The perceived meaning of life significantly affects the quality of human life. It is of particular significance in borderline situations. One of such situations is the birth of an intellectually disabled child. The article presents the results of the study concerning the perceived meaning of life in the case of parents who bring up a child with limited intellectual abilities. The study included 87 mothers and 65 fathers bringing up an intellectually disabled child. (...) In the studied cases, parents perceived their life as highly meaningful. The results indicated that the perceived meaning of life in the case of parents of intellectually disabled children was related with: suffering experienced by the parents as a result of a limited intellectual ability of their daughter/son, the manner of performing their parental role and the sense of parental identity. (shrink)

Life’s meaning is a deeply important yet perplexing topic. It is often unclear what people are talking about when they talk about life having “meaning”. This paper attempts to clarify things by articulating a schema for understanding claims about meaning. It defends a theory according to which X means Y iff Y is a correct interpretation of X—i.e., if Y is a correct answer to an interpretive question, Z. I argue that this (perhaps surprising) claim (...) has impressive explanatory power. Applying this schema to life explains the many ways in which people seem to think and talk about life’s meaning, and common claims in the philosophical literature. It also makes sense of empirical findings from psychological research on perceived meaning in life. (shrink)

Most people, including philosophers, tend to classify human motives as falling into one of two categories: the egoistic or the altruistic, the self-interested or the moral. According to Susan Wolf, however, much of what motivates us does not comfortably fit into this scheme. Often we act neither for our own sake nor out of duty or an impersonal concern for the world. Rather, we act out of love for objects that we rightly perceive as worthy of love--and it is these (...) actions that give meaning to our lives. Wolf makes a compelling case that, along with happiness and morality, this kind of meaningfulness constitutes a distinctive dimension of a good life. Written in a lively and engaging style, and full of provocative examples, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters is a profound and original reflection on a subject of permanent human concern. (shrink)

Why does the universe exist and what are you supposed to do in it? This question has been addressed by religions since time immemorial, but popular answers often fail to account for obvious aspects of reality. Indeed, if God knows everything, why do we need to learn through pain and suffering? If God is omnipotent, why are we needed to do good? If the universe is fundamentally good, why are wars, crime, and injustice all around us? In modern society, orthodox (...) science takes the rational high-ground and tackles these contradictions by denying the very need for, and the existence of, meaning. Indeed, many of us implicitly accept the notion that rationality somehow contradicts spirituality. That is a modern human tragedy, not only for its insidiousness, but for the fact that it is simply not true. In this book, the author constructs a coherent and logical argument for the meaning of existence, informed by science itself. A framework is laid out wherein all aspects of human existence have a logical, coherent reason and role, including the ones often perceived as negative. The powerful logic of this framework inescapably leads to insightful and inspiring guidelines for living a purposeful and meaningful life. (shrink)

This article is intended to contribute to the discussion on the meaning of volunteering by investigating voluntary work from the viewpoint of volunteers active in Swedish civil society organizations.Meaning refers both to the cognitive meaning of concepts and to the perceived meaning in life. The aim to uncover the predicates that people attribute to the concept is an attempt to anatomize volunteering as a social construct. Five predicates emerged and they make up the phenomenological (...) structure of volunteering. By contextualizing this structure in contemporary Swedish society, it is demonstrated that the conceptual meaning of volunteering has significance for its existential meaning. The volunteers say that their authenticity is confirmed through the voluntary work since they are making themselves manifest in public. Following Hannah Arendt, the reasons for this is that authenticity demands that the volunteers conduct their actions in a public realm where their actions acquire an intrinsic value as neither coerced nor instrumental. (shrink)

Most people, including philosophers, tend to classify human motives as falling into one of two categories: the egoistic or the altruistic, the self-interested or the moral. According to Susan Wolf, however, much of what motivates us does not comfortably fit into this scheme. Often we act neither for our own sake nor out of duty or an impersonal concern for the world. Rather, we act out of love for objects that we rightly perceive as worthy of love--and it is these (...) actions that give meaning to our lives. Wolf makes a compelling case that, along with happiness and morality, this kind of meaningfulness constitutes a distinctive dimension of a good life. Written in a lively and engaging style, and full of provocative examples, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters is a profound and original reflection on a subject of permanent human concern. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to exhibit the role of the concept of human nature for the ethical orientation of organizational life. Therefore, after presenting some definitions of the concepts of human nature, which depict the complexity of these phenomena, some models of the concepts of human nature are described. Furthermore, the setting of the concepts of human nature in the organizational life is discussed. Those concepts can be perceived as a deep-structure of the organizational (...) life, having an impact not only on the individual behaviour of employees and managers (like sensibility for human emotions, pro-social engagement, communication style), but also affecting their moral competence and influencing whole organizational culture – image of the organization, preferred management strategies and the way of perceiving justice. Those elements play crucial role in ethical attitude of the organization because all those variables support the efficacy of ethical rules and most of them are part of ethical code and corporate ethical code. Therefore, it is necessary for an organization to consider implicit and explicit concepts of human nature on which the organizational culture is based and support those concepts, which enables the ethical conduct of the organization and being alert especially to the consequences of materialistic/egoistic and competitive concepts of human nature. The theses discussed in the paper are supported by some empirical research studies conducted in this field. (shrink)

Background: Strengthening the sense of meaning in life and psychological well-being brings benefits for mental health. The group particularly vulnerable to mental problems are young adults, therefore the aim of our research was to explore how a gratitude intervention will affect the sense of meaning in life, psychological well-being, general health and perceived stress among them. The research also took into account the issue of expressing gratitude.Method: The study involved 80 young adults who were randomly (...) assigned to the experimental group that filled out the specially prepared diaries for a week or the control group. Participants completed the Meaning in Life Questionnaire, the General Health Questionnaire – 28, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-Being twice.Results: In the experimental group significant increases were observed in three areas of psychological well-being: environmental mastery, relationships with others and purpose in life. The significant decrease was also noted in anxiety/insomnia and depression symptoms as well as in perceived stress. There were no differences in the level of meaning in life. There was a positive relationship between expressing gratitude and meaning in life and psychological well-being.Conclusion: Proposed gratitude intervention has the potential to enhance psychological well-being among young adults, however, it may not be effective in enhancing meaning in life. (shrink)

Although pain is widely recognized by clinicians and researchers as an experience, pain is always felt in a patient-specific way rather than experienced for what it objectively is, making perceived meaning important in the study of pain. The book contributors explain why meaning is important in the way that pain is felt and promote the integration of quantitative and qualitative methods to study meanings of pain. For the first time in a book, the study of the meanings (...) of pain is given the attention it deserves. All pain research and medicine inevitably have to negotiate how pain is perceived, how meanings of pain can be described within the fabric of a person’s life and neurophysiology, what factors mediate them, how they interact and change over time, and how the relationship between patient, researcher, and clinician might be understood in terms of meaning. Though meanings of pain are not intensively studied in contemporary pain research or thoroughly described as part of clinical assessment, no pain researcher or clinician can avoid asking questions about how pain is perceived or the types of data and scientific methods relevant in discovering the answers. (shrink)

Patients in specialist mental healthcare services who are at risk of suicide may experience their struggles as existential in nature. Yet, research on meaning in life has been relatively scarce in suicidology. This qualitative study aimed to explore how patients at risk of suicide perceived their encounters with specialist healthcare professionals after a suicide attempt (SA), with special reference to meaning in life experiences. The study was conducted in specialised mental healthcare services in Norway. Data (...) were collected via individual interviews with eight patients aged 20–75 years. Using a four-step procedure, the interviews were analysed by systematic text condensation. The participants understood their feelings of shame, self-contempt and challenging life experiences as contributing factors to their SA. They perceived that existential themes in relation to financial difficulties, shame and trauma were resolved, while issues associated with the SA, such as death, loss and beliefs, were given less attention. The participants were either ambivalent about continuing to live or wished to rebuild a meaningful life. Overall, their experiences of meaningfulness were hampered. Assisting patients with meaning in life experiences may help them alter their life interpretations and increase their ability to rebuild their lives as meaningful. The present study should be seen as a contribution to meaning-informed approaches in specialist mental healthcare services. More research is needed to equip healthcare personnel in their overall aims of preventing suicide and supporting patients at risk in their efforts to live a meaningful life. (shrink)

Leading philosophers reflect on what belief in God, or its absence, means for the subject and what difference it makes to the flow and perceived significance of someone’s life. A stimulating juxtaposition of views including the different perspectives of Christians, Buddhists, Jews, atheists and agnostics Contributors include Sir Anthony Kenny, Alvin Plantinga, John Haldane, Richard Norman, David Benatar and John Cottingham Enables the reader to see how crucial issues about the nature and significance of religious belief are dealt (...) with from widely differing philosophical and religious perspectives. (shrink)

Professor Wilhelm Blasius, physiologist at Giessen in West Germany, has written a book "Probleme der Lebensforschung" (Verlag Rombach, Freiburg 1973) which - I understand - is to be published in an English version. To me it has been of interest as an orientation in a world of traditional German thinking, best known from Goethe's natural philosophy of perceptible "Ur­ bilder", which perhaps in English could be rendered descriptively by calling it an inner vision of further irre­ ducible totalities. It is (...) in contemporary language a kind of intuitive 'holistic' insight which represents understanding different from that of natural science. The latter is devoted to the study of causal chains, is largely experimental and in its aim ultimately 'reduc­ tionist' -to use another modern term. Goethe's approach is reincarnated in the "Wesenslehre" of the late Ludwig Klages (1872-1956) and in the thinking of Carl Gustav Caruso To Klages the perceived image alone is the meaning of everything in this world and in this sense he is the advocate of a psychological phenom­ enology that is an end in itself. Originally trained as a chemist Klages soon turned to philosophy and de­ veloped a system of concepts supposed to give a deeper insight into the essence of life than did the endless causal chains of natural science. Blasius makes much use of the concepts of this philosopher, in particular his ideas on 'polarities'. (shrink)

The present research investigated the relationship between meaning perceptions and the structure of counterfactual thoughts. In Study 1, participants reflected on how turning points in their lives could have turned out otherwise. Those who were instructed to engage in subtractive (e.g., If only I had not done X...”) counterfactual thinking (SCT) about those turning points subsequently reported higher meaning perceptions than did those who engaged in additive (e.g., ‘If only I had done X...’) counterfactual thinking (ACT). In Study (...) 2, participants who reflected upon life events from the perspective of understanding the past (versus preparing for the future) tended to engage in more SCT than ACT. Finally, in Study 3, participants engaged in more SCT than ACT about life events whose meaning was perceived as certain (as opposed to uncertain) – presumably to maintain their pre-existing sense of meaning. Implications for the study of counterfactual thinking and meaning are discussed. (shrink)

Growing up in the shadow of the women's movement dramatically influences how young women think about their life course transitions. Although prior research has examined the objective markers of adulthood, we know little about how young women themselves perceive these markers. This article examines the subjective meanings of the transition to adulthood among 42 young women who were part of the Youth Development Study. While interviewees saw becoming a parent and becoming financially independent as reflecting an adult orientation, completing (...) schooling was tied to class-differentiated views of growing up. In addition, respondents did not see beginning full-time work and getting married as associated with growing up. Three key themes emerged as young women discussed their lives: independence/self-reliance, self-development, and uncertainty. These themes suggest that young women are partially “living feminism” as they make the transition to adulthood. (shrink)

The phrase "the meaning of life" for many seems a quaint notion fit for satirical mauling by Monty Python or Douglas Adams. But in this spirited, stimulating, and quirky enquiry, famed critic Terry Eagleton takes a serious if often amusing look at the question and offers his own surprising answer. Eagleton first examines how centuries of thinkers and writers--from Marx and Schopenhauer to Shakespeare, Sartre, and Beckett--have responded to the ultimate question of meaning. He suggests, however, that (...) it is only in modern times that the question has become problematic. But instead of tackling it head-on, many of us cope with the feelings of meaninglessness in our lives by filling them with everything from football to sex, Kabbala, Scientology, "New Age softheadedness," or fundamentalism. On the other hand, Eagleton notes, many educated people believe that life is an evolutionary accident that has no intrinsic meaning. If our lives have meaning, it is something with which we manage to invest them, not something with which they come ready made. Eagleton probes this view of meaning as a kind of private enterprise, and concludes that it fails to holds up. He argues instead that the meaning of life is not a solution to a problem, but a matter of living in a certain way. It is not metaphysical but ethical. It is not something separate from life, but what makes it worth living--that is, a certain quality, depth, abundance and intensity of life. Here then is a brilliant discussion of the problem of meaning by a leading thinker, who writes with a light and often irreverent touch, but with a very serious end in mind. "If you were to ask what provides some meaning in life nowadays for a great many people, especially men, you could do worse than reply 'football.' Not many of them perhaps would be willing to admit as much; but sport stands in for all those noble causes--religious faith, national sovereignty, personal honor, ethnic identity--for which, over the centuries, people have been prepared to go to their deaths. It is sport, not religion, which is now the opium of the people.". (shrink)

Life is to be enjoyed -- We are here to serve God -- We are here to seek wisdom and self-actualization -- The meaning of life is a mystery -- Life is meaningless -- We are here to help others -- Life is a struggle -- We are here to contribute to society -- We must create meaning for ourselves -- Life is absurd.

The phrase "the meaning of life" for many seems a quaint notion fit for satirical mauling by Monty Python or Douglas Adams. But in this spirited Very Short Introduction, famed critic Terry Eagleton takes a serious if often amusing look at the question and offers his own surprising answer. Eagleton first examines how centuries of thinkers and writers--from Marx and Schopenhauer to Shakespeare, Sartre, and Beckett--have responded to the ultimate question of meaning. He suggests, however, that it (...) is only in modern times that the question has become problematic. But instead of tackling it head-on, many of us cope with the feelings of meaninglessness in our lives by filling them with everything from football to sex, Kabbala, Scientology, "New Age softheadedness," or fundamentalism. On the other hand, Eagleton notes, many educated people believe that life is an evolutionary accident that has no intrinsic meaning. If our lives have meaning, it is something with which we manage to invest them, not something with which they come ready made. Eagleton probes this view of meaning as a kind of private enterprise, and concludes that it fails to holds up. He argues instead that the meaning of life is not a solution to a problem, but a matter of living in a certain way. It is not metaphysical but ethical. It is not something separate from life, but what makes it worth living--that is, a certain quality, depth, abundance and intensity of life. Here then is a brilliant discussion of the problem of meaning by a leading thinker, who writes with a light and often irreverent touch, but with a very serious end in mind. (shrink)

It is often suggested in the mass media and popular academic literature that scientists promote a secular and reductionist understanding of the implications of the life sciences for the concept of being human. Is adhering to this view considered to be one of the components of the notion of being a good scientist? This paper explores responses of geneticists interviewed in the UK, the USA and Russia about the cultural meanings of their work. When discussing this question the interviewees (...) distinguished between their ‘personal’ and ‘professional’ views. When talking as ‘lay people’ they demonstrated a wide range of opinions none of which was perceived as incompatible with scientific practice. When talking as ‘scientists’ the respondents stressed that the cultural implications of their research were not a matter of their professional concern. It is suggested that these two trends in their answers could be explained by scientists tending to relegate the implications of their work to the realm of the social which they construe as divorced from scientific practice. (shrink)

It is often suggested in the mass media and popular academic literature that scientists promote a secular and reductionist understanding of the implications of the life sciences for the concept of being human. Is adhering to this view considered to be one of the components of the notion of being a good scientist? This paper explores responses of geneticists interviewed in the UK, the USA and Russia about the cultural meanings of their work. When discussing this question the interviewees (...) distinguished between their ‘personal’ and ‘professional’ views. When talking as ‘lay people’ they demonstrated a wide range of opinions none of which was perceived as incompatible with scientific practice. When talking as ‘scientists’ the respondents stressed that the cultural implications of their research were not a matter of their professional concern. It is suggested that these two trends in their answers could be explained by scientists tending to relegate the implications of their work to the realm of the social which they construe as divorced from scientific practice. (shrink)

The Meaning of Life and the Great Philosophers reveals how great philosophers of the past sought to answer the question of the meaning of life. This edited collection includes thirty-five chapters which each focus on a major figure, from Confucius to Rorty, and that imaginatively engage with the topic from their perspective. This volume also contains a Postscript on the historical origins and original significance of the phrase 'the meaning of life'.

One trend in contemporary discussions of the topic, ‘the meaning of life.’ is to emphasize what might be termed its subjective dimension. That is, it is widely recognized that ‘the meaning of life’ is not something that simply could be presented to an individual, regardless of how he/she felt about it. Thus, for example, Karl Britton has written that we could imagine ‘a featureless god who set before men some goal and somehow drove them to pursue (...) it'; while this would constitute a purpose for human life, it would hardly be sufficient to render life meaningful. ‘The goal would seem arbitrary, senseless: and its pursuit burdensome, souldestroying.’ Similarly, R. W. Hepburn has stated that meaningfulness must indispensably involve value judgment. Any set of conditions presented to us, whether by God, nature, or our fellow humans, constitutes a fact about how the world is; what provides meaningfulness to our lives, on the other hand, must be something which we affirm - something we feel ought to be the case. (shrink)

R T Allen; The Meaning of Life and Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 25, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 47–58, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9.

R T Allen; The Meaning of Life and Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 25, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 47–58, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9.

The predominant model of the body in modern western medicine is the machine. Practitioners of the biomechanical model reduce the patient to separate, individual body parts in order to diagnose and treat disease. Utilization of this model has led, in part, to a quality of care crisis in medicine, in which patients perceive physicians as not sufficiently compassionate or empathic towards their suffering. Alternative models of the body, such as the phenomenological model, have been proposed to address this crisis. According (...) to the phenomenological model, the patient is viewed as an embodied person within a lived context and through this view the physician comes to understand the disruption illness causes in the patient’s everyday world of meaning. In this paper, I explore the impact these two models of the patient’s body have had on modern medical practice. To that end I first examine briefly the historical origins of the biomechanical and phenomenological models, providing a historical context for the discussion of each model’s main features in terms of machine-world and life-world. Next, I discuss the impact each model has had on the patient–physician relationship, and then I examine briefly the future development of each model. The meaning of illness vis-à-vis each model of the patient’s body is finally examined, especially in terms of how these two models affect the patient’s interpretation of illness. The paper concludes with a discussion of the biomechanical and phenomenological models, in terms of the quality of care crisis in modern western medicine. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe thesis of this paper is that there are three basic processes by which a technological innovation is fitted into an existing culture: Rejection, in situations where all interested groups are satisfied with a traditional technology and reject apparently superior innovations because they would force unwanted changes in technology and ideology; Acceptance, in situations where a new technology is embraced by all because it appears to serve the same social and ideological functions as an inferior, or inoperative, traditional technology; (...) and — most commonly in complex societies — conflict over acceptance or rejection, in situations where a new technology introduced or proposed by one group, who perceive it as advancing their interests, is resisted by another group, who perceive it as threatening their welfare. A traditional tripartite concept of culture is employed, distinguishing technology, social organization, and ideology. Four case studies are introduced to illuminate the issue: the Thonga tribesmen of Mozambique, whose occupation as gold and diamond miners at first suited perfectly the requirements of the Thonga lineage and marriage system; the Yir Yoront of Australia, an aboriginal group who found that the steel axe introduced by whites disrupted the patriarchal status system and confounded their mythology; the Senecas, an American Indian tribe that for generations rejected male plow agriculture because their way of life was organized around female horticulture, but who took up male agriculture at the urging of a prophet when traditional male roles disintegrated on the reservation; and the anthracite miners and mine operators of nineteenth-century Pennsylvania, who discovered that fundamental changes in both social organization and ideology were needed in order to cope with catastrophically high rates of industrial accidents attendant on the new system of deep-shaft mining. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. Sinicized Marxism involves the utilization of Marxist theory to address issues specific to China and the transformation of China's rich practical experience into theory, combined with Chinese history and traditional culture. This can be observed in the context of the exploration of philosophical-anthropological issues. M e t h o d s. The key methods employed to address the outlined tasks were comparative and dialectical. The use of the comparative method allowed (...) for the identification of commonalities and differences in the understanding of the human problem in Western European and contemporary Chinese philosophy. The inclusion of the dialectical method helped reveal contradictions in the explication of the nature and meaning of human existence by various contemporary Chinese thinkers. R e s u l t s. It has been found that contemporary Chinese thinkers perceive a dichotomy in human nature–social and natural. Considering not only Karl Marx's works but also those of other Western philosophers, particularly Immanuel Kant, Marxist philosophers in China emphasize the social component of human nature, which is crucial to individuality. C o n c l u s i o n s. It is argued that Sinicized Marxism, like its Soviet counterpart, also incorporates the concept of the "new man" whose life's purpose is to exist exclusively based on the principles and values of Marxist philosophy. The formation and functioning of this concept are influenced by extensive discussions regarding the role of humans in history. Sinicized Marxism emphasizes that each individual, living in society, pursues their own specific values and, guided by them, acts to achieve their realization. Although these goals and actions are diverse, varied, and contradictory, there is a common essence underlying this mass of individual goals and actions. Accordingly, contemporary Chinese thinkers assert that within a specific historical society, people are integrated independently of their will and desire into a unique system of material relations that constitutes their social existence. As a result, they are in a certain way connected within each formation and with the means of production. Production relations organize people, stimulate their activities, generate certain relationships and dependencies among social groups. Common interests, reflected in consciousness, more or less consciously, unite people, motivating them to strive for the realization of certain social goals. The thesis is substantiated that although Sinicized Marxism emphasizes the social goal of human life, it also encompasses considerations about the existential aspect, manifested in living for self-improvement and for the sake of others. (shrink)

The starting point of this essay is that there is a contradiction at the heart of our current and hyperbolic understandings of life. To be more precise, on the one hand there is the historical novelty of biology as a modern science and set of technologies. On the other hand, life is simultaneously understood according to biological protocols that seem void of history.

What happens when the meaning of life based on a divine revelation no longer makes sense? Does the quest for transcendence end in the pursuit of material success and self-absorption? Luc Ferry argues that modernity and the emergence of secular humanism in Europe since the eighteenth century have not killed the search for meaning and the sacred, or even the idea of God, but rather have transformed both through a dual process: the humanization of the divine and (...) the divinization of the human. Ferry sees evidence for the first of these in the Catholic Church's attempts to counter the growing rejection of dogmatism and to translate the religious tradition into contemporary language. The second he traces to the birth of modern love and humanitarianism, both of which demand a concern for others and even self-sacrifice in defense of values that transcend life itself. Ferry concludes with a powerful statement in favor of what he calls "transcendental humanism"--a concept that for the first time in human history gives us access to a genuine spirituality rooted in human beings instead of the divine. (shrink)

The question 'What is the meaning of life?' is one of the most fascinating, oldest and most difficult questions human beings have ever posed themselves. In an increasingly secularized culture, it remains a question to which we are ineluctably and powerfully drawn. Drawing skillfully on a wealth of thinkers, writers and scientists from Augustine, Descartes, Freud and Camus, to Spinoza, Pascal, Darwin, and Wittgenstein, _On the Meaning of Life_ breathes new vitality into one of the very biggest (...) questions. (shrink)

The Sabbath is part of Jewish tradition. In Christianity it has taken on a new meaning. Both faiths saw it as a gift from God, a tool to affirm one’s spiritual creed and identity, and a way to maintain a distinct faith identity. The secularism of contemporary society has resulted in a misinterpretation of the purpose of Sunday rest and a disregard for the spiritual aspects that the Sunday celebration involves. A false perception of Sunday rest has emerged in (...) modern times: It is not perceived as a divine gift that enables a spiritual ministry, which leads to resistance and opposition to the restless anxiety of the consumerist world and serves as an alternative to advertising’s demanding presence in this world. This rest, as a gift from God, has been one of the most fundamental defining features of man’s connection with God throughout history. Since Christian antiquity, there has been substantial debate over how to observe this tremendous gift of rest. Rest was valued as a gift in the Jewish culture in a specific way that included defining the identity of the chosen people. Later, in the Christian tradition, it was connected to the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection and the spiritual healing He provided to the world. There has been much debate on the continuity and discontinuity between the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday, as well as on how the transition from the Sabbath to the Sunday celebration came about. The two qualities of the Jewish Sabbath – a day of rest and a day of religious celebration – have been transferred to the Christian Sunday but in a radically different context.Contribution: By analysing early Christian literature, this study aims to investigate how the concept of Sabbath rest was taken up and reconstructed in Christianity in the celebration of Sunday, and how spiritual work was a constant in the life of Christian communities up until the 4th century, when Sunday rest was established by law. Contrary to Rordorf’s opinions, this article aims to show that Christians, despite being physically obligated to work on Sundays, tacitly observed this day as a day of resurrection, emphasising the spiritual work of the virtues as their vehicle towards their entrance into the rest in God, even before Sunday became socially established as a day of rest (Heb 4:1–11). This study intends to show that this unique vision of the Sunday rest of the early church can be an element of resistance and an alternative to the demanding stress and restless anxiety of modern society. (shrink)

This is an edited transcript of a lecture given at the LSE in March 2023. The lecture introduces the “meaning of life” question via Tolstoy’s Confession, then considers the strengths and limitations of religious and secular answers to the question.

A 10,000+ word critical overview of analytic philosophy devoted to life's meaning, with some focus on books and more recent works.

Even if the question, “What is the meaning of life?” is coherent, the fact remains that it is vague. Its vagueness largely centers on the use of the term “meaning.” The most prevalent strategy for addressing this vagueness is to discard the word “meaning” and reformulate the question entirely into questions such as, “What is the purpose of life?” or “What makes life valuable?” among others. This approach has philosophical merit but does not account (...) for the intuitions and sub-questions driving the original question as plausibly as does an interpretation that I call the narrative interpretation. I will argue that the question, “What is the meaning of life?” should be understood as the request for a narrative that narrates across those elements and accompanying questions of life of greatest existential import to human beings. (shrink)

The article discusses the meanings of life and value priorities of the post- Soviet society. The author argues that, at present, there are symptoms of a global ideological crisis in the world, that the West does not have its own vision of where and how to move on and has no understanding of the future. Unfortunately, most of the post-Soviet countries do not have such vision as well. In these conditions, there are mistrust, confusion, paradoxical manifestation of human consciousness. (...) The main meanings that determine our life-world are: the desire of citizens for social justice and social security, the desire to figure out and understand the basic values of modern society, how honestly and equally the authorities act toward their fellow citizens, and to what extent they reflect their interests. The meanings of life, which are the answers to the challenges of the time, are embodied in the cultural code of each nation, state. The growth points of new values, which will become the basis for the future sustainable development of a new civilization, have yet to be discovered in the systemic transformative changes of the culture. In this process, the emergence of a new system of values that governs human life is inevitable. However, modern technology brings new troubles to humans. It has provided wide opportunities for informational violence and public consciousness manipulation. Nowadays, the scenario that is implemented in Western consumer societies claims to be the dominant scenario. Meanwhile, today there is no country in the world that is a role model, there is no ideal that others would like to borrow. Most post-Soviet states failed to advance their societies to more decent levels of economic development, to meet the challenges of the modern information age, and to provide the population with new high living standards. Therefore, in conditions of growing confrontation, we should realistically understand the world and be ready to implement changes that will ensure sustainable development of the state and society without losing our national identity. (shrink)

The sudden arrival of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in South Africa drastically changed the normal way of life in all sectors. It compelled everyone to look at the meaning of life and death differently and more painfully than before. This article investigates the cultural theories and religious narratives on the meaning of life and death, associated with the pervasiveness of the COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus affected individuals, families and communities, some directly or indirectly, (...) no one is or was immune to the virus. The article argues that due to COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, culture, religious practices and protocols have been upended. The COVID-19 pandemic challenged inkcubeko nenkolo yabantu [culture, people’s religious belief systems and practices]. This article consists of in-depth qualitative interviews with four religious leaders from the Christian and Muslim faiths. Because of the interviews with persons, oral historians conduct open-ended interviews, as a form of social inquiry. Oral history narratives thus connect the individual and the social, drawing on cultural and religious expressions to tell one’s story. Contribution: The scholarly contribution of this article adds value and significance to oral history research, as a way of collecting and interpreting human memories and experiences on the meaning of life and death during the COVID-19 crisis. It discusses the dreadfulness of the COVID-19 scourge concerning religious and cultural effects, social sciences and people’s narrative reflections. (shrink)

The present text deals with the question of the meaning of life in theexistentialist theory oft heNorwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe(1899–1990). In his book On the Tragic (1941), Zapffe sketched a theory of the human condition where the meaning of life plays a decisive role together with the human need for justice. This paper aims to reconstruct the central elements of Zapffe’s analysis and to discuss them critically by focusing on his claim that human beings need (...) a fundamental meaning of life as a whole that transcends meaning in life. I pay particular attention to Zapffe’s claim that life is meaningless, since the meaning of life is fundamentallylacking.I conclude that Zapffe’s analysis is problematic for reasons both internal and external to his theory. (shrink)

Many writers in various fields--philosophy, religion, literature, and psychology--believe that the question of the meaning of life is one of the most significant problems that an individual faces. In The Meaning of Life, Second Edition, E.D. Klemke collects some of the best writings on this topic, primarily works by philosophers but also selections from literary figures and religious thinkers. The twenty-seven cogent, readable essays are organized around three different perspectives on the meaning of life. (...) In Part I, the readings assert and defend the theistic view that without the existence of God--or faith in God--life has no significance or purpose. In Part II the selections deny this thesis, defending instead the humanistic alternative--that life has or can have meaning and worth without any theistic beliefs or commitment. In the final group of readings, contributors ask if the question of the meaning of life is in itself legitimate and significant. The volume also includes an introduction by the editor and a selected bibliography. This new edition adds essays by A. J. Ayer, Hazel Barnes, William Lane Craig, Owen Flanagan, Antony Flew, Thomas Nagel, Kai Nielsen, Philip L. Quinn, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Walter T. Stace. The only anthology of its kind, The Meaning of Life, Second Edition, is ideal for courses in introduction to philosophy and human nature. It also provides an accessible and stimulating introduction to the subject for general readers. (shrink)

The question "What is the meaning of life?W is one of the most fascinating, oldest and most difficult questions human beings have ever posed themselves. In this work, John Cottingham assesses some of the most influential attempts to explain it.

This paper explores the question of the meaning of life, not only from the perspective of its temporal unfolding from birth to death but also from the perspective of its own particular meaning and its final cause, to use Aristotelian categories. In order to discuss this argument I refer myself to Edith Stein to show how crucial moments of her own life give rise to important and de????ining philosophical positions that touch upon questions of personal identity, (...) social and communal relations, and a relationship with God. (shrink)

A three chapter part of a textbook for undergraduate philosophy majors.

This book sheds light on how to find meaning in the mystery of existence.--Publisher description.

We present an analysis of a notion of the meaning of life, according to which our lives have meaning if we spend them intentionally producing what has value for ourselves or others. In this sense our lives can have meaning even if a science-inspired view of the world is correct, and they are only transient phenomena in a vast universe. Our lives are more or less meaningful in this sense due to the difference in value for (...) ourselves and others we intentionally create while leading them. These inequalities are morally unjustifiable because they are ultimately due to factors beyond our responsibility and control. But from the point of view of eternity these differences in meaningfulness and value dwindle to insignificance, and this offers some consolation for the unjustifiable inequalities. (shrink)

In parts of his Notebooks, Tractatus and in “Lecture on Ethics”, Wittgenstein advanced a new approach to the problems of the meaning of life. It was developed as a reaction to the explorations on this theme by Bertrand Russell. Wittgenstein’s objective was to treat it with a higher degree of exactness. The present paper shows that he reached exactness by treating themes of philosophical anthropology using the formal method of topology.

The purpose of this study is to examine the meaning and value of humanity implied by Zhu Xi’s viewpoint of the meaning of life and death. This is aimed to create an opportunity where we can find the answers ourselves from various angles to the essential questions such as what makes us human or what humans live by. As for the first process, I will briefly examine how the values and significance of advanced Confucianism views on (...) class='Hi'>life and death were passed on to Zhu Xi. Second, I would like to examine the characteristics of Zhu Xi's perspectives and human nature by connoting them into three areas: a way of realizing life and death, the public nature of life and death, and the humanity as the transcendence and completion of life and death. Through this investigation, I would like to suggest the meaning of humanity implied by Zhu Xi’s view of life and death as follows: First, human potential is not based on biological human lifespan, but rather on the realization of one's own nature by continuous humanistic practice based on publicity. Second, this process of practice is a means of fully perceiving the essence of life, and the value and significance of death. Third, death, like life, is a ge-wu [格物] doctrine to explore. After intense practice of the principle of life in everyday life, it would be possible to perceive the “no-disparity-in-birth-and-death” philosophy. Therefore, living everyday life faithfully results ultimately in dying well. Fourth, dying well does not originate from an emphasis on the fear of the phenomenon of death or the afterlife, but rather from deep reflection and practical completion in terms of humanity and values based on the condition of well-living and the value of commonality. Lastly, only when this philosophy is fully made aware of, will the fear derived from the gate of life and death be dispelled by itself as a reward in return. (shrink)

I remember being a child, wondering where I would be—wondering who I would be—when the year 2000 arrived. I hoped I would live that long. I hoped I would be in reasonable health. I would not have guessed I would have a white collar job, or that I would live in the United States. I would have laughed if you had told me the new millennium would find me giving a public lecture on the meaning of life. But (...) that is life, unfolding as it does, meaning whatever it means. I am grateful to be here. I also am simply amazed. I am forty-four. Not old, but old enough that friends and family are beginning to provide more occasions for funerals than for weddings. Old enough to love life for what it is. Old enough to see that it has meaning, even while seeing that it has less than I might wish. I am an analytic philosopher. Analytic philosophers are trained to spot weaknesses in arguments. Unfortunately, that sort of training does not prepare us for questions about life’s meaning. A perfect argument, Robert Nozick suggests in jest, would leave readers with no choice but to agree with the conclusion.1 When we think about life’s meaning, though, we are not trying to win a debate. Success in grappling with the question is less like articulating and defending a position and more like growing up.2 Perhaps that is why academics have written so little on the meaning of life, despite it being arguably the central topic of philosophy.3 Speaking to analytic philosophers about life’s meaning would be like stepping into a boxing ring in search of a dance partner. Or so we fear. Perhaps there is no excuse for venturing into an area where we cannot meet our usual standards. More likely, one way of respecting philosophical standards is by not trying to apply them when they are not apt, thus refusing to let them become a straitjacket—a caricature of intellectual rigor. So, I do not here seek the kind of argumentative closure that we normally think of as the hallmark of success in analytic philosophy.. (shrink)

Brief overview of accounts of the meaning of life for 1000-Word Philosophy.

BackgroundThe healthcare system is among the institutions operating under the most challenging conditions during the period of outbreaks like pandemic which affects the whole world and leads to deaths. During pandemics that affect the society in terms of socioeconomic and mental aspects, the mental health of healthcare teams, who undertake a heavy social and work load, is affected by this situation.AimThis research was conducted with the aim of determining the effect of stress, anxiety, and burnout levels of healthcare professionals caring (...) for COVID-19 patients on their quality of life.MethodThe sample of the study consisted of a total of 240 healthcare professionals, determined by random sampling method among the healthcare professionals working in pandemic hospitals in Tokat city center, Turkey. Perceived Stress Scale, Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Maslach Burnout Inventory and Quality of Life Scale were used in the study conducted in the relational screening model.FindingsWhile the stress, trait anxiety, and quality of life mean scores of healthcare professionals who were female, married and had children were higher than the other groups, high, moderate, negative, and positive correlations were found among all variables.ConclusionThe research concluded that the stress, anxiety, and burnout of healthcare workers caring for COVID-19 patients affected their quality of life. (shrink)

With the spread of new media, traditional media, such as TV faced a problem: how to attract and retain the audience and how to offer something new, that competitors do not have. And for a long time now even well-known and influential mass media have been using interactive content. The statement is that interactive content just for fun is no longer perceived. Interactive content includes quizzes, puzzles, crosswords, various polls, games, tests, quests, memories, interactive graphics, flash games, etc. Interactive (...) elements in the media are used both separately and as a part of journalistic material. For the research of using interactive content in media, we examined the official sites of 30 channels in Ukraine, which belong to DTV and are translated for each region. In general, we have revealed 593 elements of interactive content on the sites of TV media. In the article, there were examined the kinds, types, themes, and amount of interactive content on each site of Ukrainian TV channels. It is investigated that such content can help to stay in touch with the audience and to popularize content that is broadcasted on the TV channel. Interactive media content has several obvious benefits, including the influx of new readers and, consequently, the growth of unique visitors, the growing number of people who talk about your media on social media and in real life, and the opportunity to draw attention to your television projects. (shrink)

What's it all about? Why am I here? Is there a God? Why do bad things happen? What happens when we die? All the big questions - and some interesting answers - from Gay Byrne's popular TV show.