ARTICLE
30 June 2026

The Contemporary Connotations and Pathways to Realizing the Concept of Happiness from the Perspective of Philosophical Speculation

Wanggen Li1
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1 Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, Qingpu 201701, Shanghai, China
SDS 2026 , 2(3), 92–98; https://doi.org/10.26689/SDS.v2i3.16164
© 2026 by the Author(s). Licensee: Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty Ltd, Australia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

This paper analyzes the history of philosophical speculation from ancient Greece to the nineteenth century, elucidating the four-fold connotations of the contemporary concept of happiness: grounded in creative labor, rooted in social relations, balancing material and spiritual aspects, and integrating the individual and society. It proposes four pathways to realization: advancing people’s livelihoods, promoting fairness and justice, improving the ecological environment, and strengthening grassroots governance, with the hope of providing some reference for relevant researchers.

Keywords
Philosophical reflection
Concept of happiness
Pathways to realization
References

[1]   Nie J, 2011, A New Approach to Analyzing Aristotle’s Concept of “Happiness”. Journal of Social Sciences of Shanxi Higher Education Institutions, 23(2): 10–12, 27.

[2]   Yan J, 2019, A Study of Marx’s Philosophy of Happiness. China Social Sciences Press.

[3]   Ling J, Wang B, 2020, The Concept of Happiness Through Striving: A Modernist Reflection on the Formation of Young People’s “Three Views” Over the Past 40 Years of Reform and Opening Up. Youth and Society, (8): 40–41.

[4]   Ma N, 2017, The Utilitarian Concept of Happiness: From Individual Happiness to Social Happiness. Abstracts of Chinese Social Sciences, (5): 88–89.

Conflict of interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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