Tuesday classes

For History of Philosophy the question today was how do you reconcile the conclusion of Leibniz that this is the Best of All Possible Worlds with your own experience? In Introduction to Philosophy the quiz question today was pretty close to question 5 on the first test - but meant to be a focus on which of those philosophers we read today that you may find a good guide to a happy life. It seems a particularly important question to me today since teaching values as part of a religious narrative is discouraged in our public school system, yet values are embedded in historically traditional religion, leaving young people with no formal training in ethics and values unless they receive it somewhere else. Some of those philosophers in the post Aristotelian period are often interpreted as presenting values that may be viewed as secular.