Edge has recently posted an essay by Daniel Gilbert, a researcher whose subject is happiness. Among other things, Gilbert talks about why the study of happiness can be just as quantitiatve as other sciences (e.g., the science of vision) that rely on people’s reports of their experience, and talks about how a qualitative study of happiness might help us to understand our emotional experience. I’m intrigued by the analogies he draws with previous scientific breakthroughs.
Gilbert has just written a book about happiness, the latest of many happiness books that have appeared in the last few years. Yesterday I picked up two books at the library about happiness: a history of the concept by Darrin M. McMahon, and a novel by Lisa Grunwald about a woman who’s trying to write a history of happiness while exploring its meaning in her own life.
