Human Flourishing: A Conceptual Analysis [Paperback]

In this first systematic reconstruction of the concept of human flourishing, Eri Mountbatten-O'Malley addresses the central problems with the treatment of the concept inpsychology, education, policy and science.Drawing on Wittgenstein and his followers, he develops a sophisticated methodology of conceptual analysis and makes the case for paying closer attention to complex human contexts, purposes and uses.

Adopting a conceptual approach, informed by fundamental insights adapted from Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, Mountbatten-O'Malley highlights the key features and connections in the conceptual landscape of human flourishing, such as humanness, agency, personal growth, happiness and meaning. He considers the extent to which any claim to knowledge is reliant on a putative human nature, what that nature is, and how we can better understand such notions.

Re-humanizing current research on the concept that is technicalized and detached from ordinary uses, this volume takes the 'human' in conceptions of human flourishing seriously.

This book is original, insightful, and provocative. It utilizes key insights from Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophy to rigorously analyse the widely used but contested concept of flourishing. Its conclusions cannot be ignored. Xavier Symons, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, USA

Eri Mountbatten-O'Malley has seized upon Wittgenstein's ideas and methods and used them to shed much needed light on the notion of human flourishing as deployed in education, psychology and political debate. His criticisms of essentialism, subjectivism, reductionism and scientism are powerful and persuasive. His advocacy of civilised humanism in the face of its numerous adversaries is laudable. P.M.S.lƒ)