What is philosophy of life

Existing within a definite time-space location, they share in the basic wealth of a given culture. They participate in the process of civilization. They have been in part determined in what they will think and do by what is at their disposal to work with and what has gone before to make them what they are.

Individuals add to their inheritance their own uniqueness which is centered in their valuational acts. Philosophers are no different from others in regard to their cultural perspectives. Philosophers differ in their conclusions. They build upon what has come before. They react to it and criticize it. They draw from the total wealth of their given civilization and all others they have knowledge of.

Philosophers differ in what they end up with, however, they share in a common pursuit and they do so by their attempt to pursue inquiry in a definite manner, i.

Philosophy and other forms of Thought. While the Philosophical mode of thought exists along side of those of Religion, Science and Art it is distinct from them and influences each of them and in part responds to developments within each of these fields or dimensions of human experience.

While Religion offers a comprehensive view of all aspects of human life , it is a view which is uncritically formulated and does not itself encourage or tolerate criticism of the fundamental tenets of faith or the principle applications of those basic beliefs to the affairs of everyday life.

Science, on the other hand, is quite critical in the evaluation of hypotheses and theories but it lacks the comprehensive nature of philosophic thought. The various branches of scientific inquiry have not as yet demonstrated that they are capable of being welded into a single comprehensive view of all reality built upon a single coherent set of basic principles or laws. Art remains as a discipline capable of demonstrating, representing and encouraging values but it is not a discipline of thought at all least of all one that is characterized by the critical and comprehensive features of philosophical thought.

I hope that you have been able to detect these features of philosophic thought although there are obstacles that most of you have encountered such as 1 the brevity of the treatment given each philosopher examined during this semester, 2 the rather small number of passages and works read and 3 the inexperience of class members with reading and analyzing philosophical treatises.

Even so each student should have come to appreciate that Philosophy as an activity and a tradition of thought involves a good deal more than the common usage of the term in popular discourse would intimate.

Today the term "Philosophy" is often misused. So often in fact that the term itself has been corrupted. Most think of Philosophy as a "way of life", "view of the world", "theory about life", etc The public has little conscious appreciation for the philosophic tradition.

The future for Philosophy as an intellectual activity has come to be in doubt due to present social conditions: the anti-intellectual and anti-rational tendencies that characterize the current cultural scene and most of the influential and determining social and political movements within it..

There are over 20, philosophers in the world. There are more than 6, philosophers in thee United States. They are philosophers according to their academic training and degree and their professional affiliations, e.

There are Philosophers who participate in different traditions. This approach alone, while promising much and necessary for inquiry, has not answered many of our most important problems.

There are many definite characteristics of this tradition in the works of Marxists, Existentialists, and Pragmatists. Finally, there is still if even in only the smallest of numbers 4 speculative Philosophy such as evidenced in this country by Peirce, Whitehead, Hartshorne, and Weiss. Philosophy evolving an entire worldview and all encompassing conceptual framework: Philosophy in its most comprehensive form of thought. Critical and comprehensive thinking continues to be carried on today but toward what end???

Our contemporary world is what it is partly as a result of past philosophical inquiry. Consider the impact and importance of Greek thought for mathematics, modern science and technology. Much of our world has come to be the way it is as a result of the world-views developed by philosophers and criticized and reformulated by philosophers and most of these thinkers were Hellenized-Christians, in fact DWEM's!!

Supposing there are two bearers of meaning in a life, important questions arise. Naturalists until recently had been largely concerned to show that meaning in life is possible without God or a soul; they have not spent much time considering how such spiritual conditions might enhance meaning, but have, in moderate fashion, tended to leave that possibility open an exception is Hooker Lately, however, an extreme form of naturalism has arisen, according to which our lives would probably, if not unavoidably, have less meaning in a world with God or a soul than in one without.

Another salient argument for thinking that God would detract from meaning in life appeals to the value of privacy Kahane , —85; Lougheed , 55— Beyond questioning the value of our privacy in relation to God, one thought-provoking criticism has been to suggest that, if a lack of privacy really would substantially reduce meaning in our lives, then God, qua morally perfect person, would simply avoid knowing everything about us Tooley First and foremost, there has been the argument that an immortal life could not avoid becoming boring Williams , rendering life pointless according to many subjective and objective theories.

The literature on this topic has become enormous, with the central reply being that immortality need not get boring for more recent discussions, see Fischer , 79—, , —42; Mawson , 51—52; Williams , 30—41, —29; Belshaw , — However, it might also be worth questioning whether boredom is sufficient for meaninglessness. Suppose, for instance, that one volunteers to be bored so that many others will not be bored; perhaps this would be a meaningful sacrifice to make.

Being bored for an eternity would not be blissful or even satisfying, to be sure, but if it served the function of preventing others from being bored for an eternity, would it be meaningful at least to some degree? Another reason given to reject eternal life is that it would become repetitive, which would substantially drain it of meaning Scarre , 54—55; May , 46—47, 64—65, 71; Smuts , —44; cf.

Blumenfeld If, as it appears, there are only a finite number of actions one could perform, relationships one could have, and states one could be in during an eternity, one would have to end up doing the same things again. To be sure, one might not remember having done them before and hence could avoid boredom, but for some philosophers that would make it all the worse, akin to having dementia and forgetting that one has told the same stories. Others, however, still find meaning in such a life e.

A third meaning-based argument against immortality invokes considerations of narrative. With immortality, the novel never ends How meaningful can such a novel be? In reply, some reject the idea that a meaningful life must be akin to a novel, and intead opt for narrativity in the form of something like a string of short stories that build on each other Fischer , —77, , — Others, though, have sought to show that eternity could still be novel-like, deeming the sort of ending that matters to be a function of what the content is and how it relates to the content that came before e.

There have been additional objections to immortality as undercutting meaningfulness, but they are prima facie less powerful than the previous three in that, if sound, they arguably show that an eternal life would have a cost, but probably not one that would utterly occlude the prospect of meaning in it. Note that at least the first two rationales turn substantially on the belief in immortality, not quite immortality itself: if one were immortal but forgot that one is or did not know that at all, then one could appreciate life and obtain much of the virtue of courage and, conversely, if one were not immortal, but thought that one is, then, by the logic of these arguments, one would fail to appreciate limits and be unable to exemplify courage.

Much of the procedure has been to suppose that many lives have had meaning in them and then to consider in virtue of what they have or otherwise could. However, there are nihilist or pessimist perspectives that question this supposition.

According to nihilism pessimism , what would make a life meaningful in principle cannot obtain for any of us. One straightforward rationale for nihilism is the combination of extreme supernaturalism about what makes life meaningful and atheism about whether a spiritual realm exists.

If you believe that God or a soul is necessary for meaning in life, and if you believe that neither is real, then you are committed to nihilism, to the denial that life can have any meaning. The most common rationales for nihilism these days do not appeal to supernaturalism, or at least not explicitly.

According to a second version, life would be meaningless if there were no set of moral standards that could be fully justified to all rational enquirers, but it so happens that such standards cannot exist for persons who can always reasonably question a given claim Murphy , 12— According to a third, we hold certain beliefs about the objectivity and universality of morality and related values such as meaning because they were evolutionarily advantageous to our ancestors, not because they are true.

Street One must draw on the intricate work in meta-ethics that has been underway for the past several decades in order to appraise these arguments. In contrast to error-theoretic arguments for nihilism, there are rationales for it accepting that objective values exist but denying that our lives can ever exhibit or promote them so as to obtain meaning. One version of this approach maintains that, for our lives to matter, we must be in a position to add objective value to the world, which we are not since the objective value of the world is already infinite Smith The key premises for this view are that every bit of space-time or at least the stars in the physical universe have some positive value, that these values can be added up, and that space is infinite.

If the physical world at present contains an infinite degree of value, nothing we do can make a difference in terms of meaning, for infinity plus any amount of value remains infinity. One way to question this argument, beyond doubting the value of space-time or stars, is to suggest that, even if one cannot add to the value of the universe, meaning plausibly comes from being the source of certain values.

For Benatar, the bads of existing e. If indeed the state of not existing is no worse than that of experiencing the benefits of existence, then, since existing invariably brings harm in its wake, it follows that existing is always worse compared to not existing. Although this argument is illustrated with experiential goods and bads, it seems generalizable to non-experiential ones, including meaning in life and anti-matter. The literature on this argument has become large for a recent collection, see Hauskeller and Hallich What one does in a certain society on Earth over 75 years or so just does not amount to much, when considering the billions of temporal years and billions of light-years that make up space-time.

Others naturally maintain that cosmic significance is irrelevant to appraising a human life, with some denying that it would be a genuine source of meaning Landau , 93—99 , and others accepting that it would be but maintaining that the absence of this good would not count as a bad or merit regret discussed in Benatar , 56—62; Williams , — Finally, a distinguishable source of nihilism concerns the ontological, as distinct from axiological, preconditions for meaning in life.

Perhaps most radically, there are those who deny that we have selves. Do we indeed lack selves, and, if we do, is a meaningful life impossible for us see essays in Caruso and Flanagan ; Le Bihan ?

Somewhat less radically, there are those who grant that we have selves, but deny that they are in charge in the relevant way. That is, some have argued that we lack self-governance or free will of the sort that is essential for meaning in life, at least if determinism is true Pisciotta ; essays in Caruso and Flanagan Non-quantum events, including human decisions, appear to be necessited by a prior state of the world, such that none could have been otherwise, and many of our decisions are a product of unconscious neurological mechanisms while quantum events are of course utterly beyond our control.

If none of our conscious choices could have been avoided and all were ultimately necessited by something external to them, perhaps they are insufficient to merit pride or admiration or to constitute narrative authorship of a life. In reply, some maintain that a compatibilism between determinism and moral responsibility applies with comparable force to meaning in life e.

Supernaturalism 2. God-centered Views 2. Soul-centered Views 3. Naturalism 3. Subjectivism 3. Objectivism 3. Rejecting God and a Soul 4. Supernaturalism Most analytic philosophers writing on meaning in life have been trying to develop and evaluate theories, i.

Soul-centered Views Notice that none of the above arguments for supernaturalism appeals to the prospect of eternal life at least not explicitly. Objectivism Objective naturalists believe that meaning in life is constituted at least in part by something physical beyond merely the fact that it is the object of a pro-attitude. Rejecting God and a Soul Naturalists until recently had been largely concerned to show that meaning in life is possible without God or a soul; they have not spent much time considering how such spiritual conditions might enhance meaning, but have, in moderate fashion, tended to leave that possibility open an exception is Hooker Bibliography Works Cited Agar, N.

Arpaly, N. Audi, R. Ayer, A. Klemke ed. Baier, K. Barnes, H. Belliotti, R. Leiden: Brill. Belshaw, C. Benatar, D. Bennett-Hunter, G. Blumenfeld, D. Bradford, G. Brogaard, B. Calhoun, C. Campbell, S. Caruso, G. Cooper, D. Durham: Acumen Publishing. Cottingham, J. Seachris and S. Goetz eds. Craig, W.

Seachris ed. Danaher, J. Darwall, S. Davis, W. Dorsey, D. Egerstrom, K. Ellin, J. Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace. Evers, D. Feinberg, J.

Ferracioli, L. Fischer, J. Frankfurt, H. Gewirth, A. Goetz, S. Goldman, A. Greene, P. Hanfling, O. Hare, R. Hauskeller, M. Hooker, B. Athanassoulis and S. Vice eds. Hosseini, R. Kahane, G. Kamm, F. Kass, L. Kauppinen, A. Kekes, J. French and H. Wettstein eds. Kraay, K. Landau, I. Le Bihan, B. Levinson, J. Levy, N. Lougheed, K. Mackie, J. London: Penguin Books, Markus, A. That said, part of what it means to become an adult is to take responsibility for our own choices, forging our individual path through life.

Skye stumbled on a philosophy book that changed her life while studying business. Feeling pulled along the standard conveyor hurtling towards marriage and babies, she had been wondering whether that really was the formula for living happily ever after — especially as she was seeing so many miserable and collapsing marriages around her.

In an MBA class on boardroom dynamics, a professor started discussing existential philosophy, which emphasized freedom, choice, and responsibility. Skye was intrigued and asked for more. They have no a priori rights or duties. Massimo was actively searching for an answer to the question of how to live a meaningful life as a result of a midlife crisis, and found it, of all places, on social media. His life and career were going swimmingly, until, just when he turned 40, he was hit by a number of setbacks: his father died, his wife divorced him, and he had to move to another city.

All in the span of a few months. Luckily, this was also the time in his life when he had gone back to graduate school to study philosophy, so he naturally thought the discipline devoted to the love of wisdom was the most likely to provide an answer to the question of how to move forward.

Massimo quickly realized that such answer — for him — lay somewhere in the ballpark of Greco-Roman virtue ethics. He began with the mandatory starting point, Aristotle, but found him a bit too elitist. After all, he claimed that a eudaimonic life requires not just virtue i. Good looks? Oh well. Alas, the above mentioned Epicurean goal of living a life without pain entails doing away with social and political commitments, since they are painful as anyone who pays the slightest attention to the news is well aware.

That was a deal breaker for Massimo. What on earth is that? And why would anyone want to celebrate Stoicism? He just had not put two and two together before and looked at Stoicism as a kind of life philosophy. So Massimo signed up, started reading about, and practicing, Stoicism, and the thing hit him immediately as exactly right. He was particularly struck by the bluntness and humor of Epictetus, a slave-turned-teacher who was the major influence on Aurelius, the emperor-philosopher. Several years later, Massimo is still practicing, and at least his friends and family seem to think he has made some progress toward becoming a slightly better human being.

His sense of meaning and purpose in life was never something over which he felt particularly conflicted or unsure. Dan never once doubted that he wanted a family and children of his own, and from the time he decided to become a philosophy professor, he never really wavered from the path of writing, teaching and engaging in both academic and public discourse.

In a sense, Dan has always been an instinctive Aristotelian: he always conceived of his own flourishing and fulfillment in terms of his relationships, whether to his wife, daughter, parents and extended family, Israel, Long Island, the Jewish people, and even his generation he is a proud and vocal Gen-Xer ; his role as a teacher of students; and as a participant in the public discourse of his time and place.

He married and started a family of his own. He became an academic. He developed a platform as a public intellectual. And thus, over time, his instinctive, tacit Aristotelianism slowly transformed into what is now a more explicit and active one. But many of us — at least in areas of the world where literacy and education are at decent levels and one is not facing war, famine, or natural disasters — are also capable of critically reflecting on whatever we inherited from our parents and culture at large, asking ourselves whether the particular philosophy or religion in which we automatically found ourselves is really one that makes sense for us.

The premise of How to Live a Good Life is that, in the end, there are several reasonable answers to how to consciously and deliberately live your life.

Then again, there are also a number of bad answers to that very question, and taking some time to reflect on it will indeed make it less likely for you to mislive.

If you want to hear from leading thinkers like this debating renowned philosophers, cutting edge scientists, headline-making politicians, and beloved artists, come to HowTheLightGetsIn Hay for four days of debates and talks alongside music, comedy and parties.

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