What’s the Good Life?

“Now, the ultimate end of man, and of every intellectual substance, is called felicity or happiness, because this is what every intellectual substance desires as an ultimate end, and for its sake alone.” – Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica

In this course we will read excerpts from prominent writers and thinkers who address this timeless question. Our quest will take us from exploring a Greek Tragedy (Antigone) and a Platonic Dialogue to thoughts from Aquinas, Dante, Voltaire, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Sartre, Simone De Beauvoir, Camus, Iris Murdoch, and Salinger.