If you need mental health crisis support, please contact your local mental health services, your GP, or telephone 111 or the emergency services.

Home > History of Happiness

History of Happiness

Why Study Happiness?

The overall historical trend has been that society is doing better; more people are able to meet their basic needs, are living longer and have better health. As a result we are more and more interested in how to live a satisfying and fulfilling life.

History of Happiness

Philosophical and psychological pursuits of happiness began thousands of years ago. It is Western culture’s commitment to happiness which is fairly modern. Some of the schools of thought behind the study of happiness are listed below:

  • Chinese Schools of Philosophy; Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism.
  • Ancient Greek Philosophy; Socrates, Epicurus, Aristotle, Plato.
  • Islamic Philosophy; Abu Hamid al-Ghazali.
  • William James (Psychologist and Philosopher – ‘the first positive psychologist’).
  • Logotherapy; Viktor Frankl – ‘on meaning’. Humanistic psychology – 1950’s; Maslow.

If you would like to know more, when you have finished our course you might like to read the information on the Pursuit of Happiness website.

Go to Pursuit of Happiness

Briefly, however historically there were 2 traditions of happiness; Hedonism and Eudaimonia. Henderson & Knight (2012) review the concepts of Eudaimonia and Hedonism and highlight some of the recent debate about the use of these terms. In spite of the debate it is generally accepted that both describe ways of living and behaving and both are pathways to wellbeing. See below to find out more.

  • Hedonistic tradition is associated to people such as Locke, Epicurus and Bentham and fundamentally associates wellbeing to positive experiences which accompany the satisfaction of desire. This is the pursuit of pleasure, following the pursuit of desires; maximising pleasure and minimising pain
  • Eudaimonic approaches value behaving in a noble manner and developing your potential through the pursuit of meaning and recognises that whilst positive experiences may arise from this, it is not the pursuit of them which is of greatest importance. This is living a life of contemplation; living virtuously and in accordance with your authentic nature.
Important:
ⓘ

You might want to make notes at this point. These may help you remember things, work out what you want or see how much you’ve changed if you read them in a few years’ time.