Apr 19, 2024  
2021-2022 University Bulletin 
    
2021-2022 University Bulletin [ARCHIVED BULLETIN]

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HNSM 174 - Suffering and the Idea of Happiness: Thoughts and Passions

3 Credit Hours
Many critical thinkers assert that “happiness” as a goal is an invention of the 19th century. For Dostoevsky happiness as both material comfort and the perfectibility of man is both undesirable and unattainable. Dostoevsky’s Christian existentialism is a rage against the uncritical embrace of happiness that dominates our era. For Dostoevsky it is salvation, not happiness, that we need to pursue; the former requires suffering, and the latter is an illusion. We will read The Brothers Karamazov as a critique of a way of life that has become characterized as Western Enlightenment.



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