Università Roma Tre

Can we be happy during our lifetime ?
The question of happiness in the history of Western philosophy.

One of the fundamental questions that grips the human heart is that of happiness.
What do we desire when we want to be happy? Do we want to be so for ourselves or also for others? Can it be achieved in this life or is it illusory?
During the course we will see how several important authors of philosophy have attempted to answer these questions.
Therefore, the course will be divided into two parts. In the first part , an anthology of texts will be used, which will enable the student to learn about and compare the theories of the main authors of Western philosophy.
In the second part, we will reflect on how we conceive happiness today, especially how we experience it: have the many advances we have witnessed in recent decades, socially and culturally, contributed to making us happy or not? To address this question, we will focus mainly on Gilles Lipovetsky's analyses.

Fist part:
F. de Luise – G. Farinetti, I Filosofi parlano di felicità, 2 voll., PBE, Einaudi, Torino 2014 (Mappe 51-52).
A. Petagine, Profili dell'umano. Lineamenti di Antropologia filosofica, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2007, pp. 17-54.
A file with the list of text will be uploaded on the blackboard online

Second part:

G. Lipovetsky, Una felicità paradossale, Cortina, Milano 2007, pp. 126-320.
A. Petagine, Coltivare l'umano. Perché abbiamo bisogno dell'etica, orthotes, Napoli-Salerno 2019, pp. 29-82.