Meaning of life: Encyclopedia II - Meaning of life - Philosophical views

Meaning of life - Philosophical views

Meaning of life - Value as meaning

In that they attempt to answer the question "What is valuable in life?", theories of value are theories of the meaning of life: great philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and many others had clear views about what sort of life was best (and hence most meaningful).

Meaning of life - Atheist views

Atheism in the strictest sense means the belief that no god or supernatural overbeing (of any type or number) exists, and by extension that neither the universe nor we were created by such beings. Atheism pertains to three of the five interpretations of the meaning of life question: "What is the origin of life?", "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?" Since they believe gods had nothing to do with it, most atheists believe that life evolved and was not created. The nature of the universe is one in which no god exists, and therefore its nature is left to our devices to determine, via more or less scientific means. As for the purpose of life, some atheists argue that since there are no gods to tell us what to do, we are left to decide that for ourselves. Other atheists argue that some sort of meaning can be intrinsic to life itself, so there is no need for any god to instill meaning into it.

Meaning of life - Existentialist views

The 19th century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer offered a bleak answer by determining one's life as a reflection of one's will and the will (and thus life) as being an aimless, irrational, painful drive. However, he saw salvation, deliverance, or escape from suffering in aesthetic contemplation, sympathy for others, and ascetic living. Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher of the 19th century, argued that life is full of absurdity and the individual must make his or her own values in an indifferent world.

According to the philosopher Martin Heidegger, human beings were thrown into existence. Existentialists consider being thrown into existence as prior to, and the context of, any other thoughts or ideas that humans have or definitions of themselves that they create. As Jean-Paul Sartre put it: "existence comes before essence", "man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world — and defines himself afterwards. There is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it."

Since there is no predefined human nature or ultimate evaluation beyond that which humans project onto the world; people may only be judged, or defined, by their actions and choices. Choice is the ultimate evaluator. Again, quoting Jean-Paul Sartre: "Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself."

Meaning of life - Humanist views

To the humanist, (biological) life's purpose is built-in: it is to reproduce. That is how the human race came to be: creatures reproducing in a progression of unguided evolution as an integral part of nature, which is self-existing. But life's purpose isn't the same thing as human purpose, though it is a factor thereof. Human purpose is determined by humans, completely without supernatural influence. Nor does knowledge come from supernatural sources, it flows from human observation, experimentation, and rational analysis preferably utilizing the scientific method: the nature of the universe is what we discern it to be. As are ethical values, which are derived from human needs and interests as tested by experience.

Enlightened self-interest is at the core of humanism. The most significant thing in life is the human being, and by extension, the human race and the environment in which we live. The happiness of the individual is inextricably linked to the well-being of humanity as a whole, in part because we are social animals which find meaning in relationships, and because cultural progress benefits everybody who lives in that culture.

When the world improves, life in general improves, so, while the individual desires to live well and fully, humanists feel it is important to do so in a way that will enhance the well being of all. While the evolution of the human species is still (for the most part) a function of nature, the evolution of humanity is in our hands and it is our responsibility to progress it toward its highest ideals. In the same way, humanism itself is evolving, because humanists recognize that values and ideals, and therefore the meaning of life, are subject to change as our understanding improves.

The doctrine of humanism is set forth in the Humanist Manifesto [1] and A Secular Humanist Declaration [2].

Meaning of life - Nihilist views

Friedrich Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world and especially human existence of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. The term nihilism itself comes from the Latin nihil, which means "nothing". Nietzsche described Christianity as a nihilistic religion, because it removes meaning from this earthly life, to instead focus on a supposed afterlife. He also saw nihilism as a natural result of the idea that God is dead, and insisted that it was something to be overcome, by returning meaning to the Earth.

Martin Heidegger described nihilism as the state in which "there is nothing of Being as such", and argued that nihilism rested on the reduction of being to mere value.

Nihilism rejects claims to knowledge and truth, and explores the meaning of an existence without knowable truth. Though nihilism tends toward defeatism, one can find strength and reason for celebration in the varied and unique human relationships it explores. From a nihilist point of view, the ultimate source of moral values is the individual rather than culture or another rational (or objective) foundation.

Meaning of life - Positivist views

Of the meaning of life, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logical positivists, said: expressed in language, the question is meaningless. This is because "meaning of x" is a term in life usually conveying something regarding the consequences of x, or the significance of x, or that which should be noted regarding x, etc. So when "life" is used as "x" in the term "meaning of x", the statement becomes recursive and therefore nonsensical.

In other words, things in a person's life can have meaning (importance), but life itself has no meaning apart from those things. In this context, a person's life is said to have meaning (significance to himself and others) in the form of the events throughout his life and the results of his life in terms of achievements, a legacy, family, etc. But to say that life itself has meaning is a misuse of language, since any note of significance or consequence is relevant only in life (to those living it), rendering the statement erroneous. Language can provide a meaningful answer only when it refers to a realm within the realm of life. But this is not possible when the question reaches beyond the realm in which language exists, violating the contextual limitations of language. Such a question is broken. And the answer to a broken question is an erroneous or irrelevant answer.

Other philosophers besides Wittgenstein have sought to discover what is meaningful within life by studying the consciousness within it. But when these philosophers looked for a holistic definition of the “Meaning of Life” for humanity, they were stone-walled by the Wittgenstein linguistic model.

Logical positivism asserts that statements are meaningful only insofar as they are verifiable, and that statements can be verified only in two (exclusive) ways: empirical statements, including scientific theories, which are verified by experiment and evidence; and analytic truth, statements which are true or false by definition, and so are also meaningful. Everything else, including ethics and aesthetics, is not literally meaningful, and so belongs to "metaphysics". One conclusion is that serious philosophy should no longer concern itself with metaphysics. Thus free will is not a positivist assertion, while teleology is the closest thing to it that can be verified.

Meaning of life - Pragmatist views

Pragmatic philosophers suggest that rather than a truth about life, we should seek a useful understanding of life. William James argued that truth could be made but not sought. Thus, the meaning of life is a belief about the purpose of life that does not contradict one's experience of a purposeful life. Roughly, this could be applied as: "The meaning of life is those purposes which cause you to value it." To a pragmatist, the meaning of life, your life, can be discovered only through experience.

Pragmatism is a school of philosophy which originated in the United States in the late 1800s. Pragmatism is characterized by the insistence on consequences, utility and practicality as vital components of truth. Pragmatism objects to the view that human concepts and intellect represent reality, and therefore stands in opposition to both formalist and rationalist schools of philosophy. Rather, pragmatism holds that it is only in the struggle of intelligent organisms with the surrounding environment that theories and data acquire significance. Pragmatism does not hold, however, that just anything that is useful or practical should be regarded as true, or anything that helps us to survive merely in the short-term; pragmatists argue that what should be taken as true is that which most contributes to the most human good over the longest course. In practice, this means that for pragmatists, theoretical claims should be tied to verification practices--i.e., that one should be able to make predictions and test them--and that ultimately the needs of humankind should guide the path of human inquiry.

Meaning of life - Transhumanist views

Transhumanism is an extension of humanism. Like humanism, it propounds that we should seek the betterment of the human race as a whole. But it goes on to emphasize that we should also actively improve the human body with technology, to overcome all biological limitations such as mortality, physical weakness, tiny memory capacity, etc. Initially this meant we should all become cyborgs, but with the advent of bioengineering, other options are opening up. Thus the main goal of transhumanism is the development of man into the posthuman, the successor to Homo sapiens: Homo excelsior. The ideal achievement of this goal would of course be applied to the current population before they suffer the consequences of aging and death. Similar views include extropianism and life extension.

Therefore, in terms of the five interpretations presented at the beginning of this article, the meaning of life for the transhumanist is that life originated from evolution, that the nature of life is what we discern it to be through scientific observation and measurement, that the human and what he is becoming is the most significant thing in life, that the most valuable things in life are getting along and progressing the lifestyle of all people, and that it is imperative for us to control the nature of life to improve upon our natures.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Philosophical views", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki