Han, Tomislav

About the author: Tomislav Han, who was born in the former Yugoslav republic of Croatia, earned his MA and PhD in constitutional and intellectual history from the University of Southern California. A former business executive, he has taught history and political science at the University of North Texas, Austin College, and Grayson County College. He currently works as a writer and consultant.

The Transformation of Aristotelian Political Epistemology in Eighteenth-Century American Constitutional Discourse

2003 0-7734-6771-8
What is the pursuit of happiness? This is one of the central questions addressed in this study. It examines the extensive ideological genealogy of the concept, whose roots are firmly grounded in Aristotelian political science. The concept of happiness was an indispensable part of a republican theory of government that influenced classical philosophers, the American founding fathers, and generations of other Aristotelians. This monograph examines the ‘pursuit of happiness’ by Revolutionary-era Americans and their ideological predecessors. It is also the story of the increasing irrelevance of metaphysics-centered philosophies, of continual attempts to reconcile Aristotelian political priorities with seemingly incompatible epistemological sensibilities, and of the rise of an epistemology-centered positive science in post-Revolutionary America.