Reflections on happiness and a happy life

Abstract

The main objective of the following text is to focus on and exemplify the basic axioms of theories of happiness that come from historical and philosophical tradition and are still, at least in some cases, relevant nowadays. As philosophers claim, the longing for happiness is a naturally human desire that has taken various forms in their thinking: happiness was connected with beatitude (Aristotle), with self-preservation (Spinoza), social helpfulness (Hume), living in the present moment without expostulations or false illusions (Comte-Sponville), and others. The desire for happiness means the main aim of a human life drives particular life goals and the values of individuals. Concepts of happiness have accrued in diachronic and synchronic cross-sections. The Aristotelian/Spinozan conception or Kantian, modern and postmodern traditions formed in a diachronic cross-section. Those that accrued in a synchronic cross-section segregated themselves on the basis of an individual’s spiritual and bodily aspect. Spiritual happiness (spiritual bliss, and inner equilibrium, ataraxis) was preferred by the eudaimonic (ευδαιμονία) tradition (Democritus, Socrates, Aristotle, Hellenism, French materialism and others); bodily pleasures were accentuated by the hedonistic traditions (Lipovetsky, Bauman, Keller). Some conceptions examined the problem of happiness through the optics of society and the individual, stressing general goodness and helpfulness (Plato, Aristotle, Kant); or personal goodness, pleasure and benefit – the contemporary hedonistic concepts (Lipovetsky, Maffesoli, Comte-Sponville) All these conceptions of happiness are united by the common desire of people to live happily; however, their means and ways to reach such a goal are different.