Six Famous Philosophers and Their Definitions of Happiness

  Happiness is one of the hardest words to define. Indeed, the happiness of the mystic has nothing to do with that of the man of power, or with that of the ordinary person. Just as in everyday life we find different definitions of this feeling, there are also different approaches to it in philosophy. Here are some of them. “The happy are an exception who enjoy innocently their simple happiness.” -Baltasar Gracián- 1. Aristotle and the metaphysical For Aristotle, the most prominent of the metaphysical philosophers, happiness was the highest aspiration of all human beings. The way to achieve…