Introduction. This article focuses on clarifying Aristotle’s views on happiness. The objective is to describe the development of the idea of happiness from ancient times to the present to explain the role of happiness in social life. Every person needs happiness, and every society wants to achieve it. Aristotle considered happiness to be a human epistemological process. Happiness plays a vital role in human life’s purpose. Happiness is also a right that every person should have in their life.
The purpose is to find out the content of happiness and the method to achieve happiness for people, especially Vietnamese people, in the process of global integration. They are educating people toward a happy life.
Materials and methods. Based on the study of Aristotle’s Nicomaque Ethics to clarify the happiness category. The work played a pivotal role in Aristotle’s determination of happiness. The article uses materialist dialectic to explain arguments about happiness expressed by Aristotle in ten separate books and based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum. In addition, the article uses analytical and synthetic methods to clarify the point of happiness in the history of human philosophical thought from ancient, medieval, and modern times thereby drawing the content of Aristotle’s view of happiness.
Results and discussions. Aristotle was the first to address happiness and research on happiness. He affirmed that happiness is a need, a good nature of human beings. Happiness is considered under moral value as a criterion to evaluate a person’s virtue, so it has moral significance. Happiness is human action in life towards beauty. Happiness is also a cognitive ability in humans; through training, training, and education, people can achieve the value of happiness. Therefore, it is necessary to educate people to achieve happiness; however, the happiness of Aristotle is from a spiritual perspective. Meanwhile, material life plays a vital role in shaping the concept of human happiness. Therefore, Aristotle has not mentioned the decisive role of material life. At the same time, happiness is the factor that individuals do well, society is also good, but the part of social happiness places on the individual’s view of happiness.
Practical significance. Clarifying Aristotle’s perspective on happiness, the article points out the amount of socio-economic development orientation from a macro perspective in building a happy Vietnam. The nation’s happiness is the development of both material and spiritual factors. On that basis, personal happiness is the cause of national construction and renovation. Since then, for Vietnam to be happy, it is necessary to improve the people’s role as the master of the country, to take the people as the root. It is essential to educate Vietnamese people comprehensively so they realize that their happiness is closely related to the people’s happiness in the cause of building the nation’s happiness. The third is educating people about the spirit of building happiness in the government associated with the country’s socio-economic development because the happiness of the Vietnamese people is to ensure material and spiritual benefits for the Vietnamese people.
Keywords: Aristotle, happiness, human, philosophy, ethics
For Reference: Bui, D. X., & Pham, K. T. (2022). Aristotle’s philosophy on happiness and its meaning to educate Vietnamese today. Perspektivy nauki i obrazovania – Perspectives of Science and Education, 60 (6), 475-490. doi: 10.32744/pse.2022.6.28
Information about the authors:
Dung Xuan Bui (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) - Faculty of High Quality Training. Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education. E-mail: dungbx@hcmute.edu.vn. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8323-6443 Kien Thi Pham (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) - University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City. E-mail: kienpt@ueh.edu.vn. ORCID ID: 0000-0001-8024-8679
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