The Meaning of Life: A Reader

This book really awoke me to new paths of thought. I read it as a requirement at the Governor's Scholars Program. I was a philosophy major, and we spent a great deal delving into this book. I found particularly intriguing the section of Tolstoy, pertaining to the eastern story. You'll be amazed at the many approaches, from consequentialism, nihilism, and non-consequentialism in this book. Several paths of thought that will keep you wondering.

Divides the field up into theistic responses, non-theistic responses, and questioning the question itself, i.e. Is the question, "What is the meaning of life?" a meaningful question? The essay vary in their approach, and I do think the theistic essays are a bit weaker than one would think need be the case. I have been doing a bit of thinking on the meaning of life, and I've been thinking about death as well. Not surprisingly, I have read several fine essays on the topic in Klemke's anthology. The one lesson I walk away with is that at the very least the small moment by moment plans and projects (set and mostly achieved, of course) are what make life meaningful. Perhaps a corollary of this is that even if all of life is a series of such projects, one should not fallaciously assume that the whole of life is, thereby, meaningful. The other way, the way of religion, where the grand scheme of things is meaningful, thus each event in life is meaningful, is even less satisfying upon investigation, even if more tempting to think. It's nice that Klemke has put together a resource for investigating whether and where life has meaning.

Klemke has produced a great set of essays on the meaning of life from a philsophical and historical perspective. Many of the essays--for example, by Tolstoy, Baier, Nielsen, and Ayer--are classics and "must reads." The selection of essays on the linguistic analysis of "meaning" were particularly good. The selections on Theism seemed to fall short of making a good case (But maybe that is just the nature of the area?!)This book is highly recommended and worthy of being in any philosopher's library. But, it doesn't cover the full question of meaning in life. To truly get a comprehensive picture on the contemporary argument, one would want to also consider some more psychologically-oriented works such as Baumeister's "Meanings of Life" or von Glasersfeld's "Radical Constructivism" among others. Nonetheless, the philsophical and seminal arguments are well covered.

Klemke admirably combines classic works with more contemporary approaches to the perennial philosophical problem of the meaning and significance of existence. The introductory essay and the division of the book into sections on the "Theistic Answer", "The Non-Theistic Answer", and "Questioning the Question" provide much-needed guidance for the reader grappling with the difficult issues raised by the authors. This second edition includes valuable new selections from Schopenhauer, Nielsen, Flanagan, and more. A great resource for both the professional philosopher and the amateur self-knowledge seeker.