Human Flourishing Across Cultures and Disciplines
Paradigms of Well-Being and Development
- Open Access
Human Flourishing Across Cultures and Disciplines
Paradigms of Well-Being and Development
- Open Access
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Description
What does it mean to flourish? This open access book serves as a call to action to reimagine and work towards a world where flourishing is a reality for all.
An international team of scholars, practitioners, wisdom keepers, and policymakers come together to construct alternative visions of what a flourishing life could encompass. Their inclusive approach integrates indigenous wisdom, happiness, care, and storytelling and broadens our ideas of what it means to flourish.
Where Western perspectives often emphasize individuality and wealth, here contributors look beyond individual achievement and material success as benchmarks of a successful life. Instead they foreground the intrinsic value of interpersonal relationships, community bonds, and spiritual fulfilment. Interweaving the threads of philosophical, scientific, indigenous, and political thought, they build a holistic understanding of human well-being and flourishing.
We see how spiritual and metaphysical beliefs can coexist with scientific validity and contribute meaningfully to our understanding of human aspiration. A foreword from former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon lays the groundwork for new attainable utopias that will help shape future Sustainable Development Goals.
By encouraging us to rethink policies and our collective futures, this one-of-a-kind collection introduces us to a truly flourishing society where all dimensions of life are equally valued.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by The New Institute.
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Contributors
How to Read This Book
Foreword – Ban Ki-moon and Patrick Verkoojen (Former Secretary-General of the United Nations and CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation)
Acknowledgement
Introduction – Andrej Zwitter (Professor of Political Theory and Governance, University of Groningen, Netherlands)
Part I: Meta-Scientific Approaches to Understanding Flourishing
Chapter 1. The Spectrum of Human Understanding: The Conceptual Basis of Human Flourishing – George Ellis (Professor Emeritus and Research Fellow, University of Cape Town, South Africa)
Chapter 2. The Indispensability Thesis and the Expanded Notion of Nature – Markus Gabriel (Chair in Epistemology, Modern and Contemporary Philosophy, University of Bonn, Germany)
Chapter 3. Ontological Security and Worldviews for Human Flourishing – Dean Rickles (Professor of History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, University of Sydney, Australia)
Part II: Non-Material Conceptions of Flourishing
Chapter 4. Positive Psychology and Human Flourishing
Chapter 5. Christian and Neo-Platonic Roots of Flourishing – Higher Virtues and the Pursuit of Happiness – Andrej Zwitter (Professor of Political Theory and Governance, University of Groningen, Netherlands)
Chapter 6. Learning to Flourish with Spinoza – Harald Atmanspacher (Chair of Philosophy, ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Part III: Context and Culture – Flourishing as Being
Chapter 7. The Arc of Hope – Richard Hecht (Professor Emeritus in Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA)
Chapter 8. Folktales, Stories, and Traditions – Conceptual Indigenous Wisdom and Knowledge for Human Flourishing – Wakanyi Hoffman (Research Fellow, The New Institute, Hamburg, Germany)
Chapter 9. Confucian Language of Flourishing: Reading the Classic Daxue – Victoria Sukhomlinova (Research Fellow, The New Institute, Hamburg, Germany)
Chapter 10. Towards a Feminist and Radical Democratic Theory of Human Flourishing – Maggie O'Neill (Professor in Sociology and Criminology, University College Cork, Ireland)
Chapter 11. The King's Philosophy and a Happiness Train: A Conceptual Overview of GNH – Karma Ura (President of CBS & GNH Studies, Thimphu, Bhutan)
Part IV: New Imaginaries of Flourishing
Chapter 12. Planetary Thinking for Planetary Flourishing
Chapter 13. Reclaiming Care – Homo Curans as Vision for Human Flourishing and Sustainability Transformation – Ariel Hernandez (Senior Researcher, German Institute of Development and Sustainability, Germany)
Chapter 14. Reimagining a World Fit for Our Humanity – Ian Hughes (Senior Research Fellow, MaREI Centre, Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork, Ireland)
Chapter 15. Flourishing in the International Sphere: From Sovereignty to Solidarity: Challenges to 'Modern' International Law – Hans-Joachim Heintze (Affiliation not listed)
Chapter 16. Human Flourishing: An Integrated Systems Approach to Development Post 2030 – Andrej Zwitter, George Ellis, Ariel Hernandez, Wakanyi Hoffman, Karma Ura, Richard Hecht
Conclusion – Andrej Zwitter (Professor of Political Theory and Governance, University of Groningen, Netherlands)
Epilogue: Religions in Transformation to Sustainability: The Role of the Sacred in Human Flourishing – Mary McAleese (Former Irish President)
Bibliography
Product details
| Published | 11 Jun 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Paperback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 368 |
| ISBN | 9781350547810 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Dimensions | 234 x 156 mm |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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