12:45pm Tuesday 9th March 2010
By Alex Lewis
ACADEMICS will meet next week in Hatfield to discuss the most fundamental dilemma of human life - what is happiness and how can it be generated?
A University of Hertfordshire conference will unite philosophers, historians, economists, social scientists and artists, all pondering what it means to be happy.
Contributors will include the University of London's Professor Richard Schoch, author of The Secrets of Happiness: Three Thousand Years of Searching for the Good Life.
He argues that although many scientists believe the sources of happiness are sex, friends, job satisfaction, and a stable family, in reality the key is "something deeper and vaster than ourselves".
Other speakers will draw on recent research in various fields, exploring the link between income, work and happiness, life satisfaction among adolescent girls and a philosophical distinction between good and bad unhappiness.
Professor John Lippitt of the University of Hertfordshire said: "Several of the papers at this conference challenge the views of happiness that are prevalent in the media today, many of which focus on subjective well-being.
"We will use this conference to demonstrate how rich resources from history, philosophy, religion and the creative arts, as well as social science, can deepen our understanding and experience of happiness.”
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