Five Ancient Secrets to Modern Happiness - Tamar Gendler @ espell THINK!

THINK!6 August 2013, Budapest, Hungary

Tamar Gendler, Professor of Philosophy & Cognitive Science, Yale University

SocratesAncient Greece470-399 BCE

PlatoAncient Greece437-347 BCE

AristotleAncient Greece384-322 BCE

CiceroAncient Rome106-46 BCE

EpictetusAncient Romec. 55-135 CE

Plato’s Academy. Mosaic floor from Pompeii, 1st century CE

“Roman School,” Marble Relief from a Roman Sarcophagus

Laurentius de Voltolina, "Henricus de Alemania Lecturing his Students" (c. 1350)From Liber ethicorum des Henricus de Alemania

Yale University Dining Hall, c. 1948

Yale Students, c. 1978

Yale Students, c. 1988

The human soul exhibits internal complexity

It includes both reflective and non-reflective parts

Flourishing occurs when these parts interact appropriately

This requires a proper understanding – both reflective and non-reflective – of their roles and relations





Spiritual well-being

Eudaimonea





Spiritual well-being

Eudaimonea

Practical Wisdom

Phronesis

• Develop appropriate self-knowledge [Socrates]

• Cultivate internal harmony [Plato]

• Foster virtue through habit [Aristotle]

• Pursue and appreciate true friendship [Cicero]

• Recognize what is and is not within your control [Epictetus]

Jacques-Louis David, “The Death of Socrates” (1787)Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

Temple of Apollo, c. 4th century BCE Delphi, Greece (cf. Plato, Apology)

Chaerephon to Oracle: “Who is the wisest of men?”

Oracle to Chaerephon: “No one is wiser than Socrates.”

When I heard this, I said to myself: “What can the oracle mean when it says that no one is wiser than I am?…For I know that I have no wisdom, small or great…”

Plato, The Apology (Ancient Greek, c. 400 BCE)

“…So I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and when I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and wiser still by himself...”


“…So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: ‘Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know.’”


One source of wisdom: knowing what one does not know

This includes our motivations and the sources of (many of) our attitudes

Self-knowledge requires humility: knowing that one does not fully know oneself

(Dutton and Aron, 1974)

Bargh & Williams, 2008; Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004)

“I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know” (Socrates)

In many cases, we are unaware of the sources of our emotions, our choices, our preferences, and our pursuit of goals

Self-knowledge includes knowledge of our own ignorance

Raphael, “The School of Athens” (1510-11) Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican City

“ Leontius was walking along the North Wall when he saw some corpses lying at the executioner's feet. He had an appetite to look at them, but at the same time he was disgusted and turned away. For a time he struggled with himself and covered his face, but finally, overpowered by the appetite, he pushed his eyes wide open and rushed towards the corpses saying, ‘Look for yourselves, you evil wretches, take your fill of the beautiful sight!’”

Plato, Republic 439e-440a

Let us, then, liken the soul to the natural union of a team of winged horses and their charioteer...One of the horses is a lover of honor and is guided by verbal commands alone; the other is companion to wild boasts and indecency, and barely yields to the goad.

-- Plato, Phaedrus, 246b, 253d

Three parts: Reason, Spirit, Appetite

Conflict among parts often leads to conflicted responses

Our direct conscious access to the motivations of the “horses” (and even the “charioteer”) is limited

Belief: Safe

Alief: Yikes!

Belief: Movie

Alief: Watch out!

Belief: 10:00Belief: Undesirable

Alief: 10:05 -- hurry!Alief: Yummy -- caaake!

Belief: RerunBelief: Edible

Alief: Don’t run!!Alief: Yuccck!!

I hereby declare that my soul

belongs only to you, O Satan.

Signed,

____________________________

6 August 2013

Budapest, Hungary

This is not a legal contract.

It is simply a prop in a psychology experiment.

(Monica Bonvicini (2003), “Don’t Miss a Sec”)

(Evans (2008), 257)

(Dennis Proffitt, various)

Verbal/perceptual reports show illusion effects

Grasping/walking behaviors do not

Verbal report estimates 5 degrees as 20 degrees

Haptic report is accurate

Baumeister, Bratslasky, Muraven, & Tice, (1998)

Blue Yellow Green RedYellow Blue GreenYellow Red Blue

Sárga Kék Piros Sárga Kék Zöld Piros Sárga Piros Kék Zöld

(Richeson et al (2003))

The soul is like “the…union of a team of winged horses and their charioteer...”

Reactions come from different “parts” of the soul/brain

Sometimes these reactions are in harmony; sometimes they are in tension

When they’re in unwanted tension, it takes effort and energy to control behavior

Raphael, “The School of Athens” (1510-11) Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican City

“People become builders by building and harp-players by playing the harp

So too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts

States of character arise out of like activities

It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference.”

-- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1103

GRAVITYIt’s not just a good idea…

It’s the LAW!

Normative/prescriptive laws (“oughts”)

Look both ways

Do not eat in the library

Speed limit: 100 km/hour

Descriptive laws (“is-es”)

If a car hits you, you will die

Crumbs cause book-decay

Speed limit: 186k miles/second


Look both ways [You should look…]

Do not eat in the library [You should not eat…]

Speed limit: 100 km/hour [You should go <…]


If a car hits you, you will die

Crumbs cause book-decay

Speed limit: 186k miles/second


Look both ways [You should look…]

Do not eat in the library [You should not eat…]

Speed limit: 100 km/hour [You should go <…]


If a car hits you, you will die [It’s a fact that if…]

Crumbs cause book-decay [It’s a fact that crumbs…]

Speed limit: 186k miles/second [It’s a fact that you go <…]

Patterns of behavior initially under conscious control become automatized

Habits are tools for turning normative commitments (“oughts”) into descriptive laws (“is-es”)

Before I cross the street, I habitually look both ways

When you hands me an item, I habitually say “thank you”

[When I turn on my computer, I habitually check facebook / watch YouTube / play Angry Birds / visit index.hu]

“Abstaining from pleasures makes us become temperate, and once we have become temperate we are most capable of abstaining from pleasures.

“Abstaining from pleasures makes us become temperate, and once we have become temperate we are most capable of abstaining from pleasures. It is similar with bravery: habituation in…standing firm in frightening situations makes us become brave, and once we have become brave, we are more capable of standing firm” (1104)

Habits are tools for turning “oughts” into “is-es”

“We learn a craft by producing the same product that we must produce when we have learned it: we become builders by building, harpists by playing the harp.” (1103b)

In the same way, “we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.” (1103b)

If you want to become something, act as if that’s what you already were

“Cicero Denounces Cataline” Cesare Maccari, 1882-1888Fresco, Palazzo Madama, Sala Maccari, Rome

“How can life be worth living…without the mutual good will of a friend?...Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy?

Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief

In the face of a true friend a man sees as it were a second self.”

-- Cicero, On Friendship

“If you want to predict how happy someone is, or how long she will live … you should find out about her social relationships.

Having strong social relationships strengthens the immune system, extends life (more than does quitting smoking), speeds recovery from surgery, and reduces the risk of depression and anxiety disorders.”

-- Jonathan Haidt (Yale 1985), The Happiness Hypothesis (2005), 133

When a wild elephant is to be tamed and trained, the best way to begin is by yoking it to one that has already been through the process.

By contact, the wild one comes to see that the condition it is being led to is not wholly incompatible with being an elephant – that what is expected of it heralds a condition that does not contradict its nature.

The constant, immediate and contagious example of its yoke fellow can teach it as nothing else can.

Training for the life of the spirit is no different…

-- Smith & Novak, Buddhism: A Concise Introduction

“Friendship doubles our joy and...divides ...our grief.” (Cicero)

Positive social contact magnifies emotional pleasure and tempers emotional pain

“In the face of a true friend a man sees as it were a second self.” (Cicero)

In the presence of others, we can develop new patterns of perception and response

“Some things up to us and some things are not up to us.

Our opinions are up to us and our impulses, desires, aversions – in short, whatever is our own doing.

Our bodies are not up to us, nor are our possessions, or our public reputations…

If you suppose that things not up to you are up to you … you will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men.

But if you think that only what is yours is yours, and that what is not your own is not your own, then no one will ever coerce you, no one will hinder you, you will blame no one, you will accuse no one, and you will do not a single thing unwillingly…”

“Some things up to us and some things are not up to us.” (Epictetus)

We cannot directly control many things in the world; we can directly (and indirectly) control many things in ourselves

To do so effectively requires… self-knowledge

Admiral James B. Stockdale

1923-2005

-- James B. Stockdale, “Courage under Fire: Testing Epictetus's Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior” (1993)

“On September 9, 1965, I flew at 500 knots right into a flak trap, at tree-top level, in a little A-4 airplane which I couldn’t steer after it was on fire, its control system shot out.


“On September 9, 1965, I flew at 500 knots right into a flak trap, at tree-top level, in a little A-4 airplane which I couldn’t steer after it was on fire, its control system shot out. After ejection I had about thirty seconds to make my last statement in freedom before I landed in the main street of the little village ahead.


“On September 9, 1965, I flew at 500 knots right into a flak trap, at tree-top level, in a little A-4 airplane which I couldn’t steer after it was on fire, its control system shot out. After ejection I had about thirty seconds to make my last statement in freedom before I landed in the main street of the little village ahead. And so help me, I whispered to myself: ‘Five years down there, at least. I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.’”


“In my thoughts as I ejected from that airplane was the understanding that I would keep separate files in my mind for (A) those things that are ‘up to me’ and (B) those things that are ‘not up to me.’


“In my thoughts as I ejected from that airplane was the understanding that I would keep separate files in my mind for (A) those things that are ‘up to me’ and (B) those things that are ‘not up to me.’ … All in category B are ‘external’, beyond my control, ultimately dooming me to fear and anxiety if I covet them. All in category A are up to me and properly subjects for my concern and involvement.


“In my thoughts as I ejected from that airplane was the understanding that I would keep separate files in my mind for (A) those things that are ‘up to me’ and (B) those things that are ‘not up to me.’ … All in category B are ‘external’, beyond my control, ultimately dooming me to fear and anxiety if I covet them. All in category A are up to me and properly subjects for my concern and involvement. They include my opinions, my aims, my aversions, my own grief, my own joy, my judgments, my attitudes about what is going on.”

SocratesAncient Greece470-399 BCE

PlatoAncient Greece437-347 BCE

AristotleAncient Greece384-322 BCE

CiceroAncient Rome106-46 BCE

EpictetusAncient Romec. 55-135 CE

Five Ancient Secrets to Modern Happiness - Tamar Gendler @ espell THINK!

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