I critically discuss views about what at least analytic philosophers have in mind when reflecting on what makes life meaningful. I first demonstrate that there has been a standard view of that, according to which meaningfulness centrally involves the actions of human persons, ones that exhibit a high desirability characteristically present in ‘the good, the true, and the beautiful’ and absent from the cases of Sisyphus or the Experience Machine. Then, I address five challenges to the standard view that have (...) recently been made. I conclude that the standard view should be revised to accommodate judgements that animal lives can exhibit meaning, groups of human persons can also do so, and there is a difference between mundane and great meaning possible in the life of a person. However, I resist the more radical suggestions that meaningfulness never inheres in people’s actions or that it need not be positive. (shrink)

In this article I critically discuss English-speaking philosophical literature addressing the question of what it essentially means to speak of 'life’s meaning'. Instead of considering what might in fact confer meaning on life, I make two claims about the more abstract, meta-ethical question of how to understand what by definition is involved in making that sort enquiry. One of my claims is that over the past five years there has been a noticeable trend among philosophers to try (...) to change our understanding of what talk of 'life’s meaning' connotes. For example, whereas most philosophers for a long while had held that such talk is about a kind of value possible in the life of human beings, recently some have argued that certain non-human parts of nature can exhibit meaningfulness, which, furthermore, is not necessarily something valuable. The second claim I advance is that there is strong reason to reject this trend, and instead for philosophers to retain the long-standing approach. (shrink)

Up to now, a very large majority of work in the religious philosophy of life’s meaning has presumed a conception of God that is Abrahamic. In contrast, in this essay I critically discuss some of the desirable and undesirable facets of Traditional African Religion’s salient conceptions of God as they bear on meaning in life. Given an interest in a maximally meaningful life, and supposing meaning would come from fulfiling God’s purpose for us, would it be (...) reasonable to prefer God as characteristically conceived by African philosophers of religion to exist instead of the Abrahamic conception of God? At this stage of enquiry, I answer that, in respect of the range of people to whom God’s purpose would apply, a more African view of God would plausibly offer a greater meaning, but that, concerning what the content of God’s purpose would be, the Abrahamic view appears to offer a greater one. I conclude by reflecting on this mixed verdict and by suggesting respects in which non-purposive facets of the African and Abrahamic conceptions of God could also have implications for life’s meaning. (shrink)

Taking the good (generosity), the true (enquiry), and the beautiful (creativity) as exemplars of what can make a life noticeably meaningful, elsewhere I have advanced a principle that entails and plausibly explains all three. Specifically, I have proffered the view that great meaning in life, at least insofar as it comes from this triad, is a matter of positively orienting one’s rational nature towards fundamental conditions of human existence, conditions of human life responsible for much else about it. Iddo (...) Landau has raised important objections to this principle, arguing in particular that contouring one’s rationality towards fundamentality is neither necessary nor sufficient for great meaning in life. In this article, I reply to Landau’s objections to the fundamentality account of what makes life very meaningful. I thereby aim to enrich reflection about what it is about the lives of Neslon Mandela, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, and Pablo Picasso that made them so significant as well as to indicate how fundamentality implicitly plays a key role in theistic conceptions of meaning in life. (shrink)

In this critical notice of Guy Bennett-Hunter’s book _Ineffability and Religious Experience_, I focus on claims he makes about what makes a life meaningful. According to Bennett-Hunter, for human life to be meaningful it must obtain its meaning from what is beyond the human and is ineffable, which constitutes an ultimate kind of meaning. I spell out Bennett-Hunter’s rationale for making this claim, raise some objections to it, and in their wake articulate an alternative conception of ultimate (...) class='Hi'>meaning. (shrink)

The question concerning the meaning of life is important, but it immediately confronts the present authors with insurmountable obstacles from a philosophical standpoint, as it would require us to define not only what we hold to be life, but what we hold to be meaning in addition, requiring us to do both in a properly researched context. We unconditionally surrender to that challenge. Instead, we offer a vernacular, armchair approach to life’s origin and meaning, with some (...) layman’s thoughts on the meaning of origins as viewed from the biologist’s standpoint. One can observe that biologists generally approach the concept of biological meaning in the context of evolution. This is the basis for the broad resonance behind Dobzhansky’s appraisal that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”. Biologists try to understand living things in the historical context of how they arose, without giving much thought to the definition of what life or living things are, which for a biologist is usually not an interesting question in the practical context of daily dealings with organisms. Do humans generally understand life’s meaning in the context of history? If we consider the problem of life’s origin, the question of what constitutes a living thing becomes somewhat more acute for the biologist, though not more answerable, because it is inescapable that there was a time when there were no organisms on Earth, followed by a time when there were, the latter time having persisted in continuity to the present. This raises the question of where, in that transition, chemicals on Earth became alive, requiring, in turn, a set of premises for how life arose in order to conceptualize the problem in relation to organisms we know today, including ourselves, which brings us to the point of this paper: In the same way that cultural narratives for origins always start with a setting, scientific narratives for origins also always start with a setting, a place on Earth or elsewhere where we can imagine what happened for the sake of structuring both the problem and the narrative for its solution. This raises the question of whether scientific origins settings convey meaning to humans in that they suggest to us from what kind of place and what kinds of chemicals we are descended, that is, to which inanimate things we are most closely related. (shrink)

"All art should become science and all science art; poetry and philosophy should be made one." Friedrich Schlegel's words perfectly capture the project of the German Romantics, who believed that the aesthetic approaches of art and literature could reveal patterns and meaning in nature that couldn't be uncovered through rationalistic philosophy and science alone. In this wide-ranging work, Robert J. Richards shows how the Romantic conception of the world influenced (and was influenced by) both the lives of the people (...) who held it and the development of nineteenth-century science. Integrating Romantic literature, science, and philosophy with an intimate knowledge of the individuals involved—from Goethe and the brothers Schlegel to Humboldt and Friedrich and Caroline Schelling—Richards demonstrates how their tempestuous lives shaped their ideas as profoundly as their intellectual and cultural heritage. He focuses especially on how Romantic concepts of the self, as well as aesthetic and moral considerations—all tempered by personal relationships—altered scientific representations of nature. Although historians have long considered Romanticism at best a minor tributary to scientific thought, Richards moves it to the center of the main currents of nineteenth-century biology, culminating in the conception of nature that underlies Darwin's evolutionary theory. Uniting the personal and poetic aspects of philosophy and science in a way that the German Romantics themselves would have honored, The Romantic Conception of Life alters how we look at Romanticism and nineteenth-century biology. (shrink)

The question of life’s meaning is a universal question that not only cuts across various cultures but also resides at the back of the mind of almost every individual that has ever existed. The very desire to continue striving in this world suggests that there is something about life that makes it worth living. Even in the throes of despair and suicide, there is something that drives the existential angst that awakens such despair. Both striving and despair in (...) life stand as subtle and benign answers to questions about whether one considers his/her life meaningful. In African philosophy today, answer to the question of life’s meaning from an African perspective is receiving more attention now than it has in the last few decades. This chapter is a summary of some of the dominant views in the current literature on African conceptions of meaning. Specifically, it explores traditional conceptions of meaning such as the love view, the God’s purpose view (destiny and divine law view), the vital force view, the communal view, and the (Yoruba) Cluster view, as well as the more contemporary views such as living a religious life and the contemporary cluster view. (shrink)

The article is devoted to identifying the concept of the meaning of life in the critical philosophy of A.I. Vvedensky, where special attention is paid to the methodological foundations and the historical and philosophical context. The formulation of the question about the meaning of life is one of the ultimate questions in philosophy, the answer to which makes it possible to determine the motives of human activity. In Vvedenskyʼs philosophy, the problem of goal-setting in life is revealed (...) in the prism of a key research intention – the construction of a scientifically revised worldview based on the principles of criticism. As a result, the question of life and its purpose is reduced to the formulation of the question of the logical permissibility and boundaries of questioning. The article attempts to reconstruct the philosopherʼs reasoning and identify the most significant definitions, which include morality, mental life, and the purpose of life. The disclosure of the concept of life in Vvedenskyʼs philosophy invariably requires consideration of the context in which the development of the philosopherʼs ideas takes place. Based on a comprehensive analysis, it is concluded that the concept of life is an extension of the main goal of Vvedenskyʼs research – the disclosure of the conditions for the formation of a reliable worldview, focused on the principles of scientific knowledge in accordance with moral values. Another important consequence is the provision on the priority of morality in relation to scientific and philosophical knowledge. The foundations of morality, to which the meaning of life belongs, can be presented only in a special form of applicability of critical reason – critical faith. Thus, the question of the specifics of critical metaphysics and the importance of differentiation of types and forms of faith in the work of the Russian neo-Kantian are clarified. (shrink)

Many major historical figures in philosophy have provided an answer to the question of what, if anything, makes life meaningful, although they typically have not put it in these terms. Consider, for instance, Aristotle on the human function, Aquinas on the beatific vision, and Kant on the highest good. While these concepts have some bearing on happiness and morality, they are straightforwardly construed as accounts of which final ends a person ought to realize in order to have a significant existence. (...) Despite the venerable pedigree, it is only in the last 50 years or so that something approaching a distinct field on the meaning of life has been established in analytic philosophy, and it is only in the last 25 years that debate with real depth has appeared. Concomitant with the demise of positivism and of utilitarianism in the post-war era has been the rise of analytical enquiry into non-hedonistic conceptions of value grounded on relatively uncontroversial (but not universally shared) judgments or “intuitions,” including conceptions of meaning in life. Englishspeaking philosophers can be expected to continue to find life's meaning of interest as they increasingly realize that it is a distinct line of enquiry that admits of rational enquiry to no less a degree than more familiar normative categories such as well-being, right action, and distributive justice. (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify what we are asking when posing the question of what (if anything) makes a life meaningful. People associate many different ideas with talk of "meaning in life," so that one must search for an account of the question that is primary in some way. Therefore, after briefly sketching the major conceptions of life's meaning in 20th century philosophical literature, the remainder of the paper systematically seeks a satisfactory analysis the concept of a (...) meaningful life that these conceptions all address. (shrink)

According to the ethical system of eudaimonism, a philosophy that predates Aristotle, individuals have a responsibility to recognize and live in accordance with their daimon or "true self." The daimon refers to the potentialities of each person, the realization of which represents the greatest fulfillment in living of which each is capable. The daimon is an ideal in the sense of being an excellence, a perfection toward which one strives and, hence, it can give meaning and direction to one's (...) life. Eudaimonia, then, is activity in accordance with one's daimon. This is what is considered worth having in life. Since Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics is concerned with the proper ends of human functioning, he rejects the view of eudaimonia as a subjective state equivalent to, or similar to, hedonic enjoyment. But if psychologists are to be able to make productive use of the Aristotle's conception of eudaimonia, it must be rendered in a form more congenial to the field. In pursuing this goal, I have found it necessary to take several significant departures from the Aristotelian perspective, while I have endeavored to remain true to Aristotle's ethical objectives. The most important of these departures is to consider eudaimonia to have a subjective component embodying the experiences that flow from efforts to live in truth to one's daimon by striving to develop one's aptitudes and talents for purposes deemed worth having in life. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Meaning and Purpose of Life are perhaps the most thought about, if not talked about, issues on the planet since human beings have walked on earth. This book is another attempt to understand the Meaning and Purpose of Life using ideas of Vedanta in Indian philosophy, and of mainstream economics. Starting from first principles, Dr Agarwal explores the core concept of Brahman in Vedanta, and builds an axiomatic foundation for understanding the meaning and purpose of life (...) using the fundamental ideas of the Prasthana Traya, and in particular of The Bhagavad Gita and The Principal Upanishads. Dr Agarwal adheres to the philosophy of Karma Yoga as his chosen area of interest for the exploration of meaning and purpose, which allows him to seek linkages between the concepts of social welfare in Vedanta and economics. Ideas of lokasamgraha in Indian Philosophy and of externalities in economics provide a clear common ground between the two apparently disparate disciplines. Throughout the book, he emphasizes simple practical approaches for making life more meaningful and happier, while relying fundamentally on the basic ideas of Vedanta. (shrink)

Aribiah Attoe took issue with the materialist and the non-materialist African conceptions of death by arguing that the reality of death puts pressure on the human conception of life’s meaning. He admits the reality of an afterlife experience through a causal principle that sees events in the world as the product of interactions between predetermined past events. It is an afterlife where a decomposing body continues interacting with other things in the world, not an afterlife involving consciousness. While (...) conscious meaning-making ends in the death of the body in Attoe’s materialist view, thereby affirming the conclusion that human existence is meaningless and the universe is purposeless, the conviction about life’s meaninglessness is also reinforced by the possibility of a second death, that is, the death of the transcendent consciousness in the traditional African view. In this article, I will mount two objections to Attoe’s submission. First, I argue that Attoe’s refutation of life’s meaning may be faulted by a world view devoid of the ideas of the afterlife and immortality. Life’s meaninglessness for him should have been limited to the facts of human existence in the world, not the human inability to continue meaning after death. Second, Attoe’s conception of death as finality questions his principle of causality that suggests the reality of an endless afterlife. Attoe’s overarching submission on life’s meaninglessness gives the impression that theories of life’s meaning must be anchored on the thought of an afterlife and immortality. (shrink)

The desire for a meaningful life is ubiquitous, yet the ordinary concept of a meaningful life is poorly understood. Across six experiments (total N = 2,539), we investigated whether third-person attributions of meaning depend on the psychological states an agent experiences (feelings of interest, engagement, and fulfillment), or on the objective conditions of their life (e.g., their effects on others). Studies 1a–b found that laypeople think subjective and objective factors contribute independently to the meaningfulness of a person’s life. (...) Studies 2a–b found that positive mental states are thought to make a life more meaningful, even if derived from senseless activities (e.g., hand-copying the dictionary). Studies 3a–b found that agents engaged in morally bad activities are not thought to have meaningful lives, even if they feel fulfilled. In short, both an agents’ subjective mental states and objective impact on the world affect how meaningful their lives appear. (shrink)

IT HAS BEEN characteristic of metaphysics, since the beginning of philosophy, to deny the reality of time. The characteristics ascribed to it by unreflective people, particularly that of passage, have seemed so puzzling and paradoxical that the metaphysical temperament has preferred to banish time altogether rather than embrace those paradoxes. Thus Parmenides, the earliest metaphysician, denied reality to all time and becoming, leaving his bleak and changeless conception of reality to be perfected by his pupil Zeno. Plato, too, declared that (...) reality can only be the eternal, describing the strange passage of time in which we mortals live as nothing but that eternity's moving image. Among modern philosophers Spinoza sounded the same note, being unable to think of any reality in which time, by itself, could make a difference, while Immanuel Kant reduced it to a mere form of sensibility. Among recent thinkers McTaggart comes at once to mind, with his proofs that the concept of time is simply self-contradictory. (shrink)

Powers and Faden argue that social justice ‘is concerned with securing and maintaining the social conditions necessary for a sufficient level of well-being in all of its essential dimensions for everyone’ (2006: 50). Moreover, social justice is concerned with the ‘achievement of well-being, not the freedom or capability to achieve well-being’ (p. 40). Although Powers and Faden note that an agent alone cannot achieve well-being without the necessary social conditions of life (e.g. equal civil liberties and basic material resources, such (...) as food and shelter), it seems that achievement requires that an agent actually pursue the six dimensions of well-being. In this article, I question the extent to which an individual has an obligation to achieve well-being, even if he or she would choose to do otherwise. For example, can an agent choose to forgo being healthy even if all the social conditions are met in her life, thereby choosing to not achieve well-being? It remains unclear how the dimension of self-determination coheres with the remaining five dimensions of well-being and the extent of society’s obligations toward an individual’s achievement of well-being, even in those instances when society’s actions may go against an individual’s right to self-determination. (shrink)

The present paper examines the concept of the meaning of life in the Soren Kierkegaard’s view. Kierkegaard sees the concept of "meaning" as "end" and believes in "biology" as the supreme biologist. Based on evidence from his works, he believes that the end is not to be discovered in biology, but it is creatable. There are three witnesses to this: first, the end is, in Kierkegaard''''''''s view, paradoxical, and paradox is not real, but mental. Secondly, Christianity, (...) in his opinion, is anxious, not religious, and religion is unreasonable, and in relation to the mind not connected with the outside, and third, that he does not consider God as an active being, but rather the existence of anxiety, The mind and mind of man. Kierkegaard''''''''s predictions in this evidence include ontological non-reality, individualism, and faith. An analysis of these three presumptions suggests that Kierkegaard believed in the supposition of meaning in life. (shrink)

The Implications of Immanence develops a philosophy of life in opposition to the notion of “bio-power,” which reduces the human to the question of power over what Giorgio Agamben terms “bare life,” mere biological existence. Breaking with all biologism or vitalism, Lawlor attends to the dispersion of death at the heart of life, in the “minuscule hiatus” that divides the living present, separating lived experience from the living body and, crucially for phenomenology, inserting a blind spot into a visual field.Lawlor (...) charts here a post-phenomenological French philosophy. What lies beyond phenomenologyis “life-ism,” the positive working out of the effects of the “minuscule hiatus” in a thinking that takes place on a “plane of immanence,” whose implications cannot be predicted. Life-ism means thinking life and death together, thinking death as dispersed throughout life. In carefully argued and extensively documented chapters, Lawlor sets out the surpassing of phenomenology and the advent of life-ism in Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, and Foucault, with careful attention to the writings by Husserl and Heidegger to which these thinkers refer.A philosophy of life has direct implications for present-day political and medical issues. The book takes its point of departure from the current genocide in Darfur and provides conceptual tools for intervening in such issues as the AIDS epidemic and life-support for the infirm. Indeed, the investigations contained in The Implications of Immanence are designed to help us emerge once and for all out of the epoch of bio-power.“Lawlor’s novel way of treating the concept of life is stimulating, original, and necessary for the social well being of our time.”—Fred Evans, Duquesne University“The Implications of Immanence continues the most promising, rigorous, and fruitful ongoing research project among scholars of twentieth-century philosophy. . . .A wonderful new book.”—John Protevi, Louisiana State University. (shrink)

Substituted judgment assumes adequate knowledge of patient’s mind-set. However, surrogates’ prediction of individual healthcare decisions is often inadequate and may be based on shared background rather than patient-specific knowledge. It is not known whether surrogate’s prediction of patient’s integrative life-story narrative is better. Respondents in 90 family pairs rank-ordered 47 end-of-life statements as life-story narrative measure and completed instruments on decision-control preference and healthcare-outcomes acceptability as control measures, from respondent’s view and predicted pair’s view. They also scored their confidence in (...) surrogate’s decision-making and familiarity with pair’s healthcare-preferences. Life-story narratives’ prediction was examined by calculating correlation of statements’ ranking scores between respondent-personal and respondent-surrogate Q-sorts and between respondent-surrogate and pair-personal Q-sorts before and after controlling for correlation with respondent-personal scores, and by comparing percentages of respondent-surrogate Q-sorts co-loading with pair-personal vs. respondent-personal Q-sorts. Accuracy in predicting decision-control preference and healthcare-outcomes acceptability was determined by percent concordance. Results were compared among subgroups defined by intra-pair relationship, surrogate’s decision-making confidence, and healthcare-preferences familiarity. Mean age was 35.4 years, 69% were females, and 73 and 80% reported ≥ very good health and life-quality, respectively. Mean surrogate’s decision-making confidence score was 3.35 and 75% were ≥ familiar with pair’s healthcare-preferences. Mean projection, simulation, and adjusted-simulation correlations were 0.68, 0.42, and 0.26, respectively. Out of 180 respondent-surrogate Q-sorts, 24, 9, and 32% co-loaded with respondent-personal, pair-personal, or both Q-sorts, respectively. Accuracy in predicting decision-control preference and healthcare-outcomes acceptability was 47 and 52%, respectively. Surrogate’s decision-making confidence score correlated with adjusted-simulation’s correlation score. There were significant differences among the husband-wife, parent-child, and sibling-sibling subgroups in percentage of respondent-surrogate Q-sorts co-loading with pair-personal Q-sorts and percent agreement on healthcare-outcomes acceptability. Despite high self-reported surrogate’s decision-making confidence and healthcare-preferences familiarity, family surrogates are variably inadequate in simulating life-story narratives. Simulation accuracy may not follow the next-of-kin concept and is 38% based on shared background. (shrink)

Amongst traditionally-available frameworks within which end-of-life decisions in Intensive Care Units (ICU) are situated, we favour Ordinary versus Extra-ordinary care distinctions as the most helpful. Predicated on this framework, we revisit the concepts of personhood and autonomy. We argue that a full account of personhood locates its foundation in relationships with others, rather than merely in “rationality”. A full account of autonomy also recognises relationships with others, as well as the actual reality of the patient’s situation-in-the-world. The fact that, when (...) critically ill, the patient may no longer be able to take an active role in decision-making does not bring about the end of their personhood, or of their autonomy. Because the patient’s autonomy is intimately linked to their relationships with others, once critical illness supervenes, respect for their autonomy devolves to those others with whom the patient is in relationship. In practical application, this means that there must be a dialogue, as the end-of-life of the critically-ill patient in ICU comes into view. Such dialogue should be grounded on this understanding in order to conform best to moral philosophical principles. Ideally the dialogue will involve all those with whom the patient is in relationship and, practical difficulties within an ICU notwithstanding, will aim to be inclusive, non-coercive and reflective as it seeks to maximise the good of the patient in their unique context. (shrink)

Protagoras, of all the ancient philosophers, has perhaps attracted the most interest in modern times. His saying ‘Man is the measure of all things’ caused Schiller to adopt him as the patron of the Oxford pragmatists, and has generally earned him the title of the first humanist. Yet the exact delineation of his philosophcal position remains a baffling task. Neumann, writing on Die Problematik des ‘Homo-mensura’ Satzes in 1938,2 concludes that no certainty whatever can be reached on the meaning (...) of the dictum, since ‘man’, ‘measure’, and ‘things’ are all ambiguous, nor can we tell which of the three is the predicate. The time is past when it was believed that a man's philosophy could be understood apart from the events of his life and the circumstances of his age: yet in the case of Protagoras the historical method of approach has hardly been attempted, although the impact of environment was perhaps more decisive in the formation of philosophical concepts in the Greek world than anywhere else. The reality about which the Greek philosopher spoke had three aspects: it was either the one universe of physics, or the political unity, or God. For example, the book of Heracleitus Περ φσεως was divided into three chapters or logoi, About the Whole, a political, and a theological. Neither physics nor theology supplies from its own subject-matter the form in which this reality was described. (shrink)

I examine two recent books by analytic philosophers that address the underexplored topic of whether the meaning of life depends on the existence of a supernatural realm including God and a soul. John Cottingham’s On the Meaning of Life defends a supernaturalist conception of life’s meaning, whereas Kurt Baier’s Problems of Life and Death defends the opposite, naturalist perspective. I show that their respective arguments are worth serious consideration, indicate some potential weaknesses in them, and suggest (...) some other argumentative strategies that those interested in this fascinating topic might pursue elsewhere in more depth. (shrink)

There is more to Hegel's position than fear of a potentially destructive modern freedom. The most striking thing about the Philosophy of Right is that in it the whole distinction between tradition and modern freedom is overcome. We find a view of things in which the freedom of individuals and the given institutional order come together as one. This does not mean that Hegel ignored the difference or distinction between the two sides; he had learned from Plato and a long (...) tradition to see in the self-conscious or subjective freedom of individuals a threat to the political and legal order. But he took up this traditional distinction between freedom and authority and tried to work out the relation between them at various stages of conflict and reconciliation. The result was a very strong affirmation of the modern world and of the connection in it between religion and history, church and state, politics and economics, and so on. I want in this essay to explore the justification for this positive affirmation of modern freedom. Section I looks at Hegel's position in light of the concluding passages of the Philosophy of Right on war and the endlessness of conflict within the historical realm. Here I claim that for Hegel the potentially destructive freedom of modern society does not really lie outside the ethical life of the state. I argue that the seemingly endless freedom of modern society is a necessary element, though only an element, of his philosophical and theological exposition of the state. Section II summarizes my view of how ethical life and modern freedom are related to one another in Hegel's thought. Commentators have not explained his insistence that the two can be both antagonistic and radically one. (shrink)

Challenging students’ intuitions and unexamined beliefs, and drawing out the logical consequences of those beliefs has long been the teaching methodology of philosophers. These same educational goals are crucial to Plato’s philosophy of education, which is illustrated through Socrates’ metaphor of the midwife—the teacher helps the students create something novel out of that which they already have in them: in other words, it challenges them to rethink their assumptions. This paper will consider some of the ways in which Plato presents (...) the reader with opportunities to see the examined life as a series of rethinkings about what it means to live a good life with other people who are different from one’s self. The rethinkings that Plato’s dialogues prompt speak to some of the most prevalent assumptions that students typically and unquestioningly believe about diversity and the good life. (shrink)

The divine purpose theory —according to which that human life is meaningful to the extent that it fulfills some purpose or plan to which God has directed us—encounters well-known Euthyphro problems. Some theists attempt to avoid these problems by appealing to God’s essential goodness, à la the modified divine command theory of Adams and Alston. However, recent criticisms of the modified DCT show its conception of God’s goodness to be incoherent; and these criticisms can be shown to present an analogous (...) set of problems for the DPT. Further, the argument can be extended to any account of meaningfulness according to which the value of what humans do can only be conferred by God. Thus, it would seem that there is no tenable version of the view that meaningfulness is conferred on human life by some act or attitude of God’s. (shrink)

In this book, Paul K. Moser offers a new approach to religious experience and the kind of evidence it provides. Here, he explains the nature of theistic and non-theistic experience in relation to the meaning of human life and its underlying evidence, with special attention given to the perspectives of Tolstoy, Buddha, Confucius, Krishna, Moses, the apostle Paul, and Muhammad. Among the many topics explored in this timely volume are: religious experience characterized in a unifying conception; religious experience naturalized (...) relative to science; religious experience psychologized in merely psychological phenomena; and religious experience cognized relative to potential defeaters from evil, divine hiddenness, and religious diversity. Understanding Religious Experience will benefit those interested in the nature of religion and can be used in relevant courses in religious studies, philosophy, theology, Biblical studies, and the history of religion. (shrink)

The article carries out a critical analysis of Arthur Kiefer's methodology (described in the “Ecclesiastes and the meaning of life in the ancient world”, Cambridge University Press, 2022), namely his concept of “meaning of life” applied to the analysis of the book of Ecclesiastes. The core argument made here is that the “threefold conceptual scheme” of the meaning of life, borrowed from the field of empirical psychological research (coherence – purpose – significance), cannot be effective in (...) the analysis of theological or philosophical texts, which involve a high level of generalization. On the other hand, since the concept of “meaning of life” is absent from the language of Ecclesiastes and other ancient texts, and its own meaning is extremely vague, it is unable to play the role of a useful analytical tool. (shrink)

This is the fifth of a series of six articles examining respectively the six concepts of consciousness identified in the main entries of the Oxford English Dictionary under the word. I call the concept of consciousness5 the unitive meaning because it is said to refer to the totality of mental-occurrence instances that constitute a person's conscious being. The present article consists mainly of an effort to answer the question of which totality of mental-occurrence instances it is to which (...) the fifth concept refers. Four possible answers are considered, and the fourth, derived form Locke, is found to capture best the dictionary's meaning. Accordingly, consciousness5 is a certain subjectively determined unity of mental-occurrence instances mat is further specified, of course, in the article. However, I also consider, finally, that the compilers of the dictionary may have had something more objective in mind as well, another meaning toward which the word is tending if it has not already arrived mere. This further sense may amount to an identification of consciousness with those components of James's stream that he described as “the very core and nucleus of our self as we know it, the very sanctuary of our life.”. (shrink)

The paper aims to clarify the role of the meaning of life in Anselm Müller’s philosophy. Müller says that the ethically good life is the life of acting well, and acting well requires at least a rough conception of the meaning of life, or a conception of what makes a life go well. But why is such a conception required and what does it mean to have such a conception? I argue that such a conception cannot provide us (...) with ultimate ends in our practical deliberations. Nor can its role be merely to provide a standard against which practical reasoning can be assessed. Rather, our conception of the meaning of life is, in the first instance, that which allows us, in our practical reasoning, to see certain considerations as good reasons for certain actions and to weigh reasons for and against different options. One upshot of my interpretation is that Müller should be more optimistic about philosophy’s ability to answer the question of the meaning of life than he allows himself to be. (shrink)

In the first Critique, Kant famously holds a novel practical notion of Belief (Glauben) as assent justified not by evidence but by practical considerations. This paper examines the early development of Kant’s practical notion of Belief prior to the first Critique. It aims to make clear what prompted Kant to develop this notion in the first place, and how this notion came to assume its crucial role in Kant’s critical system. This development, I argue, has two main steps. The first (...) is his introduction of a practical notion of Belief in mid-to-late 1760s. I argue that he did so because he regards this notion as a useful tool to get ordinary people to justifiably commit to the existence of God and an after-life. The second step is Kant’s abandonment of the objective validity of his logical proof of God around 1772. This step elevated Belief from a merely useful means to the only justified way to commit to the existence of God and an after-life. This second step, I argue, is closely connected to Kant’s pivot to the view that the objective validity of concepts requires sensibly given objects, and it is motivated by Kant’s concern with subject-cancelling real repugnance. (shrink)

Aristotle took practical wisdom to include cleverness, and something more. The hard question, that he does not explicitly answer, is what this something more is. On my interpretation, the practically wise are not merely more knowledgeable about what is good for people. They are also better able to discern all the values at stake, in whatever circumstances they find themselves. This is an ability that good people develop, typically rather late in life, provided they are masters of their own affairs. (...) According to Aristotle, this development is stunted by wickedness and also by wretchedness. It follows from his account that attempts to teach this virtue are not likely to succeed unless teachers have opportunities for developing practical wisdom through their work. Aristotle’s arguments give us reasons to doubt that teachers can help their students to become virtuous and wise, if their own way to earn a living is not conductive to human flourishing. If we take his message to heart, we should, first and foremost, think about how to steer clear of wretched work conditions, where teachers’ moral agency is narrowly circumscribed. (shrink)

In this comment-response Mikael Lindfelt makes some suggestions to how one could develop the argument for witnessing as experiencing meaningfulness in life as put forward by Nicole Note and Emilie Van Deale. While being positive to the main phenomenological approach, and especially the dialectical relational aspect of the phenomenological argument, Lindfelt uses Alain Badiou’s talk of Event in trying both to develop the phenomenological argument and to point out some idealistic tendencies in the line of the argument. Lindfelt suggests that (...) the aspect of uniqueness in the relational experience of the other should be taken to more radically than suggested by Note and Van Deale. By pointing out the dialectical fragility of the Event of witnessing Lindfelt is arguing for that the concept of respect could be more utilized in arguing for the experience of meaning seen as a gift. (shrink)

A comparative discussion on "Spiritual Health", as one of the most imperative health fundamentals was initiated. This concept has recently been added to the previous health constituents including physical, psychological and social aspects by the World Health Organization. The words "spiritual" and "health" for many people are two separate and independent issues, while they are inextricably linked. Spirituality in health is not material in nature but belongs to the realm of ideas that have arisen in the minds of human (...) beings, particularly ennobling ideas. Considering the important role which spiritual health plays in our overall sense of happiness and fulfillment as well as the direct connection between spiritual wellness and physical health, the perspectives adopted by Rene Descartes, as the "father of philosophy and modern Humanism" and Allameh Tabatabaee, as the "representative of Islamic philosophy" were compared in the present study. Due to his humanistic perspective, Descartes holds that spiritual health is of an abstract nature and is solely connectedwith human's conscience and intellectual insight indication of a naturalistic (materialistic) interpretation of humans,but it is not concerned with humans' desires, behavior and ultra-humanistic realm. Tabatabaee believes that spiritual health depends on humans'ultra‐naturalistic realm and meaning‐seeking nature, i.e. the acceptance of absolute reality principle (God) as the meaning of life that aside from correcting humans' insight and outlook assigns direction to his behavior and attitude. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Henri Bergson’s notion of the meaning of life by focusing on two places where he discusses it in his work. The first is Creative Evolution (1907, CE), where a bio-ontological meaning of life is proposed in terms of the ongoing ‘advance’ of the élan vital. Bergson conceives of this vital tendency towards freer activity in terms of nature’s pursuit of a mechanics that would triumph over mechanism. The second is a lesser-known paper called (...) ‘Psycho-physical Parallelism and Positive Metaphysics’ (1901, ‘PPPM’), where Bergson articulates the same themes concerning the evolutionary relationship between life and matter, only this time gives an ethical rendition of the meaning of life. Discerning the true sense of the distinction between mind and body, he claims, will allow us to understand the reason they ‘unite and collaborate’, and thereby to speculate on thought’s apparent trajectory towards an independence from matter. While the latter position appears to be inscribed within the former, this continuity nonetheless resists reducing the ethical to a biological essentialism. This is ensured by the ‘virtual’ nature he ascribes to life’s movement, which shows that the ethical meaning of life is ultimately grounded in an ontology premised upon the irreducibly open and inventive rather than on the reductively closed and repetitive. In turn, this conception of life’s virtuality further illuminates what Bergson might mean, from an ethical perspective, as regards a progressive independence from matter, which I propose in terms of a withdrawal from the body and the present, with a view to a superior moral activity. (shrink)

This monograph reports on an empirical survey of 394 secondary school students investigating their desire to seek the meaning of their own lives. The theoretical framework upon which the study was based is that of Viktor E. Frankl's hypotheses that a human being wants to seek the meaning in his own life. The questionnaire consisted of tests measuring pupils' concepts of their own life's purposes, significance, and meaningfulness. Questions dealt with values and attitudes toward existential questions. Pupils could (...) also evaluate significance of school subjects in the the search for their own life's meaning. Initial results gave clear indication that students reflect quite a lot on the meaning of life, and most think that topics and questions dealing with existential questions should be addressed at school. Responses to open-ended questions on what they expected from school revealed that students asked for warmer and closer human relationships, more communication, more taking into account of individuality, more opportunity for choices, more support and encouragement, and more knowledge that has meaning for their personal life. The questionnaire is appended. (JD). (shrink)

The article analyses whether it is correct to extrapolate the concept of "meaning in life" developed by Thaddeus Metz to the doctrines of ancient philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas. Is Metz’ concept of "purposes" that make "human life" meaningful analogous to Aquinas’ concept of "ultimate goal of man"? Significant points of Metz’ conception of "meaning in life" in our article are described and compared with Aquinas’ conception of "ultimate goal of man." As it turns out, these (...) conceptions are only superficially similar. In fact, they are profoundly different: (1) Aquinas is talking about the "goal of man", which implies objective teleology incompatible with Metz’ "naturalism", and is not talking about "meaning in life" (and even "purpose of life"); (2) "ultimate goal of man", for Aquinas, is intended to provide salvation and eternal life for man, not to make life "significant" in this world. -/- Thus, Metz and Thomas not only use different terminology, but also address different problems. They deal with different questions, not just give different answers to the same question (about the "meaning in life"). Metz’s extrapolation may be correct, when viewed as a kind of rational reconstruction. However, Metz does not make appropriate reservations and groundlessly unifies heterogeneous problems. The article shows that more historically oriented methodology avoids impropriety in the exercise of rational reconstruction of "meaning in life" in the field of ancient and medieval philosophies. (shrink)

An outline of "philosophy of life" as a philosophical discipline is discussed. In today’s academic philosophy, we have “philosophy of biology,” which deals with creatures’ biological phenomena, “philosophy of death,” which concentrates on the concept of human death, and “philosophy of meaning of life,” which investigates difficult problems concerning the meaning of life and living. However, we do not have “philosophy of life,” which deals with philosophical problems concerning human life and the life of non-human creatures. Hence, (...) I proposed to establish “philosophy of life” as an academic discipline. We define philosophy of life as an academic research field that encompasses the following activities: 1) Cross-cultural, comparative, or historical research on philosophies of life, death, and nature. 2) Philosophical and ethical analysis of contemporary issues concerning human and non-human life in the age of modern technology. 3) philosophical analysis of the concepts surrounding life, death, and nature. (shrink)

The chapter presents a brief case study, in which we can observe the impact of Pierre Hadot's ideas on Martin O’Hagan, a person not far removed from us in terms of space, time, and aspirations. Hadot's concept of “Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWL)” could provide an option for a person who, excluded from and/or disillusioned by Academic philosophy, still felt the need to search for answers to a few centrally important questions that had direct impact on his (...) life. Even the characteristic that has returned like a Leitmotif throughout this chapter — analytic philosophy's tendency to ignore the so‐called Big Questions, such as that of the meaning of life — can be illuminated by means of Kuhn's theories. The author hopes that the interest in Hadot's concept of PWL will contribute to the rehabilitation of philosophy as it was before its takeover by Academic philosophy. (shrink)

This entry begins by indicating respects in which the concept of life’s meaning has only recently become salient in English-speaking bioethical discussions and by clarifying what talk of ‘life’s meaning’ and cognate phrases mean, at least to most of the philosophers and bioethicists who have used them. This essay then addresses six major respects in which thought about what makes a life meaningful has influenced bioethics. The first four issues concern life and death matters for (...) human beings, and specifically involve: euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, reproductive ethics, life extension, and transhumanism. The other two topics are about respects in meaningfulness figures into somewhat ‘less vital’ medical contexts, concerning ways in which promoting health is conceived either as a way to advance meaning or as in competition with the latter value. This essay concludes by offering a brief bird’s-eye reflection on the state of the field. (shrink)

In a review of the cell biology and heredity studies of 1900–1910, Bernardino Fantini argues that the choice of an experimental subject or organism was crucial in opening up new discoveries and new theories for specific fields of research.69 Thinking on a broader level, Bütschli expressed a similar view when he stated that an understanding of the true nature and structure of the “elementary organism” was crucial to the whole of biology. In this article we have traced the impact of (...) Bütschli's unicellular model of protozoa up to the general acceptance of the eukaryotic cell as nature's primary organism. We have also seen that Bütschli's vision in the Studien gave birth to Protistenforschung and Zellforschung, sister sciences whose task it was to further and integrate knowledge of the living cell. Of necessity, we have confined ourselves to German scientific developments. However, our attempt to recapture and define the unity and meaning of a biology of the “cell-microcosm” has given us pause to reconsider the development and nature of Wilhelmian biological science. (shrink)

Thoughts of mortality sometimes bring on a crisis in confidence in the meaning in one's life. One expression of this collapse is the midlife crisis. In a recent article, Kieran Setiya argues that if one can value activities as opposed to accomplishments as the primary goods in one's life then one might avoid the midlife crisis. I argue that Setiya's advice, rather than safeguarding the meaning in one's life, substitutes for it something else, a kind of happiness. I (...) use Susan Wolf's concept of meaning in order to make this case. Wolf has not written much about the importance of death, but I argue that her account of meaning shares essential features with the theories developed by Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger. Sartre argues that death is an unqualified harm, while Heidegger argues that there is meaning in life only because we are mortal. I conclude by showing how Heidegger's theory of mortality underwrites accounts of meaning like those found in Wolf. (shrink)

In the 1787 Transcendental Deduction of the Categories Kant indicates the only possible ways by which one can account for a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects (B166), using analogies between modes of explanation and biological theories about the origin of life. He endorses epigenesis as a model for his system of pure reason (B167). This paper examines various interpretive claims about the meaning of this theory of generation and its significance for Kant’s philosophy (Section (...) 1), showing that, after his Critical shift in perspective, in 1775/77 Kant already combined preformed elements and their purposively oriented formation by natural forces (Section 2). Contrary to the standard view, Kant’s theory of race appears to constitute the background to assess Blumenbach’s later (1799/1781) shift to epigenesis after supporting Haller’s preformism (Section 3). In Section 4, I argue that the ground of affinity between epigenesis and formal idealism rests in tracing the first origin of these conformities: external a posteriori climate conditions and predisposed germs and dispositions within the generative power of the human body; and external a posteriori experience and spontaneous a priori concepts of its objects, within pure sensory intuiting and pure thinking. In both cases the external empirical conditions would function as occasioning propelling factors affecting internal pre-established forms of generation. (shrink)

Human flourishing is the topic of an increasing number of books and articles in educational philosophy. Flourishing should be regarded as an ideal aim of education. If this is defended, the first step should be to elucidate what is meant by flourishing, and what exactly the concept entails. Listing formal criteria can facilitate reflection on the ideal of flourishing as an aim of education. We took Aristotelian eudaimonia as a prototype to construct two criteria for the concept of (...) human flourishing: human flourishing is regarded as intrinsically worthwhile and flourishing means ‘actualisation of human potential’. The second criterion has three sub-criteria: flourishing is about a whole life, it is a ‘dynamic state’ and flourishing presupposes there being objective goods. (shrink)

Hermeneutics approaches the meaning of life quite uniquely: it grasps the intrinsic intelligibility of life by employing a universal concept of meaning, applicable to all phenomena. While other conceptions identify the meaning of life with values or scopes, hermeneutics starts from a grass-roots work on the meanings that are embedded at every level of reality. In this paper, I analyze this approach, especially focusing on Husserl, Heidegger, and Gadamer. First, I outline Husserl’s philosophy of meaning (...) as developed in response to the crisis of meaning. Second, I discuss Heidegger’s concept of meaning and his understanding of life as self-movement. Third, I analyze Gadamer’s concept of common sense and his idea of hermeneutic mediation that conveys the meaning of life itself. (shrink)

Scholar of religion Karl Kerényi’s last book, Dionysos, is a grand attempt at reinterpreting ζωη ( zoe ), the Greek concept of indestructible life, which he distinguishes from βίος (bios), finite life. In Kerényi’s view, the meaning and sensual experience of zoe was expressed in its richest form in the Cretan beginnings of the cult of Dionysos. The major characteristics of this cult, as Kerényi describes, were beyond the cultural, political, and sexual limits of the Christian interpretations of (...) life and nature. Searching for modern analogies to zoe , Kerényi explains the idea in relation to molecular biology’s minimum definition of life. Despite the fact that Kerényi’s book contains only minor references to contemporary philosophy, the philosophical consequences of his interpretations of Dionysos are not only radical but outline a notion of biopolitics far in advance of the mid- to late 20 th -century development of it. By the affirmation of indestructible life and animality , Kerényi proposes a new humanism that moves beyond the limits of Kantian anthropology and also takes a radically different perspective to that of Heidegger’s philosophy of being, or Agamben’s notion of biopolitics. According to Kerényi’s investigations, since this alternative humanism, which is based on the radical recognition of the individuality and diversity of life forms, was once possible in an earlier stage of human culture, it is possible to reanimate it in order to shape anew how zoe is understood and therefore lived. Our relation to nature can thereby undergo a Dionysian transvaluation and assign us new responsibilities as well as open up a new trajectory for the 21 st -century human. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE CONCEPT OF POVERTY IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS'S CONTRA IMPUGNANTES DE/ CULTUM ET RELIGIONEM JOHN D. ]ONES Marquette University Milwaukee, Wisconsin MEDIEVAL CONCEPTIONS of poverty have been given ongoing and serious attention by scholars during this century. The extensive literature on the nature and practice of poverty among the Franciscans bears witness to this. Serious investigation of St. Thomas Aquinas's understanding of poverty, however, is virtually nonexistent. Except (...) for a very recent book by Ulrich Horst,' there are, so far as I know, no monographs or dissertations treating this aspect of Aquinas's thought. The most thorough discussion in English, which falls far short of sustained textual or critical analysis, is given by Philip Mulhern.2 Apart from an article by Silvana Spirito, which primarily focuses on historical issues, one finds only scattered references and notes in other works.3 1 Ulrich Horst, Evangelische Annut und Kirche: Thomas van Aquin und die Annutskontroversen des 13. und beginnenden 14. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1992). This work was published after the present article was completed. : Philip Mulhern, Dedicated Poverty (Staten Island: Alba House, 1973), 116-31. "II problema della poverta e deIla perfezione religiosa nell'ambito delie polemiche tra clero secolare e ordini mendicanti," Atti Del Congresso Internazionale, ed. Congresso internazionale Tommaso d'Aquino (Napoli: Edizioni domenicane italiane, 1974), 49-57. Worthy of mention is Scott Swenson's concise, but detailed, note on poverty in the Contra impugnantes (Emerging Concepts of Jurisdiction, Sacramental Orders and Property Rights Among Dominican Thinkers From Thomas Aquinas to Hervaeus Natalis [Ph.D. Diss., Cornell University, 1988], 265, n.159). For a brief discussion of poverty in 409 410 JOHN D. JONES The absence of scholarship in this area stands in marked contrast to the lavish philosophical and theological attention given to many other aspects of Aquinas's thought. If Thomas gave only a cursory nod to the subject of poverty, this absence might be understandable. Over the course of his career, however, Thomas composed several extended discussions and numerous shorter notes pertaining to poverty, concentrating particularly on the nature and practice of poverty in religious life. In addition to the Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem, a relatively early work devoted to a defense of the mendicant orders and mendicant poverty, there are extended discussions of poverty in the Contra pestiferam doctrinam retrahentium homines a religionis ingressu, cc. 14-16, the Summa contra gentiles, bk. III, c.131-35, and the Summa theologiae (51), II-II, q. 184, a. 7, q. 186, aa. 3&6, q. 188, a. 7, etc. There are also brief discussions and references to poverty (paupertas) and the poor (pauper) in nearly thirty other works ranging from the In Sententiarum to various Scripture commentaries.4 My purpose in this paper is to present a close, but by no means comprehensive, textual and critical analysis of Thomas's treatment of poverty in the Contra impugnantes, concentrating on the crucial sixth chapter.5 I am interested in Thomas's conception of Summa theologiae, 11-11, q. 188, a. 7, see John D. Jones, Poverty and the Human Condition (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), 317-320. Also see Jones, "Poverty and Subsistence: St. Thomas and the Definition of Poverty," Gregorianum 75 (1994): 135-49. 4 The Contra impugnantes dei cultum et religionem and Contra pestiferam doctrinam retrahentes homines a religionis ingressu are contained in the Leonine Opera Omnia, vol. XLI (Rome: St. Thomas Aquinas Foundation, 1970) and in Opuscula theologica, vol. 2, ed. RM. Spiazzi (Turin: Marietti, 1954). An English translation of both works is contained in An Apologyfor the Religious Orders, ed. John Procter (London: Sands and Co., 1902), 50-376 and 377-479 respectively. I am using the Blackfrairs edition of the Summa theologiae (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964-81). By and large, I have followed existing translations of Thomas's works, although for the sake of accuracy, I have occasionally modified them, especially Proctor's translations of the Contra impugnantes and Contra retrahentes. 5 The discussion of poverty is contained chiefly in chapter 6 (cited in the Marietti edition as 2.5[6]). All citations in my paper will be to this chapter unless otherwise noted. Following typical form, the chapter contains... (shrink)

This article analyzes articles and interviews published in Sartre on Theater and focuses on five plays ( Bariona , The Flies , No Exit and The Condemned of Altona ) in order to arrive at a coherent conception of Sartre's theater. Sartre views the stage as “belonging to a different imaginary realm“ in which the characters' language, gestures and the props function in a synecdochical relationship in respect to the spectators. It is their task to grasp these “signs“ and bundle (...) them into a coherent and meaningful whole. Because Sartre views the theater as an imaginary realm, he can free himself from the strictures of his philosophy: 1) the irreversibility of time; 2) the fact that life does not give us a second chance; and 3) that death means that our life falls into the public domain. This freedom allows Sartre to deal with temporality in a novel way and to deal with “life after death“ as life simply continued. Conversely, he can scramble temporality for psychological reasons in order to bring out deep rooted personal conflicts, as he does in The Condemned of Altona. (shrink)

In sum, major critics of the twentieth century continually insist that poetry's unique value lies in its ability to convey meanings for which there are no public criteria whatsoever. But there are no such meanings, and to praise a poem for conveying them is empty. Again, these critics assume that what we understand by emotion is to be identified simply with an inner experience or state of mind and that this state of mind is what is conveyed by, or gives (...) meaning and definition to, words which are used to refer to our emotional life. The emotions or qualities of emotions supposedly communicated by poetry alone, moreover, are said to elude public language altogether; they can be neither defined nor discussed but only embodied in images. But whatever the status these private experiences have for us, they as yet play no part in our language, even our poetic language, and reference to them certainly contributes nothing to our criticism of poetry. Criticism can play a central role in interpreting and shaping our lives, but it will only be worth writing if its vocabulary has content. If criticism is to become intelligible, it must begin by abandoning the appeal to private knowledge.Frederic K. Hargreaves, Jr. received his doctorate in English from Boston University. (shrink)

What are we asking when we ask, "What is the meaning of life?"? Can there be meaning without God? Is a happy life a meaningful life? Can an immoral life be meaningful? Does our suffering have meaning? Does death threaten meaning? What is this thing called The Meaning of Life? provides an engaging and stimulating introduction to philosophical thinking about life's meaning. Goetz and Seachris provide the reader with accessible examples, before looking at the (...) main theoretical approaches to meaning and key philosophers associated with them. Topics covered include: What does the question, "What is the meaning of life?", even mean? Does life have a purpose? What is valuable? Do we matter? Does life make any sense? Is there any meaning in suffering? Does death threaten meaning? Would immortality be good or bad news for us? With boxed summaries of key concepts and noteworthy examples, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading included within each chapter, this book is the ideal introduction to life's meaning for philosophy students coming to the subject for the first time. (shrink)