Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:06:54.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Frail worms of the earth’: philosophical reflections on the meaning of life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2016

CHRISTOPHER HAMILTON
CHRISTOPHER HAMILTON*
Affiliation:
Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College London, WC2B 6LE, UK
*
e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many philosophers in the analytic tradition have recently sought to explore the question of the meaning of life. In the first part of this article I subject two important approaches from this tradition – those of John Cottingham and Susan Wolf – to criticism. I then suggest that Cottingham and Wolf articulate certain assumptions about the meaning of life that are widely shared amongst analytic philosophers. I go on to subject those assumptions to criticism and seek to develop an alternative approach to the question, one that is largely overlooked in the contemporary literature.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 55 - 71
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arendt, Hannah (1958) The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah (1993) ‘On humanity in dark times: thoughts about Lessing’, in Men in Dark Times (San Diego: Harvester), 3–31.Google Scholar
Cahn, Steven M. (2008) ‘Meaningless lives?’, in Klemke, E. D. & Cahn, Steven M. (eds) The Meaning of Life: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 236–238.Google Scholar
Cottingham, John (2003) On the Meaning of Life (London: Routledge).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Paul (2008) ‘The meaning and value of life’, in Klemke, E. D. & Cahn, Steven M. (eds) The Meaning of Life: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 114–133.Google Scholar
Greig, Geordie (2013) Breakfast with Lucian: A Portrait of the Artist (London: Jonathan Cape).Google Scholar
Hamilton, Christopher (2016) A Philosophy of Tragedy (London: Reaktion).Google Scholar
James, William (2000 [1907]) ‘The present dilemma in philosophy’, in Pragmatism and Other Writings (Harmondsworth: Penguin) 7–23.Google Scholar
Josipovici, Gabriel (1986) Contre-Jour (Manchester: Carcanet).Google Scholar
Metz, Thaddeus (2013) ‘The concept of a meaningful life’, in Seachris, Joshua W. (ed.) Exploring the Meaning of Life (Chichester: Wiley), 79–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pascal, Blaise (2000 [1670]) Pensées (Paris: LGF).Google Scholar
Raine, Kathleen (1991) Autobiographies (London: Skoob Books).Google Scholar
Swenson, David, F. (2008) ‘The dignity of human life’, in Klemke, E. D. & Cahn, Steven M. (eds) The Meaning of Life: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 17–26.Google Scholar
Tolstoy, Leo (1980 [1918/1877]) Anna Karenina, Louise Maude, & Maude, Aylmer (trs) (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Wisdom, John (1992) ‘What is there in horse racing?’, in Hanfling, Oswald (ed.) Life and Meaning: Α Reader (Oxford: Blackwell), 74–76.Google Scholar
Wolf, Susan (2010) Meaning in Life and Why it Matters (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar