Idea Of Happiness Research Articles

GOETHE AND EVIL: “FAUST, PART ONE”

9 1 R G O E T H E A N D E V I L ‘ ‘ F A U S T , P A R T O N E ’ ’ M A R T I N G R E E N B E R G In the latter part of the eighteenth century, Feeling broke the long silence imposed on her by Reason and wept and wept. Thomas Gray described the sensitive poet of the time in his ‘‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’’ as ‘‘Now drooping woeful-wan, like one forlorn , / Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.’’ Melancholia swept like a contagion through Europe, and Goethe was not immune. He too knew what it was to be ‘‘like one forlorn.’’ As the Englishman composed his ‘‘Elegy,’’ so Goethe wrote his Sorrows of Young Werther, Sentimentalism’s emblematic text. Its European success made its author, aged twenty-five, famous. Young Werther was a purgation for the unhappy, desperate-feeling young writer. For the generally unhappy youth of the period – middle-class youth – contrariwise, it was an incitement to hotter tears and nearer thoughts of death. Sentimentalism was a form of middle-class selfconsciousness , self-recognition, and self-expression. It was also a fashion. At bottom Goethe was lively natured and liked to enjoy himself. He believed in happiness, his own and others’, and said so often in his poetry. ‘‘Admonition’’ (‘‘Erinerrung’’) is one such poem (not the best!), written not long after Young Werther. 9 2 G R E E N B E R G Y Always wanting to press farther – Happiness, look, lies so near. Only learn to reach out for her You will find she’s there, right there. The older Goethe became, the more acquainted he became with the night. The expression of his darker knowledge is notably calm and reflective. Who never ate tear-stained his bread, Who never spent the nights’ desolate hours Huddled weeping on his bed, He knows you not, you superior powers You usher us all into life, You let the poor fool sink in guilt, Then visit on him pain and grief, For all guilt pays on earth its debt. The poem laments the pains of life, yet quietly. More and more Goethe radiated an untroubled serenity. Serenity, however, isn’t happiness, which has always been a di≈cult, complex notion: ever present as a personal interrogation, argued over by philosophers since there have been philosophers, in common use shallow, in commercial use debased, ignored disdainfully by some. Involved in any idea of happiness is surely love. Goethe was happy in his love-making youth. He acquired in time a worldwide fame that gave him much contentment. But contentment isn’t happiness. In his old age Goethe continued to reach out for happiness, and to find it – by falling in love, profoundly in love, with young women, girls really. His last years knew bliss. The older Goethe came to loathe the upcoming generation of German poets for being the way he himself had been in the unhappy time of his youth: submerged in their own feelings, wandering about in the mists of subjectivity. They were ‘‘sickly,’’ feeble, dispirited creatures. He had a special animus against the ‘‘pathological ’’ Heinrich von Kleist, Germany’s (the nineteenth century ’s) greatest (poetic) dramatist and a vivid novella-ist as well, as I believe. What a relief it was, the elderly poet noted in his diary in 1827, to read the simple fairy tale of Turandot after being subjected to ‘‘the philosophical-fantastical Kleistian blather.’’ Against G O E T H E A N D E V I L 9 3 R the ‘‘morbid’’ contemporary Romanticism, Goethe upheld a classical ideal: ‘‘Classical is what is healthy, strong, fresh, joyous’’: ‘‘In this sense the Nibelungenlied is as classic as the Iliad, for both are vigorous and healthy,’’ he remarked to his Boswell, J. P. Eckermann , in April 1829. The classical poet is objective. To be objective is to ‘‘express the real world,’’ not, obsessively, one’s subjective feelings. At the end of his life you hear no more about the classical. What is less classical than Faust, Part Two? Romantic-classical, objective-subjective, real-ideal, self...

Ideas of Happiness from Ancient Wisdom: a Book Review

Ideas of Happiness from Ancient Wisdom: a Book Review

Wounds of the soul: Reflections on Inge Hyson's The mindful garden

Plant portraiture has never received good press, yet, perversely, the genre remains one of the most popular and therefore indispensable forms of visual art in the twenty-first century. Despite—or perhaps due to—its popularity, the depiction of plants is under-researched and undervalued by theorists and critics in the arts (Arnold 2001). Arguably, plant portraiture suffers from its inherent charm, its anthropomorphic qualities, and an uncomfortable association with popular ideas of happiness, loyalty and love, and their binary opposites, despair, betrayal and bereavement.This review takes as its point of departure a connection between the sale of an Andy Warhol painting in 2006 and an exhibition of plant portraiture presented within the context of an academic endeavour and pedagogical environment in 2010. It considers the vicissitudes of plant portraiture from 1946–2009, and draws attention to the self-censorship an artist arguably feels herself obliged to undertake within the context of the perceived pariah status of flower painting. The review aims to broaden critical discussion of the genre and, finally, reflects on why it is that flowers ‘so often come to be taken as the representative object of imagining’ (Scarry 2005).

"A natureza concedeu a cada país ou a cada clima seus privilégios exclusivos": a natureza brasileira na obra de Manuel Arruda da Câmara

Este artigo se propõe a analisar a trajetória de Manuel Arruda da Câmara (1752-1810), expressão no campo da botânica e da medicina no final do século XVIII, destacando sua visão sobre a natureza brasileira. Os conceitos mais representativos da Ilustração, como a crença no poder da razão, o conhecimento da natureza, as ideias de felicidade e de progresso, se evidenciaram, igualmente, no Brasil colonial. A história natural e seus ramos atraíram o interesse de estudiosos, como Manuel Arruda da Câmara, destacando-se os importantes estudos sobre botânica, e sua relação com outras áreas de conhecimento, como a medicina, a agricultura e a química. Na formulação destes conhecimentos também foi decisivo o impacto das teorias de inferioridade e de imaturidade conferidas à natureza americana, na segunda metade do século XVIII, por pensadores europeus, como Buffon e De Pauw. Estas teorias pautavam-se na afirmação de uma estreita conexão orgânica do ser vivo com a natureza, de forma determinista. Ilustrados procuraram responder a estas afirmações elaborando estudos que refutavam a caracterização negativa do continente americano. Importava, desta forma, enfatizar o potencial e as virtudes da natureza local

Shakespeare and Happiness

This article addresses the idea of happiness in Shakespeare in light of new developments in psychology and moral philosophy. Shakespeare scholarship has been well served by these two critical discourses, both of which are instrumentally concerned with the subject of happiness. The recent spate of research on happiness within and across the two fields, as evidenced by the revival of classical virtue ethics and by the advent of new fields such as positive psychology, attests to the enduring relevance of the topic. Moreover, it provides a grand opportunity for scholars to reconsider what happiness means for Shakespeare, both as a psychological condition and as a philosophical ideal. This article suggests direction for further inquiry into the subject of Shakespeare and happiness by examining two plays: Richard III and Troilus and Cressida. Together, the plays showcase not only the depth of Shakespeare’s concern with happiness, but also the tragic potential that underlies a world where diverse notions of happiness compete for our interest.

Happiness and Political Theory

I here tackle three topics: first, the lowly place of happiness among the goals of political action in the great tradition of political thought; second, the novelty of the idea of happiness is the proper aim or public policy; and last, the importance of the distinction between what was aptly described by T.H. Green as hindering hindrances to the good life and the promotion of happiness by political action. As that might suggest, I shall say some unkind things about the paternalism implicit in some recent emphasis on happiness as an object of state action.

The Science of Happiness

The Science of Happiness THE MIND FALL THE MIND What Makes People Happy and How Can We Become Happier? by Daniel Mangels The idea of happiness is largely influenced by culture and is invariably shaped by individual experience. In order to sci- entifically study happiness, its definition must be reduced to fulfill a more basic and intrinsic set of properties. Until recently, most scientific literature has primarily investigated maladaptive psychology such as depression, anxiety, and stress. The recent emergence of positive psychology has helped to shift attention away from the study of mental ill- ness to the study of mental wellness. Despite the tremendous influx of happiness research that has ensued over the past thirty years, researchers still disagree on a universal and testable definition of happiness. The emergence of positive psychology, and its vast array of scientific research, has nonetheless led to an increasing tendency towards defining happiness as a state of subjective well-being (Easterlin, 2002). This definition encompasses both the biological mechanisms necessary to measure subjective happiness as well as the psychological, cultural, and social factors that may be involved in determining its presence. Ultimately, an understanding of the multifactorial causes and processes of happiness can be used to increase levels of happiness and to potentially unveil one of the more fundamental features of being human. What can Biology tell us? Though it may seem hapless to say that happiness is sim- ply a resultant emotion of our genes, studies have shown that identical twins share more consistent and similar levels of happiness than fraternal twins (Lykken & Tellegen 1996). This finding is crucial to understanding happiness because it indicates that there are certain genetic components to happi- ness. Such biological consequences may have to do with increased levels of the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and motivation, dopamine, which has been tied to greater positive affect scores on self-reported surveys (Ashby, Isen, & Turken 1999). The multifactorial nature of happiness, however, makes it difficult to exclusively target physical predictors, since both physical and non-physical factors may be acting simultaneously. Additionally, since happiness is described as subjective well-being, personal assessments of happiness can be biased and variable depend- ing on an individual's judgment. Despite these obstacles that hinder researchers from identifying precise biological mech- anisms, several biological signals have been found that cor- relate with happiness. In one study on the relationship between happiness and the body, subjects' blood pressure and heart rates were meas- ured. Levels of blood sugar and salivary cortisol, a stress hormone associated with immunosuppressive behavior, were also measured. These measurements were then compared to monitored levels of plasma fibrinogen, a protein linked to increased chances for developing coronary heart disease (Steptoe, Wardle, & Marmot 2005). It was discovered that negative affective states, such as sadness and anxiety, were correlated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, type II diabetes, and disability. Positive affective states were associated with smaller plasma fibrinogen stress responses, less cortisol output, and lower heart rates. In another study, individuals with higher levels of per- sonal growth and purpose in life registered lower and more stable levels of salivary cortisol and urinary adrenaline (Ryff, Singer, & Love 2004). Adrenaline is a hormone and neurotransmitter that produces similar effects to cortisol, such as increased heart rate and immune system suppression. These results indicate that lower stress responses, such as less salivary cortisol, plasma fibrinogen, urinary adrenaline, lower blood pressure, and lower heart rates, are good predic-

THE NOTION OF HAPPINESS IN LATGALIAN FAIRY TALES

THE NOTION OF HAPPINESS IN LATGALIAN FAIRY TALES

Goat , and: Baltimore , and: Grief , and: Greater Winter , and: My Iberia

Goat, and: Baltimore, and: Grief, and: Greater Winter, and: My Iberia Rebekah Remington (bio) Goat Rebekah Remington The weather was saying come out and so they did,the man, the woman, the boy, adjusting to the waning heatafter so much midday sun, after the inertia of indoors,the blare of screens, the sticky floor, the fragilearrangement of trains. The boy kept falling off his bicycle,getting back on, pedaling the short length of the field.It was a return to kindness, despite the gnats everywherelike colliding names coming out of the future.It was a reprieve after so much flickering noise.Beyond the baseball diamond, at the far edge of the complex,a goat walked to a fence, waiting to be fedmilk thistle or burdock or a graham crackerfrom the hands of the child, who imagined he alonehad been born for this moment, that without himthe goat might die of hunger or loneliness.The sky had taken on a shapeliness like a floodplainin an aftermath, an eerie pinkish erasure,as though the time remaining were centralto some dirigible idea of happiness. [End Page 134] Copyright © 2008 Curators of the University of Missouri Baltimore Rebekah Remington If the freezer were stuffed with lambIf the twilight were organized by firefliesIf the wind's dysfluencies could be discernedIf ever I said what I meantthen we might drive to Franceon a muddy road lined with asters;we might buy that shed we've always dreamed of. In the rectory where I grew upthere were all kinds of little people.They had their own way. They owned sheep,were occasionally cruel occasionallykind. At night they crossed the hinterlandssearching for estuaries, encampments,small fires. They warmed themselves,they fed. As for us, we slept badly,less than fifty feet from the dead.We were trespassers, Anglicans, almost atheists.When the heat was too muchone of us slammed doors, one of us went to the cemeteryand saddled a stone. Now my love and I reside in a small Cape Cod.The dead less visible.The window unit makes it hard to hear.I am shouting about the crickets in the kitchen;he is two-stepping to our favorite psycho killer tune.I wish God would show up;then again, no. We have enoughgoing on here, what with the porch falling inand next week's exam on the defibrillator. [End Page 135] Copyright © 2008 Curators of the University of Missouri Grief Rebekah Remington A prodigal afternoon, the minutes going onlike a drunken divinity student who decides to sober upat my table till he becomes once again articulateabout the gods. I order a double rum and speak to him about Mother in an empty bed,Father in a box in the Cathedral of the Incarnation. I confess: I don't know the joke of happiness.I drink and breathe.I can't see beyond the unwanted Christmas trees. Come with me to the sweat lodgesays a honeyed voice, but I'm wary of the subliminal hymn.The idea of going is a paradox: Father in a box so small I could carry it home in my two good arms,home that noisy placewhere no one does enough about the dust, the dishesand knives clatter and a bad news show plays in the background always. Mother leftwith all those clocks and their crazy windingschedules. Now my friend going on about economics, Africa and all the unbelieversin the Canterbury Choir. He clings to me on the parking lot beyond which the evening settles in,a few unknowns gather in the disfigured trees. [End Page 136] Copyright © 2008 Curators of the University of Missouri Greater Winter Rebekah Remington They say in a book love comes first,second comes the knife;third, common ground birds. We were eating bread in our carchewing on this. We haddiscussed much of love, the oldest oak on the continent.I knew my St. Augustine.You knew the older philosophies, dinosaur theory and the dynasties of stars.It was time to find jobs, time to go...

Luthers Rearistotelisierung der christlichen Ethik. Plädoyer für eine evangelische Theologie des Glücks

Die Frage nach dem Glück des Menschen ist nicht eben ein Hauptgegenstand evangelischer Ethik; diese hat vielmehr überwiegend die Glücksthematik ausgeblendet. Gegenläufig zu diesem immer noch maßgeblichen common sense sucht der Artikel nach der Möglichkeit einer Rehabilitierung der Glücksfrage auf dem Boden der reformatorischen Theologie, namentlich in Anknüpfung an Luthers Rechtfertigungslehre. Er zeigt, dass die von Luther vollzogene konsequente Ablösung der weltlichen Ethik vom Bedürfnis des Menschen nach Heilsgewissheit durchaus als Grundlage einer Ethik gelingenden irdisch-menschlichen Lebens fungieren kann: Weil sich der Mensch durch keine Art der irdischen Lebensführung das Heil verdienen kann, fällt das säkulare Ethos in die Kompetenz humaner Vernunft und deren Interesse am Menschendienlichen – eine Konstellation, die an Aristoteles' Ethik erinnert. Die mit dieser Überlegung anvisierte evangelische Glücksethik ermöglicht einerseits eine konstruktiv-kritische Auseinandersetzung mit säkularen Glücksvorstellungen lebensweltlicher, populärwissenschaftlicher oder wissenschaftlicher Art. Andererseits zielt sie darauf, die Rechtfertigungslehre als Theorie gelingenden Lebens zu interpretieren und damit die Aktualität des Kernstücks lutherischer Theologie an einem gegenwärtig relevanten Thema zu erweisen.

Couperin in context

Many music lovers will have fond memories of the BBC Music Guides, those short, jargon-free studies designed above all to help the non-specialist get more out of the listening process. The series, which began in the mid-1960s and ran to more than 50 volumes, has long since been discontinued—regrettably, for I know of no comparable modern equivalent with the combination of erudition, musical insight and infectious enthusiasm revealed by the best of these guides. The present book by David Tunley originated as part of that series in 1982. Entitled simply Couperin, it was specially memorable for the author's urbane prose and his telling use of music examples to pinpoint aspects of style and structure. Its new publisher, Ashgate, had the happy idea of commissioning a considerable expansion of the original, which has now grown from 103 smallish pages to 172 larger ones. The result is, in effect, a new publication justifying its new title. Tunley has had the opportunity not only to incorporate two decades of research on Couperin, but also to broaden the focus. Whereas the original format allowed little space for biography, the section ‘Couperin and his times’ includes a fuller treatment of the composer's life (supported by an appendix comprising a translation of one of the most extensive sources, the ‘Couperin’ entry in Titon du Tillet's Le Parnasse françois), together with a discussion of aspects of his musical notation.

Kant on Hobbes, peace, and obedience

Kant's essay ‘On the common saying: “This may be true in theory, but it does not apply in practice”’ contains a chapter ‘On the relationship of theory to practice in political right’ to which he added, in brackets, ‘(Against Hobbes)’. The problem is that Kant leaves his Hobbes-criticism implicit. The main point seems to be the Hobbes's citizens are without any rights. We explore the differences and similarities between Kant's and Hobbes's political views and evaluate the effectiveness of Kant's criticism. We pay attention to Nominalism and Platonism, the idea of happiness in social life, the use and role of the Golden Rule (Categorical Imperative) in political thought, the quest for freedom, and the principle of political non-resistance. Especially freedom of speech is important for Kant as an Enlightenment thinker. This is the only right Kant's citizens may have, independently of the sovereign's will. Our conclusion is that both Kant and Hobbes emphasize peace and order under sovereign power although they do not agree on how such an ideal can be achieved.

Strategies of Happiness: Painting and Stage in Diderot

Strategies of HappinessPainting and Stage in Diderot Scott Bryson In one of his discussions about the bourgeois genre in painting Diderot states the way in which containment is essential to happiness. Why, he asks the aristocratic readers of his Correspondance littéraire , do we commission scenes of country or of family life by Wouwermans, Berghem, and Vernet to decorate the walls of our homes? Because these paintings help make up for "l'impossibilité de nous livrer aux fonctions et aux amusements de la vie champêtre, d'errer dans une campagne, de suivre un troupeau, d'habiter une chaumière." Within the painting's frame we rediscover what has been irretrievably lost in our everyday social existence, "un bonheur que nous regrettons": [...] et les toiles d'araignées d'Ostade sont suspendues entre des crépines d'or, sur un damas cramoisi, et nous sommes dévorés par l'ambition, la haine, la jalousie et l'amour; et nous brûlons de la soif de l'honneur et de la richesse, au milieu des scènes de l'innocence et de la pauvreté, s'il est permis d'appeler pauvre celui à qui tout appartient. Nous sommes des malheureux autour desquels le bonheur est représenté sous mille formes diverses. (Salons 3:139) The painting's frame defines the limits between authenticity and virtue (images of simplicity, innocence and happiness), and falsehood and vice (the frenetic scenes of passion and rabid personal egotism taking place outside ). Moving from the simple, almost minimalist purity of Ostade's spider webs to the crushed red velvet and gilded frame, and finally to the room where human passions are played out, we accomplish a trajectory from fiction, the space of truth and happiness—eternal and tranquil images of goodness, innocence and morality—to real life, the space of falseness and disorder. Two universes irremediably cleaved and separated by the gilded frame; two spaces that coexist in apparent ignorance [End Page 21] of each other? Perhaps, or rather, maybe we look up periodically from our frantic passions to the space of fiction in order to find the lost happiness and coherence in our lives. At the same time, the paintings on our walls are so many accusations of our growing corruption, so many indicators of the distance that separates us from truth and morality, found henceforth within fiction. Though we may be materially rich, fiction shows us nevertheless that we are morally poor ("des malheureux"). Diderot's description of Ostade's painting is emblematic of the necessity for order and closure in the bourgeoisie's search for happiness. Order must reign not only over the economic concerns of the bourgeois household, but over matters of conjugal fidelity and sentiments. Much has been written on bourgeois ideals at the time of enlightenment and on the portrayal of domestic happiness, a development associated with a valorization of the private sphere.1 In this essay, I propose to examine, principally in Diderot, how the concepts of time, space, and morality specifically target the bourgeois viewer. Happiness in the eighteenth century results not only from individual contentment; it must be cultivated, or rather imposed, by aesthetic techniques and strategies. The concept of happiness, of its possibility, was for eighteenth-century France both an instrument of debate through which the major social and political issues could be discussed and an ideal which posited the legitimacy of the individual in relation to society. The idea of happiness revealed the relativity, and in many ways, the "equality" of human beings in their desire for happiness. The philosophes ' concept of happiness was different from that of official Church doctrine; the aristocrats' search for happiness took different roads from those of the bourgeois, but all shared in the pursuit of this ideal. Of course, the exact nature of happiness varied according to the socioeconomic status and, especially, the sociocultural traditions and values of the group in society. Sombart defines the bourgeois as "homo œconomicus" (243). He defines two types of men in society, those who save and those who squander; those who seek to conserve and those that expend. The first group transforms its energy into money, which it either saves or puts...

The Self-Justifying Desire for Happiness

In Happiness, Tabensky equates the notion of happiness to Aristotelian eudaimonia. I shall claim that doing so amounts to equating two concepts that moderns cannot conceptually equate, namely, the good for a person and the good person or good life. In §2 I examine the way in which Tabensky deals with this issue and claim that his idea of happiness is as problematic for us moderns as is any translation of the notion of eudaimonia in terms of happiness. Naturally, if happiness understood as eudaimonia is ambiguous, so will be the notion of a desire for happiness, which we find at the core of Tabensky’s whole project. In §3 I shall be concerned with another aspect of the desire for happiness; namely, its alleged self-justifying nature. I will attempt to undermine the idea that this desire is self-justifying by undermining the criterion on which Tabensky takes self-justifiability to rest, i.e. its basicness, but also by shedding doubt on the idea that there is such a thing as an ultimate basic principle and, even if there were, that it is what Tabensky calls the eudaimon principle.

Social Engineering and the Woman Question: Sweden in the Thirties

Happiness is a new idea in Europe, the Jacobin Saint Just reportedly remarked in 1793. In this article, I shall discuss the way in which this idea of happiness was transformed into the idea of social welfare policy in Sweden in the 1930s, and the way in which women played an important, although subordinated, part in this process.

"In the Dusky, Crowded, Heterogeneous Back-Shop of the Mind": The Iconography of The Portrait of a Lady

"In the Dusky, Crowded, Heterogeneous Back-Shop of the Mind'. The Iconography of The Portrait of a Lady by Adeline R. Tintner, New York City I. The First Portrait of a Lady (1881) Since the very name of TAe Portrait of a Lady designates it as a work of art, the novel receives from the first an iconic emphasis. The word icon is used here both as Panofsky defines it, the element that involves iconography, the stady of works of art for tiieir meaning rather than for their artistic values (26), and as die OED defines it, "an image in the solid." Those images "in the solid" wiU fluctuate from works of art to works of utility treated as works of art in the later version of the novel. The function of the contained objects in TAe Portrait reveals itself on analysis as a major element of James's craft. We know from his letters that he wanted tiiis novel to "immortaUze" him, and tiiat it was to be in relation to his previous writings "as wine unto water." The proof of James's expertise in handling die many iconic references in TAe Portrait lies in the way they are quietly absorbed into the texture of the book, and it is only after we have examined the novel that we realize with what ingenuity and skiU they have furthered James's narrative aims. The icons in the 1881 version of TAe Portrait divide tiiemselves into several groups. Since the main male character will be GUbert Osmond, die taste-dominated man and coUector, works of art wiU be of prime importance. The museum masterpieces James chooses, however, are only three specific ones: the Dying Gladiator in the Capitoline Museum, the interior of St. Peter's, and die Correggio Virgin and Child in the Tribune room of the Uffizi. Each is situated at an important stage in the development of die story and each is attached to a character—the Gladiator to Warburton, St. Peter's to Isabel Archer, and the Correggio Virgin and Child to Henrietta Stackpole. The many other works of art occur only within metaphors where they act as indices to, and symbols of, the other characters. An introductory icon appears on die very first page as a porcelain cup belonging to Mr. Touchett that is larger and of a different shape from die rest, just as he is. Its importance wiU emerge later. The other real icons are the houses, which express the lives of those who occupy them. Gardencourt starts the series, followed by die Albany house from which Isabel is rescued by her aunt. Its bolted door acts as a symbol of Isabel's confined and constricted Ufe. Then there is Lockley Hall, the kind of house Isabel would live in if she marries into the English aristocracy. Osmond's Florentine viUa is sharply contrasted not only to Gardencourt, the house of freedom, but also to Lockley, the house of pattern, with its deceiving, carefuUy arranged mask. It is a potent force in deciding Isabel's estimate of Osmond. The Palazzo Crescentini, Mrs. Touchett's Florentine viUa, has a name pointing to a fractional life suggesting either growth or atrophy. The Palazzo Roccanera, Isabel and Osmond's house, has a name pointing to deatii and darkness. Significantly, its frescoes are by the sixteenth-century painter Caravaggio, whose pictorial inventions are associated witii darkness, whereas the frescoes in the Touchett house, also sixteenth-century, are described as "pompous." The second powerful icon is the carriage, introduced when Henrietta is alarmed after Isabel sends Caspar packing. "Do you know where you are drifting?" she asks her, and Isabel answers that she does not, but that her idea of happiness is a "swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads tiiat one can't see." The passage is a reminder of Emma Bovary's dream of happiness, which never comes true; it recaUs the Flaubertian "au galop de quatre chevaux," and it is accented by Henrietta, who thinks Isabel sounds "like die heroine of an immoral novel" (PM 153), tiien the common verdict on Madame Bovary. Isabel is the essence of the romantic personality for...

Lenny Bruce without Tears

CAN YOU SHOUT Fuck! in a crowded nightclub? Maybe it would be all right if you were an etymologist, though professors ought not shout. You might avoid jail, oddly enough, if you said you were satirizing obscenity laws, or Fire Drills, or anything. But if you said it only in jest, for fun of it, watch out. Wear sneakers. Lenny Bruce's life in all its perversity, variety, tragedy, has so fascinated usread Albert Goldman's Boswellian biography-that it is difficult to think of him except in heroic cult terms: Icarus, Foul Mouth, Socrates, Drug Fiend, Defendant, Satirist. He is a totem figure carved of many different heads. It is time now to separate if we can Work from Life, and to try to know him for his real accomplishment, his real face-Comedian. An appropriate place to begin is Lenny Bruce's best joke and best sustained monologue of his career-the piece on Frank Dell's disastrous performance at Palladium Theatre. Bruce begins in his own voice, disclaiming concept of the room, geographic idea of happiness. But this skit deals with Frank Dell, Dean of Satire and Mimicry, who believes that his whole life would be meaningless if he did not play a class room. His agent tries to argue or humor him out of this obsession, but Frank is a driven man: Look, tired of playing toilets, man. I've had it. Of course it is a mistake. Frank is fine in lounges of Las Vegas for decent money-Is that spit? his agent argues. This agent, an insufficient creature in almost every way, does comprehend hard realities of business. His expertise is in dispassionate calculation of probabilities of supply and demand. His view of world is brutally limited, but he is absolutely right about Frank Dell. We are not encouraged to like agent-Lenny Bruce gives him busy Broadway agent's voice that is capable of sudden modulations from roughness into transparent motherly love: Sweetie baby bubby, sweetie. We do not like him, but he is right and Frank Dell is wrong. The music conductor at Palladium also knows immediately at rehearsal that Dell will fail. When he sees Frank's list of standard show biz impressions, he mumbles, Same crap week after week . . . disgusting. Frank apparently asks what he said, but conductor replies primly, I'm sure you do impressions different-you probably do them as children. The conductor, agent, and later house booker at Palladium, Val Parnell, all see Frank's limitations. They are bottom line-reality. They know exactly what will

The Idea of Happiness, and: The Idea of Justice, and: The Idea of Love, and: The Idea of Progress (review)

248 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY directed to knowing "the living" (pp. 62-63). This new method is grounded on the "radical reality" of my life, and is situated in a dialectical series ("a real dialectic of the thing itself, not of the Logos," p. 74) of historico-human experiences, which, though systematic (human life is per se systematic), is never closed. An English translation of this excellent hook would be a welcome contribution toward philosophical ecumenism. ROBERTH ~ Seton Hall University The Idea of Happiness. By V. J. McGill. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967. Pp. xvi+360. $6.95) The Idea of Justice. By Otto A. Bird. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967. Pp. xvi+ 192. $5.95) The Idea of Love. By Robert G. Hazo. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967. Pp. xvii+488. $7.95) The Idea of Progress. By Charles Van Doren. (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967. Pp. xvii+497. $7.95) These four volumes are part of the Concepts in Western Thought Series published under the sponsorship of the Institute for Philosophical Research. Although each is authored by a different individual, the books are the products of the collaborative research efforts of the Institute's staff. According to the general foreword each volume is "one of a series of studies of basic ideas" undertaken "with the avowed purpose of taking stock of Western thought on subjects that have been of continuing philosophical interest from the advent of philosophy in ancient Greece to the present day." No further explanation is given for the selection of the specific concepts treated in these four volumes; however, they apparently have been chosen partly because of their common concern with the values of man's life and the relationships of humans to each other. Although no mention is made explicitly of the audience to whom the books are principally addressed, presumably they are intended primarily for the use of laymen who are interested in becoming conversant with portions of the thought and writings of the grc.at figures in the Western intellectual tradition. In this undertaking they should have considerable success and I can visualize many a library shelf adorned someday with a complete set of the series. In addition, the volumes can serve a scholarly function; particularly for students they should prove valuable as reference books to which they can turn when contemplating a term paper, or even a thesis, to be written. For this purpose the extensive bibliographies included in each volume should prove particularly helpful. To the question, Of what value might the volumes be to professional philosophers? an answer is less easy to find. The editors have high hopes: The Institute has proceeded on the assumption that the issues in the field of any basic philosophical idea concern matters about which objective truth is ascertainable. The future resolution of these issues depends upon more sustained and more rational efforts to deal with them than the history of Western thought has so far exhibited; and the initiation of such efforts depends in turn upon a clear and precise understanding of the issues. Providing this has been the sole aim of the Insfitute's work from the beginning. Whether the high hopes entertained here will be realized I do not know and cannot say. Time alone will tell. I would like, however, to comment briefly on the way in BOOK REVIEWS 249 which the Institute seeks to attain its goaI of a c/ear and precise understanding of the issues. My concern specifically is with what the editors call the "dialectical" method. To quote again from the general foreword "... the Institute's study of these materials is non-historical in aim. It deliberately abstracts from their historical context and pattern. It views them as if they were all contemporary--as if the documents represented the voices of participants confronting one another in actual discussion." My question concerning this kind of method is simple: Can one succeed in gaining a clear and precise understanding of an issue if he abstracts it completely from its historical context? Two specific problems arise out of such a methodology. (1) It seems very doubtful that writers living in widely divergent epochs and societies can...

The Idea of Happiness.

The Idea of Happiness.

The Idea of Happiness by V. J. McGill

The Idea of Happiness by V. J. McGill