The Meaning of Life and the Great Philosophers by Stephen Leach,James Tartaglia -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of contributors Preface 1. Confucius

Confucius Meaning: a prolegomenon The core teachings of Confucius Notes

2. The Buddha

Mortality, meaning and rebirth Narrativity and suffering Persons as fictions Nirvāna and the meaning of life Notes

3. Vyāsa

How we hang in there, lusting for life in the midst of meaningless suffering Is life even the right sort of thing to have a (single) meaning? Meaning of life to be found out by dialogical reasoning and discourse The point of life is dharma Omnivorous Time as the existential, naturalistic meaning of life Primacy of Desire: how there is no getting away from desire Transcendence of transcendence: life is meaningful when one gives up giving up Notes

4. Socrates

Note

5. Plato

The virtuous life In the service of the state Towards the divine Notes

6. Diogenes

Notes

7. Zhuangzi

Notes

8. Aristotle

Notes

9. Epicurus

Epicurean natural philosophy Living pleasantly Meaningfulness in the Epicurean way of living Notes

10. Koheleth

Introduction Fleeting, mortal lives Undeserved goods and bads Unpredictable predestination Conclusion: how one is to live Note

11. Epictetus

Notes

12. Sextus Empiricus

Notes

13. Avicenna

Directives Modalities of being ‘Flying person’ Eschatology? Immortality? Onto-theology and divinity? Meaning/meaninglessness!

14. Maimonides 15. Aquinas

Natural ends Supernatural ends World without ends Notes

16. Montaigne

Notes

17. Descartes

A modern problem? From doubt to God Human nature in Descartes The route to meaning: control or submission? Notes

18. Spinoza 19. Kant

Notes

20. Schopenhauer 21. Kierkegaard

Understanding the problem The pervasiveness of the problem: despair Faith: a solution to the problem Notes

22. Marx

Introduction Ruling idea one: undifferentiated suffering Ruling idea two: bodily suffering Ruling idea three: ontological suffering Ruling idea four: predatory suffering Conclusion: teleological suffering

23. Mill

I II III IV V Notes

24. Nietzsche

Glad tidings? Will to power Concerns Note

25. Ortega

Notes

26. Wittgenstein

27. Heidegger

Heidegger’s works before and after Being and Time What Being and Time’s primary questions are and how they sound The question of Being The question of the meaning of Being What Heidegger planned and what he actually did Dasein The meaning of life Care as the meaning of life Time as the meaning of life Authenticity as what makes one’s life meaningful Notes

28. Sartre

First stage: the project Second stage: the adult–child relation Third stage: the forces of history Final: how each life reflects history Note

29. Beauvoir

Absurdity and existentialism Pyrrhus is not Sisyphus Points of departure The value of a potential means Authenticity as moral law Morality and the meaning of life The demands of authenticity

30. Weil

Notes

31. Ayer

Notes

32. Camus 33. Murdoch

I II III IV V VI VII Notes

34. Fanon

Biography Negritude or humanism? On violence and revolution Fanon’s legacy and relevance

35. Rorty

Notes

Postscript: The blue flower

Notes

Bibliography Index

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