Dying Every Day: Book Club

Join us: The Philosophy of Happiness

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 27 May 2025 13:02:54 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST, Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life (Register here), a casual space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living.

What is the philosophy of happiness?

There are roughly two philosophical literatures on “happiness,” each corresponding to a different sense of the term. One uses ‘happiness’ as a value term, roughly synonymous with well-being or flourishing. The other body of work uses the word as a purely descriptive psychological term, akin to ‘depression’ or ‘tranquility’. An essential project in the philosophy of happiness is simply clarifying what various writers are talking about: the important meanings of the term and how they connect.

While the “well-being” sense of happiness receives significant attention in the contemporary literature on well-being, the psychological notion is reviving as a major focus of philosophical inquiry, following recent developments in the science of happiness. …

The meanings of ‘happiness’

What is happiness? This question has no straightforward answer, because the meaning of the question itself is unclear. What exactly is being asked? Perhaps you want to know what the word ‘happiness’ means. In that case, your inquiry is linguistic. Chances are, you had something more interesting in mind: perhaps you want to know about the thing, happiness, itself. Is it pleasure, a life of prosperity, something else? Yet we can’t answer that question until we know what we mean by the word.

Philosophers who write about “happiness” typically take their subject matter to be either of two things, each corresponding to a different sense of the term:

A state of mind
A life that goes well for the person leading it

In the first case, our concern is simply a psychological matter. Just as inquiry about pleasure or depression fundamentally concerns questions of psychology, inquiry about happiness in this sense—call it the (long-term) “psychological sense”—is fundamentally the study of particular mental states. What is this state of mind we call happiness? Typical answers to this question include life satisfaction, pleasure, or a positive emotional condition. […]

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we conclude our exploration of the philosophy of happiness through Frederic Lenoir’s book Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide. If you’re available at Noon EST, feel free to join us (Register here).

As you read the passages below, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can I embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help me live the “good” life?

Join us: The Philosophy of Happiness

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 20 May 2025 18:00:51 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

What is the philosophy of happiness?

The meanings of ‘happiness’

Philosophers who write about “happiness” typically take their subject matter to be either of two things, each corresponding to a different sense of the term:

A state of mind
A life that goes well for the person leading it

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we continue our exploration of the philosophy of happiness through Frederic Lenoir’s book Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide. If you’re available at Noon EST, feel free to join us (Register here).

As you read the passages below, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can I embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help me live the “good” life?

Join us: The Philosophy of Happiness

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 13 May 2025 15:40:26 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

What is the philosophy of happiness?

There are roughly two philosophical literatures on “happiness,” each corresponding to a different sense of the term. One uses ‘happiness’ as a value term, roughly synonymous with well-being or flourishing. The other body of work uses the word as a purely descriptive psychological term, akin to ‘depression’ or ‘tranquility’. An important project in the philosophy of happiness is simply clarifying what various writers are talking about: the important meanings of the term and how they connect.

The meanings of ‘happiness’

Philosophers who write about “happiness” typically take their subject matter to be either of two things, each corresponding to a different sense of the term:

A state of mind
A life that goes well for the person leading it

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we continue our exploration of happiness through Frederic Lenoir’s book Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide. If you’re available at Noon EST, please join us (Register here). As you read the passages below, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can I embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help me live the “good” life?

Join us: The Philosophy of Happiness

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 14:39:28 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

What is Happiness?

In the prologue of his book Happiness, the French sociologist and philosopher Frederic Lenoir writes,

Although the quest for happiness is probably the most widely shared thing in the world, it isn’t easy to write about it. … The question of happiness is forever being discussed: eventually, it gets worn down and loses its edge. But although it’s become so commonplace and seems so simple, it’s still an enthralling question, one that involves a whole skein of factors not easy to untangle.
This stems from the very nature of happiness: In some ways, it can’t be grasped, any more than wind or water. No sooner do you think you’ve got hold of it than it slips through your fingers. If you try to nail it down, it evades you. Sometimes it escapes just when you think you’re onto it, and suddenly it pops up when you’re least expecting it. And sometimes you only recognize it after some mishap has befallen you. …
The great paradox of happiness is that it can be tamed while still remaining essentially beyond our control. Happiness is a matter of fate and chance; but it can also stem from a rational, deliberate approach. […]

Source: Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we begin our exploration of happiness through Frederic Lenoir’s book Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide. If you’re available at Noon EST, please join us (Register here). As you read the passages below, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can I embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help me live the “good” life?

Join us: Letters to a Young Poet

J.W. Bertolotti — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 20:30:27 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Rainer Maria Rilke?

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926) was an Austro-German poet who became internationally famous with his lyric poems and works such as Duino Elegies (1923) and Sonnets to Orpheus (1923). Since his death in 1926, he has grown in reputation as one of the greatest German-language poets, widely admired for the posthumously published works. …

The three years after Rilke’s death saw the publication of a series of letters that he had written between 1903 and 1908 to Franz Xaver Kappus, a young military cadet and aspiring poet. Letters to a Young Poet arguably became Rilke’s most widely read work, admired by many readers for Rilke's advice on writing, creativity, sadness, love, sex, solitude, and spiritual belief. […]

Source: Britannica

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we conclude our study of Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. If you’re available at Noon EST, please join us (Register here). As you read the passages below, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can I embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help me live the “good” life?

***Next month’s book is Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide by Frédéric Lenoir.

Join us: The Courage to Be Disliked

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 15:34:38 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Alfred Adler?

According to the authors (Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga), The Courage to Be Disliked distills Alfred Adler’s (1870—1937) philosophical and psychological ideas into a narrative dialogue between a philosopher and a young man.

Here is how Kishimi and Koga describe Adlerian psychology:

YOUTH: A moment ago, you used the words ‘another philosophy,’ but I’ve heard that your specialty is in Greek philosophy.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, Greek philosophy has been central to my life ever since I was a teenager. The great intellectual figures: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. I am translating a work by Plato at the moment, and I expect to spend the rest of my life studying classical Greek thought.
YOUTH: Well, then what is this ‘other philosophy’?
PHILOSOPHER: It is a completely new school of psychology that was established by the Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is generally referred to as Adlerian psychology. …

—

PHILOSOPHER: … As he himself said, ‘There might come a time when one will not remember my name; one might even have forgotten that our school ever existed.’ Then he went on to say that it didn’t matter. The implication being that if his school were forgotten, it would be because his ideas had outgrown the bounds of a single area of scholarship, and become commonplace, and a feeling shared by everyone. … In other words, rather than being a strict area of scholarship, Adlerian psychology is accepted as a realization, a culmination of truths and of human understanding. …
YOUTH: So your theories are developed not from Greek philosophy initially but from the viewpoint of Adlerian psychology?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that’s right.
YOUTH: Okay. There’s one more thing I’d like to ask about your basic stance. Are you a philosopher? Or are you a psychologist?
PHILOSOPHER: I am a philosopher, a person who lives philosophy. And, for me, Adlerian psychology is a form of thought that is in line with Greek philosophy, and that is philosophy.

Source: The Courage to Be Disliked

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we continue our study of The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. If you’re available at Noon EST, please join us (Register here). We typically discuss three selected passages, but we’re exploring one extended passage due to the dialogue format.

As you read the passage (or dialogue) below, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can I embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help me live the “good” life?

***Next month’s book (April) is Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Join us: The Courage to Be Disliked

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 19:00:44 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Alfred Adler?

Here is how Kishimi and Koga describe Adlerian psychology:

YOUTH: A moment ago, you used the words ‘another philosophy,’ but I’ve heard that your specialty is in Greek philosophy.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, Greek philosophy has been central to my life ever since I was a teenager. The great intellectual figures: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. I am translating a work by Plato at the moment, and I expect to spend the rest of my life studying classical Greek thought.
YOUTH: Well, then what is this ‘other philosophy’?
PHILOSOPHER: It is a completely new school of psychology that was established by the Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is generally referred to as Adlerian psychology. …

—

PHILOSOPHER: … As he himself said, ‘There might come a time when one will not remember my name; one might even have forgotten that our school ever existed.’ Then he went on to say that it didn’t matter. The implication being that if his school were forgotten, it would be because his ideas had outgrown the bounds of a single area of scholarship, and become commonplace, and a feeling shared by everyone. … In other words, rather than being a strict area of scholarship, Adlerian psychology is accepted as a realization, a culmination of truths and of human understanding. …
YOUTH: So your theories are developed not from Greek philosophy initially but from the viewpoint of Adlerian psychology?
PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that’s right.
YOUTH: Okay. There’s one more thing I’d like to ask about your basic stance. Are you a philosopher? Or are you a psychologist?
PHILOSOPHER: I am a philosopher, a person who lives philosophy. And, for me, Adlerian psychology is a form of thought that is in line with Greek philosophy, and that is philosophy.

Source: The Courage to Be Disliked

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we begin our study of The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. If you’re available at Noon EST, please join us (Register here).

We typically discuss three selected passages, but exploring one more extended passage could be more suitable due to the dialogue format. As you read the passage (or dialogue) below, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can I embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help me live the “good” life?

***Next month’s book (April) is Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Join us: The Four Noble Truths

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 16:38:06 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who was the Buddha?

The Buddha (c. 450 BCE) is the individual whose teachings form the basis of the Buddhist tradition. These teachings, preserved in texts known as the Nikāyas or Āgamas, concern the quest for liberation from suffering. While the ultimate aim of the Buddha’s teachings is thus to help individuals attain the good life, his analysis of the source of suffering centrally involves claims concerning the nature of persons, as well as how we acquire knowledge about the world and our place in it. […]

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The following video briefly explains The Four Noble Truths:

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we’re concluding our search for Buddhist wisdom through the Dalai Lama’s book The Four Noble Truths. As always, the passages below will help guide the discussion at our next meetup (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can you embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you live the “good” life?

***Next month’s (March) book is The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

If we accept that liberation is an achievable goal, how is it possible to achieve it? This question brings us to the fourth Noble Truth, which deals with the true path. …
The experiential knowledge of emptiness must, in turn, be based on an intellectual understanding of emptiness, developed through inference. Indeed, without that, it is impossible to attain a meditatively based experience of emptiness. That initial stage of developing intellectual understanding is part of what is known as the Path of Accumulation. The threshold of this path is the point where the practitioner develops a genuine aspiration to attain liberation – and this we consider to be the very beginning of the Buddhist Path. […]

— Dalai Lama, The Four Noble Truths (Ch. 5)

Join us: The Four Noble Truths

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 14:39:16 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who was the Buddha?

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The following video briefly explains The Four Noble Truths:

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we continue our search for Buddhist wisdom through the Dalai Lama’s book The Four Noble Truths. The passages below will help guide the discussion at our next meetup (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can you embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you live the “good” life?

The third Noble Truth is the Truth of Cessation. The key questions we must ask ourselves on this are the following: What is nirvana? What is liberation? …
Since we can infer the truth of emptiness, we must also accept that liberation can be inferred through the reasoning process too. As Nagarjuna says, a true understanding of liberation should be based on an understanding of emptiness, because liberation is nothing other than the total elimination, or total cessation, of delusion and suffering through insight into emptiness. The concept of liberation is therefore very closely related to that of emptiness, and just as emptiness can be inferred, so can liberation. […]

— Dalai Lama, The Four Noble Truths (Ch. 4)

Join us: The Four Noble Truths

J.W. Bertolotti — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 12:37:27 GMT

The Great Buddha in Kamakura, Japan, by Erich Kips (Public domain)

Reading & the Good Life

Who was the Buddha?

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

—

If you’re new to Buddhist Wisdom or want to learn more, I encourage you to check out my conversation with the Buddhist teacher Kevin Griffin (author of Living Kindness), which touches on The Four Noble Truths.

The Thousand Buddha Hall by Shen Zhou (c. 1490)

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we begin a search for Buddhist wisdom through the Dalai Lama’s book The Four Noble Truths. The passages below will help guide the discussion at our next meetup (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the “good” life?

Whenever I introduce the Buddhist teachings, I make a point of presenting them in terms of two basic principles. The first of these is the interdependent nature of reality. All Buddhist philosophy rests on an understanding of this basic truth. The second principle is that of non-violence, which is the action taken by a Buddhist practitioner who has the view of the interdependent nature of reality. Non-violence essentially means that we should do our best to help others and, if this is not possible, should at the very least refrain from harming them. […]

— Dalai Lama, The Four Noble Truths

Join us: Epicurus & the Art of Happiness

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 14:34:17 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Epicurus?

Epicurus's (341–270 B.C.E.) philosophy was a complete and interdependent system that involved a view of the goal of human life (happiness resulting from the absence of physical pain and mental disturbance). Epicurus believed that, based on a radical materialism that dispensed with transcendent entities such as the Platonic Ideas or Forms, he could disprove the possibility of the soul’s survival after death. He regarded the unacknowledged fear of death and punishment as the primary cause of anxiety among human beings and anxiety, in turn, as the source of extreme and irrational desires. The elimination of the fears and corresponding desires would free people to pursue the pleasures, both physical and mental, to which they are naturally drawn and to enjoy the peace of mind consequent upon their regularly expected and achieved satisfaction. […]

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

How to Live (and Die) Like an Epicurean

This video provides a brief introduction to Epicureanism:

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we will conclude our reading of The Art of Happiness, a collection of writings by the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. At our next meetup, we'll discuss the passages below (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the “good” life?

No one should postpone the study of philosophy when he is young, nor should he be weary of it when he becomes mature because the search for mental health is never untimely or out of season. To say that the time to study philosophy has not yet arrived or is past is like saying that the time for happiness is not yet at hand or is no longer present. Thus, both the young and the mature should pursue philosophy, the latter in order to be rejuvenated as they age by the blessings that accrue from pleasurable past experiences, and the youthful in order to become mature immediately through having no fear of the future. Hence, we should make a practice of the things that make for happiness, for assuredly, when we have this we have everything, and we do everything we can to get it when we don’t have it. […]

— The Art of Happiness (Letter to Menoeceus)

Join us: Epicurus & the Art of Happiness (Pt. III)

J.W. Bertolotti — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:32:20 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Epicurus?

Epicurus was aware that deeply ingrained habits of thought are not easily corrected, and thus, he proposed various exercises to assist the novice. His system included advice on the proper attitude toward politics (avoid it where possible) and the gods (do not imagine they concern themselves about human beings and their behavior). Although the overall structure of Epicureanism was designed to hang together and to serve its principal ethical goals, there was room for a great deal of intriguing philosophical arguments concerning every aspect of the system, from the speed of atoms in a void to the origin of optical illusions. […]

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we will continue our exploration of Epicureanism by reading The Art of Happiness, a collection of writings by the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. At our meetup, we'll discuss the passages below (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the good life?

He [Epicurus] saw that men had on hand almost all that was needful for their living, that their lives were secured in so far as this was possible, that many flourished in conditions of wealth, preferment, and repute or were noted for the goodly name of their children. And yet privately their hearts were not the less troubled. By no will of their own they bedeviled themselves without ceasing, being compelled to vent their ugly moods in violent resentments. He then understood that it was the human vessel itself which created the evil and that everything gathered into it from without, even good things, was defiled by the vessel’s own imperfection. […]

— Lucretius, via The Art of Happiness (Introduction, Part VI)

Join us: Epicurus & the Art of Happiness (Pt. II)

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 19:20:43 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Epicurus?

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dear Readers,

(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the good life?

Both Epicurus and Lucretius held that the stock of our general ideas is derived from experience rather than from innate a priori concepts and that our judgments and beliefs are true or false insofar as they correspond or do not correspond to our sensations, feelings, and general conceptions. To attach the modern label “empiricist” to both these thinkers seems, then, wholly justifiable, although it has been called in question on technical grounds. …
For example, we read in the authoritative Letter to Herodotus that ‘we must keep all our judgments in line with our sensations (specifically our immediate perceptions, either of the mind or of any particular sense organ) and also in line with our actual feelings of pleasure and pain, in order to have the means with which to interpret a sense datum awaiting verification or a problem involving imperceptibles.’ Here only three of the tests are listed: sensations, direct perceptions of the mind, and the feelings. […]

— The Art of Happiness (Introduction, Part V)

Join us: Epicurus & the Art of Happiness

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 19:02:31 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Epicurus?

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dear Readers,

This Friday, we begin exploring Epicureanism through The Art of Happiness, a collection of writing by the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus.

At our meetup, we'll discuss the passages below (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the good life?

Epicurus’s notion of happiness has a decidedly Buddhist quality. Happiness is tranquility, and tranquility comes principally from putting aside worldly ‘hankerings’—ambitions for power, status, involvement in government, the pursuit of voluptuous sensory experiences, and the accumulation of material goods. Two of Epicurus’s most quoted maxims distill this idea: ‘Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance’ and, in its more admonitory form, ‘Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.’ […]

— Daniel Klein, The Art of Happiness (Foreword)

Join us: Best of Reading & the Good Life

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 14:02:40 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Dear Readers,

If you’ve ever wanted to attend a Reading & the Good Life meetup (Register here), this Friday’s “best of” session is a great place to start. We’ll chat casually about the previous year’s reading and revisit a few insightful passages. As a reminder, our next book (beginning next week) is The Art of Happiness, a collection of writings by the Greek philosopher Epicurus.

As you read this week’s passages, consider reflecting on these questions:

(1) How can I embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help me live the ‘good’ life?

1. The Wisdom of Polarities

At the very roots of Chinese thinking and feeling there lies the principle of polarity, which is not to be confused with ideas of opposition or conflict. In the metaphors of other cultures, light is at war with darkness, life with death, good with evil, and the positive with negative, and thus an idealism to cultivate the former and be rid of the latter flourishes throughout much of the world. […]

— Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way (Ch. 2)

—

2. The Art of Attention

Attention (prosoche) is the fundamental Stoic spiritual attitude. It is a continuous vigilance and presence of mind, self-consciousness that never sleeps, and a constant tension of the spirit. Thanks to this attitude, the philosopher is fully aware of what he does at each instant, and he wills his actions fully. Thanks for his spiritual vigilance, the Stoic always has “at hand” (procheiron) the fundamental rule of life: that is the distinction between what depends on us and what does not. […]

— Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (p. 84)

—

3. Nonreactive Living

Mindful awareness thus encompasses the entire project of human flourishing. To be mindful means to remember to let go of compulsive reactivity and realize a nonreactive way of life, while to be aware means to know how to refine the psychological, contemplative, philosophical, and ethical skills needed to achieve these goals. … Mindful awareness both embeds my attention in the raw immediacy of experience and serves as the moral compass that guides my response to that experience. […]

— Stephen Batchelor, The Art of Solitude (Ch. 12)

—

4. The Wisdom of Connection

Interdependence is not a sign of weakness or ineptitude, but a reminder that human beings are social beings, or as Cicero said: ‘The primary reason for the public coming together is not so much weakness as a sort of innate desire on the part of human beings to form communities.’ To embrace interdependence is to recognize that social cooperation is not a choice but a natural necessity, and politics is the art of pooling resources and working as a team in order to maximize the benefits of social cooperation, while finding a just and equitable distribution for its costs. […]

— Vittorio Bufacchi, Why Cicero Matters (Ch. 3)

—

5. The Paradox of Life

We began with a discussion of the shadow, and we may well ask the following question: What does paradox have to do with the shadow? It has everything to do with the shadow, for there can be no paradox—that sublime place of reconciliation—until one has owned one’s own shadow and drawn it up to a place of dignity and worth. … Take the roof off any human life, and one will find the paradoxes that are the preparation for a religious life, a vision of that which is greater than the personal. Conflict to paradox to revelation; that is the divine progression. […]

— Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow

—

Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.

Until next time, be wise and be well,

J.W.

P.S. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or suggest future reads!

Join us: Aristotle on the Pursuit of Happiness

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 16:39:54 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Aristotle?

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) is among the most significant philosophers ever. Judged solely in terms of his philosophical influence, only Plato is his peer: Aristotle’s works shaped centuries of philosophy from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance and, even today, continue to be studied with keen, non-antiquarian interest. A prodigious researcher and writer, Aristotle left a significant body of work, perhaps numbering as many as two hundred treatises, from which approximately thirty-one survive. His extant writings span a wide range of disciplines, from logic, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind through ethics, political theory, aesthetics, and rhetoric, and into such primarily non-philosophical fields as empirical biology, where he excelled at detailed plant and animal observation and description. In all these areas, Aristotle’s theories have provided illumination, met with resistance, sparked debate, and generally stimulated the sustained interest of an abiding readership. …

Aristotle’s philosophy defies easy encapsulation because of its wide range and its remoteness in time. The long history of interpretation and appropriation of Aristotelian texts and themes—spanning over two millennia and comprising philosophers working within various religious and secular traditions—has rendered even basic points of interpretation controversial. […]

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dear Readers,

This week, we continue searching for lessons on the good life from Mortimer Adler’s classic book Aristotle for Everybody. We’ll spend two more weeks discussing Aristotle before moving on to The Art of Happiness, a collection of writing by the Greek philosopher Epicurus.

We'll discuss the passages below at this Friday’s meetup (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the good life?

The word ‘ought’ expresses the notion of a duty or an obligation. We have a duty or an obligation to do what we ought to do. To say that we ought to pursue happiness as the ultimate goal of our life is to say that we have a duty or obligation to try to live well or to make a good life for ourselves.
To fulfill that duty or obligation, we need whatever is indispensable to making a good life for ourselves—we need the real goods that, taken all together, constitute or make up happiness or a good life. That is why we have a right to them.
If we did not have the obligation to try to live well and if we did not need certain things in order to do so, we would not have the right to them that Thomas Jefferson asserted all of us have. […]

— Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody (Ch. 12)

Join us: Aristotle on 'Living Well'

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 17:34:17 GMT

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Aristotle?

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dear Readers,

This week, we continue searching for lessons on the good life from Mortimer Adler’s classic book Aristotle for Everybody. We’ll spend three more weeks discussing Aristotle before moving on to The Art of Happiness, a collection of writing by the Greek philosopher Epicurus.

We'll discuss the passage below at this Friday’s meetup (Register here). As you read these passages, consider reflecting on these questions:

(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the good life?

Socrates, who was Plato’s teacher as Plato was Aristotle’s, said that an unexamined life is not worth living. Aristotle went further and said that an unplanned life is not worth examining, for an unplanned life is one in which we do not know what we are trying to do or why, and one in which we do not know where we are trying to get or how to get there. …
In addition to not being worth examining, an unplanned life is not worth living because it cannot be lived well. To plan one’s life is to be thoughtful about it, and that means thinking about ends to be pursued and the means for achieving them. Living thoughtlessly is like acting aimlessly. It gets you nowhere.
But Aristotle does not think it is enough to persuade you that you must have a plan for living in order to live well. […]

— Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody (Ch. 10)

Join us: Aristotle on Creating the Good Life

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 17:50:02 GMT

Hill Path by Alfred Sisley (1876)

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Aristotle?

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dear Readers,

This week, we continue searching for lessons on the good life from Mortimer Adler’s classic book Aristotle for Everybody. We’ll discuss the following passages at our Friday meetup (Register here). As you read these passages below, consider reflecting on these questions:

(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the good life?

Productive thinking involves having what we may be tempted to call creative ideas. Since no Greek equivalent of the word “creative” was in Aristotle’s vocabulary, we should resist that temptation, and speak instead of productive ideas. Productive ideas are based on some understanding of the forms that matter can take, supplemented by imaginative thinking about such details as sizes, shapes, and configurations. Without a productive idea in this full sense, the craftsman cannot transform raw materials into this individual thing—be it a chair, a bed, a house, or anything else that can be made out of materials provided by nature. […]

— Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody (Ch. 8)

Join us: Aristotle on Truth, Goodness, and Beauty

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 17:28:26 GMT

Diogenes Searching for an Honest Man by Jacob Jordaens (1642)

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Aristotle?

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Dear Readers,

This week, we continue searching for lessons on the good life from Mortimer Adler’s classic book Aristotle for Everybody. We’ll discuss three selected passages at our upcoming Friday meetup (Register here). As you read these passages below, consider reflecting on the following questions:

(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the good life?

In the first of these three dimensions, making, we have man the artist or artisan—the producer of all sorts of things: shoes, ships, and houses, books, music, and paintings. It is not just when human beings produce statues or paintings that we should call them artists. That is much too restricted a use of the word art. …
In the second of these dimensions, doing, we have man the moral and social being—someone who can do right or wrong, someone who, by what he or she does or does not do, either achieves happiness or fails to achieve it, someone who finds it necessary to associate with other human beings in order to do what, as a human being, he or she feels impelled to do.
In the third dimension, knowing, we have man as learner, acquiring knowledge of all sorts—not only about nature, not only about the society of which human beings are a part, not only about human nature, but also about knowledge itself. […]

— Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody (Ch. 3)

Aristotle for Everybody (Pt. I)

J.W. Bertolotti — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 20:45:26 GMT

Aristotle with Bust of Homer by Rembrandt (Public domain)

Reading & the Good Life

Who is Aristotle?

Source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Philosopher by Henri Martin (Public domain)

Dear Readers,

This month, we search for lessons on the good life in Mortimer Adler’s classic book Aristotle for Everybody. I’ll share a few selected passages to discuss each week at our Friday meetup (Register here). As you read the passages below, consider reflecting on these questions:

(1) How can you begin to embody these lessons in daily life?
(2) What might stand in the way of implementing these ideas?
(3) How can the following insights help you to live the good life?

Why Aristotle? Why for everybody? And why is an exposition of Aristotle for everybody an introduction to common sense?
I can answer these three questions better after I have answered one other. Why philosophy? Why should everyone learn how to think philosophically—how to ask the kind of searching questions that children and philosophers ask and that philosophers sometimes answer?
I have long been of the opinion that philosophy is everybody’s business—but not in order to get more information about the world, our society, and ourselves. For that purpose, it would be better to turn to the natural and the social sciences and to history. It is in another way that philosophy is useful—to help us to understand things we already know, understand them better than we now understand them. That is why I think everyone should learn how to think philosophically.
For that purpose, there is no better teacher than Aristotle. I do not hesitate to recommend him as the teacher to begin with. The only other teacher that I might have chosen is Plato, but in my judgment, he is second best. Plato raised almost all the questions that everyone should face; Aristotle raised them too and, in addition, gave us clearer answers to them. […]

— Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody

—

Human beings have learned a great deal since Aristotle’s day, mainly through the discoveries of modern science. Applied science has created a world and a way of life that is very different from his world and his way of life. …
But Aristotle had the same common experiences in his day that we have in ours. The kind of thinking he did about them enabled him to understand them better than most of us do. That and that alone is the reason he can help us to understand these common experiences better and help us to understand ourselves and our lives, as well as the world and the society in which we live, even though our way of life, our world, and our society are different from his.
Aristotle’s thinking began with common sense, but it did not end there. It went much further. It added to and surrounded common sense with insights and understandings that are not common at all. His understanding of things goes deeper than ours and sometimes soars higher. It is, in a word, uncommon common sense. […]

— Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody

—

Classifying was one of the skills in which Aristotle excelled. Another was his skill in asking questions. Philosophical thought began with the asking of questions—questions that can be answered on the basis of our ordinary, everyday experience and with some reflection about that experience that results in a sharpening and refinement of our common sense. …
Each distinct kind of thing, Aristotle thought, has a nature that distinguishes it from all the others. What differentiates one class of things from everything else defines the nature possessed by every individual thing that belongs to that class. When we speak of human nature, for example, we are simply saying that all human beings have certain characteristics and that these characteristics differentiate them from other animals, plants, and inanimate things. …
But the special kind of thinking that gives rise to asking and answering philosophical questions distinguishes humans from other animals. No other animal plays philosophical games. […]

— Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody (Ch. 1)

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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.

Until next time, be wise and be well,

J.W.

P.S. As always, feel free to comment, ask questions, or suggest future reads!