Flow – Psychology of Optimal Experience

268 NOTES

137- The amazing variety of things adults learn in their free time is de-

138 scribed in the investigations of Allen Tough (1978); see also Gross

(1982). One of the areas of knowledge to which laypersons continue to

contribute is that concerning health. One keeps hearing how people

(often mothers) will notice some peculiarities in the health patterns of

members of their family, which when communicated to health experts

turn out to have beneficial consequences. For example Berton Roueche

(1988) reports how a woman in New England, struck by the fact that

her son and many of his friends were suffering from arthritic pains in

the knee, alerted doctors of this suspicious coincidence, and as a result

of her information researchers “discovered” Lyme disease, a potentially

serious affliction transmitted by ticks.

139 It may be presumptuous to present a “reading list” of the great philoso­

phers, but to simply name them without a reference would also offend

professional scruples. So here goes. A few of the most seminal works in

each area might include the following. As to ontology, there are Chris­

tian von WolfFs Vemunftige Gedanken, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,

Flusserl’s Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, and Heideg­

ger’s Being and Time (1962); for these last two, it might be a good idea

to start with the introductions to Husserl by Kohak (1978) and by

Kolakowski (1987), and to Heidegger by George Steiner (1978 [1987]).

In terms of ethics, one would certainly wish to tackle Aristotle’s Nicoma-

chean Ethics; Aquinas’s treatises on Human Acts, on Habits, and on the

Active and Contemplative Life in the Summa Theologica; Benedict

Spinoza’s Ethics; and from Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil and Geneal­

ogy of Morals. In aesthetics, Alexander Baumgarten’s “Reflections on

Poetry,” Benedetto Croce’s Aesthetics, Santayana’s The Sense of Beauty,

and Collingwood’s The Principles of Art. The 54-volume series of the

Great Books of the Western World, now edited by Mortimer Adler and

published by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is a good introduction to the

most influential thinkers of our culture—the first two Syntopicon

volumes, which contain a summary of the main ideas of the books that

follow, could be especially useful to the amateur philosopher.

140- Medvedev (1971) provides an informed account of how the agricultural

141 policies of Lysenko, based on Leninist dogma, resulted in food short­

ages in Soviet Russia. See also Lecourt (1977).

CHAPTER 7

page por the time budget allocated to work by preliterate people, see the

143 excellent volume by Marshall Sahlins (1972) and the estimates of Lee

(1975). Some glimpses of the working patterns of medieval Europe are

to be found in Le Goff (1980) and Le Roy Ladurie (1979). The pattern