A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe“A tour de force. It is a thoughtful, subtle, beautifully written discussion of what it takes to live a meaningful life.” —Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice Throughout history most of us have looked to faith, relationships, or deeds to give our lives purpose. But in A Significant Life, philosopher Todd May offers an exhilarating new way of thinking about meaning, one deeply attuned to life as it actually is: a work in progress, a journey—and often a narrative. Offering moving accounts of his own life alongside rich engagements with philosophers from Aristotle to Heidegger, he shows us where to find the significance of our lives: in the way we live them. May starts by looking at the fundamental fact that life unfolds over time, and as it does so, it begins to develop certain qualities, certain themes. Our lives can be marked by intensity, curiosity, perseverance, or many other qualities that become guiding narrative values. These values lend meanings to our lives that are distinct from—but also interact with—the universal values we are taught to cultivate, such as goodness or happiness. Offering a fascinating examination of a broad range of figures—from music icon Jimi Hendrix to civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, from cyclist Lance Armstrong to The Portrait of a Lady’s Ralph Touchett to Claus von Stauffenberg, a German officer who tried to assassinate Hitler—May shows that narrative values offer a rich variety of criteria by which to assess a life, specific to each of us and yet widely available. They offer us a way of reading ourselves, who we are, and who we might like to be. |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Is Happiness Enough? | 25 |
3 Narrative Values | 61 |
4 Meaningful Lives Good Lives Beautiful Lives | 105 |
5 Justifying Ourselves to Ourselves | 139 |
Not Everything But Something | 175 |
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answer Aristotle Aristotle’s attunement Beautiful Lives beliefs Camus cern Chapter Five Chapter Four Chapter Three character Claus von Stauffenberg commitment concern courage course criteria Dilsey doesn’t endorsement eudaemonia evil experience fact feel flourishing Foucault fulness Gauguin give goal goalies God’s goldfish happiness Haybron Hendrix human lives imagine ingfulness intensity jective judgment Justifying Ourselves Khmer Rouge Lance Armstrong least lend Mary’s matter meaning Meaningful Lives Michel Foucault mistaken Moral Luck moral values narra narrative therapy narrative values ness Nicomachean Ethics objective offer one’s Ourselves to Ourselves painting particular people’s perhaps person philosophical pleasure machine practices projects psychotherapy question Ralph Touchett rative value reason recognize reflect seek seems sense simply soccer someone standard steadfastness stories Strawson’s subjective attraction subtlety suppose Susan Wolf tell telos themes things thought tion tive values trajectory Trappist unfolding virtues Wilfrid Sellars Wolf Wolf’s worry