102: Finding the good life through philosophy with Dr. Meghan Sullivan

Could you guess the most popular undergraduate course at the University of Notre Dame?

If you guessed a philosophy class, titled “God and the Good Life,” you are correct.

But it’s not the Philosophy 101 you may have taken in college. It’s “built on the idea that philosophy is care for our souls.”

That our day-to-day stressors and everyday questions about what’s good and what makes a good life are in fact philosophical questions.

And now you can sit down for class too, but in a fun and approachable way through a new book, titled “The Good Life Method: Reasoning Through the Big Questions of Happiness, Faith and Meaning,” co-written by Notre Dame philosophy professors Meghan Sullivan and Paul Blaschko.

Turning to figures like Aristotle and Plato, you’ll explore love, finance, work and faith as you dive into the big questions and create your own “good life plan.” 

As Meghan says, philosophy belongs everywhere. And she’s on the show to bring some of it to us today.

Dr. Meghan Sullivan is the Wilsey Family College Chair in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, director of the God and the Good Life Program, and director of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. She studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and went on to earn a doctorate in philosophy at Rutgers University.

Meghan has worked with thousands of students to help them start to articulate a purpose and how to hold onto it. She’s here to help us reflect on happiness and meaning, too.

So allow me to introduce to you today Dr. Meghan Sullivan

EPISODE SHOWNOTES: Read more.

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FIGHT FOR GOOD. Give to The Salvation Army.