The topic of the 2026 seminar is “Happiness and Well-Being.” In the Aristotelian tradition, happiness is understood as successfully living a good life rather than mere subjective contentment. While Aquinas initially appears to adopt this Aristotelian framework in his treatment of happiness, the substance of happiness ends up being identified with the beatific vision rather than anything in our earthly lives. Can we nevertheless learn something about well-being, understood as this-worldly happiness, from St. Thomas’s conception of happiness? What is the metaphysical structure of happiness? What is the role of pleasure or enjoyment in a theory of well-being? How are we to make sense of the intellectual or rational character of human happiness? This seminar will explore these questions through a study of Aristotle, Aquinas, and neo-Aristotelian theorists of happiness and well-being.
Faculty
Dhananjay Jagannathan, Columbia University
Joseph Stenberg, Colgate University
Jennifer Frey, University of Tulsa
Therese Cory, University of Notre Dame
Eligibility
This seminar is open to graduate students in philosophy and related fields.
Application Deadline: February 16, 2026
