More Epicurean (etc.) happiness

LISTEN. Following up on our first Happiness class discussion of Epicureans, Stoics, Skeptics, & Cynics Tuesday, here's an old post on Jennifer Michael Hecht's discussion of graceful-life philosophies...

Hecht @home

Jennifer Hecht contributes a weekly post to “The Best American Poetry” blog, ranging over all kinds of topics including happiness and atheism. Take a look.

She noted recently, at the passing of People’s Historian Howard Zinn (who inspired both impassioned admiration and criticism), that he blurbed Doubt.

And check out her musings on “poetic atheism“: How strange to find our little thinking and blinking faces amid a universe that is for the most part not alive at all. Believers say,  “If this weirdness is true, why not believe angels,” but adding nonsense is not helpful.

Hecht is one of the breed of kinder, gentler atheists, like Rebecca Goldstein (of whom a reviewer writes: “Whether or not God exists, in moments of transcendent happiness we all feel a love beyond ourselves, beyond anything. [She] doesn’t want to shake your faith or confirm it”).

Neither shaking nor confirming? Sounds agnostic, though it may simply be “doubtful” and pluralistic. In any case, she has a rich and largely-neglected story to tell. The New Atheists stand on the shoulders of giants. Atheism is not new.

About those Greeks…

Hecht really sheds fresh light, in Doubt: a history, on the naturalizing impulse of the pre-Socratic and Hellenic thinkers. For instance, Democritus (the beautiful regularity of the universe was neither created nor maintained by the guiding intelligence of a god), the Cynics (Diogenes‘ advice is that we stop distracting ourselves with accomplishments, accept the meaninglessness of the universe, lie down on a park bench and get some sun while we have the chance)and Stoics (feeling a part of the community of the universe) and Epicureans (there are no ghostly grownups watching our lives and waiting to punish us… we might as well make an art of appreciating pleasure… in this beautiful moment one is alive) and Skeptics (I do not lay it down that honey is sweet but I admit that it appears to be so), with fresh slants on Socrates (among those great minds who actually cultivated doubt in the name of truth) and Plato (whose form of the Good has been illicitly conflated with God for two millennia).

What I like most in her section on Greek doubt (or as I prefer, Greek spirit): the forest metaphor, which offers the most timeless but (in an age of restless spiritual “cherry [*berry?]-picking”) also timely wisdom: The experience of doubt in a heterogeneous, cosmopolitan world is a bit like being lost in a forest… we could stop being lost if we were to just stop trying to get out of the forest. Instead, we could pick some *blueberries, sit beneath a  tree, and start describing how the sun-dappled forest floor shimmers in the breeze. The initial horror of being lost utterly disappears when you come to believe fully that there is no town out there, beyond the forest… Hang a sign that says HOME on a tree and you’re done; just try to have a good time.

As Epicurus realized, it is accepting the finality of death that makes it possible to enjoy the pleasures of the garden. This is a very different garden than the one we got kicked out of in the Eden story. This time you have to eat from the tree of knowledge to get in.

That’s James and Sagan redux: at home in the universe, at ease with the human condition.

==
And, another old post that may be worth pondering today...

Back to Pyrrho and Epicurus... but first a quick follow-up on Plato and Aristotle. Check out this version of School of Athens.

As for Aristotle’s eudaimonia, in some ways it anticipated Epicurus’s garden and what Jennifer Michael Hecht calls “graceful-life philosophies” that proclaim in all simplicity: “we don’t need answers and don’t need much stuff, we just need to figure out the best way to live.” Then, and only then, will we be happy.

As for Pyrrho: If you’d asked him Who rules the Universe?, he might have replied: Lord knows. Cats, again. And pigs.

 

Reminding us of Pyrrho’s famous pig, who impressed Montaigne by riding out a storm at sea with much greater equanimity (and, crucially, much less comprehension) than his human shipmates, and of J.S. Mill’s declaration that it’s “better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied,” Hecht comments: “This whole pig-versus-philosopher debate is pretty hilarious, yes?”

Yes. But I agree with Spinoza and Hecht. “The happiness of a drunkard is not the happiness of the wise,” though of course there are happy occasions when it has its place too. Bottom line: “Knowledge and wisdom are worth it,” it can be everything to have found true love and meaningful work, and both– all-- can end in a flash, without warning. Stay on your toes, but don’t fret too much about the storm.

One more little animal image for Pyrrho, whose name I prefer to pronounce compatibly with this mnemonic trick: just remember that a pyrrhonic skeptic is like a piranha fish, toothily devouring every proposed candidate for belief. Cats and pigs too, probably.

And as for Epicurus, Jennifer Hecht‘s got his number. It’s listed.

For an Epicurean, somewhere there are beings that are truly at peace, are happy… The mere idea of this gentle bliss is, itself, a kind of uplifting dream. After all, we human beings know a strange thing: happiness responds to circumstances, but, basically, it is internal. We can experience it when it happens to come upon us; we can induce it with practices or drugs; but we cannot just be happy.

No, we must work to “solve the schism” between how we feel and how we want to feel. Happiness is a choice and a lifetime endeavor, and though it comes easier for some than for others there are tips and tricks we can use to trip our internal happy meters and achieve ataraxia, peace of mind, simple contentment, “tranquillity, or the freedom from disturbance and pain that characterizes a balanced mind and constitutes its first step toward the achievement of pleasure.”

Stop fearing the harmless and remote gods, Epicurus said. Stop fearing your own death, it’s not (as Wittgenstein would echo, millennia later) an event you’ll ever experience. “Life is full of sweetness. We might as well enjoy it.”

*Sissela Bok calls Epicurus a hedonist, but that's only technically correct. Yes, he said pleasure's at the heart of happiness. But what kind of pleasure?

A happy life is tranquil, simple, loving, and above all free from pain, fear, and suffering, available to all regardless of social status, nationality, or gender. Such a life of pleasure, Epicurus held, would of necessity have to be a virtuous one; ...

That’s Alain de Botton, author of a text I used to use in this course, and controversial proponent of religion for atheists. (Don’t confuse him with Boethius.) His interview with Krista Tippett was instructive. Like Jennifer Hecht, he wants us to use philosophy to enhance our bliss and sweeten our dreams.

Pyrrhonian deep skepticism and moral/cultural relativism share a common root. Simon Blackburn voices the right reply to those who say we can function without beliefs, or without discriminating between better and worse beliefs, when he points out that this is simply impractical and socially dysfunctional. Not only might you get run over by a racing chariot or step off a cliff, you also scatter seeds of discord within your community and perhaps even your family.

So I too “would defend the practical importance of thinking about ethics on pragmatic grounds.” To pretend  with “Rosy the Relativist” that we can all simply have and act on our own truths, our own facts, without confronting and negotiating our differences and critically evaluating our respective statements of (dis)belief, really is “farcical.” Lord knows.

I’ve been thinking some more, btw, about a student’s question whether Oprah is a philosopher. I’d say she has philosophical moments, sometimes asks the hard questions, and is indeed seeking to have and share a “graceful” (if opulent) life. So, sure. Same for the poets (like Whitman) who let us off the hook for contradicting ourselves (“I contain multitudes.”) I don’t think the Philosophy Club should be exclusive or restrictive. Many of my colleagues would disagree, amongst themselves, at their annual association meetings and in their ivory towers. They’ll never give me a car, either.

Anyway: we won’t suffer a meaning deficit, though, if we live simply and naturally in the company of friends who’ll help us conquer our fears and address our many questions about life, the universe, and everything. That’s the Epicurean way, when we decide nature’s already provided enough for our peace of mind and our contentment. That’s ataraxia.

So finally there are these dots, connecting Epicurus and Pyrrho:

Epicurus, though no friend to skepticism, admired Pyrrho because he recommended and practiced the kind of self-control that fostered tranquillity; this, for Epicurus, was the end of all physical and moral science. Pyrrho was so highly valued by his countrymen that they honored him with the office of chief priest and, out of respect for him, passed a decree by which all philosophers were made immune from taxation.

Tranquility and a free ride: now that would make me happy. A free ride to the APA, not so much.
==
More oldies on this theme: Happily home... Safe at home... The triumph of experience... "Brave thinking about truth is the secret to happiness"

Opening Day part 2

Get to meet another section of CoPhi today, followed by Happiness. LISTEN

In Philosophy of Happiness we'll commence our inquiry into the ancient "Graceful-life" philosophies, especially my favorite: Epicureanism.

But we'll also consider Stoicism, Cynicism, and Skepticism.

As Jennifer Michael Hecht says in The Happiness Myth,

Ancient ideas of knowing yourself were about coming to be a better person. The process was psychological, but more in the realm of conditioning one's mind than in finding out why the mind does what it does. Marcus Aurelius said, "Cast away opinion and you are saved. Who then hinders you from casting it away?" Can we really control our emotions by decision? The best of the ancient writers, including Aurelius, acknowledged that we could not do it, and with a smile and a shrug provided exercises for teaching ourselves to improve what self-control we have. That's what religion and graceful-life philosophies are doing with their rituals and their meditations: teaching us to wake up to ourselves, for the sake of happiness. Not all philosophy overtly calls for ritual meditation. For instance, epistemology, the study of how we know things, and eschatology, the study of how things end, involve conceptual investigation. But some philosophies, throughout history, have been about how we should live. Much life advice comes as part of a particular religion or politics. To indicate a philosophy primarily concerned with advice for living, I use the term "graceful-life philosophy." The important ancient ones were Epicureanism, Stoicism, Cynicism, and Skepticism, and the term is also useful for referring to the work of the Renaissance thinker Montaigne, and of any modern thinker who offers secular, philosophical arguments for how individuals should best live their lives. . . LISTEN

My own view is that  happiness is best pursued somewhere on the road between the stoics and epicureans, with an edge going to the latter. "The Stoics cared about virtuous behavior and living according to nature, while the Epicureans were all about avoiding pain and seeking natural and necessary pleasure." (Daily Stoic)

They were both right. But I think Epicureans have more fun, and are less likely to disengage from life's more pitted challenges-like the battle against mortality. Of course that's one we'll all lose in the end, but who knows when that will be? The brevity of life is no matter of indifference to me.

Epicureanism: the original party school

Existential Comics

Also, we know Thomas Jefferson was no Saint. But he was an Epicurean... and sort of a Stoic too. He pursued happiness and (says Maira Kalman) everything.

"Before he attained domestic happiness he had probably worked out his enduring philosophy of life; it was marked by cheerfulness not gloom, and he afterwards described it as Epicurean, though he hastened to say that the term was much misunderstood. He came to believe that happiness was the end of life, but, as has been said, he was engaged by the "peculiar conjunction of duty with happiness"; and his working philosophy was a sort of blend of Epicureanism and Stoicism, in which the goal of happiness was attained by self-discipline." Dumas Malone, Jefferson the Virginian

And as for cynics and skeptics:

Most philosophers are moderate (not extreme) skeptics: their default mindset is to doubt and question what "everybody knows," so that truth, facts, and reality may emerge. George Santayana said skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and you should guard it. But don't get stuck in doubt, like this guy (who very much resembles my dog Pita) on my desk at home. (Did you know, btw, that "cynic" means doglike?)



Also, don't get stuck in epicurean hedonism, stoic resignation (Stoic Pragmatists understand this), or cynical impropriety. You'll be happy not to live in a barrel or under a cloud.

Opening Day Fall 2019

Deja vu, all over again (but did you really say that, Yogi Berra? "I didn't say most of the things I said."): It's Opening Day! I get to introduce myself (and my dogs) to a batch of new students, and they get to reciprocate.

 [LISTEN... 2016...2013-"You don't have to follow me"... What college is for... Success at school vs. success in life]

And who said history doesn't repeat, but it definitely rhymes? Mark Twain? (When in doubt, attribute random witticisms to him.)

Whoever said whatever, history definitely does rhyme, and it echoes, on the first day of each new semester. I love Opening Day, when we're all still working with a clean slate and nobody's in the proverbial cellar. Yet.

I've been on an Alan Watts kick lately, for reasons somewhat obscure to myself. He said "you have no source," we're all source material, we're "IT"... but that doesn't mean we don't each have a series of starts. Ready, set, Goo (as in "Prickles & Goo")... [Alan Watts in "Her"... MALA report]

On an episode of Madam Secretary last season, Blake told his friend (who got booted from his government job because his girlfriend was apparently spying on the State Department) he ought to go into teaching. "You're just saying that because I like to rant." Well, that's one reason to do this job. I confess to the occasional rant, though I prefer to call it a spontaneous and impassioned moment of inspired righteous eloquence. You'll be the judges, at evaluation time.

Another and better reason to teach is because that's the best possible way to learn. My students have always taught me more than I taught them, as much when in error as not. The entire process of preparing to teach, class after class, is an education in itself.

So, Fall '19 co-philosophers, welcome! I look forward to learning from you. I'll try to hold the rants in check, and we'll hit the ground more softly than that benighted whale in Douglas Adams' odd guide to life, the universe, and everything. You didn't come here for an argument [yes they did/no they didn't], but you'll get that and more. ("You see," Alan says, "I'm a philosopher, and if you don't argue with me I don't know what I think. So if we argue, I say 'Thank you,' because owing to the courtesy of your taking a different point of view, I understand what I mean.")

And maybe we'll get just a little wiser.

If we don't get stuck.

Big and bold

Continued moving Younger Daughter into her new digs yesterday, countless more schleps up steps, on an August afternoon that could have been worse. A nice breeze filled the breezeway, and I reminded myself that I'm lucky to have the opportunity to help. We're all lucky to have any opportunities at all, after all. We are the lucky ones, we must remember. After helping Older Daughter move to California three months ago, our luck this summer runneth over.

[LISTEN]

Besides schlepping, my job was to procure the right electronic cables to plug her into the virtual world. Ethernet, but one end had to be USB, and blah blah... it was a challenge. And the router was wrong, apparently. I'd rather just haul boxes up stairs, thank you. But she can get the right hardware. Do we have the right mental software to handle the silence of the again-emptied nest?

Next up, convocation. But I get to sit in the gallery this time, as a parent and not a faculty host. Interesting shift of perspective, as at new student orientation in June. Like standing on Mr. Keating's desk, seeing things from a different angle. A good thing to do, when you can.

 The speaker is Tara Westover,  who wrote her own harrowing and inspiring tale of surviving a wacko fundamentalist childhood and gaining a great education. If she could do it, why can't everyone? That's part of the message our First Years are supposed to have gleaned from the summer read. How'd she do it? Well, she read a lot. Eventually. That's another message: it's not too late to form studious habits, kids. Step away from the Ethernet. Discover some of the big bold ideas you came here for.

President McPhee concluded his State of the University address Thursday with a promise to "aggressively endeavor to pursue three big bold ideas," though the details were a little vague and the ideas a little less bold than Tara Westover will talk about.

	Sidney A. McPhee (@PresidentMcPhee)
8/23/19, 7:26 PM Outlined several bold ideas ⁦‪@MTSU‬⁩ will pursue in the coming academic year, including working with ⁦‪@cityofmborotn‬⁩ & ⁦‪@smcfarlandmboro‬⁩ to develop ideas to make both ends of our wonderful Middle Tennessee Blvd more vibrant! #TRUEBLUE mtsunews.com/fall-faculty-s…

Big Bold Idea #1:  to "leverage the future potential that the enhancements to Middle Tennessee Boulevard bring..." Those enhancements to the thoroughfare that runs past our building, the James Union Building, took years. I'm not sure quite what kind of potential he means, right now we're just grateful for the reduction in noise and inconvenience.

We'll be getting that back in spades, if we do boldly go on "to create a campus district to bolster student experience and tourism by transforming the area surrounding our campus into a vital and active educational, cultural, and commercial district."

Big Bold Idea #2:  to "build a business partnership hub closer to Nashville... and further respond to business and industry demands for employee education." Responding to "business and industry demands" is not what we educators, at least not those in the Liberal Arts, signed on for. We're here to educate and reflect upon and sometimes derail the demands of the society we serve, not surrender to them.

Big Bold Idea #3:  to "establish a tradition of immersive learning by incorporating a high-impact learning experience into each major." High-impact, huh? Just listen to Tara Westover. We already belong to that tradition, as custodians and practitioners of higher learning. There's no higher impact than the inner transformation that comes from immersing yourself in the best that's been thought, said, and done.

"We must continue to create innovative academic programs to anticipate the jobs of tomorrow and to prepare our students with the knowledge and skills to fulfill them and become productive citizens." Becoming a productive citizen, if productive doesn't just mean compliant and consumptive, is more than filling a job slot and being a cog in the industrial machine. I'd like to hear more from my president about the true meaning of education, the point of college.

 Then, the "True Blue spirit of passion and commitment" can be truly and meaningfully big and bold.

Meanwhile, I can report that the Steel Barrel Raider IPA they served up to faculty and staff at the stadium Beer Garden Thursday afternoon was plenty big and bold. Cheers!

Begin again

Emerson wasn't talking about summer's end and the new school year's beginning, was he, when he said power ceases in repose and resides in transition? Coulda been.

Yesterday was another college move-in day, schlepping stuff up three flights in oppressive heat, this time off-campus but much closer to home as Younger Daughter transfers to my school this year. The annual anticipation of a clean slate, a fresh start, and a roster of unblemished courses never gets old. The promise of a new year is almost intoxicating, no less so for being vicarious. I have my own new year coming too, of course, as a professor. But the student's-eye-view is more expectantly thrilling, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to experience it again at immediate second-hand. (But do you really need such a big mirror, TV, etc.?)

It's kinda all down-hill from here, though a bit less steeply than usual. Tomorrow morning is the annual Fall Faculty meeting, when my colleagues and I are enjoined to pack Tucker Auditorium - the space normally reserved for dramatic entertainments of a higher order - and receive our university president's benediction for the new academic season. He'll crow about our inclusion in this year's Princeton Review. "One student says, 'You can literally major in fermentation and learn about the process of brewing beer.'" Literally. "Overall, students agree: 'This school is amazing, and it is such a hidden gem.'” Well alright us! 

Free lunch in the Student Union after the president dismisses us is always a good thing. Then a department staff meeting, which is apparently a necessary thing. Then, the new stadium beer garden will be inaugurated with a reception for faculty and staff. That's an event with potential.

Friday, a bit more schlepping is scheduled. Saturday is convocation, which I'm excited about this year because the speaker will be Educated author Tara Westover. Her story, from Idaho to Cambridge, is astonishing. It should inspire our students. It inspires me.

Monday is Opening Day. Hope springs eternal. Transition is power.

Mill's marketplace

The marketplace of ideas metaphor has been around for some time, notably in John Stuart Mill's 1859 On Liberty but not only there, as MTSU's helpful online First Amendment Encyclopedia reminds.

Mill: 

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. The rational position for him would be suspension of judgment, and unless he contents himself with that, he is either[Pg 68] led by authority, or adopts, like the generality of the world, the side to which he feels most inclination.

We don't see a lot of rational "suspension of judgment" lately, or even acknowledgement that there might be something negligent or amiss in allowing oneself to be "led by authority" or in surrendering to untutored inclination. We don't really have a thriving marketplace of ideas. It's more a marketplace of partisan malevolence, misrepresentation, misinformation, and misogyny. Was it ever thus? Was there a time when Mill's marketplace was vital, vibrant, and instructive? A time when collaboration, not vicious confrontation, was the marketplace norm?

Good questions for historians. For the rest of us, a better question is: what can we do to improve public discourse now and tomorrow? And for those of us in my corner of the university, we must ask what we can do to realize that "genuine philosophic universe" of healthy plurality and mutually-satisfying instigation that William James found so alluring in the Harvard philosophy program of his day. If we can learn to model even a modest version of that, the market may one day prosper us after all.

On the wall, up the institution

Josiah Royce is not a household name.

His name recognition was once quite high, comparatively speaking, for an academic philosopher. That was a century ago. Lately, your average working philosopher in America toils in utter obscurity. The initial response to David Brooks's January shout-out for Royce suggests he/she likes it that way. "Josiah Royce deserves better readers than David Brooks," tweeted one scholar. Another called him out for interpreting Royce as saying scholars should "submit themselves to their institution, say to a university. They discover how good it is by serving it..."

Admittedly that last statement could use some trimming and qualifying. But committing (not "submitting," please)  to a university institution may just be, will-to-believe fashion, the best strategy for improving it.

Sometimes you first have to profess the loyalty you want to feel, if you want to really feel it. That's why it's not entirely cynical or ironical of my colleagues and me to proclaim ourselves true blue.  Saying it's easier than feeling it (not that we'd ever actually say it out loud, in public) but you've gotta start somewhere.



 In a 1900 letter to his Harvard colleague G.H. Palmer, William James extolled "the genuine philosophic universe" of his institution's department of philosophy, naming all the views of all his colleagues with whom he disagreed profoundly on points of philosophical commitment: Santayana's "pessimistic platonism," Royce's "voluntaristic-pluralistic monism," Palmer's "ethereal idealism," etc., alongside his own favored "crass pluralism." But they shared an institutional commitment, and their plurality continues to shine as the Platonic ideal of academic pluralism, diversity, openness, and civility across difference.

James and Royce famously sat on that wall in Chocorua in 1903, as James "damned" his friend's venerated Absolute. But his true colors were on display in another letter of 1900. To Royce he wrote, from across the ocean:

When I write, 'tis with one eye on the page, and one on you. When I compose my Gifford lectures mentally, 'tis with the design exclusively of overthrowing your system, and ruining your peace. I lead a parasitic life upon you, for my highest flight of ambitious ideality is to become your conqueror, and go down into history as such, you and I rolled in one another's arms and silent (or rather loquacious still) in one last death-grapple of an embrace... Different as our minds are, yours has nourished mine, as no other social influence ever has, and in converse with you I have always felt that my life was being lived importantly. Our minds, too, are not different in the Object which they envisage. It is the whole paradoxical physico-moral-spiritual Fatness, of which most people single out some skinny fragment, which we both cover with our eye. We "aim at him generally"—and most others don't. I don't believe that we shall dwell apart forever, though our formulas may.

That's marvelous! We don't engage our intellectual adversaries with such bonhomie anymore, and such respect. Or such frank (though Victorian) love, it's not too much to say. I can't emulate it myself, and I don't know anyone who can with any credibility. Alas.

But on the eve of another academic season at my university (Fall Faculty Meeting and department staff meeting Thursday, convocation Saturday, classes beginning Monday) I can perhaps muster just a bit more institutional commitment - and a bit more enthusiasm for the increasingly sluggish marketplace of ideas.

We're #385!

Postscript. If I'm being honest, the thing I'm most enthusiastic about at the moment is...