Recent Work on the Meaning of Life and Philosophy of Religion

Philosophy Compass 8 (12):1138-1146 (2013)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

‘The Meaning of Life’ and ‘The Philosophy of Religion’ have meant different things to different people, and so I do well to alert my reader to what these phrases mean to me and thus to the subject area of this review of recent work on their intersection. First, ‘The Meaning of Life’: within the analytic tradition, an idea has gained widespread assent; whatever the vague and enigmatic nature of the phrase ‘the meaning of life’, we may sensibly speak of meaningfulness in a life as a particular, positive, normative feature that some individuals’ lives may well have, and this feature is to be distinguished from, though closely related to, other positive features – satisfaction, wellbeing, virtue and so forth. There has been much work done on these assumptions in recent years. An excellent summary of this work up to its date of publication is given by Thaddeus Metz (in his 2007 a). Many – though by no means all – philosophers retain an instinctive scepticism toward the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ and a reluctance to engage with it, for it seems to connote vague and/or impossible-to-fulfil cosmic expectations. (See Thomson , chapter 11 and Seachris 2009 for attempts to engage with it nonetheless.) But philosophers are not generally now so sceptical about talk of meaningfulness in life and thus not so sceptical about the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ if it is taken to be referring merely to this. And that is how I shall be taking it. Secondly, ‘The Philosophy of Religion’: in the analytic tradition, this has usually been taken to be philosophical reflection on the rational acceptability or otherwise of classical theism and on what God's existence, should He exist, entails ontologically, metaphysically, metaethically and so forth. Therefore, I shall be talking about recent reflection in the analytic tradition on the relationship between the God of classical theism's existence (or lack of it) and meaningfulness (or lack of it) in human lives.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Reflecting on the Meaning of Life.Nicole Note - 2009 - Philosophy in the Contemporary World 16 (2):22-31.
The Good Cause Account of the Meaning of Life.Aaron Smuts - 2013 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 51 (4):536-562.
Work: The process and the person. [REVIEW]A. R. Gini & T. Sullivan - 1987 - Journal of Business Ethics 6 (8):649 - 655.
Imperfection as sufficient for a meaningful life : How much is enough?Thaddeus Metz - 2008 - In Yujin Nagasawa & Erik J. Wielenberg (eds.), New waves in philosophy of religion. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 192-214.
New developments in the meaning of life.Thaddeus Metz - 2007 - Philosophy Compass 2 (2):196–217.
Ineffability and Religious Experience.Guy Bennett-Hunter - 2014 - Brookfield, Vermont: Routledge.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-12-03

Downloads
159 (#111,195)

6 months
8 (#157,827)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

T. J. Mawson
Oxford University

References found in this work

Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (Markus Rüther).Susan Wolf - 2011 - Philosophischer Literaturanzeiger 64 (3):308.
The Good Cause Account of the Meaning of Life.Aaron Smuts - 2013 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 51 (4):536-562.
On the Meaning of Life.John Cottingham - 2002 - New York: Routledge.
Faith and reason.Richard Swinburne - 1981 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 55 references / Add more references