##less Life In Richard Taylor's The Meaning Of Human Existence

Annie Dillard’s “This is the Life”, an addition to the publication of “A Journal of Art and Religion”, Dillard persuades the readers to ponder the purpose of their lives. Dillard provokes self-contemplation through asking and repeating rhetorical questions and phrases, illusions that support her point, and an inspirational didactic tone.

First and foremost the beginning chapter, the book speaks of their experience and what lead them to a search of happiness and meaning in life. During this search, his friend issued him a challenge to research accurate and logical claims of Jesus Christ proving that he is God’s son. Proving that he occupied a human body living amongst men and women and he died on the cross for the sins of humanity as well as being buried and resurrected three days later. Overall this book discusses the answers to the questions many have on the hunt for happiness: Who am I? What is my purpose? What is my destiny?

Susan R. Wolf (born 1952) is a moral philosopher who works extensively on the meaning of human life and is the Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wolf addresses the questions of the meaning of life in hope to distinguish the characteristics and reasoning that gives meaning to life. According to Susan Wolf view about the meaning in life, “I would say that meaningful life are lives of active engagement in projects of worth… two key phrases, ‘active engagement’ and ‘projects of worth’” (Wolf, 205). However, I believe that her proposal leaves out our basic motives and reasoning that’s

The true meaning of life. What, exactly, can objectively define a life well lived? Henry David Thoreau, a unique and prosperous man with the dedication to reject societal norms he disagreed with, believed his life of simplicity was the answer. His actions led to a life of content happiness, and he is seemingly worshipped for his literature concerning these actions. While he clearly knew how to make himself at peace, Thoreau has proven himself downright atrocious at convincing others to do the same. His allusions, which according to many literary experts are one of his writings’ most prominent features, often are convoluted and irrelevant. In some cases, his usage of rhetoric is actually counterproductive, instantly turning off the audience to his thoughts and ideals. Thoreau, through his use of forced rhetorical

Susan wolf interprets a meaningful life as one that has within the basis of an affirmative answer to the basis for an affirmative answer to the needs or belonging that are characteristically described as needs of meaning. She described meaningful lives as lives of active engagement in project worth. Which she divided into groups, first is ‘’active engagement’’ and project worth.

As stated before, Taylor believes that our lives are somewhat meaningless when looking at it superficially. To adequately portray this idea, Taylor first defines the word meaningless by analyzing various scenarios that produce nothing in sense of accomplishments. The first example Taylor examines is the ancient myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus betrayed the gods by sharing holy information with the mortals, for this he was sentenced to push a rock up a hill just to let it roll down for him to push it up again; a cycle that was to be done for all eternity empty of any achievement. This pointless cycle that amounts to nothing is what Taylor defines as meaningless. “Now in this we have the picture of meaningless, pointless toil, of a meaningless existence that is absolutely never redeemed.” (Taylor 475) Taylor compares this

In the article “Absurd Self-Fulfillment,” Feinberg offers his readers a close up examination of absurdity, self-fulfillment, and tries to show that every human life may contain some degree of each. He discusses how Richard Taylor, Albert Camus, and Thomas Nagel, each portray that there is indeed absurdity in all human beings, through the use of their own special qualifications. Taylor and Camus both conclude that there is no meaning to anything we do, and that the human condition is pointless and meaningless. They believe that absurd humans do whatever makes them happy, but before realizing the absurd, one is a slave of their own future goals. However, Nagel claims that absurdity results from the irresolvable clash between the importance people attach their lives too, and their capability of viewing themselves from a detached and impersonal perspective. Feinberg eventually adopts Nagel’s explanation of absurdity. Feinberg’s concept of self-fulfillment can be understood in the sense of doing what one is genetically inclined to do, which includes both one’s generic

Susan wolf interprets a meaningful life as one that has within the basis of an affirmative answer to the basis for an affirmative answer to the needs or belonging that are characteristically described as needs of meaning. She described meaningful lives as lives of active engagement in project worth. Which she divided into groups, first is ‘’active engagement’’ and project worth.

By referencing the ancient myth of Sisyphus, Taylor made is clear that to him, life is meaningless. He gave us the definition of meaninglessness as being “essentially endless pointless, and meaningfulness is therefore the opposite” (Taylor 5). After being punished by the God’s, Sisyphus rolled a rock up the hill every day, time after time, only for the rock to roll down the hill once again. Taylor sees this

Camus explanations of the Myth of Sisyphus, presented the concept of the absurd by outlining the beliefs that an individuals life has worth but only his live in a world that denies such worth to survive. Therefore, the absurdity in the statement, explains the fact of a clash between the orders through which an individuals mind hard for, likewise the lack of order that we as humans find in the world.

The author brilliantly uses contrasting examples of what meaning is not to extract her argument on how to obtain meaning in a life. Her first example involves someone who spends day and night watching television and drinking beer. While those two activities in themselves aren’t bad, the fact that this person is living in “hazy passivity…/…unconnected to anyone or anything, going nowhere, achieving nothing,” is certainly not a life of meaning; and she refers to this as

But also in the book it discusses how people do not agree with creating one’s own purpose. They think that if they create their own purpose, then that means that their life meaning is not as meaningful. I do agree with this to some extent but I also think that we know ourselves the best and if we create our own life meaning it can be the most fulfilling. A quote from this chapter is, “What matters is not necessarily what the inventor had in mind, but the uses or purposes the innovation actually has” (p.12). This quote is saying that for example the predetermined meaning of humans is not really important at all. It is what purposes a human can bring about in this world.

Everyone has a life to live; however, there are quite different between the unexamined life and the examined life. In the word of Socrates,” The unexamined life, for a human, is not worth living”, “the unexamined life” means people have no question, they never question the life, and they don’t want to know about the truth, and they don’t know who they are. Those people just get up every day, go to work and go to sleep, keep repeating these and never wonder what is the meaning of their life. On the other hand, the examined life is that people always searching for reasons, they know who they are, and they know who they want to be and keep working hard, try to improve themselves. Therefore, the unexamined life is not worth living because they

The purpose of Richard Taylor’s, “The Meaning of Life,” is to portray the life of Sisyphus in Albert Camus’s, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” as a meaningless life, in which Taylor portrays as a “perfect image of meaninglessness.” In Camus’s story, Sisyphus has committed certain crimes that got him into trouble with the gods. Hence, receiving a punishment by being forced to push a rock up a hill. However, to make it even worse, once he reached the top of the hill, the rock would just roll back down to the bottom, therefore having to repeat this labor for eternity. The motivation behind this discipline was to demonstrate the pointlessness of life since there was no want to demonstrate his life will never end. The question of what’s the meaning of life is compelling to think about, but the more time spent doing it the more fascinating it gets. There are ways to avoid having a meaningless life, but Taylor’s theory sticks to either living a happy life or a meaningless life.

My few years on this planet have been a bit confusing. I have learned of many aspects of life from which one can draw meaning, if indeed such meaning can be drawn. I have also learned that there can be no singular meaning of life to stand for us all, or even any one of us. What I have learned above all is that trying to put words to the meaning of life is a task of absolute absurdity. This is not to be confused with the idea that life has no meaning, for life certainly has meaning. However, there is no single meaning of life to be defined - life is different for us all. Therefore, rather than define life for an entire planet, I shall try to explain what life means as I perceive it, and why it means so.