Epicurus on Happiness -- for March 3/5
The topic for this week will be De Botton's summary of the views of Epicurus, pages 43 to 73 in Consolations. There is one other assignment. View the lecture by Nobel laureate David Kahneman at this address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7cECaUAnTQ .
On the Epicurus, know what he means by thought, freedom, and friendship, and know how he determines whether a good is something that we truly need to be happy. On the Kahneman, be able to summarize his experiments and their results. Make a list of the facts about happiness, especially the surprising facts, that Kahneman claims fall out of his research work.
We will spend the first part of Tuesday wrapping up the Thoreau section. Review the second chapter of Walden.