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What is the meaning of life?
What does Aristotle say about life?
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Mar 12, 2017 · In the book, Einstein comes back to the question of the purpose of life, and what a meaningful life is, on several occasions. In one passage, he links it to a sense of religiosity.
Jul 8, 2024 · “What is the meaning of life?” is simultaneously one of the oldest questions in philosophy and a relatively new concept. Here’s what Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Albert Camus...
Although most psychology researchers consider meaning in life as a subjective feeling or judgment, most philosophers (e.g., Thaddeus Metz, Daniel Haybron) propose that there are also objective, concrete criteria for what constitutes meaning in life.
- On suicide. “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide,” so claims Camus in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus. By starting with the question of whether life is worth living, Camus places the problem of how we are to live our lives squarely in the center of his thought.
- The meaning of life. Camus makes a rather bold claim on the meaning of life: there isn’t one and we can’t make one either. He argues that it is impossible for us to find a satisfying answer to the question of the meaning of life, and any attempt to impose a meaning on the universe will end in disaster, as whatever meaning we pick will be sent up later.
- The absurd. Camus’ entire philosophy is based on the idea of the absurd. Humans have a drive to find meaning in things and where it doesn’t exist we usually try to create it.
- The absurd hero. Camus critiqued those who try to endure the meaninglessness of life by imposing meaning on it. While that can bring us comfort, those systems of meaning are, themselves, doomed to failure over the long run.
- Søren Kierkegaard
- Zeno of Citium
- Susan Wolf
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Finding Your Own Path
Søren Kierkegaard is a Danish existential philosopher, poet and theologian. Existentialist philosophers believe that every person is a free agent who determines their own future with acts of free will. Kierkegaard believed that life is nothing but a series of choices that we make for ourselves. Each person is responsible for finding self and the me...
Zeno of Citium is a very famous Greek philosopher who founded the stoic school of philosophy. Stoics believe that virtue (based on wisdom) is the highest good and will lead to happiness. They suggested that the wise live in harmony because they are rational and reasonable. Once a person is virtuous, they no longer care about the vicissitudes of for...
Susan Wolf is an American philosopher who is currently teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has written extensively on the meaning of life in her essays and books. Dr. Wolf often writes about the relationship between meaningfulness, morality, happiness, and freedom. She has written that a meaningful life consists of one’...
Ralph Waldo Emerson is an American poet, writer, and philosopher who led the transcendentalist movement in the 19th-Century. Emerson believed that god was in everyone and everything. He also believed anyone could express their divinity by finding out who they are, being true to themselves and living as an individual. Transcendentalism places a stro...
Nietzsche remains one of the world’s most popular and influential philosophers. He wrote about many topics during his life including morality, religion, psychology, epistemology, and ontology. He created many important philosophical principles including the will to power, thought of eternal recurrence, the Übermensch, and transvaluation of all valu...
Finding your personal meaning of life is a journey that takes most people many years. By continually reading and learning, you will eventually forge a philosophical framework that encompasses all of your beliefs. Hopefully, the philosophical concepts listed here will be of use during that journey.
Jan 1, 2021 · In the Ethics, Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) tries to discover what is "the supreme good for man," that is, what is the best way to lead our life and give it meaning. For Aristotle, a thing is most...
May 15, 2007 · Despite the venerable pedigree, it is only since the 1980s or so that a distinct field of the meaning of life has been established in Anglo-American-Australasian philosophy, on which this survey focuses, and it is only in the past 20 years that debate with real depth and intricacy has appeared.
