Workshop on the Principles of Happiness for the 20–30 Age Group, with Masoud Zanjani

Can philosophy help us achieve happiness?

It seems the human soul wrinkles sooner than the body, but because the wrinkles of the soul are not as easily seen as those of the body, we neglect them. Do modern humans have as much thought and will for the strength, vitality, beauty, and youthfulness of their souls as they do for the beauty of their skin? It is obvious to us that if the body goes without food, receives too little food, or poor food for a long time, or succumbs to lethargy and weakness, it will collapse. But why is it not obvious to us that the soul has similar needs and that if it faces starvation, malnutrition, poor nourishment, inactivity, and stagnation, it will become depressed and worn out?

The ancient Greeks considered philosophy a kind of useful and necessary "diet" for "mental health"; they also called philosophy "gymnastics of the soul." For them, philosophy was not a set of ready-made "doctrines," nor merely a "way of knowing" and a theoretical activity reserved for the elite, but a necessary "way of living" for all citizens to have a "happy life." For this reason, the goal of philosophy for them was nothing less than human "happiness." For the Greeks, philosophy was the "art of living well" and the "art of dying well." In other words, philosophy is human contemplation to address the question, "How should one live, and why?"

Alas, it is the crisis of the modern world that has distanced philosophy from this original historical origin and diminished its lofty cultural status. In the words of Pierre Hadot, the French philosopher, "Nowadays, we have plenty of philosophy professors, but we have no philosophers!" Therefore, if we look from this pathological perspective, the history of philosophy can be seen as the history of different definitions and various theories of "happiness," just as every philosopher can also be called a "philosopher of life" who, in their own way and in their own time, invites us to their "mental health."

This web-seminar is the Principles of Happiness workshop by the Twenty to Thirty group, held with Professor Masoud Zanjani on World Philosophy Day.

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Lessons of this Web-seminar: