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Part 6: Optimism—Is Happiness Attainable?

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Abstract

When we congratulate family, friends, colleagues or acquaintances, we may wish them luck, good health or express our love and gratitude; for those with a more material outlook, perhaps success in a new business venture or job. And all these aspirations can be summed up in one goal: happiness, because Aristotle was right: “happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics (trans. B. Inwood and R. Wood) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), beginning.

  2. 2.

    J. Sellars, Epicurus and the Art of Happiness (New York: Penguin, 2022) p.15.

  3. 3.

    Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (London: Penguin, 2006); p. 35.

  4. 4.

    https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/transl/schiller_poem/ode_to_joy.pdf.

  5. 5.

    A. Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (ed. K. Haakonssen) (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 59.

  6. 6.

    Deconstructing Harry (Hollywood Pictures, 2007).

  7. 7.

    J. Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

  8. 8.

    U. Eco, The Name of the Rose (New York: Vintage, 1992).

  9. 9.

    Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics (London: Penguin, 2004).

  10. 10.

    Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics (trans. B. Inwood and R. Wood) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

  11. 11.

    J. Pfeffer, “The Narcissistic World of the MBA Student,” Financial Times, November 7, 2010.

  12. 12.

    S. Iñiguez, In an Ideal Business (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), Chapter 6.

  13. 13.

    C. Wilson, “Leibnizian Optimism”, 80 Journal of Philosophy 11 (November 1983), pp. 765–83.

  14. 14.

    Voltaire, Candide: Or Optimism (London: Penguin, 2009).

  15. 15.

    Ibid., p. 149.

  16. 16.

    D. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), p. 255.

  17. 17.

    J.H. Carter, Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like: The Life and Writings of Will Rogers (New York: William Morrow, 1991).

  18. 18.

    Plato, Apology, 21d, in The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro; Apology; Crito; Phaedo (ed. H. Tarrant) (London: Penguin, 2003).

  19. 19.

    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43281/the-lake-isle-of-innisfree.

  20. 20.

    K. Clark: Landscape into Art (London: Penguin, 1961), pp. 15–16.

  21. 21.

    B. Kara: “Landscape Design and Cognitive Psychology Procedia: World Conference on Psychology and Sociology 2012,” Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 82 (2013), pp. 288–291.

  22. 22.

    M.D. Velarde, G. Fry, G. and M. Tveit, “Health Effects of Viewing Landscapes: Landscape Types in Environmental Psychology.” 6 Urban Forestry and Urban Greening (2007) 199–212.

  23. 23.

    J.J. Rousseau, Reveries of a Solitary Walker (London: Penguin, 1980).

  24. 24.

    Ibid., p. 91.

  25. 25.

    Ibidem.

  26. 26.

    C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: Harper Collins, 2015).

  27. 27.

    Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Paramount Pictures, 1991), based on T. Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (New York: Vintage, 2012).

  28. 28.

    J.J. Rousseau, op. cit., p. 109.

  29. 29.

    https://qz.com/1468694/broadways-first-traffic-jam-was-due-to-a-henri-bergson-philosophy-lecture/.

  30. 30.

    I refer to the Spanish version: H. Bergson, La Risa (trans. R. Blanco) (Buenos Aires: EGodot, 2015).Kindle.

  31. 31.

    Aristotle, Politics; Book VIII, Part V.

  32. 32.

    Quoted in H. Bergson, op. cit., loc. 769.

  33. 33.

    S. Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to The Unconscious (ed. J. Strachey) (New York: WW Norton, 1990).

  34. 34.

    S. Freud, El chiste y su relación con el subconsciente (Buenos Aires: Greenbooks Editore, 2020), Kindle ed., loc 98.

  35. 35.

    M.M. Hurley, D.C. Dennet, R.B. Adams, Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind (Boston: MIT Press, 2013), p. 13.

  36. 36.

    D. Solomon, “The Funny Formula”, The New York Times, November 12, 2006.

  37. 37.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2269245/.

  38. 38.

    H. Bergson, op. cit., loc. 146.

  39. 39.

    A Night at the Opera (Metro Goldwyn Mayer, 1935); and Bringing Up Baby (RKO, 1938).

  40. 40.

    A. Smith, op. cit., Kindle loc. 522.

  41. 41.

    S. Freud., op. cit., loc. 352.

  42. 42.

    W. Shakespeare, Four Tragedies (ed. T.J.B. Spencer) (London: Penguin 1995); Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2.

  43. 43.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12902310/.

  44. 44.

    Janet M. Gibson, An Introduction of the Psychology of Humor (New York: Routledge, 2019).

  45. 45.

    H.M. Robert, D. Honeman, T.J. Balch, D.E. Seabold and S. Gerber, Robert’s Rules of Order, 12th ed. (New York: Public affairs, 2020).

  46. 46.

    A. Beard, “Leading with Humor”, Harvard Business Review, May 2014. https://hbr.org/2014/05/leading-with-humor.

  47. 47.

    Ibidem.

  48. 48.

    Ibidem.

  49. 49.

    https://dalecarnegieboston.tumblr.com/post/20350676146/dont-criticize-condemn-or-complain.

  50. 50.

    Collins, J., “The Stockdale Paradox”. JimCollins.com. Retrieved on 2008-07-02 from http://www.jimcollins.com/lab/brutalFacts/.

  51. 51.

    www.davidhume.org/texts/etv1.html.

  52. 52.

    https://monologues.co.uk/musichall/Songs-L/Little-Of-What-You-Fancy.htm.

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Correspondence to Santiago Iñiguez .

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Iñiguez, S. (2023). Part 6: Optimism—Is Happiness Attainable?. In: Philosophy Inc.. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20483-8_6

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