This study focuses on the experimental and philosophical analysis of the meaning of life in death situation, according to Wittgenstein’s way of life and sayings during the war. The method of extraction and analysis of information is grounded theory. For this purpose, Wittgenstein’s writings such as his letters and memories, and other’s texts about his life and his internal moods were analyzed. After analyzing the collected information and categorizing them in frames of open codes, (...) axial codes, etc. we recognized that Wittgenstein's point of view in death situation was supernatural God-centered. By reading Tolstoy gospel and Dostoyevsky's works, Wittgenstein has reached a kind of religious awakening in that period of his life. But before and after the war period he had a naturalistic point of view toward the meaning of life, in which moral values are in the core. (shrink)

In this paper, I am dealing with the phenomena of “life” and “death.” The questions that I attempt to answer are “What is life, and what is death?” “Is it bad to die?” and “Is there life after death?” The method that I am using in this paper is that of phenomenology. The latter I understand as an inquiry into meaning, that is, what makes this or that phenomenon as such. Thus, I am (...) approaching the phenomena in question from the point of view of their meaning in the first place. I claim that ordinarily we constitute phenomena of “life” and “death” in a twofold way. When it comes to “life,” one can specify “life-as-biological,” and “life-as-a-possibility” senses. The former I understand as a cluster of biological processes that unfold in physical time. By “life-as-a-possibility,” I understand a cluster of projects, potentials that depend on our subjectivity. I claim that we essentially perceive life-as-biological through life-as-possibility. When it comes to “death,” I argue that we essentially constitute this phenomenon in a similar manner. On the one hand, we perceive “death” in the “death-as-biological/physical” sense which signifies the end of the organism’s biological processes. On the other hand, we constitute “death” as the “existential/practical death”/“death-of-possibility.” By that I mean an annihilation of all possibilities, and projects. In short, it is a situation when one’s life suddenly loses all its meaning and value: death of meaning. I argue that what constitutes the significance of “death-as-biological” for us is what I call the “existential/practical death” or “death-of-possibility.” I use the phenomena of mourning and suicide to illustrate my point better. -/- Reflecting on whether it is bad to die, I claim that if we accept the hypotheses I am defending in the paper, it appears that death is bad because it entails the loss of all possibilities. I also want to show that people’s desire for immortality is in fact reasonable, because the more one lives, the more possibilities one is able to realize. In other words, people’s desire for immortality is grounded in the essential understanding of the phenomenon of “life” as a possibility. -/- Reflecting on whether there is life after death, my answer is twofold. Since there is no scientific evidence of life after physical/biological death, I think there is no reason to believe in such as well. But when it comes to the question whether there is life after the existential/practical death, my answer is positive: “Yes, there is!” I try to show that it is always possible to find the meaning of life even in the light of the most terrible events. In this sense, there is always a light in the end of the tunnel. (shrink)

An outline of "philosophy of life" as a philosophical discipline is discussed. In today’s academic philosophy, we have “philosophy of biology,” which deals with creatures’ biological phenomena, “philosophy of death,” which concentrates on the concept of human death, and “philosophy of meaning of life,” which investigates difficult problems concerning the meaning of life and living. However, we do not have “philosophy of life,” which deals with philosophical problems concerning human life and (...) the life of non-human creatures. Hence, I proposed to establish “philosophy of life” as an academic discipline. We define philosophy of life as an academic research field that encompasses the following activities: 1) Cross-cultural, comparative, or historical research on philosophies of life, death, and nature. 2) Philosophical and ethical analysis of contemporary issues concerning human and non-human life in the age of modern technology. 3) philosophical analysis of the concepts surrounding life, death, and nature. (shrink)

When people suffer they always suffer as a whole human being. The emotional, cognitive and spiritual suffering of human beings cannot be completely separated from all other kinds of suffering, such as from harmful natural, ecological, political, economic and social conditions. In reality they interact with each other and influence each other. Human beings do not only suffer from somatic illnesses, physical pain, and the lack of decent opportunities to satisfy their basic vital, social and emotional needs. They also suffer (...) when they are not able to experience and grasp any meaning of life even if such suffering is not quite as obvious as most forms of physical, social and emotional suffering. Suffering from the lack for the sense of the meaning of life is a special form of emotional, cognitive, and spiritual suffering. Although all human beings share the same basic human need for some meaning of life, the fulfilment of this need is highly individual and personal. Although all forms of human suffering can be a challenge to the meaning of life, the personal conditions of suffering usually are a stronger challenge for the meaning of life. Among the personal conditions of human suffering, the Grenzsituationen cannot be cancelled or raised at all, but only accepted and coped with as existential aspects of the conditio humana. According to Karl Jaspers these are: death, suffering, struggling, guilt, and failing. The challenge for human beings to cope with these Grenzsituationen is a way to move from the mere Being-there to true human Existence. (shrink)

This research explores the carnal, experienced self as processual and becoming, situating life as zoe (as per Braidotti) in the context of the Western culture, characterized by alienation (Fromm, Foucault). The study first addresses the ontological disposition of the carnal self and then turns to the concepts of life and death (Freud, Fromm), to explicate the tie between materiality and discourse conditions. Erich Fromm’s classical distinction of having and being is restated as a distinction of having and (...) becoming, which are then explored as complimentary ontological, cultural, and characterological directionalities. A genealogy of their mutual dynamics then allows situating the relations of carnal bodies and inorganic prosthesis (e.g. technologies) in the light of life considered as the necessary synthesis of forces of preservation and perpetual change, beyond subject-object duality. (shrink)

In this chapter the author critically explores answers to the question of how immortality would affect the meaningfulness of a person’s life, understood roughly as a life that merits esteem, achieves purposes much more valuable than pleasure, or makes for a good life-story. The author expounds three arguments for thinking that life would be meaningless if it were mortal, and provides objections to them. He then offers a reason for thinking that a mortal life could (...) be meaningful, and responds to the position that, even if life could be meaningful to some degree if it were to end, it could be much more meaningful, and to an infinite degree, if it did not. (shrink)

I examine two recent books by analytic philosophers that address the underexplored topic of whether the meaning of life depends on the existence of a supernatural realm including God and a soul. John Cottingham’s On the Meaning of Life defends a supernaturalist conception of life’s meaning, whereas Kurt Baier’s Problems of Life and Death defends the opposite, naturalist perspective. I show that their respective arguments are worth serious consideration, indicate some potential weaknesses (...) in them, and suggest some other argumentative strategies that those interested in this fascinating topic might pursue elsewhere in more depth. (shrink)

This paper is a reflection on the puzzle of life after death. It explores the meaning, types and causes of death so as to contemplate the purpose of life. Thus, the paper takes into consideration metaphysical, moral and epistemic issues in the belief in life after death (or life after life). This exploration is done considering the Yoruba philosophy of death (iku), life (iye) and life after death (...) (aye atun wa). We note that, for the Yoruba, life as seen in the body is ephemeral, whereas death (that is, the separation of the soul from the body—iku ara) is a transitory process of life to a renewed life. The paper shows that the Yoruba’s idea of death is not an end to life but a change in its form. It is argued, then, that the Yoruba ontology has the implications that: (a) life is a continuum and, (b) man is not his body, (c) hence, a theory of immortality of the soul is implied. The paper observes that, though certain contradictions exist in the Yoruba worldview, the ethos of the belief seems significant. The paper examines the notions of imo (knowledge) and igbabo (belief) in Yoruba epistemology and thus advances the thesis that their belief in life after death cannot be corroborated, though not unreasonable. (shrink)

This paper analyzes and evaluates Benatar's influential thesis on pessimism, which claims that life has no meaning and is one of the premises for anti-natalism. Benatar's main point is that the human condition is, in fact, a tragic predicament. Benatar argues that although limited meaning is attainable, life has no meaning from a cosmic perspective, and our lives do not possess the cosmic significance we seek. He argues that since humans have no purpose for being (...) created and there is no cosmic purpose in the lives of individual humans, human life has no meaning sub specie aeternitatis. Nihilism about cosmic meaning is the bad news. Furthermore, human life is bad because the quality of life is poor, and death is also bad because it annihilates the individual. He argues that most people's subjective assessments of their quality of life are unreliable due to psychological phenomena such as optimism bias, adaptation, and comparison with others. According to him, human life is actually full of bad things, and regardless of which theory of well-being one chooses, even the best quality of life is very poor due to empirical asymmetry. I object to Benetar's argument that life has no meaning from a cosmic perspective. Because, even when interpreted charitably, his argument is invalid, inconsistent, unclear, has odd implications, and is counterintuitive. I argue that evaluating life from a cosmic perspective is irrational. I also contend that there is no evidence that humans desire cosmic meaning, and that the meaning of life does not depend on meaning sub specie aeternitatis. Furthermore, I argue that the three psychological phenomena Benatar mentions do not threaten the reliability of quality of life assessments, and there is no empirical evidence to support his claims. Instead, I provide evidence that subjective assessments of quality of life can be trusted. Additionally, I argue that the claim that life is full of bad things is exaggerated and based on inappropriate evaluation standards. And I argue that empirical asymmetries cannot support the conclusion that human life is actually bad. My conclusion is that Benatar's attempt to explain cosmic insignificance and his claim that life is actually bad both fail. In other words, humans are not in a tragic predicament as Benatar suggests. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays on the philosophy of life’s meaning in contemporary society. Topics range from antinatalism, meaning of life, the trolley problem, to painless civilization. I am now writing a comprehensive philosophy book on those topics, but it will take several years to complete; hence, I decided to make a handy book to provide readers with an outline of the philosophical approaches to the meaning of life that I have in (...) mind. -/- Chapter One discusses the definition, history, and category of antinatalism. Antinatalism is the thought that all human beings or all sentient beings should not be born. Although I am not an antinatalist, I believe that antinatalism poses an important question about procreation and the meaning of our lives. This is why I presented an overview of antinatalistic thoughts in the past and the present and also performed an analytical examination of their arguments. -/- In Chapter Two, I take up Philosopher Thaddeus Metz’s argument on meaning in life, especially his fundamentality theory, and claim that “the heart of meaning in life,” which is the concept I propose in this chapter, cannot be compared with anything whatsoever. -/- Chapter Three deals with the concept of “birth affirmation,” which means that I can say “yes” to my having been born. I believe that birth affirmation is one of the most promising ideas that can contribute to contemporary philosophical discussions on meaning in life, and I call this approach “an affirmation-based approach to meaning in life.” The concept of birth affirmation has two dimensions: the psychological dimension and the philosophical dimension. I would like to show in this chapter that it is difficult to clarify what it actually means to say “yes” to my having been born. -/- Chapter Four discusses the relationship between the dropping of the atomic bombs and the trolley problem. I argue that the dropping of atomic bombs was a typical example of the events that contained the logic of the trolley problem in both their decision-making processes and justifications. I further argue that the trolley problem has its own unique problems, which I call “the problem of the trolley problem.” This problem has been overlooked in academic discussions of the trolley problem. I also refer to a religious aspect of this problem. -/- In Chapter Five, I talk about the “philosophy of life” as an academic discipline. We have the philosophy of language, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of history, but why don’t we have the philosophy of life in the field of philosophy? Of course, we have Lebensphilosophie, but it does not cover philosophical discourses in ancient worlds, nor current analytical approaches to the concepts of life and death. A new research field is required to advance contemporary philosophy. -/- In Chapter Six, I illustrate an outline of my “painless civilization” theory, a criticism of contemporary civilization that deprives us of a joy of life in exchange for eliminating pain and suffering. I also discuss the concept of “fundamental sense of security,” which is considered indispensable for us to be able to live a life without regret. (shrink)

A meaningful life, we shall argue, is a life upon which a certain sort of valuable pattern has been imposed by the person in question - a pattern which involves in serious ways the person having an effect upon the world. Meaningfulness is thus a special kind of value which a human life can bear. Two interrelated difficulties face ths proposal. One concerns responsiblity: how are we to account for the fact that a life that satisfies (...) the above criteria can have more meaning than a life with the same positive outcomes but which lacks responsiblity on the part of the agent? The other turns on these outcomes themselves: how can the meaningfulness engendered by actions you perform now be affected by what those actions go on to produce in the future, perhaps even after your death? We provide a response to both of these difficulties. (shrink)

Some people claim that death makes our lives meaningless. Bernard Williams and Viktor Frankl have made the opposite claim that death gives meaning to life. Although there has been much scrutiny of the former claim, the latter claim has received very little attention. In this paper, I will explore whether and how death gives meaning to our lives. As I will argue, there is not sufficient support for the strong claim that death is (...) necessary for one's life to be meaningful. However, there is support for the more limited conclusion that our finitude enhances or upholds the meaning in the lives of some individuals in four different ways. (shrink)

This book is a compilation of the work published by the present authors in various scientific journals mainly focused on understanding how quantum physics could decipher the experiences observed and reported during near-death and end-of-life situations. The authors claim that various theories and models proposed herein (though not propounding to be a complete one) are just an attempt to understand few aspects associated with such experiences connected to the phenomenon of death. They investigate the possible role of (...) the quantum phenomenon in the occurrence of these events and call for a detailed scientific investigation to validate any hypotheses made. (shrink)

Philosophy as a way of life (PWOL) places investigations of value, meaning, and the good life at the center of philosophical investigation, especially of one’s own life. I argue PWOL is compatible with general introductory philosophy courses, further arguing that PWOL-based general introductions have several philosophical and pedagogical benefits. These include the ease with which high impact practices, situated skill development, and students’ ability to ‘think like a disciplinarian’ may be incorporated into such courses, relative to (...) more traditional introductory courses, as well as the demonstration of philosophy’s value to students by explicitly tying philosophical investigation to students own lives. (shrink)

Looking to Scripture through the eyes of contemporary medical experience, I analyze the meaning of the criteria used for determining death, specifically in the light of Jesus’ final moments and the resurrection of the Shunammite’s son in 2 Kings, chapter 4. I argue that four theses are consistent with, and informed by, these passages that can help guide Christian belief and decision-making about how death is determined in the clinical context: (1) death is neither permanent nor (...) irreversible; (2) something like the “brain dead” state is, at best, a confounding state that requires one to “pace and pray” or let go; (3) that the case for determining death by neurologic criteria depends on the “working togetherness” of the body's parts for the sake of impacting its environment; and (4) that the practice of neurologically-based death determination is a response to the problem of disaggregation of the human form into its organ systems that modern critical care medicine makes possible. I end with advice about how Christians might approach the debates over the law and practice even if they cannot come to a consensus. (shrink)

This work is a revised version of my dissertation, originally presented in 2002. It explores questions of God and faith in the context of Martin Heidegger's phenomenological ontology, as developed in Being and Time. One problem with traditional philosophical approaches to the question of God is their tendency to regard God's existence as an objective datum, which might be proven or disproven through logical argumentation. Since Kant, such arguments have largely been dismissed as predicated on a priori assumptions whose legitimacy (...) cannot be substantiated. This dismissal has led to a widening divorce between 'faith' and 'reason,' as the rational grounds for faith have come under increasing, and radical, attack. Heidegger's phenomenological ontology provides us a new approach to the question of faith by showing that concernful relations lie at the heart of our apprehension of Being. This affords us a new way of approaching the question of God philosophically; one which pursues this question, not in terms of metaphysical categories, but in terms of the existential concerns central to human life. At the same time that Heidegger allows us this new approach, however, his existential analyses seem to deny any legitimacy to religious faith. For the Heidegger of Being and Time, the human being is 'Being-towards-death,' i.e., essentially enclosed in finitude, whereas for religion the human being has an essential relation to the infinitude of God. This work, then, has a twofold purpose: It seeks, first, to explore the meaning of God and faith as these may be understood in the terms provided by Heidegger's phenomenological ontology. It seeks, second, to examine the way in which that ontology might be challenged and revised through a religious conception of human Being. (shrink)

An e-book devoted to 13 critical discussions of Thaddeus Metz's book "Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study", with a lengthy reply from the author. -/- Preface Masahiro Morioka i -/- Précis of Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study Thaddeus Metz ii-vi -/- Source and Bearer: Metz on the Pure Part-Life View of Meaning Hasko von Kriegstein 1-18 -/- Fundamentality and Extradimensional Final Value David Matheson 19-32 -/- Meaningful and More Meaningful: A Modest Measure Peter (...) Baumann 33-49 -/- Is Meaning in Life Comparable?: From the Viewpoint of ‘The Heart of Meaning in Life’ Masahiro Morioka 50-65 -/- Agreement and Sympathy: On Metz’s Meaning in Life Sho Yamaguchi 66-89 -/- Metz’s Quest for the Holy Grail James Tartaglia 90-111 -/- Meaning without Ego Christopher Ketcham 112-133 -/- Death and the Meaning of Life: A Critical Study of Metz’s Meaning in Life Fumitake Yoshizawa 134-149 -/- Metz’ Incoherence Objection: Some Epistemological Considerations Nicholas Waghorn 150-168 -/- Meaning in Consequences Mark Wells 169-179 -/- Defending the Purpose Theory of Meaning in Life Jason Poettcker 180-207 -/- Review of Thaddeus Metz’s Meaning in Life Minao Kukita 208-214 -/- A Psychological Model to Determine Meaning in Life and Meaning of Life Yu Urata 215-227 -/- Assessing Lives, Giving Supernaturalism Its Due, and Capturing Naturalism: Reply to 13 Critics of Meaning in Life Thaddeus Metz 228-278 . (shrink)

Introduction: Interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and action research of a city in lockdown. As we write this chapter, most cities across the world are subject to a similar set of measures due to the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus, which is now a global pandemic. Independent of city size, location, or history, an observer would note that almost all cities have now ground to a halt, with their citizens being confined to their private dwellings, social and public gatherings being almost entirely forbidden, and (...) commercial areas being nearly devoid of visitors. Striking as these apparent similarities are, closer scrutiny would reveal important differences between cities and within cities – differences that can be highly relevant to consider when scholars are assessing the responses of cities to this pandemic or trying to predict the consequences of those responses. For example, the public health systems in some cities are better prepared than in others for coping with the increasing number of patients in life threatening conditions. Multigenerational households, which are associated with a greater risk for elderly members, are not equally common in all cities. Tourist destinations have taken a more severe economic hit from the lockdown than those cities which are economically less dependent upon this particular source of income. Communal celebrations in one city will result in a higher number of contagions and perhaps even deaths in this situation, whereas that same social fabric generally does contribute to a population’s health. The pandemic has also had unprecedented effects on differences and inequalities within cities. In cities in the United States, neighborhoods primarily inhabited by African Americans have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 due to living and health conditions, yet also due to the fact they disproportionately perform vital jobs. Parks and green spaces are crowded, while city centers like Amsterdam’s Red Light District have suddenly lost the bustle of tourism, providing opportunities for citizens to reoccupy scarce public spaces and reclaim ownership. Clearly, such differences between cities are in many cases only discernible to the eye of an expert, possessing the necessary background knowledge to interpret the perceptible local changes caused by the global pandemic. Typically, drawing upon his or her disciplinary training, the expert also knows how to further probe the impact of the pandemic in an appropriate way. However, compared to the usual application of expertise, this crisis situation might, in an unusual way, test even experts. For the pandemic has created a unique situation, imposing unfamiliar constraints on the health, economic, social, and other conditions of cities, constraints that interact in sometimes unexpected ways with each other. Such interactions in turn force experts to collaborate across the boundaries commonly associated with disciplines, their concepts, theories, methods, and assumptions (Klein, 1996). These brief observations of how a virus pandemic can have differential impacts upon various cities, and what this exceptional situation might mean for the application of city methods, allow us to draw a few consequences for the current context of this chapter on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. First, whenever we are investigating a complex and dynamic phenomenon it is by no means easy to determine which disciplinary perspectives are required to do justice to it. Indeed, the choice of useful disciplines can only be made after an initial overview of the situation and a preliminary selection of what appear to be the most important features of the situation. Relevance is key in guiding this selection process and scholars must remain open to the possibility that they may need to revise their earlier assessments of what is relevant and what is not. Second, if scholars from different disciplines were to study different features of a city in isolation, their ‘multidisciplinary’ account would miss important dynamic and complex interactions, such as those between a city’s demographics and geographical situation, its governance and economy. In other words, it is the integration of the perspectives of different disciplines that is crucial, as only then are such interactions taken into account. Indeed, this integration between disciplinary perspectives is what distinguishes an interdisciplinary from a multidisciplinary account. Thirdly, in addition to checking the relevance of disciplines and aiming for their integration, the outcome of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research has typically limited generalizability. Since a city is sensitive to a multitude of internal and external dynamical factors, in ways that partly rest upon its socio-cultural history, its investigation will often have the nature of a case study rather than be capable of leading to law-like insights (Krohn, 2010; Menken & Keestra, 2016). As can be seen from these three characteristics of ascertaining the relevance of different disciplinary contributions, the challenge of their integration, and the limited generalizability of their results owing to the specificity of interdisciplinary (ID) and transdisciplinary (TD) research, such research into ‘real world problems’ is clearly distinct from most monodisciplinary research. A consequence of this distinction is the absence of a general ID/TD methodology that can guide specific case studies. By contrast, the collaboration implied in such research requires researchers – and stakeholders, if they are involved – to reflect upon their potential contribution and the implicit assumptions associated with that. We will elaborate on this in the next section. Next, we offer several typologies of integration that urban scholars could employ for their research projects, after which we will offer a few brief analyses of initial collaborations of urban research. Finally, we discuss in more detail the process of the interdisciplinary research project. This will include a brief reflection upon the decision-making process that is implied in such projects. In sum, we aim to provide some guidance in conducting an ID/TD project, albeit not in the form of a definite methodology. (shrink)

The evolution of life on Earth has produced an organism that is beginning to model and understand its own evolution and the possible future evolution of life in the universe. These models and associated evidence show that evolution on Earth has a trajectory. The scale over which living processes are organized cooperatively has increased progressively, as has its evolvability. Recent theoretical advances raise the possibility that this trajectory is itself part of a wider developmental process. According to these (...) theories, the developmental process has been shaped by a yet larger evolutionary dynamic that involves the reproduction of universes. This evolutionary dynamic has tuned the key parameters of the universe to increase the likelihood that life will emerge and produce outcomes that are successful in the larger process (e.g. a key outcome may be to produce life and intelligence that intentionally reproduces the universe and tunes the parameters of ‘offspring’ universes). Theory suggests that when life emerges on a planet, it moves along this trajectory of its own accord. However, at a particular point evolution will continue to advance only if organisms emerge that decide to advance the developmental process intentionally. The organisms must be prepared to make this commitment even though the ultimate nature and destination of the process is uncertain, and may forever remain unknown. Organisms that complete this transition to intentional evolution will drive the further development of life and intelligence in the universe. Humanity’s increasing understanding of the evolution of life in the universe is rapidly bringing it to the threshold of this major evolutionary transition. (shrink)

Most properties have comparatives, which are relations. For instance, the property of width has the comparative relation denoted by `_ is wider than _'. Let us say a property is reducible to its comparative if any statement that refers to the property has the same meaning as another statement that refers to the comparative instead. Width is not reducible to its comparative. To be sure, many statements that refer to width are reducible: for instance, `The Mississippi is wide' means (...) the same as `The Mississippi is wider than most rivers'. But some statements that refer to width are not reducible: for instance, `Electrons have zero width' is not. A property is not reducible to its comparative if it has absolute degrees, and specifically an absolute zero. A property's comparative relation places things in an order from those that have the property least to those that have it most. If there is an absolute zero point somewhere in this ordering, the property is not reducible to its comparative. For width, there is an absolute zero at one end of the ordering, so width is not reducible. The property of goodness is reducible to its comparative, betterness. In particular, there is no absolute zero of goodness. Things are ordered by betterness – some things are better than others – but nothing is absolutely good or absolutely bad. This is an exaggeration. In certain applications, goodness does have absolute degrees of a sort, and an absolute zero. For instance, it makes sense to say an event is good, and another event bad. These are absolute degrees of a sort, but they are themselves reducible to betterness. To say an event is good simply means the event is better than what would otherwise have happened. The goodness of lives has a different sort of absolute zero. Lives are ordered by betterness; some lives are better than others. We can make sense of the question `Where in this ordering is the division between lives that are good and those that are bad?' The division between good and bad lives is again reducible to betterness. To say a person's life is good means it is better that the person should continue living, rather than that she should die. Or it may mean it is better that her life should be lived rather than that it should never have been lived at all. As it is often put: a good life is a life worth living. Derek Parfit appears to attach a different sense to the idea of a good life. He appears to mean a life that contains a preponderance of good things (such as pleasure) over bad things (such as pain). If a life contains no good things and no bad things, it has zero goodness in this sense. In this sense, absolute goodness and the absolute zero of goodness are not reducible to betterness. However, this is a naturalistic sense of goodness, and it is subject to the open-question objection. If a life contains no good things and no bad things, it is an open question whether it has zero goodness. It might, for instance, be a bad thing that this life should be lived. In discussing the evil of death, some philosophers seem to have been searching for an absolute goodness that is not reducible to betterness. Thomas Nagel speaks of an asymmetry between what is good about life and what is bad about death. But if a person's life is good, that only means it would be better that she should continue living than that she should die. And if a person's death would be bad, that only means it would be worse that she should die than that she should continue living. So there can be no asymmetry. (shrink)

This book is a collection of all the papers and the essay published in the special issue “Philosophy and Meaning in Life Vol.3,” Journal of Philosophy of Life, Vol.11, No.1, 2021, pp.1-154. We held the Third International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life online at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, on July 21–23, 2020. This conference was co-hosted by the Birmingham Centre for Philosophy of Religion, and the Waseda Institute of Life and (...) Death Studies. We accepted about 50 presentations from around the world. Professor Lisa Bortolotti and I gave keynote lectures. After the conference, we called for papers for publication from the speakers, and we accepted seven papers and an essay for the special issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Life. We would like to give special thanks to the anonymous referees who kindly reviewed the submitted manuscripts. The accepted papers deal with a variety of topics, such as the subjective/objective debate, narrative meaning, Simone de Beauvoir, and Alain Badiou, and they are all discussed from the perspective of the philosophy of meaning in life. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein's life and writings attest the extraordinary importance that the art of music had for him. It would be fair to say even that among the great philosophers of the twentieth century he was one of the most musically sensitive. Wittgenstein’s Denkbewegungen contains some of his most unique remarks on music, which bear witness not only to the level of his engagement in thinking about music, but also to the intimate connection in his mind between musical acculturation, the (...) perils of modernity, and the challenge, which was very personal to Wittgenstein, of philosophizing amidst what he believed was a dissolution of the resemblances which unite his culture’s ways of life. In particular, Denkbewegungen contains unique remarks on modern music, the problem of Gustav Mahler’s music, and the music of the future. Also, it contains, among other things, some unusually forward-looking remarks on the differences between Brahms and Bruckner, which both probe deeply into the nature of musical creativity and anticipate his later philosophical move beyond the inner/outer divide in his last writings. I shall offer a close reading of Wittgenstein’s remarks on music in Denkbewegungen, which situates them in the broader context of his philosophical development in his middle-period and beyond. I aim to show the deep integration of Wittgenstein’s thinking about music with his philosophical development, his deep sense of cultural lamentation, and his development as a person and as a philosophical expositor. (shrink)

A doctorate-holding editor/columnist at an alternative newsweekly, Cooperman dissects the symbolism of and women's ambivalence toward their domestic roles as depicted in recent culturally diverse US feminist fiction. Conceiving housework as "an art and science of the boundaries," she discusses individual authors, novels, and shared motifs: domesticity as ordering chaos, the unappreciated hollow woman, sustaining home ties, powers of life and death, the sacred in the mundane, and reasons for making a home. Includes a decent categorized bibliography, but (...) no index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

In the Third Antinomy of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) [Kritik der reinen Vernunft], Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) associates freedom with infinity. According to the definition given in this book, only an infinite being not subject to causality can be defined as free. However, the fact that a finite being, such as a human, is always subject to the laws of nature implies that they are perpetually bound by causality, which hinders their freedom. Freedom devoid of causality cannot be theoretically (...) justified. Another reason for this is Kant’s assertion in the Second Analogy of Critique of Pure Reason, where he states that everything in the phenomenal world is subject to causality. Accordingly, freedom can be conceived not in the phenomenal world but only in the noumenal world. In the First Critique, freedom, defined as a cause without a cause, a cause without being the result of another cause, later be characterized as negative freedom in the third section of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) [Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten]. Such conceptualization of freedom cannot be determined by any other cause than itself. While there may be a theoretical foundation for accepting such a cause as uncaused, we have moral reasons to believe in it. This moral foundation in question guides us toward the notion of positive freedom. Here, unlike negative freedom, we are subject to moral laws, and as long as we comply with these, we can experience freedom as a finite being. This is because adhering to the laws we set for ourselves enables us to be morally the cause of our own actions. Thus, Kant renders freedom through positive freedom. Following this line of argument, negative freedom appears meaningful to us only within the framework of positive freedom. Jean-Luc Nancy (1940-2021) finds a problematic Kantian account of freedom as an uncaused cause in his book The Experience of Freedom (1988) [L’expérience de la liberté]. Because, according to this perspective, humans are not only subject to the laws of nature but also to moral cause-and-effect relationships with others, they exist at the ix limit of freedom. By this means, considering freedom as a duty imposed on the subject leads to ambiguous analyses such as negative/positive freedom in Kantian philosophyーIn post-Kantian philosophy, the ambiguity persists until Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854)1 , who finds the solution by negating freedom. Therefore, according to Nancy, freedom should be considered not as a Kantian Idea but through its relationship with human finitude and experience. Thus, through the criticism directed at Kant in Martin Heidegger’s (1889-1976) Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929) [Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik], Nancy attempts to resolve the confusion created by the concept of freedom, which despite being associated with infinity in Kant, is made possible in the practical world through respect for the moral law. In this direction, Nancy finds the solution in the freedom that becomes conceptually elusive, transforming it into an act that goes beyond being a mere duty and which permeates all our experiences. In this book, Nancy introduces the initial stages of “community” and “singularity” concepts, which he would later develop further. For this, he begins the book's introductory section by emphasizing Martin Heidegger’s statement in §9 of Being and Time (1927) [Sein und Zeit], where “freedom” is mentioned as another name for existence. As a justification, he refers to the concept of Da-sein [being-there] and states that every being [être] is a being-in-common [être-en-commun], and freedom should be thought of through this. Namely, the problem of freedom is approached not as a political or ethical issue but as an ontological matter. Within the framework of beingin-common, this situation transforms into an ontological “generosity [générosité ontologique].” -/- 1 Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom [Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und die damit zusammenhängenden Gegenstände], Schelling, approaches freedom not through infinity but rather through finitude. While Heidegger and Nancy pursue different paths, they both adhere to the idea of finitude freedom in Schelling. x Despite primarily emphasizing Heidegger’s thought in writing this text as his aggrégation thesis, Jean-Luc Nancy desires to transcend it and maintain a certain distance. This transcendence and distancing include authors from the French Phenomenological tradition, such as Georges Bataille (1897-1962), Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003), and Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998), and also incorporate the emphasis from Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) that death cannot be thought of independently of life. Referencing many philosophers from the continental philosophy tradition and developing a thematic reading through freedom, this bookーlike Nancy’s other worksーseeks ways to experience philosophy and thought freely in this own writing experience. So much so that this book, unlike Nancy’s other works like The Inoperative Community (1986) [La communauté désoeuvrée] ve Being Singular Plural (1996) [Être Singulier Pluriel], which is not widely discussed in secondary sources, is challenging to follow. Therefore, in examining this book as my Master’s research thesis and addressing the idea of freedom in Nancy, I found it appropriate to adopt a close reading method. Certainly, this research should not be considered independent of works such as The Discourse of Syncope (1976) [Le discours de la syncope], The Categorical Imperative (1983) [L’impératif catégorique], as they serve as examples of while engaging in philosophy, how Nancy refers and relates to the works within the philosophical tradition. (shrink)

The theories of cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker arise from an existential and psychological analysis of the death terror/anxiety deep in the unconscious of every human. Becker details how this anxiety governs the ideologies and behaviors of our species—something now confirmed by thousands of experiments performed by psychologists engaged in contemporary terror management theory (TMT). Humans manage their anxiety through what Becker terms “hero systems”—concepts, beliefs, and myths we create to give us a sense of significance and meaning during, (...) and even beyond our mortal lives. Today, many dominant economic, technological, and religious hero systems seek to confirm our significance by denying that we are—like all other species—animals who must exist in a decaying, mortal body. Becker shows how this attempt to deny our “creatureliness” (basic biological nature) causes humans to stand against the natural world we are embedded in, leading to an assault on the planet and nonhuman animals. As a result, Becker believed pacifism was the only hero system capable of keeping humankind from destroying itself and the earth. Pacifism is the precursor to the more encompassing ethical concept of “reverence for life,” advocated by Dr. Albert Schweitzer. By respecting the will-to-live in all sentient beings, reverence for life transcends concern for humans alone and extends moral and physical safeguards to life as such. Confronting the fact that humans are increasingly alienated from their commodified world and their own being, reverence for life stands as a vital solution to many of our modern problems. And following contemporary TMT research, reverencing life can also expand one’s self-esteem, which research shows lowers death anxiety, reduces aggression, and offers authentic meaning to life itself. (shrink)

In a short paper, Smilansky (2022) provides an argument in favor of the belief in social progress. He considers the "probability of losing a child" to be a pivotal element among various criteria to be assessed in order to evaluate human progress and as this probability has decreased considerably in the modern era, he evaluates humanity today in a better situation than the previous generations. In this paper, I criticize Smilansky's argument and try to show that his account of (...) the difference between historical periods is superficial. (shrink)

The absence of meaningfulness in life is meaninglessness. But what is the polar opposite of meaningfulness? In recent and ongoing work together with Stephen Campbell and Marcello di Paola respectively, I have explored what we dub ‘anti-meaning’: the negative counterpart of positive meaning in life. Here, I relate this idea of ‘anti-meaningful’ actions, activities, and projects to the topic of death, and in particular the deaths or suffering of those who will live after our own (...) deaths. Connecting this idea of anti-meaning and what happens after our own deaths to recent work by Samuel Scheffler on what he calls ‘the collective afterlife’ and his four reasons to care about future generations, I argue that if we today make choices or have lifestyles that later lead to unnecessarily early deaths and otherwise avoidable suffering of people who will live after we have died, this robs our current choices and lifestyles of some of their meaning, perhaps even making them the opposite of meaningful in the long run. (shrink)

The paper aims to clarify the role of the meaning of life in Anselm Müller’s philosophy. Müller says that the ethically good life is the life of acting well, and acting well requires at least a rough conception of the meaning of life, or a conception of what makes a life go well. But why is such a conception required and what does it mean to have such a conception? I argue that such (...) a conception cannot provide us with ultimate ends in our practical deliberations. Nor can its role be merely to provide a standard against which practical reasoning can be assessed. Rather, our conception of the meaning of life is, in the first instance, that which allows us, in our practical reasoning, to see certain considerations as good reasons for certain actions and to weigh reasons for and against different options. One upshot of my interpretation is that Müller should be more optimistic about philosophy’s ability to answer the question of the meaning of life than he allows himself to be. (shrink)

In the Eudemian Ethics II 1, 1219a34–b8, Aristotle defines happiness as ‘the activity of a complete life in accordance with complete virtue’. Most scholars interpret a complete life as a whole lifetime, which means that happiness involves virtuous activity over an entire life. This article argues against this common reading by using Aristotle’s notion of ‘activity’ (energeia) as a touchstone. It argues that happiness, according to the Eudemian Ethics, must be a complete activity that reaches its end (...) at any and every moment. The upshot of this reading is that life reaches completeness within a lifetime and that death cannot be the requirement for making life complete. (shrink)

Since 1968, the irreversible loss of functioning of the whole brain, called brain death, is assimilated to individual’s death. The almost universal acceptance of this neurological criterion of death had decisive consequences for the contemporary medicine, such as the withdrawal of mechanical ventilation in these patients and organ retrieval for transplantation. The new criterion was successfully accepted in part because the assimilation of brain death state to death was presented by medicine --and acritically assumed by (...) most of societies-- as a scientific and objective fact. Nevertheless, many people do not think that the patients suffering brain death are actually dead. We show here that those people are not necessarily wrong. It can be argued that, in fact, the justification of the neurological criterion is not scientific but moral. We outline the thesis that the problem surrounding the vital status of brain dead patients is due to a confusion between factual and normative questions. Furthermore, we claim that the donation of organs and the withdrawal of life-support could be ethically acceptable even if the patients suffering brain death are considered as alive. As an alternative to the dead donor rule, we propose a justification for organ donation of brain-dead patients based on the (moral) concepts of harm and consent : what truly justifies the procurement of organs on those patients is not that they are dead, but that they wish to donate their organs and that, since they have irreversibly lost their brain, they cannot be harmed. (shrink)

Sacrificial dilemmas such as the trolley problem play an important role in experimental philosophy (x-phi). But it is increasingly argued that, since we are not likely to encounter runaway trolleys in our daily life, the usefulness of such thought experiments for understanding moral judgments in more ecologically valid contexts may be limited. However, similar sacrificial dilemmas are experienced in real life by animal research decision makers. As part of their job, they must make decisions about the suffering, and (...) often the death, of many non-human animals. For this reason, a context-specific investigation of so-called “3R dilemmas” (i.e., dilemmas where there is a conflict between the principles of replacement, reduction, and refinement of the use of animals in research) is essential to improve the situation of both non-human animals and human stakeholders. An approach well suited for such investigation is experimental philosophical bioethics (“bioxphi”), which draws on methods similar to x-phi to probe more realistic, practical scenarios with an eye to informing normative debates and ethical policy. In this article, we argue for a need to investigate 3R dilemmas among professional decision-makers using the tools of bioxphi. In a first step, we define 3R dilemmas and discuss previous investigations of professionals’ attitudes in such cases. In a second step, we show how bioxphi is a promising method to investigate the whys and hows of professional decision-making in 3R dilemmas. In a last step, we provide a bioxphi template for 3R dilemmas, give recommendations on its use, explore the normative relevance of data collected by such means, and discuss important limitations. (shrink)

Although fortitude is primarily about confronting the danger of death, it makes the brave person firm and constant in other situations as well. Fortitude acts directly on temperance and therefore indirectly on practical wisdom. But the lack of fortitude may also directly affect practical wisdom when dreadful aspects of life shock us. Fortitude operates on the capacity of practical wisdom to direct actions in context, judging with openness of mind and choosing and acting bravely. Practical wisdom acts on (...) the irascible part of the soul aiming it toward the golden mean of fortitude and against both weakness of character and stubbornness. The phronimos must develop the virtue of fortitude. But this requires a strong motivation related to the answer to the question of happiness and the meaning of life. And this question is strictly related to the topic of recognition. All that suggests that the lack of or deficiency of fortitude may be one of the main causes of the transformation of the meaning of prudence from the virtue of moral decision,personal responsibility and risk to the virtue of those who are careful and avoid risks. Keywords: Practical wisdom; fortitude; virtues; Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

Aribiah Attoe took issue with the materialist and the non-materialist African conceptions of death by arguing that the reality of death puts pressure on the human conception of life’s meaning. He admits the reality of an afterlife experience through a causal principle that sees events in the world as the product of interactions between predetermined past events. It is an afterlife where a decomposing body continues interacting with other things in the world, not an afterlife involving (...) consciousness. While conscious meaning-making ends in the death of the body in Attoe’s materialist view, thereby affirming the conclusion that human existence is meaningless and the universe is purposeless, the conviction about life’s meaninglessness is also reinforced by the possibility of a second death, that is, the death of the transcendent consciousness in the traditional African view. In this article, I will mount two objections to Attoe’s submission. First, I argue that Attoe’s refutation of life’s meaning may be faulted by a world view devoid of the ideas of the afterlife and immortality. Life’s meaninglessness for him should have been limited to the facts of human existence in the world, not the human inability to continue meaning after death. Second, Attoe’s conception of death as finality questions his principle of causality that suggests the reality of an endless afterlife. Attoe’s overarching submission on life’s meaninglessness gives the impression that theories of life’s meaning must be anchored on the thought of an afterlife and immortality. (shrink)

In this paper, following Rahel Jaeggi’s critique of forms of life, I contend that to identify genuine critical thinking we should start from an analysis of the normative nature of forms of life as the basic constituents of the social world. In this view, critical thinking can be seen as a critical behaviour. While genuine forms of life can recognize and consider the variety of concrete and diverse situations, on the contrary non-functioning forms of life’s critical (...) rationality understands the norm as applied from outside of the form of life. In this case the norm, erroneously understood as a neutral and universally applicable principle, such as economic rationality, is not able to consider the particularity of forms of life as goods in themselves. I defend the meaning that an education in critical thinking must have, as a genuine and functional rationality characterising human beings in a social world. -/- . (shrink)

The most common way of dealing with the fear of death is denying death. Such denial can take two and only two forms: strategy 1 denies the finality of death; strategy 2 denies the reality of the dying subject. Most religions opt for strategy 1, but Buddhism seems to be an example of the 2nd. All variants of strategy 1 fail, however, and a closer look at the main Buddhist argument reveals that Buddhism in fact does not (...) follow strategy 2. Moreover, there is no other theory that does, and neither can there be. This means that there is no tenable theory that denies death. There may be no universally psychologically acceptable alternative, however, which would mean that if denying death is incoherent, this is an unavoidable incoherence. (shrink)

The paper begins with a retrospective of the debates on the origin of life: the virus or the cell? The virus needs a cell for replication, instead the cell is a more evolved form on the evolutionary scale of life. In addition, the study of viruses raises pressing conceptual and philosophical questions about their nature, their classification, and their place in the biological world. The subject of pandemics is approached starting from the existentialism of Albert Camus and Sartre, (...) the replacement of the exclusion ritual with the disciplinary mechanism of Michel Foucault, and about the Gaia hypothesis, developed by James Lovelock and supported in the current pandemic by Bruno Latour. The social dimensions of pandemics, their connection to global warming, which has led to an increase in infectious diseases, and the deforestation of large areas, which have caused viruses to migrate from their native area (their "reservoir") are highlighted below. The ethics of pandemics is approached from several philosophical points of view, of which the most important in a crisis of such global dimensions is utilitarianism which involves maximizing benefits for society in direct conflict with the usual (Kantian) view of respect for people as individuals. After a retrospective of the COVID-19 virus that caused the current pandemic, its life cycle and its history, with an emphasis on the philosophy of death, the concept of biopower initially developed by Foucault is discussed, with reference to the practice of modern states of control of the populations and the debate generated by Giorgio Agamben who states that what is manifested in this pandemic is the growing tendency to use the state of emergency as a normal paradigm of government. An interesting and much debated approach is the one generated by the works of Slavoj Žižek, who states that the current pandemic has led to the bankruptcy of the current "barbaric" capitalism, wondering if the path that humanity will take is a neo-communism. Another important negative effect is desocialization, with the conclusion of some philosophers that we cannot exist independently of our relationships with others, that a person's humanity depends on the humanity of those around him. The last section is dedicated to forecasting what the world will look like after the pandemic, and there are already signs of a paradigm shift, including the sudden disappearance of the "wall" ideology: a cough was enough to make it suddenly impossible to avoid the responsibility that every individual has it towards all living beings for the simple fact that he is part of this world, and of the desire to be part of it. The whole is always involved in part, because everything is, in a sense, in everything and in nature there are no autonomous regions that are an exception. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to restore the supremacy that once belonged to politics. One of the virtues of the virus is its ability to generate a more sober idea of ​​freedom: to be free means to do what needs to be done in a specific situation. -/- CONTENTS: -/- Abstract Introduction 1 Viruses 1.1 Ontology 2 Pandemics 2.1 Social dimensions 2.2 Ethics 3 COVID-19 3.1 Biopolitics 3.2 Neocommunism 3.3 Desocialising 4 Forecasting Bibliography -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31039.74405/1. (shrink)

This article examines the question of life's meaning in the Anthropocene, an era where the biosphere is significantly threatened by human activities. To introduce the existential dilemma posed by the Anthropocene, Leboeuf considers Samuel Scheffler's Death and the Afterlife. According to Scheffler, the existence of others after one's death shapes how one finds life meaningful. Thus, anyone who sees a connection between the meaning of life and the future of humanity should ask, why (...) live in the Anthropocene? Leboeuf answers this question via William James's lecture “Is Life Worth Living?” James, Leboeuf argues, would enjoin us not to waste time deliberating about life's worthwhileness. Instead, we must meet the challenges placed on us. Today we are summoned by our climate crisis to fight for our survival. Even if our collective future will have been shortened by our inaction, life is worth living in the Anthropocene. (shrink)

The concept of mechanism in biology has three distinct meanings. It may refer to a philosophical thesis about the nature of life and biology (‘mechanicism’), to the internal workings of a machine-like structure (‘machine mechanism’), or to the causal explanation of a particular phenomenon (‘causal mechanism’). In this paper I trace the conceptual evolution of ‘mechanism’ in the history of biology, and I examine how the three meanings of this term have come to be featured in the philosophy of (...) biology, situating the new ‘mechanismic program’ in this context. I argue that the leading advocates of the mechanismic program (i.e., Craver, Darden, Bechtel, etc.) inadvertently conflate the different senses of ‘mechanism’. Specifically, they all inappropriately endow causal mechanisms with the ontic status of machine mechanisms, and this invariably results in problematic accounts of the role played by mechanism-talk in scientific practice. I suggest that for effective analyses of the concept of mechanism, causal mechanisms need to be distinguished from machine mechanisms, and the new mechanismic program in the philosophy of biology needs to be demarcated from the traditional concerns of mechanistic biology. (shrink)

Hans Jonas’ “philosophical biology,” although developed several decades ago, is still fundamental to the contemporary reflection upon the meaning of life in a systems thinking perspective. Jonas, in fact, closely examines the reasons of modern science, and especially of Wiener’s Cybernetics and Bertalanffy’s General System Theory, and at the same time points out their basic limits, such as their having a reductionistic attitude to knowledge and ontology. In particular, the philosopher highlights the problematic consequences of scientific reductionism for (...) human nature. As the final result of an overall process of naturalization, the essence of the human being is reduced to its quantitative features only, while the “meaning” of life as such becomes no different from the “fact” of its material consistency. However, the problem is that by such a process, the human being is deprived of his specificity. (shrink)

There is no doubt that “lying” is an unethical practice. But, in some situations, such as; where the life of an innocent person to be at risk, it is considered permissible by both the intelligence and law. The “white lie”, for ordinary people, is the lie that is permissible. But this term has become a victim of personal interpretations. As a result, many of non-permissible lies in the intelligence and law's view, because of the personal interpretation of white lie, (...) have been considered permissible. Studying the permissible lies in both the intelligence and law's view, we are going to suggest a definition of white lie. White lie is permissible because of a 'necessity'. The necessity includes three cases: reluctance, emergency, and warding off the more corruption with corruption and to reforming people’s relationship. (shrink)

In philosophical discourse, the notion of freedom demands rigorous examination. Traditionally, a distinction has been made between negative freedom (freedom from external constraints that impede one's self-realization) and positive freedom (freedom to utilize one's own capabilities). In the essay "A Strange Freedom: New Meanings of Liberalism and Humanism in the 21st Century [De vreemde vrijheid. Nieuwe betekenissen van vrijzinnigheid en humanisme in de 21ste eeuw]," philosopher and theologian Laurens ten Kate proposes a conceptualization of freedom that transcends this traditional dichotomy. (...) This is a creative freedom that is no longer bound to self-realization, but manifests itself precisely at the moment when the self is called into question. -/- The approximately seventy-page essay was published by Sjibbolet Publishers, a small, independent publishing house that emphasizes hermeneutics and is mostly known for publishing several translations of Giorgio Agamben's works into Dutch. In addition to these translations, Sjibbolet also publishes original Dutch-language philosophical works that merit inclusion in this category. The name Sjibbolet is derived from the work of Jacques Derrida and denotes the boundary between the self and the other. As the title "The Strange Freedom" suggests, this essay also explores this boundary. It is an expanded version of Ten Kate's inaugural address, delivered upon accepting the chair of Liberal Religiosity and Humanism [Vrijzinnige religiositeit en humanism]. Two closely intertwined themes are central to the work: the liberal condition and alien freedom. -/- In the Dutch word "vrijzinnigheid [liberal]” the root word "vrijheid [freedom]" is already present, accompanied by the root word "zin [sense]." In the first part of his essay, Ten Kate focuses primarily on sense in relation to what he terms the liberal condition. He states, "Freedom is not primarily a choice of a particular philosophy of life, but a situation to which everyone participates to some extent and to which one must relate (...)." According to Ten Kate, this is the situation in which the meaning of human life is no longer given nor received from above, but must be constructed. (shrink)

How can humanist principles of respect, dignity, and care inform and improve design for non-human lifeforms? This paper uses ageing and dying urban trees to understand how architectural, urban, and landscape design respond to nonhuman concerns. It draws on research in plant sciences, environmental history, ethics, environmental management, and urban design to ask: how can more-than-human ethics improve multispecies cohabitation in urban forests? The paper hypothesises that concepts of dignity and respect can underline the capabilities of nonhuman lifeforms and lead (...) to improved designs for multispecies cohabitation. To investigate the implications of this ethical framework, we 1) indicate injustices of current management in relation to natural and cultural histories of trees; 2) outline a conceptual framework that includes large old trees as stakeholders in urban communities; and 3) use this framework in a thought experiment with urban trees in Melbourne, outlining comparative design outcomes. Our findings show that the expansion of dignity to include nonhuman life is possible and plausible. Such an extension can justify and encourage design innovation for multiple species and sites. The resulting design practices will lead to improvements by supporting communities of trees at all stages of their life-cycles, including old age, death, and rebirth. This approach requires substantial shifts in accepted thinking and practices including history, ethics, aesthetics, regulation, and education. Design can play a significant role in the necessary transitions by demonstrating tangible and positive outcomes. In this context, history emerges as an essential tool that can extend societal imagination by situating possible future places in the context of ancient and ongoing geological, evolutionary, ecological, and cultural processes. (shrink)

Warren Zevon’s musical career, though brilliant throughout, is particularly notable for its ending: diagnosed with a terminal illness, Zevon refused a potentially debilitating medical treatment to put his remaining energy into recording another album. The resulting record –2003’s 'The Wind' – was in many ways the perfect farewell: songs of dirty, dark, uncompromising, country-tinged rock, blistering guitar solos, all mixed with intelligent, black-as-coal gallows humour. But it was also a moving farewell to his fans, a heartfelt, personal reflection on his (...) life and impending death: it begins with the words “sometimes I feel like my shadow’s casting me” and ends with “keep me in your heart for a while”. 'The Wind' ranks among Zevon’s very best and belongs in the same category as albums like David Bowie’s 'Blackstar' and Leonard Cohen’s 'You Want It Darker': works of great artists that knew the end was coming and made that knowledge musical. But though it had a particular force towards the end, death had always featured as a prominent theme in Zevon’s music. In fact, the albums that preceded his terminal diagnosis – especially 2000’s 'Life’ll Kill Ya' – have a marked preoccupation with death and dying, and many of his song’s characters (gunmen, gangsters, boxers, murderers of all stripes) either dealt death out, died, or both. -/- In this chapter, I argue that Zevon’s music and speech in his late public appearances personify an idea in Martin Heidegger’s philosophy called ‘authentic being-towards-death’. In his landmark text 'Being and Time', Heidegger undertakes a painstaking analysis of human existence. One of its conclusions is that to live a fully authentic life, we must reckon with our mortality, come to terms with it and allow this reckoning to have a transformative effect on how we live and how we think about our existence. This results, Heidegger argues, in a distinct way of being that he calls ‘being-towards-death’ and ‘anticipatory resoluteness’ in the face of death. Authentic being, which involves properly taking ownership of our lives and their meaning, cannot be adequately achieved without a serious confrontation with the fact that we will one day die. I claim that Warren Zevon’s music, with its continual engagement with death which culminates in 'The Wind', is one of the great musical manifestations of exactly this type of project. Heidegger’s writing is often notoriously abstract, but it pertains to the most fundamental issues about what it means to be human. Engaging with it alongside Zevon’s music provides a fruitful opportunity to make it concrete, better able to understand its most important aspects while providing an interesting conceptual toolkit to apply to the music of one of the great songwriters of death. (shrink)

In my ethnographic research on death and dying in contemporary Finland, I explore how Finns facing end of life due to a long-term illness or other terminal condition seek to orient themselves and make meaning with cultural tools such as imagery, language, and metaphysical thinking. My primary research material is based on extensive fieldwork at Terhokoti Hospice and in the cancer clinic of Helsinki University Hospital, where I have had numerous conversations with terminally ill patients. This paper (...) seeks to explore the way in which metaphysical aesthetics is assuming the role that religious thinking has traditionally played. When the role of institutional religion is diminishing, it becomes important to understand how emotional and spiritual resolution can be arrived at by means of aesthetics. (shrink)

The present text deals with the question of the meaning of life in theexistentialist theory oft heNorwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe(1899–1990). In his book On the Tragic (1941), Zapffe sketched a theory of the human condition where the meaning of life plays a decisive role together with the human need for justice. This paper aims to reconstruct the central elements of Zapffe’s analysis and to discuss them critically by focusing on his claim that human beings need (...) a fundamental meaning of life as a whole that transcends meaning in life. I pay particular attention to Zapffe’s claim that life is meaningless, since the meaning of life is fundamentallylacking.I conclude that Zapffe’s analysis is problematic for reasons both internal and external to his theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 207-215 [Access article in PDF] Notes and Fragments Poetics of Sentimentality Rick Anthony Furtak IN HIS MAJOR WORK, The Passions, Robert Solomon argues that emotions are judgments. 1 Through a series of persuasive examples, he shows that emotions are best understood as mental states which involve certain beliefs about the world. This means that every emotion has an object: if I am angry at (...) John for stealing my car, the object of my anger is the fact (or what I take to be a fact) that my car has been stolen by John. If I find out that this is not the case, that my car has not even left the garage, then my anger should vanish along with its justification. 2 The key point here is that anger, like any other emotion, may be reasonable or inappropriate depending on the situation. If there is nothing to be angry about, then it would be irrational for me to cultivate anger simply because I enjoy having this particular emotion. In general, emotional responses are cognitively flawed whenever they are at odds with the properties of their objects. If we want our judgments to be realistic and not delusional, then we must avoid this kind of error.It is curious, then, that Solomon has written an essay in which he categorically declares that "there is nothing wrong with sentimentality." 3 For it would appear that his theory of emotion provides precisely the terms needed in order to specify what is wrong with it. If emotions are judgments, then "sentimentality" ought to be an important critical term to designate the habit of having emotions that involve either impaired or mistaken judgment. Nevertheless, Solomon is willing to defend any and every episode of tender emotion, of the kind associated with the [End Page 207] death of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop (S, p. 240). He suggests that the more we can muster up this sort of response to literature or life, the better. What he seeks to encourage, in other words, is what Hume would call "delicacy" of (aesthetic) taste and of (ethical) passion. 4 But while Hume acknowledges that sensitivity to beauty and to ugliness are two sides of the same coin, such that anyone who is susceptible to lively enjoyments is also liable to undergo pungent sorrows, Solomon wants to promote only the tender aspect of emotion.On the principle of passionate maximization, it is good if I can be tenderly affected by a poem—any poem! The problem with such crass emotion-stoking is that it precludes the possibility of distinguishing between, for instance, the two stanzas below. Both are by Wilfred Owen: the first was written in 1914 and the second in 1918. 5 I O meet it is and passing sweet To live in peace with others, But sweeter still and far more meet To die in war for brothers. II Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Only if emotions did not involve rational judgment could a person's passionate response to these two stanzas be a matter of indifference. But it seems that, on the contrary, an essential component of understanding them is recognizing that they express irreconcilable cognitive attitudes. The tone of the 1918 stanza is strikingly different from that of the earlier one, even though they share roughly the same topic. The latter stanza is stark and ominous, and filled with vivid detail; the one from 1914 is sweet and vague. Clearly, we might describe the earlier of the two as "sentimental"—the question is, what kind of judgment does [End Page 208] it involve? I suggest that its insipid jingles endorse the view that war is a delightful opportunity to nurture brotherhood and gain... (shrink)

Bioethics, neuroscience, medicine are contributing to a debate on the definition and criteria of death. This topic is very controversial, and it demonstrates clashing views on the meaning of human life and death. Official medical and legal positions agree upon a biological definition of death as irreversible cessation of integrated functioning of the organism as a whole, and whole-brain criterion to ascertain death. These positions have to face many criticisms: some scholars speak of logical (...) and practical inconsistency, some others of invalid scientific theory about the supreme integrator. In this paper some criticisms are exposed and discussed in order to reconstruct the state of the art in bioethical debate. -/- . (shrink)

By comparing some founding concepts underlying developing interest in the role of signs and symbols in social life, such as the nature of the sign in Charles Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure and in Emile Durkheim and George Herbert Mead, and then exploring recent developments in structuralism and symbolic interactionism, a critical appraisal of their theories of meaning is made in the context of an emerging semiotic sociology.

In parts of his Notebooks, Tractatus and in “Lecture on Ethics”, Wittgenstein advanced a new approach to the problems of the meaning of life. It was developed as a reaction to the explorations on this theme by Bertrand Russell. Wittgenstein’s objective was to treat it with a higher degree of exactness. The present paper shows that he reached exactness by treating themes of philosophical anthropology using the formal method of topology.

Serious games are an effective method of reproducing aspects of the complex interplay between environments and stakeholders in business situations. In the game we describe here, The Sustainable Port, players experience what it is like to make decisions in such a complex environment. Their aim in the game is to grow the Port of Rotterdam while keeping economic growth in balance with sustainability goals. In this study, we assessed whether experienced Port of Rotterdam employees (PoR employees) show different psychophysiological patterns, (...) and more specifically EAR-derived features, compared to students. We did this on the assumption that physiological patterns will tell us something about how people who are familiar with the environment of the Port of Rotterdam, more specifically Port of Rotterdam employees, make decisions compared to those lacking such familiarity.Our sample consisted of 28 PoR employees and 65 students, all of whom played The Sustainable Port game and had their faces recorded with a camera. The Eye Aspect Ratio was extracted from these recordings and then from those we extracted EAR-derived features. Our results show that Port of Rotterdam employees perform better than students and that the two groups are characterized by different physiological variations in their EAR-derived features. A logistic regression model used to identify PoR employees and students obtained an F1 score of 0.62, a PR AUC score of 0.64, and a ROC AUC score of 0.70. performing significantly above baseline suggesting the effectiveness of using EAR-derived features for this task. Our interpretation was further confirmed by a pseudo-R2 score used to evaluate the goodness of fit of a logistic regression model on the entire dataset. We found that Port of Rotterdam employees had a lower variation in blink rate per minute (blinks/m) and higher variation in the root mean square difference of successive difference in blinks (RMSSD), the consecutive difference between two continuous blinks. Moreover, this study shows that our methods were robust enough to negate the effects of confounders, such as biological sex and age that affect some other studies that analyze blinks. (shrink)