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Joshua W. Seachris (PhD, University of Oklahoma) is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, as well as Grant Administrator for The Character Project, which aims to map the contours of the human character by funding key research in philosophy, psychology and theology. He is the author of peer-reviewed articles on a range of topics in philosophy, including the problem of evil, Confucius and virtue, the meaning of life, and death. His work has appeared in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Asian Philosophy, Philo, Religious Studies, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
With Section Introductions by:
John Cottingham (DPhil, Oxford University) is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Reading, Professorial Research Fellow at Heythrop College, University of London, and an Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. His recent titles include On the Meaning of Life (Routledge, 2003), The Spiritual Dimension (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Cartesian Reflections (Oxford University Press, 2008), and Why Believe? (Continuum, 2009). He is editor of the international philosophical journal Ratio.
John Martin Fischer (PhD, Cornell University) is Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, where he has held a University of California President's Chair (2006–10). He is the editor of The Metaphysics of Death (Stanford University Press, 1993), and many of his articles on death, immortality, and the meaning of life are collected in his Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Thaddeus Metz (PhD, Cornell University) is Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His work on developing and evaluating theoretical approaches to what makes a life meaningful has appeared in such journals as American Philosophical Quarterly, Ethics, Ratio, Religious Studies, and Utilitas. His book, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2012.
Garrett Thomson (DPhil, Oxford University) teaches philosophy at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, where he holds the Compton Chair. He is the author of several books, including On Kant (Wadsworth, 2003), On the Meaning of Life (Wadsworth 2002), Una Introducción a la Práctica de la Filosofía (PanAmericana, 2002), Bacon to Kant (Waveland Press, 2001), On Leibniz (Wadsworth, 2001), and Needs (Routledge, 1987). With Daniel Kolak, he co-edited the six volumes of the Longman Standard History of Philosophy (Longman's Press, 2006). He is chief executive officer of the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace.
Preface x
Personal Acknowledgments xii
Acknowledgments xiii
General Introduction 1Joshua W. Seachris
Section I Understanding the Question of Life's Meaning 21
Introduction 23Thaddeus Metz
1.1 Why 29Paul Edwards
1.2 Untangling the Questions 40Garrett Thomson
1.3 Questions about the Meaning of Life 48R. W. Hepburn
1.4 Philosophy and the Meaning of Life 62Robert Nozick
1.5 The Concept of a Meaningful Life 79Thaddeus Metz
1.6 Assessing Views of Life: A Subjective Affair? 95Arjan Markus
Section II What Does God Have to Do with the Meaning of Life? 113
Introduction 115John Cottingham
2.1 Ecclesiastes 121
2.2 On Living in an Atomic Age 133C. S. Lewis
2.3 Is the Existence of God Relevant to the Meaning of Life? 138Jeffrey Gordon
2.4 The Absurdity of Life without God 153William Lane Craig
2.5 Is Nature Enough? 173John Haught
2.6 Religion and Value: The Problem of Heteronomy 183John Cottingham
2.7 Could God's Purpose Be the Source of Life's Meaning? 200Thaddeus Metz
Section III The Loss of Meaning in a World Without God: Pessimistic Naturalism 219
Introduction 221Garrett Thomson
3.1 On the Vanity of Existence 227Arthur Schopenhauer
3.2 A Free Man's Worship 230Bertrand Russell
3.3 The Absurd 236Thomas Nagel
3.4 Why Coming into Existence Is Always a Harm 245David Benatar
3.5 Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament 262Thomas Nagel
Section IV Finding Meaning in a World Without God: Optimistic Naturalism 275
Introduction 277Erik J. Wielenberg
4.1 The Human World 282John Kekes
4.2 Time and Life's Meaning 296Richard Taylor
4.3 The Meanings of Lives 304Susan Wolf
4.4 Intrinsic Value and Meaningful Life 319Robert Audi
4.5 God and the Meaning of Life 335Erik J. Wielenberg
4.6 The Varieties of Non-Religious Experience 353Richard Norman
4.7 Emergent Religious Principles 367Ursula Goodenough
Section V The Meaning of Life and the Way Life Ends: Death, Futility, and Hope 371
Introduction 373John Martin Fischer
5.1 A Confession 380Leo Tolstoy
5.2 Annihilation 388Steven Luper-Foy
5.3 Why Immortality Is Not So Bad 404John Martin Fischer
5.4 The Immortality Requirement for Life’s Meaning 416Thaddeus Metz
5.5 Human Extinction and the Value of Our Efforts 428Brooke Alan Trisel
5.6 Free Will, Death, and Immortality: The Role of Narrative 445John Martin Fischer
5.7 Death, Futility, and the Proleptic Power of Narrative Ending 461Joshua W. Seachris
5.8 Divine Hiddenness, Death, and Meaning 481Paul K. Moser
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