Resources for ‘The Meaning of Life’, Andrea Lechler

Free encyclopaedia articles on 'The Meaning of Life

•Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

•Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Introductory books providing an overview of the topic

•Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life. A Very Short Introduction, OUP 2007.

•Julian Baggini, What's it All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life, Granta 2005.

•Oswald Hanfling, The Quest for Meaning, Blackwell 1987. (goes together with the anthology edited by Hanfling, see below)

Collections of articles

•Seachris (ed.), Exploring the Meaning of Life. An Anthology and Guide, Blackwell 2012.

•Klemke and Cahn (eds.), The Meaning of Life. A Reader, OUP 2008. (There are also two earlier editions of the book with slightly different selections.)

•Benatar (ed.), Life, Death & Meaning. Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions. Rowman and Littlefield 2004.

•Hanfling (ed.), Life and Meaning. A Reader, Blackwell 1988.

•Cottingham (ed.), Western Philosophy. An Anthology, Blackwell 1996, 2008. (has a section with excerpts on the meaning of life and relevant chapters in other parts of the book, e.g. on God and Religion, or Morality and the Good Life)

The following article is an overview of literature on the topic, with short descriptions of each work referred to:

Metz, "The Meaning of Life", In Oxford Bibliographies Online: Philosophy, (accessed 24-Jan-2013). (full version available via Oxford University computers)

Referencesfor individual classes (some references are to the above works)

1) Different interpretations of the question ‘What is the meaning of life?’

•Eagleton

•Essays in the first part of Seachris

•Essays in the third part of Klemke

•Articles in Stanford and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

2) Life as meaningless. Can religion offer meaning?

•Taylor, ‘The Meaning of Life’, in Good and Evil, 1967, reprinted in Hanfling and Klemke.

•Nagel, ‘The Absurd’, Journal of Philosophy 68(20), 1971, 716-27. Reprinted in Seachris, Klemke, Benatar, Hanfling, Cottingham

•Feinberg, ‘Absurd Self-Fulfillment’, in Freedom and Fulfillment: Philosophical Essays, Princeton University Press, 1992. Reprinted in Klemke.

•Gordon, ‘Is the Existence of God Relevant to the Meaning of Life?’, The Modern Schoolman 60, 1983, 227-46. Reprinted in Seachris.

•Hanfling, The Quest for Meaning

•Metz, ‘Could God’s Purpose be the Source of Life’s Meaning?’, Religious Studies 36, 2000, 293-313. Reprinted in Seachris.

•Nozick, ‘Philosophy and the Meaning of Life’, Chapter 6 in Philosophical Explanations, Harvard University Press, 1981. Reprinted (in parts) in Seachris, Klemke, Benatar.

•Craig, ‘The Absurdity of Life without God’, ch. 2 in Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed., Crossway, 2008. Reprinted in Seachris, Klemke (2nd ed.), Cottingham

•Nagel, The View from Nowhere, OUP, 1986, Chapter XI.

•Pritchard, ‘Absurdity, Angst, and the Meaning of Life’, The Monist, 93(1). (A final draft can be found online here:

•Chapters in the last part of Seachris, e.g.:

Tolstoy, ‘A Confession’, in Spiritual Writings, ed. Moore, Orbis Books, 46-58.

Fischer, ‘Why Immortality is not so Bad’, International Journal for Philosophical Studies 2, 1994, 257-270.

Metz, ‘The Immortality Requirement for Life’s Meaning’, Ratio XVI, 2003, 161-177.

Seachris, ‘Death, Futility, and the Proleptic Power of Narrative Ending’, Religious Studies 47, 2011, 141-163.

•Kagan, Open Yale course on death: (has several lectures on whether we have a soul that could be immortal)

3) Subjectivism about meaning

•Taylor, ‘The Meaning of Life’, in Good and Evil, 1967, reprinted in Hanfling and Klemke.

•Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (Le mythe de Sisyphe), 1942, excerpts reprinted in Cottingham, Klemke.

•Chapter by Wolf and reply by Frankfurt in The Contours of Agency. Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt, 2002.

•Frankfurt, ‘The Importance of What we Care About’, Synthese 53(2), 1982, reprinted in The Importance of What We Care About, CUP 1988.

•Wolf, “The Meanings of Lives,” in Perry, Bratman, Fischer, eds., Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings, OUP 2007, reprinted in Seachris.

•Barnes, ‘The Far Side of Despair’, in An Existentialist Ethic, reprinted in Klemke.

•Kekes, ‘The Human World’, Ratio XXII, 2009, reprinted in Seachris.

•Klemke, ‘Living without Appeal: An Affirmative Philosophy of Life’, in Klemke.

•Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism (L’existentialisme est un humanisme), 1946.

•Wiggins, ‘Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life’, in Needs, Values, Truth: Essays in the Philosophy of Value, 1991, reprinted in Rachels, ed., Ethical Theory 1. (interesting paper discussing Taylor’s view, but not an easy read)

•Wielenberg, ‘God and the Meaning of Life’, from Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, CUP 2005, reprinted in Seachris. (especially section 3)

4) Is a meaningful life an examined life?

•Free translations of Plato’s Apology:

•Free translations of Plato’s Gorgias:

•Free translation of Descartes’s Discourse on Method:

•Encyclopaedia article on Plato’s ethics in general:

•Encyclopaedia article on Plato’s shorter ethical works:

•Rowe, ‘Self-examination’, in Morrison (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Socrates.

•Kraut, ‘The examined life’, in Ahbel-Rappe and Kamtekar (eds.), A Companion to Socrates, Blackwell 2005.

•Woolf, ‘Callicles and Socrates: Psychic (Dis)Harmony in the Gorgias’, in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy XVIII, OUP 2000.

•Cottingham, ‘Integrity and Fragmentation’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 27(1), 2001, pp.2-14:

•Smith, Open Yale course ‘Introduction to Political Philosophy’: (first two lectures on Plato)

•BBC In Our Time episodes on Socrates and on the examined life:

•Philosophy Now Radio Show on Socrates:

5) Is a meaningful life a life in accordance with our nature?

•Hanfling’s The Quest for Meaning covers both Rousseau’s and Aristotle’s thoughts on human nature, as well as Mill’s criticisms of appeals to nature. Hanfling’s Life and Meaning has relevant readings by all three philosophers.

•Rousseau’s and Aristotle’s views on human nature are also discussed by Loptson, Theories of Human Nature, Broadview Press, several editions.

•Free translation of Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality:

•Some useful secondary literature on Rousseau:

  • Bertram, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Rousseau and the Social Contract, 2004. (especially Chapter 2)
  • Encyclopaedia article on Rousseau:
  • Plattner, Rousseau's State of Nature: An Interpretation of the Discourse on Inequality, Northern Illinois University Press, 1979.

•Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics. Translation, Introduction, and Commentary by Broadie and Rowe, OUP 2002, is very helpful

•Free translations of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics:

•Some useful secondary literature on Aristotle:

  • Hughes, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle on Ethics, 2001.
  • Encyclopaedia article on Aristotle’s ethics:
  • Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle, OUP 1991.
  • Hursthouse, ‘Human Nature and Aristotelian Virtue Ethics’, in Sandis and Cain (eds.), Human Nature, CUP 2012.

•Mill’s essay ‘Nature’:

•Eagleton, Chapters 3 and 4.

•Smith, Open Yale course ‘Introduction to Political Philosophy’: (lectures on Aristotle and Rousseau)

6) What activities are meaningful independent of their effects: Moritz Schlick on play

•Moritz Schlick, ‘The Meaning of Life’ (‘Vom Sinn des Lebens’), Symposion, 1(4), 1927. English translations in Hanfling, Klemke (3rd ed.), and Schlick, Philosophical Papers, 1979.

•Arthur Schopenhauer, ‘On the Vanity of Existence’, in Essays and Aphorisms, trans. Hollingdale, Penguin, 2004. Reprinted in Seachris.

•Chapters by Wisdom and Huizinga in Hanfling.

•Erich Fromm, ‘To Have or to Be’, 1976.

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7) Can we find meaning through the pursuit of goals?

•Neil Levy, ‘Downshifting and Meaning in Life’, Ratio 18 (2), 2005, pp. 176-189.

•Richard Taylor, ‘Time and Life’s Meaning’, The Review of Metaphysics, 40(4), 1987. Reprinted in Seachris.

•Susan Wolf, ‘The Meanings of Lives’, in Perry, Bratman and Fischer (eds.), Introduction to Philosophy. Classical and Contemporary Readings, 5th ed. (New York: OUP, 2010). Reprinted in Seachris.

•Partridge, ‘Why Care About the Future?’, in Responsibilities to Future Generations, 1981. Available online at:

•Leslie, ‘Why not Let Life Become Extinct’, Philosophy, 58, 1983.

•Leslie, ‘The Risk that Humans Will Woon Be Extinct’, Philosophy, 85, 2010.

•Trisel, ‘Human Extinction and the Value of Our Efforts’, The Philosophical Forum, 35(3), 2004. Reprinted in Seachris.

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8) Can we find meaning by transcending our limits?

•Bertrand Russell,The Problems of Philosophy(1912), Chapter XV (especially from p. 244 onwards):

•Bertrand Russell, ‘A Free Man’s Worship’ (1903): reprinted in Klemke and Seachris.

•Robert Nozick, The Examined Life (1989), especially Chapters 15, 22 and 26.

•Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1981), Chapter 6. Reprinted (in parts) in Seachris, Klemke, Benatar.

•Samuel Scheffler, Death and the Afterlife (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

•Last chapter of Eagleton.

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•BBC In Our Time on Bertrand Russell:

9) Is a meaningful life a life that tells a story?

•Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

•Alasdair Macintyre, After Virtue. A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1985).

•Galen Strawson, ‘Against Narrativity’, Ratio XVII, 2004.

•Marya Schechtman, ‘The Narrative Self’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

•Johan Bränmark, ‘Leading Lives: On Happiness and Narrative Meaning’, Philosophical Papers 32(3), 2003.

•Roger Scruton, ‘Timely Death’, Philosphical Papers, 41(3), 2012.

•Frances Kamm, ‘Rescuing Ivan Ilych: How We Live and How We Die’, Ethics, 113, 2003.

•John Martin Fischer, ‘Free Will, Death, and Immortality: The Role of Narrative’, Philosophical Papers, 34(3), 2005. Reprinted in Seachris.

10) Death and the meaning of life

•Bernard Williams, ‘The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality’, in Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers, 1956-1972, CUP, 1973, 82-100.

•Roger Scruton, ‘Timely Death’, Philosphical Papers, 41(3), 2012.

•Frances Kamm, ‘Rescuing Ivan Ilych: How We Live and How We Die’, Ethics, 113, 2003.

•John Martin Fischer, ‘Free Will, Death, and Immortality: The Role of Narrative’, Philosophical Papers, 34(3), 2005. Reprinted in Seachris.

•James Lenman, ‘Immortality: A Letter’, Cogito, 1995, 164-169.

•Bortolotti and Nagasawa, ‘Immortality without Boredom’, Ratio 22, 2009, 261-277.

•Samuel Scheffler, Death and the Afterlife (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

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•Shelly Kagan, Open Yale course on death: (especially the last four lectures)

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