ATS3885 History of philosophy: happiness

This unit examines different philosophical approaches to the question: How can I be happy? From ancient times to the present, philosophers have offered guidance on how human beings might attain an enduring state of well-being or flourishing. In the Hellenistic period, some proposed that the key to such happiness was freedom from mental disturbance and pain, while others recommended a life of complete emotional detachment. In the early modern era, philosophers argued that the solution lay with either calming the emotions or turning them into excellences of character, such as benevolence and self-esteem. In this unit, we analyse the moral, epistemological, and metaphysical dimensions of the topic of happiness. In some years, the unit will focus exclusively on the ancient Stoics and Epicureans; in others, it will focus primarily on seventeenth and eighteenth-century philosophers.