The Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life
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Description
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. Contents Contributors Introduction • Iddo Landau PART I. UNDERSTANDING MEANING IN LIFE 1. The Concept of Life’s Meaning • Thaddeus Metz 2. Subjectivism and Objectivism about Meaning in Life • Jens Johansson and Frans Svensson 3. Achievement and Meaning in Life • Gwen Bradford 4. Narrativity and Meaning in Life • Galen Strawson 5. Meaningfulness and Importance • Guy Kahane 6. The Meaning of Life and Death • Steven Luper PART II. MEANING IN LIFE, SCIENCE, AND METAPHYSICS 7. The Relevance of Neuroscience to Meaning in Life • Paul Thagard 8. Can Neuroscience Shed Light on What Constitutes a Meaningful Life? • P. M. S. Hacker 9. Personal Identity and Meaning in Life • Marya Schechtman 10. Hard Determinism and Meaning in Life • Derk Pereboom 11. Meaning in Life and the Nature of Time • Ned Markosian PART III. MEANING IN LIFE AND RELIGION 12. The Meaning of Life and Transcendence • John Cottingham 13. Atheism and Meaning in Life • Erik J. Wielenberg 14. Theism and Meaning in Life • T. J. Mawson 15. Mysticism, Ritual, and the Meaning of Life • Guy Bennett-Hunter PART IV. ETHICS AND MEANING IN LIFE 16. Meaning and Morality • Todd May 17. Meaning and Anti-Meaning in Life • Sven Nyholm and Stephen M. Campbell 18. Forgiveness and Meaning in Life • Lucy Allais 19. Between Sisyphus’s Rock and a Warm and Fuzzy Place: Procreative Ethics and the Meaning of Life • Rivka Weinberg 20. Nature, Animals, and Meaning in Life • Katie McShane PART V. PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND MEANING IN LIFE 21. The Experience of Meaning • Antti Kauppinen 22. Desire and Meaning in Life: Towards a Theory • Nomy Arpaly 23. Love and Meaning in Life • Alan H. Goldman 24. Meaning in Life and Phoniness • Iddo Landau 25. Gratitude and Meaning in Life • Tony Manela 26. Psychological Approaches to Life’s Meaning • Roy F. Baumeister PART VI. LIVING MEANINGFULLY: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS 27. Pessimism, Optimism, and Meaning in Life • David Benatar 28. The Rationality of Suicide and the Meaningfulness of Life • Michael Cholbi 29. Suffering and Meaning in Life • Michael S. Brady 30. Paradoxes and Meaning in Life • Saul Smilansky 31. Education and Meaning in Life • Doret de Ruyter and Anders Schinkel 32. Virtual Reality and the Meaning of Life • John Danaher Index
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