Philosophy of happiness
To achieve happiness, one should become immune to changes in the material world and strive to gain the knowledge of the eternal, immutable forms that reside in the realm of ideas.
Plato sees societal happiness stemming from citizens treating each other justly, leading virtuous lives, and each fulfilling their social function.
[8] More specifically, eudaimonia (arete, Greek: ἀρετή) refers to an inherently positive and divine state of being in which humanity can actively strive for and achieve.
[14] Thus, happiness can be gained through rigorous training (askesis, Greek: ἄσκησις) and by living in a way which was natural for humans, rejecting all conventional desires, preferring a simple life free from all possessions.
[15] As a consequence the sage, even if he has his troubles, will nonetheless be happy, even if few pleasures accrue to him.The Cyrenaics were a school of philosophy established by Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435 – c. 356 BCE).
[18] Claudius Aelianus, in his Historical Miscellany,[19] writes about Aristippus: "He recommended that one should concrete on the present day, and indeed on the very part of it in which one is acting and thinking.
Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship.Epicurus (c. 341 – c. 270 BCE), the founder of Epicureanism, taught that the aim of life was to attain a state of tranquility (ataraxia, Greek: ἀταραξία) and freedom from fear, as well as absence of bodily pain (aponia, Greek: ἀπονία).
[23] If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you were bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, but satisfied to live now according to nature, speaking heroic truth in every word that you utter, you will live happy.
[31] They argued that to achieve happiness, one ought to be vegetarian, have nightly examinations of conscience, and avoid both consumerism and politics,[32] and believe that an elusive incorporeal power pervades the body.
[37] In this manner, St. Augustine follows the Neoplatonic tradition in asserting that happiness lays in the contemplation of the purely intelligible realm.
[36] St. Augustine deals with the concept of happiness directly in his treatises De beata vita and Contra Academicos.
This they work at by toiling over a whole range of pursuits, advancing on different paths, but striving to attain the one goal of happiness.Boethius (c. 480–524 AD) was a philosopher, most famous for writing The Consolation of Philosophy.
[44] Produced near the end of his life, al-Ghazali wrote The Alchemy of Happiness (Kimiya-yi Sa'ādat, (Persian: كيمياى سعادت).
[45] In the work, he emphasizes the importance of observing the ritual requirements of Islam, the actions that would lead to salvation, and the avoidance of sin.
[46] Only by exercising the human faculty of reason – a God-given ability – can one transform the soul from worldliness to complete devotion to God, the ultimate happiness.
[52] According to Thomas Aquinas, perfect happiness cannot be found in any physical pleasure, any amount of worldly power, any degree of temporal fame or honor, or indeed in any finite reality.
[56] He continues by acknowledging that one must be allowed a private sphere of life to realize those particular attempts of happiness without the interference of society.
[58] Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher, poet, cultural critic, and philologist whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy.
[60][61] These "small men" who seek after only their own pleasure and health, avoiding all danger, exertion, difficulty, challenge, and struggle are contemptible.
He wants us to consider the affirmative value of suffering and unhappiness which create everything of great worth in life, including all the highest achievements of human culture, not least of all philosophy.
If it separates itself from the everyday world, the demand for happiness will cease to be external, and begin to become an object of spiritual contemplation.
His philosophy revolved around the emphasis on meaning, the value of suffering, and responsibility to something greater than the self;[67] only if one encounters those questions can one be happy.
[69] The utility monster (1974) is a thought experiment created by Robert Nozick to criticize utilitarian notion of aggregate pleasure (happiness).
In La puissance d'exister: Manifeste hédoniste, Onfray claims that the political dimension of hedonism runs from Epicurus to John Stuart Mill to Jeremy Bentham and Claude Adrien Helvétius.
"[71] David Pearce (born 1959) is a British transhumanist philosopher who approaches ethical issues from a lexical negative utilitarian perspective.
He presents a case for abolishing suffering through a biological hedonist program, which aligns with utilitarian goals of maximizing happiness.
