The Pursuit of Happiness and the Traditions of Wisdom

The Pursuit of Happiness and the Traditions of Wisdom
Author: Vincenzo Giorgino
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 85
Release: 2014-03-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319047442

This book presents a discussion of happiness that takes the shape of a dialogue between contemplative knowledge and practice or the wisdom traditions and the social sciences. It examines the different definitions of happiness in relation to wisdom traditions and the impact of these traditions on current research. It explores topics such as the pursuit of a good life, the pursuit of eudaimonia and the meaning of economic and social suffering from the perspective of the social sciences. It further discusses how the social sciences can meet people’s aspirations towards a world of higher well-being in our time, and what the future challenges are. The book includes both theoretical and empirical contributions on the matter and opens up a new line of transdisciplinary research. Overcoming barriers between disciplines and fields of knowledge, the book presents a beneficial cross-fertilization to achieve a wiser model of man.

The Pursuit of Wisdom and Happiness in Education

The Pursuit of Wisdom and Happiness in Education
Author: Sean Steel
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2014-05-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1438452136

Explores the nature and role of wisdom in education. Modern scholarship has struggled to come to terms with the meaning of wisdom and its significance in the field of education. This book examines the importance of pursuing wisdom in schools by turning to ancient and medieval sources for clarification concerning the nature of wisdom. Sean Steel argues that our current emphasis on the development of rigorous critical-analytic thinking skills, on assessment, and on accountability in education has negatively impacted the ability of schools to foster an environment in which both students and teachers might pursue wisdom. Although in recent times efforts have been made to incorporate the pursuit of wisdom into schools through Philosophy for Children (P4C) and contemplative education programming, such initiatives have missed their mark. Steel therefore recommends not more accountability in education for the purpose of ensuring global competitiveness, but rather the institutional promotion of periods of leisure or schole in the school day. Drawing upon his own experiences as a teacher who has tried to encourage students to search for wisdom, the author discusses some of the challenges and pitfalls of wisdom seeking. He also offers examples of various wisdom-seeking activities that might bear fruit in the classroom.

The World's Great Wisdom

The World's Great Wisdom
Author: Roger Walsh
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2014-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1438449577

Surveying spiritual and philosophical traditions, this volume revives the search for wisdom for modern times. What is wisdom and how is it cultivated? These are among the most important questions we can ask, but questions that have been routinely ignored in modern times. In the twentieth century, the search for wisdom was replaced by a search for knowledge as science and technology promised answers to life’s ills. However, along with scientific achievements came disasters, particularly the devastation of the planet through the accelerating use of modern technology. In an era drenched in data, a desire for wisdom has been reborn. Where can we go to learn about wisdom? The answer is clear: to the world’s great religions and their accompanying philosophies and psychologies. The World’s Great Wisdom makes these treasuries available. Practitioners from each of the great religions—as well as from Western philosophy and contemporary research—provide summaries of their traditions’ understandings of wisdom, the means for cultivating it, and its implications for the modern world. This book offers distillations of the world’s accumulated wisdom—ancient and modern, religious and scientific, philosophical and psychological. It is a unique resource that for the first time in history brings together our collective understanding of wisdom and the ways to develop it.

Ending the Pursuit of Happiness

Ending the Pursuit of Happiness
Author: Barry Magid
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2010-10-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1458783618

Inspires us - in wryly gentle prose - to outgrow the impossible pursuit of happiness, and instead make peace with the perfection of the way things are. Including ourselves! Magid invites readers to consider the notion that our certainty that we are broken may be turning our (3z(Bpursuit of happiness(S3(B into a source of yet more suffering. He takes an unusual look at our (S2(Bsecret practices(S3(B (what we?re REALLY doing, when we say (S2(Bpracticing(S3(B) and (S2(Bcurative fantasies,(S3(B wherein we have ideals of what spiritual practices will "do" for us, "cure" us. In doing so, he helps us look squarely at such pitfalls of spiritual practice so that we can avoid them. Along the way, Magid lays out a rich roadmap of a new "psychological-minded Zen," which may be among the most important spiritual developments of the present day.

The Pursuit of Wisdom and Happiness in Education

The Pursuit of Wisdom and Happiness in Education
Author: Sean Steel
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2014-05-19
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1438452144

Modern scholarship has struggled to come to terms with the meaning of wisdom and its significance in the field of education. This book examines the importance of pursuing wisdom in schools by turning to ancient and medieval sources for clarification concerning the nature of wisdom. Sean Steel argues that our current emphasis on the development of rigorous critical-analytic thinking skills, on assessment, and on accountability in education has negatively impacted the ability of schools to foster an environment in which both students and teachers might pursue wisdom. Although in recent times efforts have been made to incorporate the pursuit of wisdom into schools through Philosophy for Children (P4C) and contemplative education programming, such initiatives have missed their mark. Steel therefore recommends not more accountability in education for the purpose of ensuring global competitiveness, but rather the institutional promotion of periods of leisure or schole in the school day. Drawing upon his own experiences as a teacher who has tried to encourage students to search for wisdom, the author discusses some of the challenges and pitfalls of wisdom seeking. He also offers examples of various wisdom-seeking activities that might bear fruit in the classroom.

In Pursuit

In Pursuit
Author: Charles A. Murray
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 360
Release: 1988
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780671611002

A modern classic--back in print and available again. Originally published in 1988, this book draws on advances in psychology and sociology to explore the fundamental questions of what is meant by "success". Rich in fascinating case studies. Line drawings, graphs and tables.

The Geography of Bliss

The Geography of Bliss
Author: Eric Weiner
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2014-10-30
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1448168481

What makes a nation happy? Is one country's sense of happiness the same as another's? In the last two decades, psychologists and economists have learned a lot about who's happy and who isn't. The Dutch are, the Romanians aren't, and Americans are somewhere in between... After years of going to the world's least happy countries, Eric Weiner, a veteran foreign correspondent, decided to travel and evaluate each country's different sense of happiness and discover the nation that seemed happiest of all. ·He discovers the relationship between money and happiness in tiny and extremely wealthy Qatar (and it's not a good one) ·He goes to Thailand, and finds that not thinking is a contented way of life. ·He goes to the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, and discovers they have an official policy of Gross National Happiness! ·He asks himself why the British don't do happiness? In Weiner's quest to find the world's happiest places, he eats rotten Icelandic shark, meditates in Bangalore, visits strip clubs in Bangkok and drinks himself into a stupor in Reykjavik. Full of inspired moments, The Geography of Bliss accomplishes a feat few travel books dare and even fewer achieve: to make you happier.

The Bible and the Pursuit of Happiness

The Bible and the Pursuit of Happiness
Author: Brent A. Strawn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2012-11-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199795738

Scholars of the social sciences have devoted more and more attention of late to the concept of human happiness, mainly from sociological and psychological perspectives. This volume, which includes essays from scholars of the New Testament, the Old Testament, systematic theology, practical theology, and counseling psychology, poses a new and exciting question: what is happiness according to the Bible? Informed by developments in positive psychology, The Bible and the Pursuit of Happiness explores representations of happiness throughout the Bible and demonstrates the ways in which these representations affect both religious and secular understandings of happiness. In addition to the twelve essays, the book contains a framing introduction and epilogue, as well as an appendix of all the terms used in reference to happiness in the Bible. The resulting volume, the first of its kind, is a highly useful and remarkably comprehensive resource for the study of happiness in the Bible and beyond.