| Popis: |
This chapter is a comprehensive study of Samuel Johnson’s ideas of happiness. It argues that what Johnson demonstrates is not that earthly happiness is impossible, but that it is subject to conditions we would be unwise to ignore. In place of perfect happiness, Johnson offers a tempered happiness, one that will always be a work in progress and vulnerable to loss. But rather than viewing the endlessness of desire and the fragility of the good simply as obstacles to happiness, this chapter argues further, Johnson’s larger point is that there would be no happiness (as we know it) without these human realities. In scaling back our estimation of happiness, he challenges us to come to terms with happiness as it is, not as we’d like it to be, and to ask no more from life than life can allow. |
