The Phenomenon Happiness: Prolegomena to a Phenomenological Description

Abstract

This article argues that phenomenology should investigate the phenomenon human happiness because this distinctive style of philosophizing has the potential to make a special contribution to the determination of the highest human good. This distinctive contribution is a function of the phenomenological method, which generally involves the performance of the phenomenological epoché and the execution of the transcendental reduction with respect to the acts of consciousness and their correlatively constituted objects. By means of an axiological application of the phenomenological method specifically to this fundamental ethical and practical question, it becomes possible to distinguish in a rigorous manner between what people think or feel happiness is and what it genuinely is. For example, the phenomenological approach to happiness enables people to neutralize their natural attitude toward the perceived highest good, in which it is given naively and straightforwardly, and to adopt the transcendental attitude toward it, in which it is taken critically and reflectively. As a result, all other things being equal, an application of the phenomenological method to the phenomenon human happiness enhances the prospects for an achievement of the highest human good on the part of the human agents involved in its pursuit.

Notes

Note: This is the revised version of a paper that I presented at the Fifth Annual Conference of the Interdisciplinary Coalition of North American Phenomenologists, Ramapo College of New Jersey, May 24–26, 2013. The purpose of the article is neither to engage in empirical investigations nor to get involved in philological altercations. Rather, the intent is to exhort phenomenologists to do what positive psychologists and analytic philosophers have been doing for some time now, namely, to take a close look at happiness as a phenomenon of human experience.

If the article also has the effect of getting philosophers and psychologists to take a phenomenological approach to happiness, then that would not be a bad thing either. The literature listed at the end invites all readers to a further exploration of the topic.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

George Heffernan

George Heffernan received his BA and MA in Philosophy from the Catholic University of America and his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Cologne. Concentrating on contemporary European philosophy, he specializes in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism, focusing on evidence, understanding, and meaning. He has presented numerous papers at scholarly conferences and published numerous articles in scholarly journals. His research has been supported by the Basselin Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is professor of philosophy at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts.