Yet, after more than two millennia after their deaths, we are still fighting this perversion of the concept of happiness. — Wallows

What exactly is the concept of happiness? and how has it been perverted?

This book "The Happiness Hypotheisis" by Jonathan Haidt examines ten pieces of wisdom handed down through various "ancients" and discusses their usefulness in attaining various states of "happiness" in modern society, in the context of our knowledge of evolutionary psychology and general human psychology.

Haidt's conclusion is that the ancients were onto something, but they were a bit inflexible and didn't get it right enough. In particular, a modest amount of comfort and ease in the external world can boost happiness a lot.

Because in various discussions the term is not defined. The Greeks, however, out of sheer respect for discussion, did define it. If we were simply to start with those definitions laid out, then we'd have a decent chance at a reasonable discussion. Lacking that, no one knows what the subject really is, or what anyone, including themselves, is talking about!

My question is that, why is there is a profound discrepancy between the philosopher's conception of what constitutes 'happiness' and what society at large thinks it equates to? — Wallows

Because no one gives a fuck what philosophers think.

Very well.....

Let us define happiness as inversely proportional to some amount of change you would like to make to yourself and everything external to yourself. Let the state of yourself and everything else be called the "state". One's happiness by this definition, I will call "eustatia". Let the current state percevied be Sc. Let one's current ideal state be Si. Si is never less than Sc. Then the amount of eustatia experienced currently increases or decreases according to whether (Si - Sc) is decreasing or increasing.

Feel free to attack!

Pretty good! But. Is there anything to be said for what Si and Sc are or what makes them either Sc or Si? Imagine we were talking about golf (bad example warning: caution). Happiness is inversely proportional to your score. Fine, if you know how to play golf and understand the scoring system. But what does it say about how to lower your score? What, even, is a "low" score? No doubt you can think of better examples.

Does happiness cover a determinate time frame? If I'm happy this morning does that count towards this afternoon? Or not? Who determines happiness? To be sure there are people who ought to be happy.... Are there different happinesses? Or is there something that happiness just is, that if not present, the thing in question is not happiness but something else. Or is it whatever anyone feels like calling it, whenever they feel like calling it? Is it all objective? Subjective? In-between? Or a mix - the notion of change might seem to favour happiness as a mix.

Because no one gives a fuck what philosophers think. — Noah Te Stroete

No one?

No one? — tim wood

It's an interesting question. Again, the Hoi polloi simply don't care for it. So, there's your problem. Until kings become philosophers or philosopher kings that is.

I think it is a catch-22: philosophers define the pursuit of happiness as something connected to reflection. Since most people dislike reflecting, they do not qualify as being "pursuers of happiness".

My question is that, why is there is a profound discrepancy between the philosopher's conception of what constitutes 'happiness' and what society at large thinks it equates to? — Wallows

Because the framing of the questions where done by philosophers and the solutions led to the philosopher.

I think it is a catch-22: philosophers define the pursuit of happiness as something connected to reflection. Since most people dislike reflecting, they do not qualify as being "pursuers of happiness". — Louco

Ahh yes, once again these saying of the unexamined life is not worth living pop into my mind. How pointless and futile to try and engage some bystander in a philosophical discussion.

Because the framing of the questions where done by philosophers and the solutions led to the philosopher. — Fooloso4

But, philosophers are motivated by claiming to know the 'truth' where there might not be anything worth going over. Basically, if a philosopher has not persuaded some average Joe of the merit of his or her philosophy to society or the welfare of an individual, then hasn't he or she failed at being a philosopher?

But, philosophers are motivated by claiming to know the 'truth' ... — Wallows

Not the skeptical ones, which include Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein ...

Basically, if a philosopher has not persuaded some average Joe of the merit of his or her philosophy to society or the welfare of an individual, then hasn't he or she failed at being a philosopher? — Wallows

Basically, philosophers have never written for Joe.

Today we prize free speech, but for most of history the philosopher has had to have kept hidden.

Here are some quotes from philosophers in their writings about keeping something hidden in their writings. Click on the appendix.

https://www.press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/index.html

You don't have to know the exact value of (Si - Sc). Actually it is very unlikely in most contexts - i.e. beyond the smple goal driven states of primitive forms of life - that the value is one dimensional. For example, one might be very eustatious -(i.e. "happy" as I defined it in my previous post) about a certain aspect of one's life that is coming good, but uneustatious about another that is failig to live up to one's hopes.

There may not be any point in somehow summing or integrating over all substates - the important aspect of understanding eustatiousness is knowing that happiness depends on making progress in all aspects. However, I suspect the unconscious brain provides some sort of summation which then feels as emotion.

Does happiness cover a determinate time frame? If I'm happy this morning does that count towards this afternoon? — tim wood

If you model happiness as eustaciousness then time problems are handled quite naturally because you can have ideal substates that explictly mention time. For example, "I want to tidy the garden by dinner time". The value of this achieving this substate diminshes over time, because it was time oriented.

Obviously I am making this up on the fly, but hey I think it's a goer!

Obviously I am making this up on the fly, but hey I think it's a goer! — Kippo

I do too! But I wonder if by happiness you mean a feeling as opposed to a judgment, and at that a feeling about some things, but not - and probably not - about all things.

As judgment I read happiness as a kind of satisfaction and contentment, and to be sure the enjoyment of the feeling of those. At the same time, I can easily conceive of happiness while not feeling especially good at all.

Shall we work on this a bit?

Shall we work on this a bit? — tim wood

OK! here goes

I wonder if by happiness you mean a feeling as opposed to a judgment, and at that a feeling about some things, but not - and probably not - about all things. — tim wood

Sure - there are bound to be many things in a state-of-affairs that you don't care about.

As judgment I read happiness as a kind of satisfaction and contentment, and to be sure the enjoyment of the feeling of those. At the same time, I can easily conceive of happiness while not feeling especially good at all. — tim wood

I'm not quite sure what you mean by happiness as a "judgement", but surely satisfaction and contentment come from achieving a desired state-of-affairs. Perhaps contentment is when the state-of-affairs aimed for is deliberately not one's ideal, but a trimmed back one.

It is interesting to note that happiness and contentment stagnate and reduce if the state-of-affiars does not change. I think psychological studies show this. So this fact needs to be squared with the notion of happiness being maximised when an "ideal state" is achieved. My solution that preserves the integrity of happiness (eustaciousness) is that the ideal state should be declared in terms which allow a never ending maintenance of the environment. Thus a person who enjoys gardening would never want a garden that needs no work, but would want one that always requires the amount of work and time she wants to put in.