Meaning of Life from Sacred and Secular Perspectives

Charles Taliaferro is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Emeritus Overby Distinguished Professor at St. Olaf College.Paul Reasoner is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Bethel University.

• IntroductionChapter One: What is meaning?Chapter Two: Why should anyone care about the meaning of life? And by the way, isn’t there something preposterous about seeking the meaning of life?Chapter Three: No need to search very far: We should conclude that the meaning of life for humans is perfect happiness. Or should we?Chapter Four: Can we discover the meaning of life through science, especially evolutionary biology? Maybe the key to life is to hatch (be born), match (reproduce), and then dispatch (be done).Chapter Five: How might the major theistic traditions obscure or contribute to discovering the meaning of life? Chapter Six: Why bother with religion when there are great, satisfying secular visions of the meaning of life?Chapter Seven: What do Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism say about the meaning of life? Chapter Eight: Is there a compelling Christian meaning of life?Chapter Nine: Radical psychological challenge: Could the religious perspectives on the meaning of life be make-believe?Chapter Ten: Does belief in the meaning of life require certainty? Is belief compatible with doubt?AcknowledgmentsReferences

The meaning of life is the question which should underlie any philosophy, but it is also the topic which nearly all academic philosophers studiously avoid. Taliaferro and Reasoner step into the breach admirably. Their treatment, while eminently readable, is seriously philosophical. It combines judicious analyses of the most significant accounts of the meaning of life, religious and non-religious, western and non-western, with well-judged reflection on how each of us, as reflective individuals, might best approach this most important question of all.