{"id":1041,"date":"2026-03-31T19:51:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T23:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=1041"},"modified":"2026-04-01T11:23:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:23:36","slug":"eternity-in-an-hour-the-incomplete-completeness-of-well-being-as-autotelic-experience","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=1041","title":{"rendered":"\u201cEternity in an Hour\u201d: The Incomplete Completeness of Well-Being as Autotelic Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u2013<em>Jun. 2026<\/em> \u2013 Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture (EPTC) meeting, Victoria, BC<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Philosophical and psychological accounts of well-being both describe it as an autotelic experience (an experience that is its own reward). However, in spite of the normative weight attached to autotelicity in both literatures, neither can resolve what I call \u201cthe puzzle of autotelic experience\u201d: autotelic experience appears as both intrinsically valuable, such that undergoing the experience is its own reward, and as valuable only insofar as it orients the subject to a self-transcendent source of value. Drawing on Strasser\u2019s Husserl-inspired phenomenology of happiness and on Merleau-Ponty\u2019s phenomenology of time, I give a phenomenological account of autotelic experience that dissolves this puzzle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-black-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=827\" style=\"background-color:#e9dfd4c7\"><strong>back to Talks<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2013Jun. 2026 \u2013 Existential and Phenomenological Theory and Culture (EPTC) meeting, Victoria, BC Philosophical and psychological accounts of well-being both describe it as an autotelic experience (an experience that is its own reward). However, in spite of the normative weight attached to autotelicity in both literatures, neither can resolve what I call \u201cthe puzzle of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1041","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1041"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1050,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1041\/revisions\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}