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This handbook presents ground-breaking work, offering the first published scholarly companion to the philosophical study of meaning in life. This volume presents thirty-two chapters by leading authorities in their respective sub-fields on a wide array of subjects in meaning in life research. The chapters of this volume are arranged in six parts, according to their interconnecting themes. The volume covers issues as wide-ranging as the science and metaphysics of meaning in life, religion, ethics, philosophical psychology, and the application of meaning in life to difficult topics including suffering, suicide, and pessimism. Many of the chapters deal with topics that have up to now never been discussed in the literature.
List of contents
- Iddo Landau: Introduction
- I. Understanding Meaning in Life
- 1. Thaddeus Metz: The Concept of a Meaningful Life
- 2. Jens Johansson and Frans Svensson: Subjectivism and Objectivism about Meaning in Life
- 3. Gwen Bradford: Achievement and Meaning in Life
- 4. Galen Strawson: Narrativity and Meaning in Life
- 5. Guy Kahane: Meaningfulness and Importance
- 6. Steve Luper: The Meaning of Life and Death
- II. Meaning in Life, Science, and Metaphysics
- 7. Paul Thagard: The Relevance of Neuroscience to Meaning in Life
- 8. P. M. S. Hacker: Can Neuroscience Shed Light on What Constitutes a Meaningful Life?
- 9. Marya Schechtman: Personal Identity and Meaning in Life
- 10. Derk Pereboom: Hard Determinism and Meaning in Life
- 11. Ned Markosian: Meaning in Life and the Nature of Time
- III. Meaning in Life and Religion
- 12. John Cottingham: Transcendence and Meaning in Life
- 13. Erik J. Wielenberg: Atheism and Meaning in Life
- 14. T. J. Mawson: Theism and Meaning in Life
- 15. Guy Bennett-Hunter: Mysticism, Ritual, and the Meaning of Life
- IV. Ethics and Meaning in Life
- 16. Todd May: Meaning and Morality
- 17. Sven Nyholm and Stephen M. Campbell: Meaning and Anti-Meaning in Life
- 18. Lucy Allais: Forgiveness and Meaning in Life
- 19. Rivka Weinberg: Between Sisyphus's Rock and a Warm and Fuzzy Place: Procreative Ethics and the Meaning of Life
- 20. Katie McShane: Nature, Animals, and Meaning in Life
- V. Philosophical Psychology and Meaning in Life
- 21. Antti Kauppinen: The Experience of Meaning
- 22. Nomy Arpaly: Desire and Meaning in Life: Towards a Theory
- 23. Alan H. Goldman: Love and Meaning in Life
- 24. Iddo Landau: Meaning in Life and Phoniness
- 25. Tony Manela: Gratitude and Meaning in life
- 26. Roy F. Baumeister Psychological Approaches to Life's Meaning
- VI. Living Meaningfully: Challenges and Prospects
- 27. David Benatar: Pessimism, Optimism, and Meaning in Life
- 28. Michael Cholbi: The Rationality of Suicide and the Meaningfulness of Life
- 29. Michael S. Brady: Suffering and Meaning in Life
- 30. Saul Smilansky: Paradoxes and Meaning in Life
- 31. Doret de Ruyter and Anders Schinkel: Education and Meaning in Life
- 32. John Danaher: Virtual Reality and the Meaning in Life
About the author
Iddo Landau is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel. He has published extensively on meaning in life, and is the author of Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World (Oxford University Press, 2017).
Summary
A topic of universal concern that touches everyone, philosophy of meaning in life has roots in spiritual and religious movements in almost all cultures. Many of the issues dealt with in these movements, such as human vocation, the life worth living, our relation to what is "greater" than us, and our encounters with suffering and with death, are also discussed (even if in a different manner) in the philosophy of meaning in life. However, only recently has the topic received elaborate discussion within analytic philosophy, and become a thriving field of research.
This volume presents thirty-two chapters by leading authorities in their respective subfields on a wide array of subjects in meaning in life research. The chapters are organized into six sections. Section I focuses on ways of conceptualizing life's meaning. It discusses, among other issues, whether meaning in life should be understood objectively or subjectively, the relation between meaningfulness and importance, and whether meaningful lives should be understood narratively. Section II, Meaning in Life, Science, and Metaphysics, presents opposing views on whether neuroscience sheds light on life's meaning, inquires whether determinism must render life meaningless, and explores the relation between time, personal identity, and meaning in life. Section III considers life's meaning from both atheist and theist perspectives, and examines the relation between meaningfulness, mysticism and transcendence. Section IV, Ethics and Meaning in Life, examines (among other issues) whether meaningful lives must be moral, how important forgiveness is for meaning, the implications of life's meaningfulness or meaninglessness for procreation ethics, and whether animals can have meaningful lives. Section V compares philosophical and psychological research on life's meaning, explores the experience of meaningfulness, and discusses the relation between meaningfulness and desire, love, and gratitude. Finally, section VI, Living Meaningfully: Challenges and Prospects, elaborates on meaning in life and topics such as suicide, suffering, education, optimism and pessimism.
Many of the chapters deal with topics that have never before been discussed in the literature. This handbook presents ground-breaking work within a rapidly developing field and offers the first published scholarly companion to the philosophical study if meaning in life.