What exactly is happiness? A question that philosophers have pondered about for centuries. In this interactive session we do this again. We will mainly focus on the question whether we can we even know how happy we are. Something about this question is silly: when you are happy, you’ll know it. However, when we ask how happy we are, we often want to know how happy we are compared to something else: how happy are we compared to others? How happy am I compared to how happy I was in the past, or can be in the future? How happy are you compared to the neighbor sitting next to you? Questions that are hard to answer.
Philosopher Willem van der Deijl-Kloeg will discuss his view on these and other philosophical questions about happiness. Then he will open the floor for an interactive discussion with the audience, which will be guided by inspiring philosophical questions and statements.
Willem van der Deijl-Kloeg teaches Philosophy at Tilburg University. His main interests lie in the concepts of wellbeing and happiness in economics and ethics, as he looks into the question whether social science can measure our wellbeing and what role this should it play in our public and private choices.
Registration is not required
This lecture is organized by Studium Generale
