBN 978-1-9992141-0-4 (Print) ISBN 978-1-9992141-1-1 (E-book) ISBN 978-1-9992141-2-8 (Audio-book) This book is published by Atkin Books Incorporated, Stratford, Ontario, Canada. All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without express permission from the publisher. All inquiries, care of AtkinBooks.com This book is dedicated to the late William Daniel Myers Who demonstrated to his family the truth of Frankl’s dictum: The way in which a man accepts his fate And all the suffering it entails, The way in which he takes up his cross, Gives him ample opportunity – Even under the most difficult circumstances – To add a deeper meaning to his life. PREFACE THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK is to provide young people with an introduction to some of the ways that the Western philosophical tradition has helped us to think about happiness – what it means, what it doesn’t mean, and why it can be so elusive. I’ll explain in the first chapter why Western philosophical classics are an essential resource for understanding this topic. In this preface, I’ll simply clarify why the book is directed at young people in particular. My mother read an early draft of it and was kind enough to pronounce it “terrific.” (No bias there, I’m sure.) She did, however, challenge my choice of audience. For one thing, she thought the material might be too advanced for a lot of young people. Moreover, she predicted that many older people would find it as fascinating as she did! Why, then, would I exclude them? This wasn't an unreasonable criticism, and others may have the same reaction my mother did. So let me explain my rationale for framing the book the way I do. I’ve spent most of my life teaching Western classics to undergraduate students. By and large, they’re in the age bracket of 18 to 22 years. This is a time of life when the ideas one finds in the classics have the greatest potential to impact someone’s life. It’s common for us these days to say that people’s personalities are largely determined by genetics and by their experiences in early childhood. Maybe that’s so. Yet what is truly important about a person isn’t necessarily captured in what we today call their “personality”. The things about us that really count are at least to some extent subject to freely made decisions. No matter what kind of personality we have, we can decide to spend our lives chasing money and status. Or we can decide we want to dedicate ourselves to a community or to a political cause. Or we can decide that the most important thing in life is the love and affection that comes from having a family. Or we can decide that we want to devote as much of our time as possible to appreciating the charms of one of the arts, or of nature, or of science, or of philosophy. Even certain aspects of our behavior that are shaped by personality are subject to at least a degree of rational override. We can determine that our natural selfishness is excessive and learn to cultivate the virtue of generosity. We can discover that we’re not as clever or as wise as we think and learn to cultivate social and intellectual humility. In sum, we can always exert some choice in terms of the kind of person we want to be. Now the wisdom on offer in the classics has the potential to shape the lives of those who read them by laying out fundamental choices and articulating the arguments for them. And no matter what kind of personality people have, they all have the potential to be persuaded by rational argument. Yet it's those who are just embarking on adult life who have the greatest potential to benefit from these books and the alternatives they offer. The students in my classes have a whole lifetime ahead of them. They have high hopes and great aspirations. They're less locked into choices and commitments that are difficult to reverse. And they're sufficiently privileged to be at college for four years, where they have an extraordinary opportunity to study and debate ideas that matter with peers who care. So in the end, I remain committed to the original vision of the book and its original target audience. To be sure, adults of any age are welcome to read the book as well. I hope some of them will find it as enjoyable as my mother did! But they should not be surprised if, at times, the book reads like it was written for a youthful audience. A���� ��� S������ In a book like this, there are frequent citations of primary sources. For ease of use, I provide references in the body of my text, rather than in footnotes. And since these primary sources are available in dozens of editions, all of which have different pagination, I stick to textual markers that are common to all editions wherever that is possible. Where it’s not, I’ve selected current and inexpensive editions and will simply provide references by the page numbers of that edition. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. References are given by book and chapter. (I.4 means Book I, Chapter 4). Translations are mine. Austen, Jane, Pride and Prejudice. References are given by volume and chapter numbers. (II.8 means Vol. II, Chapter 8). Frankl, Viktor, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston: Beacon Press) 2006. References are given by page number from this edition. Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan. References are given by chapter number. Lewis, C.S., The Four Loves (San Francisco: Harper One) 2017. References are given by page number from this edition. London, Jack, The Sea-Wolf. References are given by chapter number. Mill, J.S., Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing) 2001. References are given by page number from this edition. Plato, The Apology of Socrates. References are given by the Stephanus line numbers that are found in the margins of all editions Plato’s works. Translations are mine. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. References are given to page numbers in Roger Masters' translation, The First and Second Discourses (New York: St. Martin's Press) 1964. In most cases, no prior knowledge of these sources is necessary in order to follow the argument of my book. The one exception is Pride and Prejudice. Your appreciation of the argument in Chapter 2 will be substantially enhanced if you are already familiar with the novel. If you haven’t yet read it, a quick and enjoyable alternative is to watch the excellent film version from 2001 starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. In closing, I would like to thank the following people for their constructive suggestions for improving the manuscript: David Jones, Borys Kowalski, Patrick Malcolmson and Lee Myers. Richard Myers, Ph.D. Principal St. Paul’s University College University of Waterloo SOCRATIC THINKING C��� T����: Plato, The Apology of Socrates Plato, The Allegory of the Cave The unexamined life is not worth living.” -Socrates in Plato’s Apology D riving to work one morning last year, my ears pricked up when the radio host announced that her next story was going to be about a remarkable new course at one of the top Ivy League universities. What made her story newsworthy was the revolutionary theme of the course: happiness. The course had been developed in response to the explosion of mental health issues that has affected campuses everywhere. Record numbers of students have been reporting concerns about anxiety, stress and depression. Over half of the students at the university offering the course had sought some kind of mental health care during their time on campus. The objective of the course was to promote mental health by using scientifically validated techniques to alleviate or forestall various symptoms of mental unwellness. These techniques included basic physiological strategies in relation to exercise, sleep and meditation, but there were also techniques designed to promote social connectedness and positive thinking – for instance, engaging in planned acts of kindness to strangers.
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