91¿´Æ¬Íø

Humane Pursuits: Adam Potkay on the pursuit of happiness

Summary

English professor Adam Potkay reveals how 18th-century understandings of happiness differed profoundly from our modern self-help versions. 

Full Description

"What did Thomas Jefferson really mean by “the pursuit of happiness”? In this conversation, Adam Potkay reveals how 18th-century understandings of happiness differed profoundly from our modern self-help versions. Drawing on classical sources from Plato to Cicero, Jefferson and his contemporaries saw happiness not merely as subjective satisfaction but rather as an objective evaluation of a life well-lived — one centered on virtue, good conscience, and communal bonds. Potkay traces three competing threads in Jefferson’s thought: classical eudaimonism emphasizing tranquility and virtue, Lockean subjective pursuit and acquisition, and sentimental moral philosophy stressing sympathetic community. The Declaration’s original draft reveals Jefferson’s balancing of head and heart, reason and sentiment — dichotomies that defined Enlightenment thinking about human flourishing. Potkay also distinguishes happiness from joy, exploring why “public happiness” became the Enlightenment’s defining contribution to political thought."

Read full article at .