The Present of an Ancient Notion: Eudaimonic Well-Being as a Concept for Sustainable Entrepreneurs?

This contribution intends to show that a sustainable eudaimonic well-being is inseparable from an appropriate representation of the human self. This assumption is based on the original meaning of the Greek substantive eudaimonía, presupposing that human beings manifest their true self in their encounter with the world. Relying on some suggestions stemming from Plato’s work, particularly regarding the notion of good and the Socratic concept of midwifery, the aforementioned true self may be characterized as an eminently dialogical self, whose modality of consciousness, transcending any first, second, and third person perspectives, is qualified by unegoistic freedom, that is, by intrinsic openness and self-givingness toward the harmonious manifestation of other beings. This representation of the true self is in fact consonant with an unprejudiced observation of our perceiving/knowing self, through the observation of which we become immediately capable of abandoning the current, both solipsistic and dualistic image of the self as a localizable point shrunk in itself and separated from the world. A representation of the self can be thus attained, in which the very self-phenomenal consciousness may be perceived as a possible source of inexhaustible generativity concerning sustainable eudaimonic well-being, for both individuals and for the world.