THIS COURSE HAS CONCLUDED. THE FOLLOWING LESSONS ARE PRE-RECORDED VIDEOS FROM THE FALL OF 2020.
PLEASE NOTE: This course was taught by Dr. Deal Hudson who no longer teaches for AMI.
Five Lectures on the History of Happiness (Wyoming Catholic College 2004):
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESxZTrDNjks
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-C5mPxi-ek
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ThcbPut8iM
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFF-y7Klj7w
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FqNWZsEvHQ
Students will be responsible for finding the texts being discussed, though links will be posted to most of the readings.
Week One: Aristotle’s Ethics, Book I, Chapters 1-13 http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.html
Week Two: St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 10 https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110110.htm
Week Three: St. Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Happiness
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part of the Second Part, Articles 1-5, “Man’s Last End’ https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2.htm
Week Four: Dante, Paradiso, The Divine Comedy
Read at least Cantos 25-33 (XXV to XXXIII) of the Paradiso, but try to read all of it. https://oll.libertyfund.org/
Week Five: The Revolution of Renaissance Happiness
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Ch. 13, “The natural condition of mankind as concerning their happiness and misery.” http://www.earlymoderntexts.
Week Six: Jefferson The Declaration of Independence
Read the Declaration: https://www.archives.gov/
Read John Locke, Essay on Human Understanding, Book II, ‘On Power,’ Chapter XXI, 49-75 https://www.gutenberg.org/
Week Seven: Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
Read Parts 1 to 5 (I to V) of Civilization and Its Discontents and as much of the remainder you can. https://www.stephenhicks.org/
Week Eight: Psychological Happiness and Narcissism
Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (1930), Chapter 7, ‘the sense of sin;’ Chapter 10, ‘Is happiness still possible;’ Chapter 11, “Zest.”https://russell-j.com/