class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide .title[ # The absurd and the meaning of life ] .subtitle[ ## Richard Taylor ] .date[ ### PHIL 2350 The Meaning of Life - FS23 ] --- # Agenda for this week 1. Video Lecture 1: Richard Taylor: The Meaning of Life 2. Video Lecture 2: Thomas Nagel: The Absurd 3. Video Lecture 3: Joel Feinberg: Absurd Self-fulfillment 4. Quiz ### For next week 1. Two readings only. 2. Commentary to *one* reading. 3. Reply to *one* commentary. - Reading 1: Bertrand Russell: A Free Man’s Worship (pp. 49-55) - Reading 2: Moritz Schlick: On the Meaning of Life (pp. 56-65) --- # Questions for this week 1. What do Taylor, Nagel, and Feinberg agree on regarding the question of the meaning of life? 2. According to Taylor, why (and in what sense) is life meaningless (or absurd)? 3. According to Taylor, why (and in what sense) is life meaningful? 4. According to Taylor, is the difference between Sisyphus1 and Sisyphus* significant enough to make life meaningful? 5. According to Nagel, why is life meaningless? 6. Why does Nagel say that our life is _inescapably_ absurd? 7. According to Nagel, is the life of a _mouse_ absurd? 8. According to Feinberg, why (and in what sense) is life meaningful? 9. According to Feinberg, is life pointless? Explain 10. According to Feinberg, what is self-fulfillment? --- # Review and summary - Schopenhauer: Life has no meaning because its fundamental condition is suffering. - Camus: Life has no meaning because it is absurd, and what makes it absurd is our desire to find sense and meaning in a world devoid of sense and meaning. Taylor, Nagel, and Feinberg would agree that, when life is considered _objectively_, life is absurd/has no meaning. However, if life is considered from a _subjective_ point of view, according to Taylor and Feinberg (but not Nagel), some kind of meaning emerges. --- # Taylor's _The Meaning of Life_ Main theses: 1. Life, while objectively meaningless, can be subjectively meaningful, in virtue of the active engagement of our will in our projects. 2. Subjective meaning is (subjectively) more valuable/desirable than objective meaning. Two passes: 1. First pass: To conclude that human life is objectively meaningless. 2. Second pass: To conclude that human life, while objectively meaningless, can be subjectively meaningful. --- # First pass: objective meaninglessness First-pass argument: 1. The life of Sisyphus is objectively meaningless. 2. The life of Sisyphus is relevantly analogous to all life (including human life). 3. Therefore, human life is objectively meaningless. Argument by analogy: Since two objects are similar, what is _clearly_ true of one is also true of the other. --- # Why Sisyphus again? - The myth provides a good illustration of a meaningless life. - We could have used another illustration: "We can imagine two groups of prisoners, one of them engaged in digging a prodigious hole in the ground that is no sooner finished than it is filled in again by the other group, the latter then digging a new hole that is at once filled in by the first group, and so on and on endlessly." (Taylor, p. 129) --- ### Premise 1: Sisyphus' life is objectively meaningless What makes Sisyphus' life meaningless? - Not the torture of his task, or the pain, or the great labor. - Suppose the stone is a pebble. This modification won’t make Sisyphus' life meaningful. - Let’s imagine the gods implant in him an irrational impulse to roll stones. Sisyphus has an obsession with rolling stones, so he actually wants to roll up the stone. - This doesn’t make Sisyphus' life meaningful either. - What makes Sisyphus' life meaningless is that __his labor comes to nothing, that it is pointless__. > "Meaninglessness is essentially endless pointlessness, and meaningfulness is therefore the opposite. Activity, and even long, drawn-out, and repetitive activity, has a meaning if it has some significant culmination, some more or less lasting end that can be considered to have been the direction and purpose of the activity." (p. 131) --- ### Premise 2: Sisyphus' life relevantly analogous to all life .pull-left.w40[ Glowworms: - Each dot of light is a glowworm, which uses light to attract insects to its sticky threads. - The worm transforms itself into a winged insect which, after mating and laid eggs, is itself caught in the threads of other glowworms. - This goes on for years, to no end. ] .pull-right.w60[ <img src="assets/glowworms.jpg" alt="" width="600"/> ] --- ### Premise 2: Sisyphus' life relevantly analogous to all life .pull-left.w50[ Glowworms: - Each dot of light is a glowworm, which uses light to attract insects to its sticky threads. - The worm transforms itself into a winged insect which, after mating and laid eggs, is itself caught in the threads of other glowworms. - This goes on for years, to no end. ] .pull-right.w50[ Our life: - We strive to meet goals of transitory significance. - After gaining one we immediately focus on the next. - Most of our efforts are directed to the maintenance of our family, who will do the same later. - Our achievements are temporary, and those which last longer will eventually turn to dust. ] --- # Second pass: subjective meaning Second-pass argument: 1. The life of _Sisyphus*_ is objectively meaningless _but subjectively meaningful_. 2. The life of _Sisyphus*_ is relevantly analogous to human life. 3. Therefore, human life is objectively meaningless _but subjectively meaningful_. --- ### Premise 1: The life of Sisyphus* is objectively meaningless but subjectively meaningful Sisyphus* differs from Sisyphus (the original) in that he has a strange and irrational impulse to push stones (the gods implanted in him a substance that has this effect). This modification doesn’t make his life more objectively meaningful (as the activity is still pointless). However, __the fact that Sisyphus* is doing precisely what he wants (has a deep interest in) makes his life meaningful for him.__ --- ### Premise 2: The life of Sisyphus* and ours are similar - Our life consists in engaging with projects that arise in our will. - Just as Sisyphus*, we desire to live and to engage with the labors that sustain us and our families. - Since the life of Sisyphus* is meaningful for him, _our_ life is meaningful for us due to our engagement in our desired projects. --- ## Subjective meaning more valuable (subjectively) - Objective meaning is attained by realizing a defined goal (the opposite of pointless activity). But a life that realizes all their goals (i.e., an objectively meaningful life) is a life of infinite boredom (no activity at all). > [Suppose Sisyphus has the task of builing a temple, and he completes it.] It is precisely the picture of infinite boredom! Of Sisyphus doing nothing ever again, but contemplating what he has already wrought and can no longer add anything to, and contemplating it for an eternity! (p. 134) - Subjective meaning is attained by actively engaging in our (desired) projects (_it is the doing that counts_). - _From the perspective of the individual_, it’s much more valuable (or desirable) to attain subjective meaning, than objective meaning.