–Jan. 2025 – American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division Meeting, New York
–Jun. 2024 – Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture (EPTC) meeting, Annual Congress, Montreal, QC
Abstract: The flow state has been a subject of increasing interest in positive psychology and the philosophy of agency. In psychology, flow is described as an autotelic state (i.e. as intrinsically rewarding). Moreover, iterated flow states are said to lead to the development of an autotelic self capable of experiencing its actions as their own reward. Nevertheless, both the autotelic self and its relation to autotelic actions remain undertheorized in the psychological literature. But what must the self be in order to optimally develop through autotelic action? Moreover, just how is it that autotelic actions can fundamentally reshape self-experience? Drawing on Husserlian phenomenology of time consciousness, I provide an account of flow as self-shaping action. This account explains how the autotelic structure of flow functions as a source that motivates the development of the autotelic self over time.