R: Take the Road More Traveled

Wednesday, October 14th, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. in the Berkeley Mendenhall Room

Casper David Friedrich,Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, 1818, oil on canvas, 94.8 × 74.8 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg.

Will it make all the difference? Modern society celebrates the individual; it promotes the idea that happiness is the result of choosing an original path. Yet is originality a presupposition to creativity, happiness, and individuality? Or is it the product of synthesizing existing ideas in new ways? 

What is the relationship between originality and objective truth? Can persons make genuinely original decisions while respecting a moral law, or do these norms require uniformity of action and thought?