The Meaning Of Life (2025)
 

Be able to state main views on the meaning of life
Identify major philosophical authors and traditions
Recognize the perspective of major religious traditions on the meaning of life
Defend one's own view on the meaning of life
Requirements
No previous experience needed! This is ideal as a first course in philosophy, and should also be interesting to more experienced students.
Description
This course introduces the main philosophical questions about the meaning of life, drawing on both religious and non-religious perspectives. At the end of the course students should have a good grounding in core philosophical questions about life's significance. Readings are drawn from: The Meaning of Life: A Reader, Klemke and Cahn (Eds.), 4th Edition.We begin with a discussion of the religious or theistic perspective on the meaning of life, focusing on a short piece by Leo Tolstoy as well as expository discussions of Christian and Buddhist perspectives on the meaning of life.We next turn to secular or non-religious perspectives. We consider Schopenhauer's view that life consists fundamentally of suffering, as well as Camus's view that life is in some sense fundamentally absurd, as well as more contemporary responses to these perspectives.We then consider the question of what death is, whether death is bad, whether immortality would be good, and what significance our death might have for the question of whether our lives do (or do not) have meaning.Finally, we briefly consider psychological work on how meaningfulness in life might be empirically measured through questionnaires and other devices, and the uses of such measures for actually improving human life.
Anyone with an interest and openness to fundamental philosophical questions about life.
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