AGENDA
- Tolstoy's crisis
- Autonomy presentation
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TOLSTOY'S LIFE (1828-1910)
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TOLSTOY'S CONFESSION
- never really believed (p. 115)
- rejects Christianity at 16 (p. 119)
- focused on self-perfection, ambition
CHAP II. EARLY ADULTHOOD
- youthful debauchery
- believes in the meaning of poetry and literature but begins to have doubts (p. 124)
CHAP III. SUCCESS, DOUBTS
- writes his great novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina
- rich, famous, lives on huge country estate
- witnesses execution, calls into question progress and popular opinion
- marries, eventually has 13 children (a number die young)
- surrounded by admirers
CHAP IV. CRISIS
- Age 50 (1878)
- arrests of life, questions, black dots (R1 129-130)
- why am I doing anything, no meaning (R2 131-132)
- fable (image)
- thoughts of death (R3 131)
- thought of suicide (R4 132-133)
- success (R4)
- death and meaning (R5 136)
- hang on to the branches (R6 135-136)
- the two drops (R7 136)
- meaning (R8 136)
CHAP. V-XVI SEARCH FOR MEANING (next time)
- Searches for a solution
- Finds many possible solutions inadequate
- In the end, finds a solution
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THE ARGUMENTS
The argument for meaninglessness
- If death brings everything to an end, then life is meaningless.
- Death does bring everything to an end. THEREFORE
- Life is meaningless.
The argument for despair
- Life is meaningless.
- If life is meaningless, I have nothing to live for. THEREFORE
- I have nothing to live for. [despair]
