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Philosophy of Human Well-being
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Philosophy of Human Well-being

A special issue of Philosophies (ISSN 2409-9287).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 February 2022) | Viewed by 15735

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Søren Harnow Klausen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark, 5230 Odense, Denmark
Interests: philosophical and empirical happiness and well-being studies; epistemology (especially social epistemology); philosophy of science and the humanities; science studies; interdisciplinarity; creativity and innovation; philosophy of education; philosophy of literature and the arts; philosophy of mind; ethics; phenomenology; value theory; history of philosophy; health-related philosophy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Human well-being has been a central philosophical topic throughout the history of philosophy, though it has temporarily been out of fashion. It has recently achieved new prominence, partly as a reaction to the boom in empirical studies of, and public interest in, the nature and conditions of well-being. Philosophers have tried to improve the conceptual and methodical foundations of well-being research, though with mixed success. Philosophy itself has had difficulties moving beyond the stalemate between subjectivist and objectivist views, and between the “big three” (hedonism, desire satisfaction, and objective list theories), and there are doubts about the real-world applicability or usefulness of abstract notions of well-being. New ideas for hybrid, holistic, dynamic, or contextualist theories of well-being have been put forward, but neither sufficiently developed nor widely discussed.

This Special Issue aims to advance the state of the art of philosophical theorizing about human well-being, by focusing on, for example:

- how to incorporate or otherwise respond to empirical findings;

- how to develop new and more refined concepts and methodologies for accurately measuring well-being;

- how to synthesize or move beyond the dominant conflicting approaches;

- how to respond more adequately to standard objections to the dominant approaches;

- how to construct theories of more specific forms of well-being or well-being in particular groups or contexts;

- the role of meaning and authenticity in well-being; and

- the role of cultural differences and culturally embedded notions and practices in human well-being, and the study of it.

Prof. Dr. Søren Harnow Klausen
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Philosophies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • well-being
  • happiness
  • philosophy and psychology
  • quality of life
  • hedonism
  • life satisfaction approach
  • preference theories
  • objective list theories
  • meaning in life
  • authenticity

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 1366 KiB  
Article
Positive Psychology and Philosophy-as-Usual: An Unhappy Match?
by Josef Mattes
Philosophies 2022, 7(3), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7030052 - 16 May 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3407
Abstract
The present article critiques standard attempts to make philosophy appear relevant to the scientific study of well-being, drawing examples in particular from works that argue for fundamental differences between different forms of wellbeing (by Besser-Jones, Kristjánsson, and Kraut, for example), and claims concerning [...] Read more.
The present article critiques standard attempts to make philosophy appear relevant to the scientific study of well-being, drawing examples in particular from works that argue for fundamental differences between different forms of wellbeing (by Besser-Jones, Kristjánsson, and Kraut, for example), and claims concerning the supposedly inherent normativity of wellbeing research (e.g., Prinzing, Alexandrova, and Nussbaum). Specifically, it is argued that philosophers in at least some relevant cases fail to apply what is often claimed to be among their core competences: conceptual rigor—not only in dealing with the psychological construct of flow, but also in relation to apparently philosophical concepts such as normativity, objectivity, or eudaimonia. Furthermore, the uncritical use of so-called thought experiments in philosophy is shown to be inappropriate for the scientific study of wellbeing. As an alternative to such philosophy-as-usual, proper attention to other philosophical traditions is argued to be promising. In particular, the philosophy of ZhuangZi (a contemporary of Aristotle and one of the most important figures in Chinese intellectual history) appears to concord well with today’s psychological knowledge, and to contain valuable ideas for the future development of positive psychology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Human Well-being)
14 pages, 258 KiB  
Article
Wellbeing Competence
by Søren Engelsen
Philosophies 2022, 7(2), 42; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7020042 - 9 Apr 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3088
Abstract
This article presents and analyzes the basic features of wellbeing competence. Following a procedural approach to wellbeing, I propose wellbeing competence as a significant object of focus in the philosophical debate on wellbeing. Instead of being concerned one-sidedly with abstract ideals and explicit, [...] Read more.
This article presents and analyzes the basic features of wellbeing competence. Following a procedural approach to wellbeing, I propose wellbeing competence as a significant object of focus in the philosophical debate on wellbeing. Instead of being concerned one-sidedly with abstract ideals and explicit, theoretical knowledge about what constitutes wellbeing, wellbeing competence is the ability to handle the concrete process of living well and helping others live well in a generally qualified way. This article presents a theory that considers wellbeing competence a complex form of knowing how. Further, it outlines central aspects and components of wellbeing competence. I suggest four components to play central functional roles in wellbeing competence when supplementing each other: empathy, emotional awareness, flexible perspective, and metacognition. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Human Well-being)
15 pages, 264 KiB  
Article
Finding Oneself Well Together with Others: A Phenomenological Study of the Ontology of Human Well-Being
by Jonas Holst
Philosophies 2022, 7(2), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7020041 - 6 Apr 2022
Viewed by 2619
Abstract
Based on critical readings of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the paper offers a phenomenological study of the ontology of well-being that transcends the opposition between subjective and objective being. By interpreting the Heideggerian notion of Befindlichkeit as [...] Read more.
Based on critical readings of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the paper offers a phenomenological study of the ontology of well-being that transcends the opposition between subjective and objective being. By interpreting the Heideggerian notion of Befindlichkeit as the fundamental way in which humans find themselves in the world, being affected by and faced with their own existence, the paper opens a way to understanding well-being that locates the possibility of elevating one’s own being not inside or outside the I but in the affective bond to others called friendship. Aristotle’s reflections on philia play a crucial role in developing this understanding of well-being, according to which humans find themselves well by sharing joy with each other and making a vital contribution to the realization of their own possibilities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Human Well-being)
13 pages, 251 KiB  
Article
Despair as a Threat to Meaning: Kierkegaard’s Challenge to Objectivist Theories
by Jeffrey Hanson
Philosophies 2021, 6(4), 92; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6040092 - 2 Nov 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4605
Abstract
The question of meaning in life has enjoyed renewed attention in analytic discourse over the last few decades. Despite the apparently “existential” quality of this topic, existential philosophy has had little impact on this re-energized conversation. This paper draws on Kierkegaard’s The Sickness [...] Read more.
The question of meaning in life has enjoyed renewed attention in analytic discourse over the last few decades. Despite the apparently “existential” quality of this topic, existential philosophy has had little impact on this re-energized conversation. This paper draws on Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death in order to challenge the objectivist theory of meaning in life. According to that theory, a meaningful life is one replete with objective goods. Kierkegaard, however, exposits four forms of the spiritual sickness he calls despair that are compatible with the possession of objective goods. If this account is convincing, it poses a challenge to the objectivist view, suggesting that a subjective contribution is also necessary to fully account for meaning in life. By a process of negative inference, this paper concludes by sketching out what this subjective contribution might look like and suggests the term “authenticity” in order to capture this subjective element of a meaningful life. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Philosophy of Human Well-being)
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