![]() ![]() ![]() He attacks the religious notion that God gives the world meaning and that if you deny God, you're saying the world is a meaningless place. In setting the table for his own theory, he takes aim at competitors. In an argument that's hardly original but doubtless true, he says the question has become so insistent for us because of the crisis of religious faith that began in the late 19th century, coupled with the horrors of war and mass murder in the 20th century. The idea that there could be a meaning to your life which was peculiar to you, quite different from the meaning of other people's lives, would not have mustered many votes." ![]() Pre-modern people likely weren't as anguished as we, he writes, "not only because their religious practices were less up for question but because their social practices were less problematic, as well. Instead of answering the question, he analyzes it: Is the question itself meaningful or just another example of our bewitchment by language? What do we mean by "meaning" and "life"? Have people always been plagued by the question or is this something peculiar to modernity? Although he's not a philosopher - he's a professor of English at the University of Manchester - he begins in proper philosopher fashion. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |