The Spiritual Dimension and the Meaning of Life: The Problem of Futility, The Humanist Thesis of Meaning and Spirituality
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Yu, Cheng-Ling
Abstract
This dissertation is a research into the topic of the meaning of life. The question about the meaning of life has too often been neglected by the contemporary philosophers. Many philosophers dismiss the question as "pseudo" or "logically unanswerable". Ayer, for example, argues that since whether life has meaning cannot be verified either through demonstration or observation, the question is therefore "unanswerable". Many philosophers, following Ayer, adopt this line of reasoning. I believe this is unfortunate. Socrates, the man who has had tremendous impact on the development of the western philosophy, can be seen as occupying himself with this very question when he claimed that: "The unexamined life is not worth living." An inquiry into the meaning of life can therefore be seen as nothing less than the continuity of this Socratic project of self-examination.
After the topic about the meaning of life has been neglected for so long, it is encouraging to see that in the recent years, more and more philosophers have become interested in the topic again. Kurt Baier, Richard Taylor, Susan Wolf and John Cottingham, just to name a few, have written on the topic. This resurgence of interest in the topic about the meaning of life among the philosophers makes us hopeful of the prospect that philosophy, the "mother of all sciences", may still have something constructive to offer in this field of study. Perhaps, as some have remarked, humanity has always had a deep need to raise the "ultimate" questions. This dissertation is an attempt to contribute to the topic of the meaning of life from the philosophical perspective.
Most contemporary philosophers writing on the topic of the meaning of life are naturalists and humanists, and they usually focus on analyzing the logical structure of the question, discovering the necessary and sufficient conditions for living meaningfully and examining the subjectivity or objectivity of "meaning values". This dissertation, however, focuses on an aspect of the question that is less commonly addressed in the literature—what I shall call the "Problem of Futility" (PoF). PoF refers to a state of consciousness in which one feels that—after contemplating the finitude of one''s existence—one''s existence (and the existence in general) lacks lasting significance and meaning. In this dissertation, I shall argue that PoF is a genuine problem that arises from our nature—that there is something deep within our nature that longs to transcend the finite; PoF, so I shall argue, cannot be simply dismissed as pseudo or as a problem arising from our mental instability.
After showing that a consideration of PoF reveals the inadequacy of the humanist thesis of meaning, I shall argue that the idea of spirituality is what provides a solution to PoF. Spirituality, as I shall define it in this dissertation, refers to a state of being in which one''s consciousness is identified with a transcendent reality in a certain way. By identifying with a transcendent reality and by being fully attentive to the present instant, it becomes possible for one to transcend the finitude of one''s existence. But spirituality, fundamentally, is about experience rather than theory—it is a mode of being in which one''s consciousness is attuned to what some call the "cosmic life" or the "universal self". As such, the spiritual view cannot be verified by our "ordinary consciousness"—either by our intellect or senses. One must, so the writers on spirituality tell us, embark on the path of spirituality in order to experience for oneself.
Subjects
生命的意義
無意義的問題
人文主義的意義主張
靈性
Type
thesis
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