Daniel Gilbert Happiness

In an argument, one simply does not argue blindly. In order to make the argument believable, there must be facts to back up your reasoning and persuasive discourse. Stumbling on Happiness delivers an intuitive way of just that, precisely. In the essay, Daniel Gilbert resides to using many techniques to create a well directed argument on the human emotions and the relationship between our minds and the future. Through the use of persuasion in rhetoric and his knowledge on making an argument, Gilbert developes a feasible conclusion.
Developed early on in the book is the tone in which Gilbert employs to make the essay readable to everyone, even those who have no background knowledge in the psychological field. Even so, Gilbert never loses
For example, the quote “Knowledge is power, and the most important reason why our brains insist on stimulating the future even when we’d rather be here now, enjoying a goldfish moment, is that our brains want to control the experiences we are about to have,” gives the reader the assumption that Gilbert knows what he’s talking about, but it’s not impossible to understand. No one reading an essay would believe a word in it if the author didn’t seem knowledgeable in the topic of discussion. At the same time, however, if the essay had too much jargon, then the argument would also prove ineffective for the reader since there would be a very select few people that are actually able to comprehend it. To do this, Gilbert simply combined both aspects and balanced them out, resulting in the rather relaxed diction he enforces throughout the essay. He adds “highlights of human tendency to make predictions highly entertaining and comical” (Wilson). Gilbert also writes the essay as if he is talking directly to the reader, drifting away from the boring seminar-like mode of discourse used in similar essays. Using the first-person point of view, he can address even his own life stories, like “My friends tell me that I have a tendency to point out problems
To satisfy the criteria for a well-developed argument, Gilbert provides the reader with a wide variety of sources to support his claims. For instance, Gilbert includes many allusions to real people throughout the text, most commonly used to prove a point, and he references many famous scientists’ works using footnotes. Gilbert also includes an excerpt from one of Shakespeare quotes before every chapter, kind of like a topic sentence or an epigraph of sorts. But the whole essay is not a compilation of what other people have to say. Along with that, Gilbert has done his fair share of research himself. Being a psychology professor at Harvard, he ought to and he presents his own research and ideas mainly using logic. Anything without a footnote after it was thought of by him on a logical premise. Gilbert also provides charts or a tables illustrating exactly what he is trying to explain. They are made by Gilbert in an attempt to “dupe the reader and say we misperceive reality, and use those misperceptions to build a mistaken view of the future” (Scott).
Gilbert developes a well presented argument. Stumbling on Happiness was a well written essay for it was made to be easily read for all audiences, regardless of intelligence. By persuasive discourse and a whole lot of evidence to back him up, Gilbert’s claim can be believed by all who read his