What does it mean to live well? How can we achieve happiness, contentment, or satisfaction in life? How should we deal with life’s inevitable disappointments, difficulties, and suffering? This course will explore a variety of answers to these questions by considering the wisdom and insights from a variety of schools of thought, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, Stoicism, and contemporary movements. By the end of the course, students will formulate their own philosophy of living well and put it into practice.
This course will significantly improve your reasoning abilities, helping you to become (1) a more careful reader, listener, and thinker, (2) a better judge of evidence and arguments, and (3) more skilled at expressing your ideas in a compelling and effective way. The course will cover: perceptual schemas, cognitive biases, credibility, the uses and abuses of language, recognizing and evaluating arguments, recognizing fallacies, active listening, and nonverbal communication. There will be ample opportunity to develop your reasoning abilities through analysis of a variety of philosophical, religious, ethical, and political arguments.