Abstract

There are two ways that philosophy could transform a life to make it substantially more meaningful: on the one hand, philosophical enquiry might reveal other activities that would make life meaningful, enabling a philosopher (or others) to live meaningfully as a result of the enquiry, while, on the other hand, it might be that doing philosophy is in itself one way to make the philosopher's life notably meaningful. I explore the latter path. I argue against views of meaning in life entailing that philosophy could not itself be particularly meaningful or only rarely could be, after which I critically reflect on a variety of respects in which philosophical reflection, either by its own nature or if undertaken in some familiar ways, would plausibly enhance the meaning in the philosopher's life. In particular, I critically discuss views of Bertrand Russell, Joe Mintoff, and Neil Levy that purport to explain how philosophy itself confers meaningfulness, contending that their explanations are not as comprehensive as my own.