Philosophy Happiness and Pleasure: Plato v. Aristotle

Happiness and pleasure are often used as easy synonyms. However, two of the major philosophers, perhaps the major philosophers of antiquity, that of Socrates and Aristotle make a strong distinction between the two concepts of pleasure and happiness. Socrates states that the natural impetus of all human beings is to seek pleasure. However, according to Socrates, true and sustained pleasure is only found in the happiness of the soul. In other words, merely feeling good is of little benefit, only the difficult process of finding knowledge about the world can give a human being a truly worthy, happy, and profitable...

The ultimate end or final good of human existence is eudaimonia, a kind of happiness that is the 'flourishing,' the fullest expression of the human mind. In contrast, sensual delight, such as the pleasure found in sexual desire, is only a very thin, shadowy rendition of the larger spiritual happiness of understanding that is the true purpose of a good life. Happiness cannot be equated with wealth, physical delight, or material gains of any kind, rather it is a way of seeing the world, an intellectual cultivation that a human being must develop with the ultimate aim of perfecting the soul.
Aristotle makes an even more academic, definitional distinction between…