Subjective and objective meaning (1)

AGENDA

1. Recap & some preliminaries
2. Taylor, "The Meaning of Life"
3. Friday: autonomy folks present + Review
4. Monday: exam 2

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Where have we been? Where are we going?

1. The good life -- what makes a person's life go well? -- no discussion of "meaning"
• Virtue theories (Aristotle, Epictetus, Marshall)
• Happiness theories (Mill, Vitrano)
• Autonomy vs. social harmony (Nietzsche, Confucious)
2. Enter: the meaning of life
• Meaning OF life
• why are we here?
• why is there something rather than nothing? (Holt)
• Meaning IN life
• Tolstoy: Confession
• Or was it a midlife crisis? (Setiya)
• Does my life have meaning? Am I living meaningfully?
• Meaning = union with the infinite
3. Next: Meaning in life --  many other views
• Tolstoy
• Taylor
• Wolf
• DeBres
• Setiya
• Weinberg

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Meaning in life: some preliminaries

What are we talking about?

1. The meaning of a sentence
2. The meaning of a symbol, 
3. The meaning of a dream
4. The meaning of Mt. Rushmore
5. The meaning of The Holocaust
6. What my life means to other people
7. Meaning as a life asset for me (like happiness is an asset for me) THIS!!!!

What can be meaningful?

1. A whole life
2. Moments, hours, days, activities
3. Both (we all agree)

Are there degrees of meaning?

1. No degrees, meaning is "yes-no"
2. Yes there are degrees--something can be a "6" or a "10" on the meaning scale (most say this)

How may poles? 

1. Meaning has one pole.  Meaningless things just lack meaning.
2. Meaning has two poles. Sometimes "meaningless" connotes lack of meaning, but sometimes it connotes outright anti-meaning.

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Richard Taylor, "The Meaning of Life" (1970) 

What do we mean by....

• Meaningless existence
• Meaningful existence

Taylor's strategy--use the Myth of Sisyphus to clarify meaninglessness

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Taylor's Three Versions of the Myth of Sisyphus

Original Version, all the work comes to nothing (p. 20-21)

Temple Version, all the work is done to build a
"beautiful and enduring temple" (p. 21)

             Obsession Version, p. 22

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Definitions--p. 22-23

1. Meaningless "endless pointlessness" (p. 23) -- original Sisyphus
2. Meaningful: activity with a "significant culmination, some more or less lasting end that can be considered to have been the direction and purpose of the activity" (p. 23)  -- temple-building Sisyphus)
3. Objectively meaningless but still meaningful for someone: a life/activity can be both objectively meaningless and meaningful for the person whose life it is -- obsessive Sisyphus

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"Which of these pictures does life in fact resemble?"--p. 23

Start with animals

Ugly worms in New Zealand, p. 23

Migrating birds, p. 24

Human life is the same (READ)

The busy street, p. 24

The country road, p. 25 

We invent ways of denying it--p. 25 (READ)

• We want to be like Temple Sisyphus but we aren't

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Crisis point of article...suggests despair ... but how does he avoid despair?

Who has the best life?

• not original Sisyphus
• not temple Sisyphus (he'd just get bored)
• the answer is: obsessive Sisyphus--p. 26

We are like obsessive Sisyphus

• our lives are meaningless (objectively) but meaningful for us 
• and that's fine--READ p. 26-27

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Options so far....

Tolstoy: a meaningful activity has a result that's not destroyed by death. 

• Crisis: there's nothing like that!
• Resolution: union with God is like that

Taylor: a meaningful activity has a significant and lasting result

• Crisis: there's nothing like that!
• Resolution: we can't have meaning (objectively), but we things we passionately care about are meaningful for us which is much better

Next time: we'll look at this resolution more closely