Please write a 1-2 page essay answering all parts of the following question

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Humanities

introduction to philosopy

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Please write a 1-2 page essay answering all parts of the following question. Feel free to use material and ideas from throughout Chapter 9. However, if you choose to use any direct quotes from the chapter then please remember to properly cite that material using MLA format.

Chapter 9 discusses several different approaches to answering questions concerning the meaning of life. Do you think that any of these theories can be used to ascribe meaning to our lives and actions? Why or why not?

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678 CHAPTER 9 POSTSCRIPT: THE MEANING OF LIFE If Sisyphus had a keen and unappeasable desire to be doing just what he found himself doing, then, although his life would in no way be changed, it would neverthe less have a meaning for him.... We find that our lives do indeed still resemble that of Sisyphus, but... the strange meaningfulness they possess is that of the inner compul sion to be doing just what we were put here to do, and to go on doing it forever. This is the nearest we may hope to get to heaven. Taylor is saying that so long as the activities of our life satisfy desires we happen to have, our life will have meaning for us. Life will possess meaningfulness" for a person so long as the person wants to do what he or she is doing THINKING LIKE A PHILOSOPHER To many the kind of meaningfulness that Tay lor suggests life can have will seem to be no mean- 1. Do you agree with Taylor that meaninglessness is ing at all. For example, while Tolstoy despaired essentially the kind of pointlessness that Sisyphus' life represents? Do you agree that our lives or the lives of that life had no meaning, he was satisfying his most people around you are like Sisyphus' life? desires. Yet he questioned whether satisfying his 2. Taylor's view of what makes life meaningful is dif- desires itself had a point. If someone asks "What is ferent from Tolstoy's view. Which of the two is more the meaning of life," it will not help to answer: "to plausible to you? satisfy your desires." That answer will only lead to the question: "But what is the point of that?" Nevertheless, Taylor's suggestion comes close to another kind of answer that can be given to the question whether life has any meaning. That is the answer proposed by some existentialists: The meaning of life is what you choose to make it. QUICK REVIEW Hare argues that a person gives her life a meaning by choosing goals that matter to her and that give direction to her life. Meaning that arises out of such personal choices is "subjective meaning 9.5 Meaning as a Self-Chosen Commitment Some philosophers, such as R. M. Hare, have argued that the nihilist response is mistaken. The nihilist argues life does not have an "objective meaning, a meaning that does not depend on what one chooses or believes. So the nihilist concludes life has no meaning. But, Hare claims, life can have a "subjective" meaning, a meaning that depends on one's choices and beliefs. Life will have "subjective meaning if one (a) chooses goals that give direction to one's life and (b) believes that these goals are valuable and worth pursuing. Family, country, religion, friends-all these can become my personal goals. And if these matter to me, then by choosing to pursue them, I can give my life meaning and value. Many philosophers have agreed that the goals we choose to pursue can give life a "subjective meaning. One of the earliest was Kierkegaard. As we saw in Chapter 4. Kierkegaard claims the starting point in life is choosing something for which one is willing to live or die: What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except insofar as a certain understanding must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. Of what use would it be to me to discover a so-called objective truth, to work through philosophi- cal systems so that I could, If asked, make critical judgments about them, could point out the fallacies in each system; of what use would it be to me to be able to develop # See R. M. Hare, "Nothing Matters," in The Meaning of Lied. Klemke, 241-247 9.5. MEANING AS A SELF-CHOSEN COMMITMENT a theory of the state... [or] to be able to formulate the meaning of Christianity...if 679 it had no deeper meaning for me and for my life?! Kierkegaard described three lifestyles , which he called aesthetic, ethical, and reli: gious. Which of these lifestyles was best for oneself, he felt, is never clear. Yet the key ing, one creates the meaning of one's life: to living authentically is to make a decisive choice among them. And, by so choos- Every human being... has a natural need to formulate a life-view, a conception of the meaning of life and of its purpose. The person who lives aesthetically also does that, and the popular expression heard in all ages... [to describe this stage of life QUICK REVIEW Kerkegaard argues is): One must enjoy life.... We encounter (some aesthetic) life-views that teach that that one gives one's life we are to enjoy life... (through something outside the individual. This is the case Subjective meaning with every life-view in which wealth, honors, noble birth, etc., are made life's task choosing something for and its content. ... [Other] life-views teach that we are to enjoy life ... [through which one is willing to live or die, in particular something) within the individual himself...ordinarily defined as talent. It may be] by committing oneself to a talent for practical affairs, a talent for business, a talent for mathematics, a talent an aesthetic, ethical or for writing, a talent for art, a talent for philosophy. Satisfaction in life, enjoyment, is religious life sought in the unfolding of this talent.... In contrast to an aesthetic life-view... we often hear about another life-view that places the meaning of life in living for the performance of one's moral duties. This is supposed to signify an ethical view of life.... [But it is) a mistake to (see duty as some thing that is imposed) from outside the individual.... The truly ethical person ...does not have duty outside himself but within himself.... When a person has felt the inten- sity of duty with all his energy, then he is ethically mature, and then duty will break forth within him.... The story of Abraham (in the Bible] contains... THINKING LIKE A PHILOSOPHER a teleological suspension of the ethical... [Abraham faithfully obeyed God's command to sacrifice his 1. Kierkegaard says that choosing to commit yourself to beloved son although human sacrif violated his a religious belief is like a leap into something that ethical duty, at the last moment, God stopped Abra- you cannot prove and for which you cannot give ratio ham's hand. Abraham represents faith.... He acts nal reasons. Do you agree? Is religion related to your by virtue of the absurd.... By his act he transgressed beliefs about the meaning of life? the ethical altogether and had a higher telos outside 2. Are you religious? If so, have you found that belief is it, in relation to which he suspended it. Why then like a "leap? If not, is your reason for not being reli- does Abraham do it? For God's sake and-the two gious related to the idea that religious belief is like a are wholly identical--for his own sake. He does it for "leap" into something you cannot prove and that has God's sake because God demands this proof of his no rational reasons? faith; he does it for his own sake so that he can prove it. Notice that for Kierkegaard, the meaning of life is subjective. It is by our per sonal or subjective choice of an aesthetic, ethical, or religious life that we determine the meaning of life for us. For example, we can choose to pursue wealth or honor or enjoyment of our talents. Then the pleasure these provide becomes the meaning of life for us. But the individual may come to feel such a life has little value. Then, he must choose to stay at the aesthetic stage, whose attractions he knows or commit himself to the ethical stage. The commitment to the ethical stage of life involves embracing one's ethical obligations and pursuing pleasure within the bounds of Soren Kierkegaard, The Journal of Rimand transand ed. A Dru (London: Collins, 1958). #4 Denise Peterfreund White, ed. Great Traditions in Ethics, 8th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1996), 680 CHAPTER 9. POSTSCRIPT: THE MEANING OF LIFE ethics. Moral integrity and honesty become the meaning of life. At first, one con fidently assumes that one can live up to the moral law. But in time the individual realizes he cannot do all that morality requires, and he experiences guilt or sin. The individual must then choose. Will he remain at the ethical level and keep trying but failing to do what ethics demands? Or will he admit that he needs God to save him from his guilt, and so choose to move to the religious stage? But the move to the religious stage is a "leap" that is filled with uncertainty. As Kierkegaard puts it: "All Christianity is rooted in the paradoxical, whether one accepts it as a believer, or rejects it precisely because it is paradoxical. Aye, it lies in fear and trembling, which are the desperate categories of Christianity, and of the leap."" The religious stage is a commitment of one's life to something that cannot be rationally proved or rationally understood. The move to the religious stage requires a "leap of faith" like Abraham's decision to trust God when God com- manded him to sacrifice his son. Such a leap of faith is made alone, without any guarantee of being right. It is a leap made in "fear and trembling." But we must choose, and what we choose becomes the meaning of life for us. QUICK REVIEW Many years later, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre took up several of Sartre, an atheist, claims these existential themes. Sartre was an atheist. But he agreed that the meaning of that only subjective meaning is possible and life is the result of a choice. Neither God nor human progress can provide us with that we give subjective purpose and meaning unless we choose to commit ourselves to these. So it is our meaning to our lives by choosing to commit choice itself that makes them meaningful and valuable to us. ourselves to something We met Sartre earlier when we were discussing human nature in Chapter 2 and and thereby giving it value; when we discussed existentialism in Chapter 3. Recall that Sartre holds that there nothing has value before it is chosen. Critics argue are no fixed values to give meaning to our lives. There are no fixed values because that one must believe there is no God and so there is no one to establish values for us. Until we choose, life something is valuable before one can choose to has no set value we should pursue and so no objective meaning or purpose. But by devote oneself to it. choosing to pursue a cause, a religion, a life goal, I make these valuable and make them the meaning of my life. Here is how Sartre puts this idea: God does not exist and we have to face all the consequences of this. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain kind of secular ethics which would like to abolish God... [but hold) that values exist all the same, inscribed in a heaven of ideas. ANALYZING THE READING The existentialist, on the contrary, thinks it very 1. Kierkegaard says that for the individual at the ethical distressing that God does not exist, because all pos- stage moral duty is not "outside himself, but within sibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disap- himself. What do you think he means by this? pears along with Him. There can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect con- 2. According to Kierkegaard, the religious stage requires acting "by virtue of the absurd." What do sciousness to think it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must you think he means by this? not lie; because the fact is we are on a plane where 3. Kierkegaard implies that the ethical stage of life is there are only men. in some sense better than the aesthetic stage of life, If God does not exist, we find no values or com- and that the religious stage is in some sense better mands to turn to which legitimize our conduct. So, in than the ethical stage. Would Sartre agree with this? the bright realm of values, we have no excuse behind Do you agree with this? Why? us, nor justification before us. We are alone, with no excuses.... 4. Sartre claims that if God does not exist, then there [Some] may object that "your values are not seri- are "no values or (moral] commands to turn to." ous, since you choose them yourselves." To that I can What are his reasons for this claim? Is he right? only say that I am very sorry that it should be so. But I have excluded God and, there must be somebody to Soren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. David E. Swenson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1911). 96. 681 MindTop To read more from Jean-Paul Sartres because meaning can choices, life can have 9.5. MEANING AS A SELF-CHOSEN COMMITMENT invent values. We have to take things as they are. And moreover, to say that we invent values means nothing else but this: life has no meaning a priori. Before you come alive, life is nothing; it's up to you to give it a meaning, and its value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose. But in the end, doesn't Sartre leave us without a compass as we struggle to find meaning in our lives? If Sartre is right, then before we choose nothing has value, but when we choose a thing it acquires value for us. If so then we should be able to find Existentialism and Human meaning in our lives by choosing anything at all. For we can give value to anything Emotions, click the link in by choosing it. But this is clearly not true. A person cannot think that her life has the Mind Tap Reader or go to meaning if she chooses to devote it to making tiny little piles of sand on the beach. the Questia Readings folder in MindTap To believe life has meaning, we must choose goals or causes that we think had value even before we chose them. Otherwise, why would we choose them? Why would we choose to devote our lives to something that does not yet have any value? Sartre and Kierkegaard, then, may be right when they claim that nothing can give my life meaning unless I choose it and make it my own. But Sartre, at least, QUICK REVIEW seems wrong to claim that before I choose, nothing has value. On the contrary, what The idea of subjective meaning suggests that I choose to devote my life to must be something that I already believe is valuable and worth pursuing. If it has no value before I choose it, then I will not choose it. And be created through our so it will not give my life meaning. meaning through our So does life have meaning? For many people, life does have meaning because commitment to any of a they believe that they have a part to play in a larger whole that gives life value and wide variety of worthy purpose. Such objective meaning might come from being part of a larger divine human concerns, such as family, art, loving plan, or from contributing to human progress. But for many, these sources of mean relationships, raising ing are no longer significant. Some reject God; some reject the idea of human prog- children, healing, helping ress; others reject both. The result is that many accept nihilism: They conclude that moral integrity and gous faith life has no meaning But Kierkegaard and Sartre reveal another possibility. They suggest the possibility of creating subjective meaning through our choices. In a way, even those who look to God or human progress for meaning must choose to commit themselves to these. But if subjective meaning can be created through choice, then the range of meaning is wider than God and human progress. Life can have meaning through a commitment to any of a variety of human concerns. For one person, meaning may come through a commitment to family or to loving relationships. For some meaning may come through a commitment to art, to political life, or to healing or helping others. For another, meaning may come through a commitment to living an ethical life of moral integrity. And for yet others it may come through a commitment to religious faith. But the key question is the one that Sartre forces us to face: Can anything we choose-whatever it might be-make life meaningful for us? If Sartre is right, then meaning is easy. We can find meaning by committing ourselves to the pursuit of money, the pursuit of pleasure, or even to making little piles of sand on the ocean shore. But if Sartre is wrong, then meaning is not so easy to come by. If Sartre is then life can have meaning only if we commit ourselves to an ideal that, wrong ahead of time, we know is worth pursuing. As Kierkegaard suggests, finding mean ing may require the difficult choice of ever more authentic stages of life. Meaning may be the result of finding at each stage that what I have committed myself to is not worthy enough and that I need more. If so, then at each stage meaning requires a commitment to what I know has value, and has value even before I choose it. Jean-Paul Sartre. Existential and Human Emotion (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957). 25. 19 682 CHAPTER 9 POSTSCRIPT: THE MEANING OF LIFE PHILOSOPHY AT THE MOVIES Watch About Schmidt (2002) in which Warren Schmidt, after retiring from his job as an actuary and having his wife die, feels useless and alienated, and travels in a Winnebago to visit his daughter to try to convince her not to marry a waterbed sales- man. What is the meaning of life for Warren's friend Ray? Does the movie seem to agree with Ray? Does Warren believe or come to believe that his life has a meaning Explain. What does it mean when at the end of the movie Warren cries over the picture that Ndugu drew? Is he crying because he sees that life has meaning after all or because he sees that life has no meaning? Chapter Summary We have now come to the end of our philosophical journey. If you must leave a philosophy course having learned only one thing, the prized possession might be to travel with a philosophical attitude. Having a philosophical attitude means having one's eyes open as one journeys through the many decisions that will give shape and meaning to our lives. A philosophical attitude is not achieved with a single philosophy course, although it may begin with one. Rather, the philosophical attitude needs lifelong nurturing to flourish and strengthen. And it requires something else-courage- the courage to continue on the journey once begun. The main points of this chapter are: 9.1 Does Life Have Meaning? . For many people, the question of whether life has any meaning arises even when death is not near. Logical positivists claim the question is meaningless. 9.2 The Theistic Response to Meaning . The theistic response to the question of the meaning of life holds that the meaning of life is to be explained in terms of the individual's relationship to a larger and more significant divine reality. 9.3 Meaning and Human Progress • Hegel and Marx define the meaning of life in terms of contributing toward human progress. For Hegel, history progresses toward a fuller expansion of freedom; for Marx, history progresses toward a classless society. 9.4 The Nihilist Rejection of Meaning • The nihilist response to the meaning of life is the claim that life has no meaning, a view that Arthur Schopenhauer embraced. 9.5 Meaning as a Self-Chosen Commitment . The existentialists Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre argue that the meaning of life is created by what one chooses; for Sartre things have no apart from our choices. value apart from our choices, while for Kierkegaard God has value even OUTLUL AND LEARNING OBJECTIVES CHAPTER 9 Postscript: The Meaning of Life There is both pleasure and pain in tragedy and comedy, not only on the stage, but on the greater stage of human life. PLATO 9.1 Does Life Have Meaning? LEARNING OBJECTIVES: When finished, you'll be able to Interpret the question whether life has meaning and explain why it is important . Explain why some argue that the question itself is meaningless 9.2 The Theistic Response to Meaning LEARNING OBJECTIVE: When finished, you'll be able to Describe how some have found the meaning of life in a divine reality and critically evaluate this view. 9.3 Meaning and Human Progress LEARNING OBJECTIVE: When finished, you'll be able to • Describe how some have found the meaning of life in human progress, and critically evaluate this view. 9.4 The Nihilist Rejection of Meaning LEARNING OBJECTIVE: When finished, you'll be able to • Describe the nihilist response to the question of whether life has meaning and explain how nihilists have argued for their response, critically evaluate the nihilist view. 9.5 Meaning as a Self-Chosen Commitment LEARNING OBJECTIVE: When finished, you'll be able to • Explain the idea of subjective meaning as something created by the individual and why some have held this view, critically evaluate this view. Chapter Summary 667 668 CHAPTER 9 POSTSCRIPT THE MEANING OF LIFE We have completed our overview of the central questions of philosophy: What amb Is there a God? What is real? What can I know? What is truth? What ought to do? What is a just society? We close now with a look at a question that is way omie ted from introductory courses in philosophy. That question is Does life have any meaning Introductory courses omit it in part because it is a difficult question. We for many people it is an urgent question and demands an answer. It may have been what brought them to philosophy in the first place. It is fitting to conclude our philosophical journey with this question. As you will see, our discussion will draw from, and rely on what you learned in earlier chapters Because you have now examined the centrales of philosophy, therefore, you are better prepared to look into this question. By drawing on your earlier learning this Mindrop we chapter will also help bring together what you have learned. This chapter, then youth of Aberto draw out some of the consequences of the earlier chapters. For this reason, we call worn this closing chapter a postscript. pl Cayo important 9.1 Does Life Have Meaning? dapts with but of Perhaps the most important question in philosophy is the question "Does life have Secided upon meaning The French existentialis philosopher Albert Camus (1915-1960). in fact, argued that it is the only important question med andra on the pouple question whether ande, and the dei But for many people the question whether wel when death is not near Many people seem to reach a point in the hve any value Theththe have their lives point. They muy feelie Sheenacht when he and hing, striving and achievement had left him with nothing to walking shadow poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the store And then is hard no more the by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Spynothing There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philoso phy. All the rest-whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve ANALYZING THE READING categories-comes afterwards. These are games, one 1. Camus claims that the urgency of a question must first answer the fundamental question depends on the series of the action or choice ifiask myself how to judge that one question is the question. What does he way is the most more went than another, I reply that one judges by the actions it entails. I have never seen anyone die section or choice we face to you agree? for the ontological argument Galleo, who held a sci 2. What, therefore, is the most enti? entific truth of great importance, abjured it with the 3. How is this most urgent question related to the greatest ease as soon as it endangered his life question whether life has meaning! In a certain sense, he did right. That truth was not worth the stake. Whether the earth or the sun 1. What follows about how urgent the question whether revolves around the other is a matter of profound life has meaning Do you agree with Do indifference. To tell the truth, it is a futile question you agree that all the questions are games or of On the other hand, I see many people die because profound derence or wie? Why? they judge that is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a QUICK REVIEW reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions is pointless and has no meaning. Perhaps no one has written och poignantly than the great Russian novelis leo Totoy (1828-1900 in my writings I had advocated what to me was the only truth that was necessary to Ive in such a way as to derive the greatest comfort for oneself and one's family Thus i proceeded to live. But five years ago something very strange to hup pen with me: I was overcome by minutes at first of perplexity and then of an of life, as though I did not know how to live or what to do, and I lost myself and was dejected. But that passed, and I continued to live as before. Then those inches of per plexity were repeated oftener and oftener, and always in one and the same form. These arrests of life found their expression in ever the same questions Why Well, the At first I thought that those were simply aimless, inapropriate questions.... the questions began to repeat themselves obtener and oftener, answers were demanded more and more persistently, and like dots that fall in the same spot these questions without any answers, thickened into one black blotch I felt that what I was standing on had given way that I had no foundation to stand on, that what I had lived by no longer existed, and that I had nothing to live for It was as though I had just been living and walking along and had come to an abs where I saw clearly that there was nothing ahead but perdition. And it was impossible to stop and go back, and impossible to shut my eyes, in order that I might not see that there was nothing ahead but suffering and imminent death-complete antion What happened to me was that i, a healthy, happy man, felt that I could not living-an insurmountable force drew me on to find release from life.... The thought of suicide came to me as naturally then as the thought of improving my le had come to me before All this happened to me when I was surrounded on every side by what is consid ered to be complete happiness. I had a good loving and beloved wife, good children and a large estate, which grew and increased without any labor on my part. I was respected by my neigh bors and friends, more than ever before, was praised by strangers, and, without any self deception could consider my name famous... And while in such condition I arrived at the conclusion that I could not This mental condition expressed itself to me in this forme my life is a stupid, mean trick played on ne by somebody.... Involuntarily imagined that there, somewhere, there was somebody who phy whether as me THINKING LIKE A PHILOSOPHER cause people wewe de for the People often ask about the meaning of life when death enters their lives. The death of someone they love or their own death may be imminent. Death brings every thing we are or ever hoped to be to a complete end. What's the point of all our stri ing, then? At such times human life may seem brief and insignificant in the face of the Nearly everyone at one time other about suicide Camicie philosophical question and outcome sidered suicide whe) Do you agree most se ouest Albert Camus Aard Rewing.fr Tandem. Justin O'Brien Newp1955). 670 CHAPTER 9 POSTSCRIPT: THE MEANING OF LIFE now having fun as he looked down upon me and saw THINKING LIKE A PHILOSOPHER me, who had lived for thirty or forty years, learning. developing, growing in body and mind, now that I 1. Do you think it is important for your life to have a had become strengthened in mind and had reached meaning or is this a question that doesn't really mat- that summit of life from which it lay all before me. ter to you? If you are having a lot of fun or are just standing as a complete fool on that summit and see happy and content, do you think it would be better ing clearly that there was nothing in life and never for you to ignore the question? would be. And that was fun to him.... 2. At this point in your life, what do you think is the I could not ascribe any sensible meaning to a single meaning or purpose of your life? act or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I had 3. If you were to become depressed like Tolstoy did, not understood this from the start. All this had long ago been known to everybody. Sooner or later there would do you think the meaning you attribute to your life would help you through such a crisis? come diseases and death (they had come already) to my dear ones and to me, and there would be nothing left but stench and worms. All my affairs, no matter what they might be, would sooner or later be forgotten, and I myself should not exist. So why should I worry about all these things? How could a man fail to see this and live--that was surprising! A person could live only so long as he was drunk, but the moment he sobered up, he could not help seeing that all that was only a deception, and a stupid deception at that.... "My family?" I asked myself. But my family, my wife and children, they are also human beings. They are in precisely the same condition that I am in: they must either live in the lie or see the terrible truth. Why should they live? Why should I love them. why guard, raise, and watch them? Is it for the same despair which is in me, or for dull- ness of perception? Since I love them, I cannot conceal the truth from them.-every step in understanding will lead them up to this truth. And the truth is death." And in order to free myself from that terror, I wanted to kill myself. The terror of the darkness was too great, and I wanted as quickly as possible to free myself from it by means of a noose or a bullet. It was this feeling that more than anything else drew me on toward suicide.? QUICK REVIEW with no meaning to express in his art, Tolstoy stopped writing and became depressed Tolstoy--then one of the world's most acclaimed writers-concluded that life had no meaning. His family and his writing had earlier sustained him. In his love for his family he had found the only truth," and in poetry and art he had found "reflections of life" that had sustained him. But now he felt that the truth is death." Ahead of him and everyone he loved lay death. Eventually everything anyone had been or done in life would disintegrate and be forgotten. And that, he came to believe, made life pointless. Art and family sustained him no longer and he fell into a deep suicidal depression. We will return to Tolstoy shortly when we examine how he eventually answered the question of the meaning of life. Here we need to note only that Tolstoy's need to find meaning in life is a need that many of us have felt. Or will someday feel. Events may eventually force us to ask whether the things we have devoted our lives to achieving have any real meaning. This question, which has brought many people to philosophy, is the question that we now discuss. What Does the Question Mean? But what, exactly does this question mean? There are some philosophers who have claimed that the question itself has no meaning. The question is literally 1 Leo Tolstoy, My Confession, trans. Leo Wiener (Boston: Dana Estes & Company, Publishers, 1908). 16-24 9.2. THE THEISTIC RESPONSE TO MEANING 671 We saw earlier. Take A J. Ayer, for example. He argued that besides tautologies, the meaningless. This is the position of the logical positivists, whose empiricist views only meaningful questions are factual questions, that is questions we can answer by sense observation. The question whether life has meaning, he claims, is not a factual question. So the question itself has no meaning ... there is no sense in asking what is the ultimate purpose of our existence, or what is the real meaning of life.... The position is not that our existence unfortunately lacks a purpose which, if the fates had been kinder, it might conceivably have had. It is rather that those who inquire, in this way, after the meaning of life are raising a question to which it is not logically possible that there should be an answer.... If a question is so framed as to be unanswerable, then it is not a matter for regret that it remains unan- swered. It is therefore, misleading to say that life has no meaning: for that suggests that the statement that life has a meaning is factually significant, but false; whereas the truth is that, in the sense in which it is taken in this context, it is not factually QUICK REVIEW Ayer, Cara, and the het logo daim that the question meness best not actualtion that can be resolved through sense perception Critics reply Important questions cant bered through perception significant. But most people today believe that the logical positivists are mistaken. In par ticular, people reject the idea that the only meaningful statements are tautologies and factual claims our senses can verify. In fact, many of our most pressing social, religious, and moral questions seem to make perfectly good sense. Yet they cannot be resolved through the use of our senses. Moreover, many modern philosophers have shown-as we will see that the question of the meaning of life can have a perfectly understandable meaning. But if the question is not meaningless, what, then, does it mean? One way of understanding the question "What is the meaning of life?" is to take it as asking whether my life has a larger or more important purpose than merely living. In other words, is my individual life related to something larger and more significant that gives my finite life value? This seems to be the way that Leo Tolstoy understood the question. Despite being respected and loved, he fell into a deep depression when he began to feel that life is meaningless. Tolstoy came out of his profound funk when he decided that to have meaning, his finite life had to be related to the infinite God. QUICK REVIEW Totoy and others the the question to be asking whether it has a larger or more important purpose than merely living 9.2 The Theistic Response to Meaning Perhaps the most common way that people answer the question whether life has meaning is in terms of their relationship to God. This is an ancient response to the question. For example, we saw in Chapter 2 that Thomas Aquinas argues that every thing has a purpose, including human beings: Now here on earth, the simplest elements exist for the sake of compound minerals: these latter exist for the sake of living bodies, among which plants exist for animals, and animals for humans. . . . Now humans naturally desire, as their ultimate purpose, to know the first cause of all things. But the first cause of all things is God. So the ultimate purpose of human beings is to know God." A. Ayer, "The Claims of Philosophy, from E. D. Niemke and Steven M. Can, eds. This Thomas Aquinas, Sud Costa Gni, bil, ch. 22. part. 7. 8. ch. 2. part. ll. translated by Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 201 Manuel Velasquez 672 CHAPTER 9 POSTSCRIPT: THE MEANING OF LIFE QUICK REVIEW Aquinas' theistic response to the question is that the meaning of human life is related to the purpose that humans have in a larger plan or cosmic order devised by God, and this purpose is to know and be united with God. Tolstoy accepted this as a reason for living Aquinas' view can be called the theistic response to the question of meaning. The theistic response claims that human life has meaning because humans are part of a plan or providential order devised by God. Within that plan, all things in the universe have purpose and value. The purpose of finite human beings, in particular, is to know the infinite God and be united with Him. Life on earth, while brief, is valuable insofar as it is a preparation for that future union with that infinite God. Human life, then, is not a tiny, insignificant, and meaningless "hour upon the stage that ends with nothing. Human life has a meaning because each person is related to an infinite significant whole within which each finite individual has a place. This theistic response is the one that led Tolstoy out of his depression. As Tolstoy wrote: I understood that it was not right for me to look for an answer to my question in rational knowledge, and that the answer given by rational knowledge was only an indication that the answer might be answered...only when into the discussion of the question should be introduced the question of the relation of the finite to the infinite. I also understood that, no matter how irrational and monstrous the answers might be that faith gave, they had this advantage that they introduced into each answer the relation of the finite to the infinite, without which there could be no answer. No matter how I might put the question, "How must I live?" the answer of faith is, "According to God's law." "What result will there be from my life?"-"Eternal torment or eternal bliss." "What is the meaning which is not destroyed by death?"-"The union with infinite God, paradise." Thus, outside rational knowledge, which had to me appeared as the only one, I was inevitably led to recognize that all living humanity had a certain other non-rational knowledge, faith, which made it possible to live. It alone gave to humanity answers to the questions ANALYZING THE READING of life, and, in consequence of them, the possibility 1. Tolstoy implies that if life has no meaning, then it is of living logical to choose suicide. Does Camus agree? Do Ever since humanity had existed, faith had given you agree? Why or why not? the possibility of living, and the chief features of faith were everywhere one and the same. No matter what 2. Tolstoy suggests that if human life ends with nothing more than "death-complete annihilation," then answers faith may give, its every answer gives to the finite existence of man the sense of the infinite-a it has no meaning. Is he right? If human life did not end with death but went on forever, would sense which is not destroyed by suffering, privation, and death. Consequently in faith alone could we find human life then necessarily be meaningful? In other the meaning and possibility of life. words, is eternal life by itself sufficient to make life meaningful? Is eternal life necessary to make life Then I began to cultivate the acquaintance of the believers from among the poor, the simple and unlet meaningful? tered folk, of pilgrims, monks, dissenters, peasants.... 3. Tolstoy suggests that "faith relates the finite I began to examine closely the lives and beliefs of existence of man" to something "infinite" that is these people, and the more I examined them, the "not destroyed by suffering. privation, and death." more did I become convinced that they had the real namely, union with infinite God." Why would faith, that their faith was necessary for them, and that -union with infinite God" give Tolstoy the meaning it alone gave them a meaning and possibility of life.... he wanted? I began to love these people.... Thus I lived for about two years, and within me took place a transfor mation.... What happened with me was that the life of our circle-of the rich and the learned-not only disgusted me, but even lost all its meaning. All our acts, reflections, sciences, arts-all that appeared to me in a new light. I saw that all that was mere pampering of the appe tites, and that no meaning could be found in it; but the life of all the working masses, of all humanity, which created life. presented itself to me in its real significance. I saw that that was life itself and that the meaning given to this life was truth, and I accepted it.
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Meaning of Life
There are different approaches used to answer the question concerning the meaning of
life. The first approach could be superstitions approach that captures all the fundamental aspects
that could explain the real meaning of life. The superstitions approach of explaining the meaning
of life is divided between the God-centered theory and the soul-centered theory. It explains the
meaning of life by linking it to the nonphysical or non-spiritual features living in the physical
environment (Velasquez 676). The supernaturalism approach, therefore, loo...


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