Three Liberal Conceptions of Self-Realization: Creativity, Authenticity and Flourishing

Abstract

The concept of self-realization, in its most contemporary sense, owes much to an idea, which arose with the Enlightenment, as the culmination of the process of the rebirth of the subject in the fifteenth century. However, the notion of self-realization is complex because it entails a combination of two apparently antagonistic elements: freedom and normativity. In this chapter, I intend to clarify this concept by examining the theses of three authors—J. S. Mill, Taylor and Nussbaum—in whose work the idea of self-realization appears in a significant way. The three philosophers underline some common elements that together with the concepts of project and imagination held by Ortega shed light on the normative dimension of self-realization.

“enoi enoi oios essi”

(Pindar, Pythia II, 70)