Högre seminarium i praktisk filosofi: Stina Björkholm & Mats Ingelström (IFFS)

Does Contextualism about ‘Well-Being’ Challenge a Philosophical Paradigm?

Seminarium

Datum:

tisdag 20 maj 2025

Tid:

13.15 – 15.00

Plats:

D700

Abstract

The concept of well-being plays a central role across a range of contexts, from empirical sciences and ethical theory to everyday discourse. Alexandrova has argued that the diversity of well-being discourse supports a semantic contextualist view – positing that the meaning of ‘well-being’ shifts depending on the context of use.

This thesis has been taken to challenge a traditional philosophical way of theorizing about well-being. In this paper, we challenge that contention. We begin by outlining the contextualist approach and presenting reasons to take it seriously as a semantic thesis.

We then address three ways of spelling out how this view might be at odds with a philosophical paradigm, demonstrating that neither succeeds in establishing that there is a genuine conflict.

Our analysis suggests that recognizing the contextual nature of well-being discourse does not entail that philosophy of well-being is undermined or significantly limits the relevance of the field.