class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide .title[ # Analytic philosophy and the meaning of life ] .subtitle[ ## Moritz Schlick ] .date[ ### PHIL 2350 The Meaning of Life - FS23 ] --- # Agenda for this week 1. Video Lecture 1: Bertrand Russell: A Free Man’s Worship 2. Video Lecture 2: Moritz Schlick: On the Meaning of Life 3. Exam --- class: medium-font # Questions for this week 1. According to the lecture, what is Bertrand Russell’s view regarding the meaning of life? 2. According to Russell, what are the responses of the savage towards the power of nature? Why are these responses inadequate and do not confer meaning to life? 3. According to Russell, what does it mean to worship our own human ideals? 4. According to the lecture, what is Moritz Schlick’s view regarding the meaning of life? 5. Explain the technical concepts of “work,” “play,” and “youth,” and their relevance to Schlick’s view of the meaning of life. 6. Explain the distinction between instrumental and intrinsic value. What does it mean to say that a thing is a means to an end? What does it mean to say that a thing is an end in itself? 7. According to Schlick, why can’t the meaning of life be found in the accomplishment of goals? 8. According to Schick, why can’t the meaning of life be found in pleasure (understood as an end in itself)? --- # Analytic Philosophy A philosophical tradition that emphasizes clarity, precision, and the method of _analysis_ to address philosophical questions and problems. > Analysis: Careful examination and decomposition of concepts into simpler, more understandable components. Main precursors: - Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) - __Bertrand Russell__ (1872-1970) - __Moritz Schlick__ (1882-1936) - Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) - Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) - Willard V. O. Quine (1908-2000) --- # Moritz Schlick (1882-1936) .pull-left.w35[ <img src="assets/schlick.jpg" alt="" width="500"/> ] .pull-right.w60[ - A German philosopher, physicist, and the founder of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle. - Verification principle: Only statements verifiable through (i) direct observation or (ii) logical proof are meaningful. ] --- # Schlick's On the Meaning of Life (1927) Main thesis: The meaning of life is "_youth_": doing for its own sake. 1. The meaning of life can only lie in states that are valuable for their own sake and carry their satisfaction in themselves. 2. "Work" is not valuable for its own sake. 3. "Youth" (play) is valuable for its own sake. 4. Therefore, the meaning of life is found in "youth" (doing for its own sake). --- # Intrinsic vs. instrumental value __Instrumental value__: The value that some things have, insofar as they help one to achieve other valuable things (these things are _means to ends_) __Intrinsic value__: The value that some things have _for their own sake_ (these things are _ends in themselves_) Examples: - Instrumental value: money, food, material objects... - Intrinsic value: happiness, pleasure, satisfaction of desires... Unclear: health, education, abilities... --- class: medium-font # Meaning of life and "work" Premise 1: The meaning of life can only lie in states that are valuable for their own sake and carry their satisfaction in themselves. Premise 2: "Work" is not valuable for its own sake. "__Work__": Activities that we usually engage in, that are valuable insofar as they bring about other things which we value. - We eat (maintain life) to study - We study to get a degree - We get a degree to get a job - We get a job to eat (maintain life) - ... Doing things _only to achieve ends_ cannot possibly confer meaning to life. Thus, the meaning of life must reside in things that are valuable for their own sake. --- # Meaning of life and "work" > It is therefore the characteristic mark of work that it has its purpose outside itself, and is not performed for its own sake. The doctrine that would wish to install work as such at the centre of existence, and exalt it to life’s highest meaning, is bound to be in error, because every work-activity as such is always a mere means, and receives its value only from its goals. The core and ultimate value of life can lie only in such states as exist for their own sake and carry their satisfaction in themselves. (p. 58) --- ## What is valuable for their own sake that confers meaning to life? What about _pleasure_? No, according to Schopenhauer, pleasure is usually not so pleasant as we expected, and pain much more painful. (We'll see more reasons later.) Schlick proposes that _"play"_ is what confers meaning to life. - "Play" is action that carries its purpose within itself. - "Play" is any activity which takes place entirely for its own sake, independently of its effects and consequences. - "Play" can be productive, it's just that play is valuable _not because of its outcome_. --- # Examples of "play" - Artistic creation - Scientific activity - Farming, manufacture, ... > The more activities, indeed, become play in the philosophical sense, the more work would be accomplished in the economic sense, and the more values would be created in human society. (p. 59) "Play" as liberation from the slavery of labor focused only in production. > In the present age, assuredly, the daily activity of man can in large part be justified only by distant purposes. In itself such activity is unpleasurable and unjustified, and the deification of work as such, the great gospel of our industrial age, has been exposed as idolatry. (p. 62) --- # Objections and refinements - "Play" is not an escape, or a lower-level kind of activity (characteristic of plants and animals) - We can exercise "play" with full self-consciousness, with awareness of the consequences of our actions. - Pleasure, although perhaps having intrinsic value for some, doesn't confer the kind of meaning that "play" does. > Pleasure wearies, while joy refreshes; the latter enriches, the former puts a false sheen upon existence. Both indeed, lead us away from daily toil and distract us from care, but they do it in different ways: pleasure by diverting us, joy by pulling us together. Diversion offers the spirit fleeting excitement, without depth or content; for joy there is more needed, a thought or feeling which fills the whole person, an inspiration which sets him soaring above everyday life. (p. 63) --- # "Youth" Premise 3: "Youth" (play) is valuable for its own sake. - Encompasses not only the early stage of life (pure joy through games). - It is the time of "play", the time of activity for the pleasure of acting. - It can be lived at any stage of life (through _youthful enthusiasm_). > For us, therefore, the word “youth” does not have the external meaning of a specific period of life, a particular span of years; it is a state, a way of leading one’s life, which basically has nothing to do with years and the number of them. It will now no longer be possible to misunderstand me when, as the heart of what I am moved to say, I assert the proposition that the meaning of life is youth. The more youth is realized in a life, the more valuable it is, and if a person dies young, however long he may have lived, his life has had meaning. (p. 65)