Philosophy and Happiness

Part of me wishes I could be a philosopher as a career. There’s a few things that hold me back. One, it’s really impractical; it’s really difficult to get an academic position to do that. Two, and probably more important, I’m not deep enough. I have the ability to digest philosophy. I doubt my ability to synthesize it.

Most importantly though, I don’t like what modern philosophy is about. Here’s what that book I read says about the subject of modern philosophy:

In the time of Plato and Aristotle, it was generally accepted that one of the goals of philosophy was to help us understand how we should live our lives. But over subsequent centuries, traditional philosophy focussed more on metaphysical and epistemological questions – “What is the universe?,” and “What can we really know about it?” Obviously many writers did comment on ethical or moral issues, but what was generally known as philosophy came to be more centred on questions of rationality, meaning or certainty than on the search for a good life, or on simple advice on how to conduct oneself in daily life.

To its credit, the book does contain discussion of some non-traditionally philosophical books. But it raises the larger question – why doesn’t philosophy concern itself with these things?

Philosophy should deal with the most important issues of life. And to me, the most important issue is how people can be happy. Whether they consciously intend to or not, that’s what every single person alive does – tries to be happy. Shouldn’t that be an important topic in philosophy? Instead, it’s looked down upon as self-help or pop-psychology. I was browsing through the Stanford Continuing Education catalog and was excited to see a course basically on theories of happiness. I was disappointed to see it was taught by I think a clinical psychologist. I dunno, I’m more interested in the philosophy of happiness than the psychology of it. But philosophy doesn’t care about it.

The chief motivation of all men is to maximize their happiness. It seems to me therefore that happiness is worthy of study from our most respected thinkers. But for some reason, it’s looked down upon. And that’s one reason I can’t really pursue philosophy. Any field that willingly shuts itself off to something so important is fundamentally screwed up.