What is meaning?

 Leo Tolstoy, Confession -- A religious view

1. What creates a threat of meaninglessness?  Because of death, all our efforts comes to nothing.
2. What is meaning? Union with the infinite;  overcomes threat posed by death.
3. Can we have it? Yes, through religious faith.
4. Ups and downs? Yes, not all parts of life are meaningful.
5. Objection: Union with infinite is just wishful thinking (Richard Taylor).

Richard Taylor, "The Meaning of Life" -- Subjective fulfillment

1. What creates a threat of meaninglessness?  All our efforts come to nothing.
2. What is meaning? Activity with a significant and lasting result.
3. Can we have it?  No, objectively; but we can do things that are meaningful for us by doing things we passionately care about.
4. Ups and downs? Yes, because we don't passionately care about everything equally.
5. Objection:  Not meaningful to passionately care about something unless it has objective worth (Susan Wolf).

Susan Wolf, "Meaning in Life" -- Fitting fulfillment

1. What creates a threat of meaninglessness?  Not focused on threat.
2. What is meaning?  Activities are meaningful when you love them (subjective condition) about them and they are objectively worth loving (objective condition). They have to be intelligible to a wider community.
3. Can we have it?  Yes
4. Ups and downs? Yes, because some of our activities meet the conditions more than others
5. Objection:  Not wrong, but incomplete. There's more meaning in a life that tells a story. (Helene De Bres)

Helene De Bres, "Narrative and Meaning in Life" -- Fitting stories

1. What creates a threat of meaninglessness?  Not focused on threat.
2. What is meaning?  Many kinds of meaning; one comes from telling your own life story and thereby making your life intelligible to yourself and others.
3. Can we have it?  Yes
4. Ups and downs? Before you tell your story and after you tell it.
5. Objection:  Galen Strawson

Kieran Setiya  -- Living in the present

1. What creates a threat of meaninglessness?  Being very telic and succeeding in major life goals
2. What is meaning?  Doesn't define but says adding more atelic activities will make your life more meaningful; also need to increase "presence," possibly through meditation
3. Can we have it?  Yes
4. Ups and downs?  Must also have some telic activities, so you can't always be atelically present
5. Objection:  Antti Kauppinen

Antti Kauppinen -- The project-centered life

1. What creates a threat of meaninglessness?  not focused on threat
2. What is meaning?  
3. Can we have it?  
4. Ups and downs?  
5. Objection: