Seekers of self-knowledge, this book is for you. In his exploration of what some would consider an indefinable topic, philosophy professor Paul Schollmeier examines the classical Greek concept of happiness, along with its implications for individual freedoms, obligations, and virtues in Human Goodness: Pragmatic Variations on Platonic Themes.
Schollmeier, who joined the UNLV faculty in 1989, prepares his reader for the ambiguities that such a discussion can produce; in his preface, he writes, “I must offer you a word of caution at the very outset: Any success in an endeavor of this alluring sort [exploring self-knowledge] is at best rather elusive, and whatever success one might actually claim could quite possibly be illusive.”
Schollmeier, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, calls the book “merely an experiment in the analysis of ideas about human goodness.” He says he has taken a concept of happiness “gleaned from the ancients” in order to “see what the consequences might be if we were to take it seriously as a principle of moral philosophy.”
In other words, what could happiness tell us about ourselves, our autonomy, our obligations, and our circumstances, not to mention our virtue?
Schollmeier, who has been exploring this subject for more than a decade, traces his approach to American philosophers William James and John Dewey, who, in turn, refer back to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
James and Dewey subscribed to a philosophical movement developed in the late 19th century called pragmatism, which holds that practical consequences are integral elements of both meaning and truth.
“We can employ the American pragmatic method to advance the ancient Greek concept of happiness,” Schollmeier contends. “We can use the method to define empirically activities worthy of pursuit for themselves. That is, happiness on my account does not take one ideal form, as has been traditionally thought, but many empirical forms.”
“My purpose,” Schollmeier says, “is to revive the ancient Greek concept of happiness, which is to perform an action for its own sake. This concept has been much neglected in our moral discourse both inside and outside the academy. But we clearly do recognize it in our daily lives.”
Schollmeier continues to research the Greek concept of happiness and also plans a book on political theory and its relationship to the concept. In the meantime, he has authored a paper on Plato’s concept of causality and has started one on Aristotle’s theory of comedy.
