TRACKING THE MEANING OF LIFE: A PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNEY

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Yuval Lurie

Tracking the

Meaning of Life

a Philosophical Journey

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS C O LU M B I A A N D LO N D O N


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Copyright © 2006 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lurie, Yuval. [Be-’ikvot mashma’ut ha-hayim. English] Tracking the meaning of life : a philosophical journey / Yuval Lurie. p. cm. Summary: “Critical philosophical investigation of the question: What is the meaning of life? Discusses views prominent in analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and existentialism, drawing especially on the thought of Tolstoy, Wittgenstein, Sartre, and Camus and exploring in depth the insights these thinkers offer regarding their own difficulties concerning the meaning of life”—Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8262-1652-6 (hard cover : alk. paper) 1. Life. 2. Philosophy, Modern. I. Title. BD431.L8613 2006 128—dc22 2006000829

This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984. Designer: Stephanie Foley Typesetter: foleydesign Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc. Typefaces: ITC New Baskerville and NeutraText


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For Hagit


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Contents Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: The Philosophical Provocation for This Book 1

PA R T I : T H E P R O B L E M O F L I F E Chapter 1.

Tolstoy Confesses Publicly and Tells the Story of Ivan Ilych 11

Chapter 2.

A Philosophical Question 21

Chapter 3.

An Existential Question 32

Chapter 4.

An Ancient Question 43

Chapter 5.

A Modern Question 58

Chapter 6.

A Defiant Question 71

Chapter 7.

A Solution that Chases a Dream 79

PART II: THE SENSE OF THE WORLD Chapter 8.

Wittgenstein Turns to Philosophy 89

Chapter 9.

The Logical Limits of the World 97

Chapter 10. The Cognitive Limits of the World 105 Chapter 11.

The Ethical Limits of the World 115

Chapter 12.

The Meaning of Life as the Sense of the World 125

Chapter 13.

Mystical Experience as a Substitute for Ethics 136

Chapter 14. Overcoming the Problem of Life 144 Chapter 15.

What Cannot Be Put into Words but Makes Itself Manifest 152

Chapter 16.

Assessing Wittgenstein’s View of the Meaning of Life 160 vii


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viii

Contents

PART III: INVENTING A MEANING TO LIFE Chapter 17.

Sartre Takes the Train to Dijon 171

Chapter 18.

Life Journeys and Personal Self-Identity 178

Chapter 19.

Attributing Personal Meaning to Life 192

Chapter 20. A Phenomenological Ontology 202 Chapter 21.

Freedom as a Problematic Human Mode of Existence 212

Chapter 22. An Existentialist Ethics 221 Chapter 23. An Existentialist Conception of Meaning 232 Chapter 24. Affirmation through Criticism 241

PART IV: LOSS OF MEANING FROM LIFE Chapter 25. Camus Tells the Stories of Meursault and of Sisyphus 249 Chapter 26. Sartre Disputes Camus 256 Chapter 27. Hare Disputes Camus 266 Chapter 28. Nagel Disputes Camus 276 Chapter 29. Meaning Blindness and Alien Life-Forms 288 Chapter 30. The Soul of Life 299 Chapter 31.

The Moral of Camus’s Story 309

Epilogue: Poor Man’s Wisdom 315 Bibliography 329 Index 333


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Acknowledgments

is a revised version of its Hebrew predecessor, published in 2002 by Haifa University Press and Maarive Publishing Company and awarded the Bahat prize. Some of the thoughts included in it appeared in two articles I previously published in Hebrew: “On the Very Question,” in The Meaning of Life, edited by Assa Kasher, and “Wittgenstein on the Meaning of Life,” in Iyyun: The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly 49, 2000. I thank these outlets for making use of that material. My son, Yotam, instigated the philosophical journey undertaken here. Robert Albin, Leor Aviman, and Nechama Verbin read parts of the manuscript describing it. Gad Prodovski and two readers from the University of Missouri Press read it in its entirety. All of them made valuable suggestions for which I am thankful. Ruvik Dannially made the initial translation of the book into English, and I thank him. I also thank Nimrod Maman and Ithai Smolyar for helping with the typescript. THIS BOOK

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IntroducTIon

The Philosophical Provocation for This Book

at times about the meaning of life. We may do so when pondering the cycle of life beginning with birth and ending in death, or when seeing the suffering of innocent human beings and their cruel and unjust fate, or when reflecting on the vicissitudes of history and the uncertainty at the basis of human life, or when thinking about the origin of the universe and the existence of God. We may do so at times of personal anguish, suffering, loneliness, sorrow, boredom, despair, bewilderment, or disappointment with our lives, as well as when we become concerned about what the future holds, while dreading the death that awaits us, or just the opposite, when we marvel at our very lives, wanting to find out how life should be regarded, valued, and lived. In the first instances, we wonder about the meaning of life as if we were gazing through the window of a moving train at a strange and bewildering landscape passing before our eyes. In the second instances, we wonder about the meaning of life as though we are carried on a huge wave threatening to smash and drown us at any moment. One way or the other, those of us who wonder about the meaning of life are apt to do so in solitude, as the question, “What is the meaning of life?” is not usually asked and answered in the ordinary stream of life. The question is not an everyday question, which we might ask to extract useful information from someone who happens to possess it (such as, “When is the next bus leaving for the city?”). It is not a scientific question, which we might pose in seeking an explanation to a particular phenomenon (such as, “What causes liquids to freeze at a low temperature?”). It is not a moral question, which we might contemplate, regarding what we

S OM E O F U S W O N D E R

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ought to do (such as, “Is it moral duty to help the needy?”). It is not a practical question, which may require calculation, regarding what is worthwhile to pursue at a given juncture in life (such as, “Is it profitable to invest in studies for a college degree?”). Nor is it a question regarding the political, psychological, social, biological, or physical meaning of things and events in the world that is often explored and answered within various disciplines of study (such as, “What is the meaning of the sudden slack in holiday sales for the state of the economy?”). The question about the meaning of life seems to be directed toward escaping the flow of life and the familiar contexts of supplying practical information, scientific explanations, moral justification, selfish and utilitarian reasons for actions, or providing insightful interpretations of the meaning of certain events—in order to grasp “the meaning of it all” in one instance. The answer to this question is supposed to unravel the “secret of life” and thus enable us to discover wherein lies life’s value, what can be expected of it, what should concern us about it, how it should be regarded, approached and lived, what can be hoped for, and how we should come to terms with our impending death. To those of us who wonder about the meaning of life, the question seems of the utmost importance, as if everything depends on the answer to it. For that reason, it should take precedence over every other question and over every action, concern, and expectation. However, it is not at all clear how and where we should search for the answer. Because there is no single, clear context in which the question arises and needs to be answered, and therefore it is also not clear to whom it should be addressed or who is qualified to answer it, and because in the ordinary flow of life the question merely sows confusion and unease, it is sometimes laid at the door of philosophers, who are often viewed as having already divorced themselves from the ordinary, everyday flow of life, and therefore as having deliberately taken it upon themselves to search for a reasoned and learned answer to the question. Philosophers these days are not always happy with the honor thus conferred upon them. Most contemporary philosophers, it seems, dislike the question, for most of them avoid answering it, discussing it, or even mentioning it in their lectures and writings. This may stem from the fact that the question appears too pretentious and unfocused to them; it is difficult to come to grips with without addressing an immense complex of issues, which are thus bundled together without any order. It is as if the questioners had asked them to stuff the entire contents of their philosophical library into the narrow confines of their bag; or as if they had asked them to tame a ferocious wild animal so that it can be taken to live in their home as a friendly pet. Or perhaps philosophers these days are repelled by the


Introduction

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question because they know it is a popular one, sold cheaply between glittering covers on every street corner; a question about which movie stars, when interviewed publicly, feel free to pass judgment fervidly; a question to which preachers of every religious denomination have a pat answer; a question to which any attempt to reply directly and candidly might cause them to reveal in public some of their discomfiture, concern, and anxieties about their own life; a question that does not always bring out the best in them as philosophers. Or perhaps they hesitate to reply because they are aware that the question needs to be ignored, either because it is not within their capacity to answer it, or because whoever is asking it has no interest in acquiring the complicated merchandise lying upon the dusty shelves of their scholarly warehouses. Those philosophers today who nevertheless deign to grapple with the question usually do so in either of two ways. In one, they explain how we both grasp the meaning of life and give meaning to our lives, often going on from there to lecture on how we should do so. In the other, they turn to explain what the question about the meaning of life harbors and why it is not possible to provide an illuminating answer to it. As a method of philosophical discourse that reveals the way in which we attribute meaning to the things that shape our lives in general, the first approach is manifested by a method of philosophical inquiry that developed in continental Europe during the first half of the twentieth century, called “phenomenology.” The second approach is typical of a method of philosophical inquiry that developed in England and the United States during roughly the same period, called “analytic philosophy.” Practitioners of these two different approaches to philosophical inquiry often ignore each other. The phenomenologists tend to first replace the question about the meaning of life with a slightly different question, such as “What is the meaning of existence?” or “What is the meaning of human existence?” They then formulate their intricate answers to the question by means of a specialized, weighty, and complicated philosophical jargon, one stage after another, as though engaged in a careful and meticulous archaeological excavation that is meant to uncover, layer by layer, an ancient structure that has been covered by rocks and debris over the years. Those who adhere to the analytic approach, on the other hand, tend to try to disclose the meaning (or sense) of the question itself before they are willing to try to answer it. Often they will refuse to answer the question, upon examination, on the grounds that it has no meaning (or sense), and is, therefore, unanswerable. Within this group, it is possible to differentiate between those who think it is a stupid question because it makes no sense, and those who think it is an important question even though it makes no sense. The point of departure of this book is that the question about the meaning of life may be used to express philosophical puzzlement regarding life


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in general, as well as personal concern about our own lives in particular. In either case, the question may be of great importance to those who ask it. It is therefore a question worthy of respect, as are those who are troubled by it. As I see it, an attitude of philosophical respect toward the question and toward those who are troubled about its answer means not taking advantage of their craving for an answer by offering them dogmatic assertions about life, not obscuring their wits by citing mysterious parables, not diverting their attention by means of an engaging story or an amusing joke about the futility of searching for the meaning of life, and not dismissing the question with a shrewd philosophical wave of the hand betokening its foolishness. This is not to say that only academic philosophers should be allowed to respond to it, nor is it to say we must assume that somewhere, far away from ordinary perception, lies hidden the desired answer, awaiting the intrepid philosopher who shall successfully forge a conceptual path to it, exposing the abstruse secret of life to the light of day. Sometimes a great deal of philosophical effort is required specifically to expose the complex, intricate nature of the question asked, which can enable us to reconcile our yearning for a philosophical answer of general validity to the question about the meaning of life with our need to ascertain what is meaningful to us about our lives and what concerns us about them, which may only be valid for us personally. Indeed, this question is unique among the many and diverse disconcerting philosophical questions because it is not only an instrument for expressing intellectual perplexity with regard to concepts that serve us unproblematically in everyday life and in science, when we are not reflecting on what they denote. It is also a powerful discursive tool for expressing personal concern and wonder with regard to what is manifested by our lives themselves, both of which lie deep in our souls and need only to be awakened. It is therefore unlike other great, disconcerting questions discussed in philosophy, such as “What is the meaning of a word?” or “What is time?” or “What is truth?” or “How does one know anything?” For these questions do not always express our deep concerns and wonder about our lives, manifested at times in the knowledge that we are living on borrowed time. In light of the deep personal concerns embodied in the question about the meaning of life, three discursive requirements may be posed before any philosophical attempt to deal with this troubling question: 1) Its claims should be of general validity, and not merely an expression for the author’s personal attitudes to life; 2) It should avoid turning into a dogmatic discourse based on attractive but uncritical assertions and generalizations, as often happens in inspirational religious declarations, literary pearls of wisdom, mystifying aphorisms, enticing worldviews, or shrewd popular sayings, all of which are meant to provide instant insight and instruct us on how to approach and regard our lives; 3) It should provide critical philosophical


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Introduction

insights in regard to our perplexity and concern about the meaning of life, articulating in what way we understand this question, what renders it important to us, what can or cannot be discovered in answer to it, as well as what the inquiry leads us finally to discover about the meaning of life that is both of general validity and relevant to our lives in particular.

The Outline and Purpose of This Book This book relates a philosophical journey undertaken by the author in the hope of resolving certain concerns about his life that manifested themselves as quandaries about the meaning of life. Being concerned with my life and finding myself also perplexed by the question about the meaning of life, I turned first to see what other philosophers had to say about the question. This move turned in time into a lengthy philosophical journey that has extended over various regions of thought, a journey, in which, as may be seen, I track an extensive philosophical effort to deal with the question about the meaning of life. I do so by tracing, evaluating, and responding to several philosophical responses and replies to the question about the meaning of life in the modern era in the West. Among them are responses and replies representing the two philosophical approaches mentioned above, the analytic and the phenomenological. As such this is a philosophical journey undertaken by the author by following the tracks of several modern philosophers and writers who were seeking to contend with the question about the meaning of life. What they say about the meaning of life is part of the overall philosophical discourse of the West on the meaning of life—a discourse sometimes manifested through literature and sometimes encrypted in difficult and complex philosophical jargon. Four writers occupy a central place in this journey: Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. It can be said of all four that they are not typical members of the philosophical club, but more like transient visitors within its gates due to their concern with the answer to the question about the meaning of life. In tracking their responses to the question, my aim is not to discuss their works, which are surveyed here only in brief, but to present, examine, and assess the insights they provide with regard to their concerns and puzzlements about the meaning of life. This focus is how I have chosen both to examine the question about the meaning of life and adumbrate my findings about what is philosophically important and interesting to me in certain reflections of Western intellectuals about the meaning of life in the modern era. Accordingly, the book is divided into four parts, representing four different philosophical lines of thought in the search for the meaning of life, and an epilogue. The four


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parts, which constitute the bulk of the book, focus on the nature and validity of ideas regarding the meaning of life, which are expressed in the framework of the work of these four writers. The epilogue is my attempt to formulate conclusions with regard to what I have discovered in undertaking this journey. Part 1 is devoted to a discussion of what Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy called “the problem of life.” I describe therein the discursive context in which the question about the meaning of life came to be placed on the agenda of Westerners in the modern era, and I evaluate Tolstoy’s proposed solution to the problem. Part 2 is devoted to elucidating Ludwig Wittgenstein’s pronouncements on what he called “the sense of the world.” I discuss in it his contention that it is not possible to answer the question about the meaning of life because it lacks sense, as well as his proposal as to what needs to be done in consequence. Part 3 is devoted to Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist view about the meaning of life. This view is part of a discursive upheaval that transformed the question about the meaning of life into one which would have us devise an answer that is of merely personal validity, and I discuss both its merits and problems. Part 4 is devoted to Albert Camus’s depiction of the experience of the absurdity of life, which reveals the loss of meaning from life. In this connection I discuss some of the ways in which meaning is bestowed on our life and what this shows about the meaning of life. The epilogue draws its moral by focusing on attitudes toward life that are both the source for our philosophical quandaries and personal concerns about the meaning of life, as well as our ability to find and bestow meaning on our lives. It determines the limits of philosophical discourse in this regard while noting what may be valuable about the philosophical journey undertaken for those of us who both wonder about the meaning of life and who turn to philosophy to gain insight in this regard. As a philosophical journey on the track of the meaning of life, conducted in large part along lines of thought trailblazed by others, the book can be seen as the remarks of a hitchhiker, riding in the back seats of cars driven by others, watching the passing scenery and noting the courses the four drivers have chosen for their journey in pursuit of the meaning of life. (The book can also be compared to the map of an unknown region, compiled by the author in accordance with the descriptions provided of it by four travelers who have taken different routes through it.) In contrast to them, the epilogue is concerned with the hitchhiker’s own attempt to draw a number of general conclusions about the nature of the region he has traveled through in his journey and to formulate a few lessons about what needs be done at the end of such a journey. Since a philosophical journey that sets out to track the meaning of life demands meandering across extensive and variable regions, many diverse


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concepts are mentioned and discussed along the way. Among them are meaning, meaningfulness, significance, sense, interpretation, purpose, value, importance, existence, being, modes of existence, death, life, personal identity, will, freedom, reason, nature, culture, absurdity, and God. A long list of philosophical concepts joins their ranks, too, including teleology, metaphysics, transcendence, transcendental, ontology, ethics, ideology, and postmodernism. Various worldviews also come up for discussion, such as monotheism, atheism, humanism, the Enlightenment, secularism, nihilism, existentialism, and psychoanalysis. The journey traces religious and secular routes taken to find an answer to the question, pointing to both paved roads and dead ends, as well as insightful lookout points. Its published purpose is to allow those of us who wonder about the meaning of life to make critical use of philosophical insights delivered by others, who have set out to search for the meaning of life and come back to tell about what they discovered on their journeys. However, this book is not merely a collection of philosophical routes to be followed on the track of the meaning of life, but a single, continuous journey undertaken over changing regions of thought in several different ways. It traces an evolving philosophical discussion of a single subject, namely, the philosophical attempt to contend with the question about the meaning of life in a particular culture during a given historical period. As such it is the story of a philosophical journey with numerous participants, conducted along both shared and divergent avenues of thought. To follow the story of this philosophical journey, it is best to read the book in the order of its parts, from first to last. However, each part can also be read on its own—being devoted to a separate issue that concerns the meaning of life. It is in the nature of a discussion, which focuses on different approaches taken to a single question, that central topics should recur from time to time. In my view, such repetitions are not only unavoidable, but are part of an ongoing philosophical discussion in which the issues and proposed solutions need to be clarified over and over again, as we continuously gain new insights in accordance with the avenues of thought we have taken to arrive at them. Progress, in this type of discussion, can be compared to climbing a spiral staircase, where we return again and again to the same lateral spot, but each time from a different vantage point, giving us a different perspective. Although written with the aim of clarifying and resolving my own quandaries about the meaning of life, the insights arrived at in the book and the philosophical journey described in it I hope will benefit others as well, be they interested laypeople or professional philosophers. In either event, this book is not meant to serve as a substitute for someone seeking a warm spiritual refuge in the pronouncements of charismatic evangelists, or someone yearning for the glory of the Himalayan mountains in the hope that the


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breathtaking primeval landscape and the guidance of benevolent monks will open the doors to the meaning of life. These in themselves are not inadmissible options. To the contrary, they are an authentic and legitimate expression of the way in which our perplexities and concerns about the meaning of life arise out of the deepest regions of our soul, sending us off— both practically and philosophically—to look for an answer far away from our everyday life. But they do not constitute any search for the meaning of life conducted through philosophical thinking, which in these times is primarily reflective, intellectual, and critical, even though the same perplexities, concerns, and yearnings underlie it. In short, the publication of this journey is aimed at someone who would like to think about these matters— not at someone who desires a revelatory mystical-religious experience, edifying instructions about how best to deal with our lives and what concerns us therein, or comforting reassurance through inspirational slogans by the worldly wise. In presenting now to the public the record of a philosophical journey that has preoccupied the author and those discussed in this book, it is not my intention to stop others from pondering these matters and trying to discover their own paths within the tangle of thorny issues that the question about the meaning of life presents. My intention rather is merely to provide those of us who wonder at times about the meaning of life with philosophical allies and partners to their puzzlement and concern in regard to a journey that all of us must carry out by ourselves.


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PART I

THE

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chapter 1

Tolstoy Confesses Publicly and Tells the Story of Ivan Ilych

The Confession L E V N I K O L AY E V I C H T O L S T O Y, the renowned Russian writer, relates that in mid-life, at the height of his literary success, he came to the realization that life has no meaning. Until that time, he writes in “My Confession,” an essay whose religious title hints at some sin committed, his life had run its course without any unusual spiritual upheavals.1 Tolstoy recounts that he was born into an aristocratic Russian family that led a traditional religious lifestyle—and he avoids mentioning the death of his mother when he was only two years old or the death of his father when he was seven. Like many of his generation and class, he adds, he stopped believing in God as he came to maturity. Afterward he studied for a short while at the university, served in the army, devoted himself to writing, took an avid interest in art, traveled abroad, got married, raised a family, and worked at developing his estate. His life was replete with all these activities, which he found very rewarding. But in the midst of this full and rich existence, he writes, “something very strange began to happen to me: I was overcome by minutes at first of perplexity and then of an arrest of life, as though I did not know how to live or what to do” (16). He began to wonder, “What is this leading to?” and his perplexity drew his attention to the fact that he could not answer the question, “What is the meaning of life?” This question nagged at him

1. Tolstoy, “My Confession: Introduction to the Critique of Dogmatic theology and Investigation of the Christian Teaching,” 3. Hereafter cited parenthetically in the text.

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painfully. He returned to it again and again, until it began to gnaw at the roots of his soul. Every time he reflected upon it, it drove a wedge between him and everything that was meaningful to him, stopping him dead in his tracks. Gradually the question turned into a malignant disease, festering in his soul and casting a grave shadow over his life. Underlying the disease was the thought: “To what end is all this effort?” Sooner or later death would overtake him, his family, and everything dear to him. So what if he was a greatly esteemed writer? So what if he was successful in managing his estate? It would all vanish someday. So why go to all the trouble? Tolstoy relates that no answer could satisfy him. All the former driving influences in his life— the pleasure he took in art, his literary work, his love for his family, his estate, his success—now appeared meaningless to him. “I had nothing to live by,” he writes. “My life came to a standstill.” The realization that life has no meaning plunged Tolstoy into a deep state of depression from which he was unable to escape for a long time. The fear of death began to haunt him. Paradoxically, he sometimes thought of suicide. At the same time he was astonished to see that everyone else kept behaving as if they were not aware that life has no meaning. They all seemed to him like the legendary traveler through the desert who is suddenly attacked by a beast of prey. Fleeing for his life, he jumps into a deep pit, at the bottom of which he sees a dragon waiting to swallow him. In desperation he manages to grab hold of a bush growing from the wall of the pit, breaking his fall. As he hangs in the air, he sees a pair of mice gnawing at the roots of the bush. At any moment he is going to plunge to the bottom. Meanwhile, he notices a few drops of honey suspended on the leaves of the bush and licks them up in delight. “So have I been until now,” declares Tolstoy, looking upon his life in retrospect. However, after realizing that life has no meaning, the drops of honey that he had licked with great pleasure until that time—his love of his family, his interest in art, writing and developing his estate, his success and acclaim—had lost their flavor. If fleeting pleasure is all the meaning that can be found in life, he writes, then “life is absurd” (64). In the course of his confession, Tolstoy mentions the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimistic outlook as one of the sources of his realization that life has no meaning. Tolstoy also mentions in this connection the biblical Ecclesiastes, his pessimistic remarks about the assorted ways of life he had tried to adopt, and his bitter conclusion that “all is vanity and a striving after wind.” The bitter criticisms of life of these two learned thinkers, one from ancient and the other from modern times, further implant in Tolstoy the realization that life is meaningless, and he sinks into greater despair. However, toward the end of the essay a glimmer of light emerges. Tolstoy relates that it occurred to him that his life would have meaning if he could


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anchor it in something above and beyond his own perishable will to live. This would come about, for instance, if his life were to manifest not only his personal desire to achieve certain objectives but the will of God, which directs him toward the objectives that God places in the path of humans and wants them to strive to achieve. The problem, he explains, is that he is a man of his times: a modern person whom philosophy has taught that it is impossible to know anything about God and His will. It is possible to try to believe in God’s existence, but here too he finds that the modern era puts him at a disadvantage. As a modern person, the effort to justify the belief in the existence of God by means of the theological discourse appears barren to him, and the effort to establish it by means of the traditional religious discourse, with its colorful stories and handsome parables, is counter to rationality and seems childish to him. It is in the deepest throes of his anguish over the meaninglessness of life that Tolstoy discovers a way out. He concludes that in order to discern the meaning of life, he must experience what happens in it as an expression of the will of God. To experience life in this way, he must first do what God wants him to do. Only through the experience of doing God’s will, he contends, is it possible not only to believe in the existence of God but to discover that the meaning of life is to do God’s will (64). He explains that the prevalent view regarding the importance of rational knowledge, which places understanding before action and gives priority to theory over practice, is mistaken. Due to this view, learned persons seek explanations, justifications, and proofs for what can only be discovered by means of an experience that stems from fulfilling a way of life. This new awareness of the problem and the way to its solution helps Tolstoy disburden himself of “barren speculations” on the way to religious belief. “I saw that if I wanted to comprehend life and its meaning,” he writes, “I must live, not the life of a parasite, but the real life, and accept the meaning that real humanity has given to it and, blending with that life, verify it” (66). This, he contends, is the life of the simple peasants, who labor for their subsistence, and the profound religious meaning they give to their gray, drab existence by means of this simple way of life. By adopting such a lifestyle, he explains, people in the past succeeded in fulfilling God’s will, experiencing it and understanding it in a nonspeculative, “nonrational” manner. “The expression of this will,” he declares, “I could find in that which all humanity had worked out for its guidance in the vanishing past” (70). When such a way of life is adopted, personal revelation of the meaning of life as the doing of God’s will becomes possible. In this way one discovers what Tolstoy calls “the solution to the riddle of life,” which he formulates thus: “Every man has come into this world by the will of God. God has so created man that every man may either ruin his soul or save it. The problem of


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each man in life is to save his soul; in order to save his soul, he must live according to God’s command, and to live according to God’s command, he must renounce all the solaces of life, must work, be humble, suffer, and be merciful” (72). In doing so, we experience the will of God as guiding us and determining what happens in our lives. We thus discern that there is an eternal and sublime meaning to our mundane and finite existence, although we cannot say what it is. All this happens without the use of theological assumptions as a basis for religious belief in the existence of God. As Tolstoy summarizes elsewhere, “the meaning of our lives, the only, rational, and joyful meaning, consists in serving and feeling ourselves as serving the work of God.”2

Ivan Ilych Some time after publishing his confession, Tolstoy wrote a story entitled “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” in which he gave powerful expression to the anguish he had experienced when he began thinking that life has no meaning.3 In the story, Tolstoy describes how a man named Ivan Ilych realizes that he is about to die. In the wake of this realization he experiences his life as devoid of meaning, and this experience takes root in his soul and causes him great suffering. The story begins at the end: a brief notice has appeared in the newspaper, notifying the public of the death of judge Ivan Ilych. His courthouse colleagues, who have not seen him in some time due to his illness, are saddened momentarily upon reading of his passing in the newspaper obituary, but they also feel a certain relief that it has not happened to them. Afterwards they go on with the routine of their lives. This sums up the meaning of Ivan Ilych’s life in the eyes of his acquaintances: a brief notice in the newspaper, to be thrown out with the garbage the next day, vacating its place to other fleeting bits of news, and a twinge of sorrow at his passing. To forestall any thought that whatever gave meaning to Ivan Ilych’s life simply is not known to his friends, Tolstoy goes on to relate how this selfsame Ivan Ilych grasped his own life. And here, specifically from the personal viewpoint of the man himself, his life is revealed to be even more meaningless. To all appearances, everything was fine: Ivan Ilych’s life was a success story by the accepted social standards of success and the good life. He was born into a wealthy Russian family, studied at the best schools, took up law, furthered his career, became a judge, married and had children, purchased a house, acquired friends, was accepted as a member of clubs, liked to play 2. Tolstoy, “The Meaning of Life,” 440. 3. Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych, 95-156. Hereafter cited parenthetically in the text.


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cards, and was devoted to his work. However, one day, at the height of his successful life, everything began to go wrong. He felt pains in his side. The pains aroused a certain anxiety in him and arrested him momentarily in the course of his life: he expected the pains to pass, but they did not. Concerned, he sought treatment by doctors, but to no avail. The pains grew worse, and he found that he could no longer go on with his work and his habitual way of life. He stayed in bed at home, racked by pain. Relatives visited him, a faithful servant assisted him, but his disposition soured. In his hallucinations, he began to hear the voice of his soul speaking: “What do you want?” he asked himself. “To return to the good and pleasurable life as before,” was his answer to himself. Slowly he began to realize he was dying, and that for him there would be no return to the good and pleasurable cycle of life. In childhood, he had learned the rules of logical inference at school: “All men are mortals. Caius is a man. Therefore, Caius is a mortal.” He should have understood that, like Caius, he too was a man, and he too was going to die. But what did Caius have to do with him? Caius’s existence, like the existence of every other person, was something that he, Ivan Ilych, could only know indirectly: as information that is formulated in a sentence and can be presented in an inference. Of his own existence he was conscious in a unique and unmediated manner rather than indirectly, by learning a sentence of no interest. How, then, could he possibly be the one who was being assailed by death, reserved for all those whose existence he was aware of only indirectly, and to whose lives and deaths that general inference applied? “In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying,” writes Tolstoy, “but . . . he simply did not and could not grasp it” (131). He began to recall the experiences of childhood, the grand hopes his parents had placed in him, a leather ball he had loved and its peculiar odor, the palm of his mother’s hand when he kissed her, the rustle of her silk dress, the pranks he played at school, his falling in love, the pleasures of life, his successes, his proficiency at his profession. He was profoundly conscious of his existence as a unique human being, an existence that was the heart of the entire matter, and which was now about to end without the entire matter having had any real meaning. This is what sent him into such utter despair. It occurred to him that the farther removed he had become from the experience of childhood—growing up, studying, engaging in a respectable profession, becoming a figure of authority, and devoting himself to his work—the more his life had lost its meaning. It was as if the more property and status he had amassed in life, and the more he had valued his status and property, the more his life had become emptied of whatever gave it so much meaning in his childhood and youth. The meaning, which he had been able to derive from the beloved leather ball of his childhood and from kissing his mother’s hand, could not be paralleled by his imposing position in court


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and the social prestige that was his just reward. He had been going downhill, while thinking that he was going up. “Then what does it mean?” he thought. “It can’t be that life is so senseless and horrible” (148). During all this time, his physical condition was deteriorating. Finally, the doctor declared that there was nothing to be done but to alleviate his suffering with opium. However, Tolstoy writes, “worse than the physical sufferings were his mental sufferings, which were his chief torture. . . . The question suddenly occurred to him: ‘What if my whole life has really been wrong?’” (152). As I read Tolstoy’s story, at this point it became clear to Ivan Ilych that a return to the good and pleasurable life would not suffice, for it lacked any real meaning. He now realized that the problem of his life was not that it was about to end, but that it had not been, and still was not, really meaningful. Most dismaying was the fact he could catch hold of nothing to give meaning to his rapidly ebbing life. He could not think of anything that could make his life meaningful in such a way that would not be extinguished by his approaching demise. In his horror at the approach of death, and in his despair over having lived a life that “was wrong,” Ivan Ilych began to scream. For the last three days of his life, writes Tolstoy, Ivan Ilych screamed so terribly that one could not hear it through two closed doors without horror. Before coming to the end of the story, I want to say something about the message that Tolstoy enciphered in it, for The Death of Ivan Ilych is not merely the literary expression of the grave distress that Tolstoy experienced when it occurred to him that life has no meaning, as he described in “My Confession.” Like the confession preceding it, Ivan Ilych’s story is intended to describe an existential state of despair, which may crop up in the life of a secular person, and to indicate how it can be overcome. The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard discusses this existential state at length in his book The Sickness Unto Death, describing it as despair that emerges in the face of the secular worldview, which bestows upon those who possess it a belief in an existence devoid of divine providence and an acute fear of death.4 According to Kierkegaard, the distress, despair, and anxiety experienced by those of us who adopt a secular worldview are faithful and authentic expressions of our awareness of life’s finiteness, of the impending loss of consciousness, and of the hopelessness before the infinite. However, the secular outlook on life also encompasses sin, which is manifested by the way existence is grasped in the absence of God rather than by any specific action that humans might perform. Despair, it can be said, is the way secular human beings, while yet alive, are punished for their sin against God. As I read Tolstoy’s story, the spread of the physical disease in Ivan Ilyich’s body embodies the spiritual disease that takes root in the souls of 4. Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death.


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secular people. At first there is only abstract knowledge of the death that awaits everyone in the future, like a debt to be repaid at some distant date, which is not any cause for worry yet: just something learned in a rational and general manner, through logical inference, which does not arouse any personal attitude toward it. But when death looms in our faces, as happens to Ivan Ilych, we are apt to be seized by a terrible anxiety in the face of extinction and paralyzing despair before the cold, unfeeling eternity. The plight that we fall into is a function of our awareness that whichever mundane, personal, and secular meaning we have ascribed to our lives is superficial and meager, resting only on our desire to achieve the pleasures and successes that life can offer us. In the face of eternity and the menacing proximity of death, the successes and pleasures that formerly made our lives meaningful to us are exposed as insufficient, and we discover that our lives lacked any real meaning. The “mental sufferings” with which Tolstoy torments Ivan Ilych stem from the despair seeping into his soul against the background of what he is still hoping for, while knowing that he cannot be saved from approaching death: a touch of grace that will give meaning to his life, meaning that is not conditional on fulfilling his desire to live or on the pleasures life gives him, but which will enable him to accept death in a positive way. The concept of grace, which I bring up here as the conceptual lens through which Tolstoy views the problem he is tormenting Ivan Ilych with, is an everyday concept imbued with Christian religious ideas. As I understand it, “the Grace of God” to human beings is a sort of personal salvation that God provides to his believers while yet alive. It enables those who are blessed with it to experience God’s infinite love for them and for all that is distinctive and singular to them. When we return God’s love and affirm our faith in him, we experience our mundane lives as suffused with the loving spirit of God. In Christian religious terminology, someone who is graced by God is said to have been “saved” or “redeemed.” In the terminology adopted by Tolstoy, such a person experiences that “real meaning” has been bestowed on his or her life. In ordinary terminology, it might be said that such a person experiences his or her life as having “divine meaning.” This is the meaning that things have above and beyond their meaning in any mundane context; a meaning not dependent on any human will and understanding, but on its being meaningful to God’s divine will. A person who experiences life as being conducted according to God’s will feels the Grace of God abounding in his or her life, feels that life itself has a deep and wonderful meaning that transcends the mundane meaning of events in it. The experience has nothing to do with what actually happens in life. Come what may, such a person is no longer troubled by life’s travails; he or she accepts the good and the bad, and is not afraid of death. Ivan Ilych is the exact opposite. The


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meaning he ascribed to life was always dependent on the good and pleasurable life he led. He thus missed the opportunity, given to every person, to lead a life that has greater and truer meaning than that arising from the pleasures and successes life may offer. The problem Tolstoy puts to Ivan Ilych is how to give such meaning to his life even when he is at his last gasp, as he is incapable of changing his attitude towards life as merely a source of personal pleasures and successes. It is this attitude to life that prevents him from finding refuge in religion and attaining the Grace of God. Unlike believers in the past, who were able to put all their trust in God and consequently experienced the Grace of God, enabling them to overcome suffering and the fear of death, Ivan Ilych lived only for social successes and personal pleasures. The meaning he ascribed to his life was summed up by his ability to attain them. As a modern, urban human being, he was able to further his personal affairs in a rational manner and to use his sharp mind to get ahead in his profession as a judge. As such, he has no real belief in what religion tells him about God, and he is unable to change his stripes now and suddenly turn into a believer. He therefore has nothing on which to support his longing for a final touch of divine grace that will redeem him from his despair and anxiety in the face of death by giving a transcendent, divine meaning to his fastfading life. Near the end of the story, Tolstoy takes pity on his tormented hero. At the last moment, he grants him the touch of grace he has longed for and redeems him from his mental anguish. He enables Ivan Ilych to overcome the Problem of Life that afflicts him—how to experience the existence of a divine meaning to life that transcends the mundane meaning of events that occur in life and which can dispel the despair and fear of death that afflicts him, all without the use of a religious worldview requiring the acceptance of certain theological principles. According to the story, two hours before his death, as Ivan Ilych was screaming and waving his arms, his younger son, a schoolboy, slipped into his father’s sick-room and approached the bed. The dying man’s hand happened to fall on the boy’s head, and the boy caught it, pressed it to his lips, and began to cry. “At that very moment Ivan Ilych fell through and caught sight of the light, and it was revealed to him that though his life had not been what it should have been, this could still be rectified. He asked himself, ‘What is the right thing?’ and grew still, listening” (155). He looked at his son and his wife and saw the suffering in their faces, and his pity was aroused: And suddenly it grew clear to him, that what had oppressed him, and would not leave him was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to hurt them:


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release them and free himself from these sufferings. “How good and how simple!” he thought. . . . He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. . . . In place of death there was light. “So that’s what it is!” he suddenly exclaimed aloud. “What joy!” To him all this happened in a single instant, and the meaning of that instant did not change. (156)

A short while later he died peacefully in his bed. Reading the story in the light of what Tolstoy preached in his confession, the light shown to Ivan Ilych at the end manifests the divine, transcendent meaning of life that he had so longed to experience, which now also enabled him to face his death without fear. The pity for his son and the rest of his family that was aroused in him enabled him to sever himself from the need to establish the meaning of his life merely upon his mundane successes and pleasures, a meaning which depended on preserving his perishable, hedonistic existence. This new attitude toward them changed his entire attitude toward life and gave it new meaning. His desire to help them enabled him to free himself from the desire to maintain his perishable existence as the only means of giving meaning to his life. The moment this happened, he was able to experience a meaning to life, which was not dependent on the preservation of his perishable life and the fulfillment of his mundane desires, but on willingly accepting everything that happens in it, as well as its end. He was thus enabled to experience a meaning to life that was transcendent to his life. In the wink of an eye, this meaning overcame his despair at both the extinction of his life and the meaningless way in which he had led it.

The Solution to the Problem of Life I want to return to what Tolstoy called “the Problem of Life” and his proposed solution. In the past, religious belief allowed people to regard life and everything that happened in it as the work of God. Consequently, they felt touched by the Grace of God and experienced their lives as having divine-transcendent meaning, because their lives were meaningful to God. The Problem of Life is how to experience its divine-transcendent meaning and thus derive from it what the Grace of God gave to the lives of religious believers, at a time when rational, secular moderns can no longer believe in religion’s message—at least not with the same measure of profound, innocent, inner conviction that embodied religious faith in the past. The solution Tolstoy proposes is to experience life as having a divine-transcendent meaning through ordinary, everyday affairs, rather than by means of a theological outlook, and thus regain the Grace of God. He believes that it is possible to experience such meaning when we stop living selfishly, aspiring


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only to enjoy ourselves, win social and economic rewards, and avoid death so far as we can. When we willingly choose a way of life focused on making do with little, laboring hard in the fields, being concerned for the welfare of others, and accepting everything that life throws our way without fear, we change our attitudes to both our lives and life in general. The change in attitude enables us to experience our lives as being in the hands of God and subject to His will, and by virtue of this as having a transcendent meaning. In this way, our longing for divine providence and a connection to some sublime and eternal element in our mundane existence is still rewarded. The solution to the Problem of Life, which Tolstoy hit upon, bolstered his spirits. Now, he thought, there was an escape from the dragon waiting to swallow him at the bottom of the pit of life—and all the rest of us as well. It seemed possible to overcome the Problem of Life. He set out to put his revelation into practice by trying to adopt a simple lifestyle and laboring in the fields of his estate beside his workers. He also began to write moralistic stories, telling how a traditional-peasant lifestyle—in the course of which people work hard for their living, renounce their pursuit of the pleasures of life and social prestige, and willingly accept whatever life throws their way—enables them to discover a profound, eternal, divine, transcendent meaning in their mundane, everyday lives. He also began to preach the adoption of such a lifestyle, positing it in contrast to a lifestyle based on the desire to accomplish selfish goals, reap economic rewards, and acquire social prestige, which he described as a life based on delight in accomplishments lacking any real value, accompanied by disappointments, anxieties about the future, fear of death, and the eventual discovery by the heroes of his stories—and his readers through them—that this kind of life has no meaning.


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chapter 2 A Philosophical Question

aims at clarifying the nature of the question Tolstoy asked about the meaning of life. I intend to go about this by examining and commenting on the discursive context in which he raised the question. Such an examination, I believe, should precede any philosophical discussion meant either to answer the question or to examine the validity of various answers that have been and still are being given to it. It should, I believe, also precede a discussion of the issue of whether the question makes any sense at all. Two primary objectives guide my discussion. The first is to place Tolstoy’s question within a cultural space that encompasses religious beliefs, philosophical discourse, scientific theories, social doctrines, moral conceptions, literary works, old idioms, and new metaphors. What needs to be clarified is what kind of question the question “What is the meaning of life?” actually is: philosophical, religious, linguistic, ethical, general, or personal? In what way is it similar or different from other questions? How is it related to the prevalent worldviews and beliefs in the cultural milieu in which it is asked, and how is it related to questions asked in the past? The second objective is to clarify both the personal and general human psychological aspects of the question: What motivates those of us who raise this question to ask it? Is it raised in a general or only personal context? How important is it to us? What answers are we hoping for? Should others be concerned with it, as well? Such an examination, aimed at clarifying the cultural and personal contexts of the question, is more like a guided tour of our own familiar surroundings in which we show a visitor the neighborhood where we live, than a journey to some remote destination in an unfamiliar country. This kind

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of excursion enables us to look at our familiar everyday surroundings with renewed focus and from angles we are not accustomed to. Observing our surroundings now, as if through the eyes of a visitor seeing them for the very first time, even though they are familiar to us they reveal themselves in new and different ways. Such observation rewards us with new insights. I want to say five things about the discursive context in which Tolstoy asked his question, and I intend to devote a separate chapter to each of them. I will therefore discuss Tolstoy’s answer to the question, which is his solution to what he calls “the Problem of Life,” only in the final chapter of this part of the book.

Philosophical Perplexity The first thing I want to say is that Tolstoy raised the question “What is the meaning of life?” as a philosophical question; in other words, as a question arising out of philosophical perplexity. I am not claiming that the question is always asked out of philosophical perplexity, only that this is how Tolstoy asked it. This dogmatic assertion obliges me to clarify how Tolstoy’s question expressed philosophical perplexity on his part. One way of doing so is by drawing attention to the bewildered response it arouses in many of us on first hearing it and then explaining this response by the way the question is formulated. It is somewhat difficult today to trace back our initial response to this question, as it has emerged in Western discourse into a contested high ground over which many lay a claim. Indeed, we often learn of this question only upon being introduced to certain answers that are given to it or upon being instructed on how to seek an answer to it. However, when we are first introduced to it, it is a very bewildering question, as it is not clear from the way it is formulated how we are supposed to find the answer to it. Indeed, the most prominent feature of its formulation is the breadth of its scope. Tolstoy is not asking about the meaning of a particular event in the life of a particular individual, nor even about the meaning of the life of a particular individual. He is asking, “What is the meaning of life?”—in general. A second striking feature of his question is its ambiguity. The term “meaning” takes the direct article and the term “life” is in the collective singular, but exactly what they denote remains unclear. Does “life” refer to the lives of all human beings, or to the lives of all living creatures? Similarly, the scope of the term “meaning” is very general and ambiguous. The formulation of the question implies that there is but one meaning, which is the sole meaning of all life and all lives. Furthermore, it is worth noting that it refers to the meaning of life itself, rather than the meaning of anything that happens in life or during the course of life. The broadly inclusive scope of


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A Philosophical Question

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the question, regarding both what the term “life” and the term “meaning” denote, is very different from the way we usually talk about the meaning of things or about the meaning of the lives of various people. To note the puzzling philosophical nature of the question asked by Tolstoy, compare his use of the term “meaning” with the way it serves us in everyday contexts, which do not raise philosophical puzzlements. The most striking feature about the term “meaning” is that in the stream of life we use it in many different contexts, in order to talk about the meaning of many different things, such as the meaning of words, the meaning of statements, the meaning of stories, the meaning of events, the meaning of actions, etc. Despite the fact that we talk about the meaning of many different things, all of them are alike in one respect: in all of them, we talk about the meaning of things in a particular context, which serves as a discursive framework for talking about meaning. For instance, we do not ask about the meaning of an event, nor even about the meaning of an event such as World War II, but something in the form of “What is the meaning of an event such as World War II to the consolidation of global forces in the second half of the twentieth century?” The signified context is also the framework in which the meaning of the event referred to is supposed to be discovered and disclosed. This is not the case with respect to Tolstoy’s question, “What is the meaning of life?” His question is ambiguous. It does not say in which context he is wondering about the meaning of life, nor does it tell us what life he is asking about. This drawback becomes evident the moment we substitute some other word for “life,” for instance, if we were to ask, “What is the meaning of a country?” or “What is the meaning of mathematics?” or “What is the meaning of running?” Ludwig Wittgenstein, a philosopher who greatly admired Tolstoy, began one of his books with a similar question: “WHAT is the meaning of a word?”1 John Austin, a philosopher who was influenced by Wittgenstein’s thinking, nonetheless thought that this was an example of a philosophical question that is itself meaningless. A question such as “What is the meaning of the word ‘rat’?” does make sense, he claimed. The question “What is the meaning of a word?” does not.2 But Wittgenstein was not interested in discovering the meaning of the word “rat.” He already knew its meaning. He wanted to know what meaning is in general, or at least what the meaning of words is in general: what sort of phenomenon meaning is, and perhaps what makes it possible as well. If Austin’s view is correct, perhaps Tolstoy’s question makes no sense either. But if it makes no sense, why does it seem so important to many of us, and why do we feel that it is worthwhile to pose this question and search for an answer, even if it tends to elude us? 1. Wittgenstein, Blue and Brown Books, 1. 2. Austin, “The Meaning of a Word,” 23-43.


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Moreover, it still is not clear what that selfsame “meaning” might be, which we are seeking and toward which Tolstoy’s perplexity was directed, and whose absence caused him such anguish. We are not told which “life” or “meaning” is involved in his perplexity. The fact that Tolstoy wonders why other people do not ask themselves this question suggests that he is not posing it in regard to the lives of all living creatures, but only in regard to the lives of those creatures who are able to contemplate what is meaningful to them in their lives and wonder in light of it as to the meaning of life in general. As regards other living creatures, those that are not self-conscious and are unable to contemplate whatever meaning they may find in their lives and to wonder about the meaning of life, the question simply does not arise. Either their lives lack any meaning, or their lives lack any meaning over and above the sensual and mundane meaning of events they experience in them. In either event, it seems this is the source of the unease at the basis of Tolstoy’s question. Despite the opportunity that human beings have to contemplate the meaning they ascribe to their lives, their lives might have no more meaning than those of other creatures, such as toads and flies. Like human beings, these creatures are guided by desires that direct them toward their mundane life purposes, which stem from their nature. If there is no meaning to the lives of human beings beyond the meaning they themselves ascribe to their lives by dint of their ability or inability to fulfill their desires, then there is no important difference between the meaning of people’s lives and the lives of other creatures. The fact that we are creatures who are able to contemplate ourselves and the matters that most concern us against the background of eternity and infinite space, and are able to wonder from this perspective about the meaning of life in general, is then completely useless. All this said, the ambiguous formulation of the question about the meaning of life does not point to the way in which we are supposed to discover the answer. The question lacks any discursive context that might indicate how and where to search for an answer to it. This glaring absence is noteworthy in comparison with how Tolstoy begins his confession as a review of his life story, in which he mentions the different things that are meaningful to him—his literary work, his success, his family, and his estate. He describes them as the axis around which his life revolved, declaring that in the past they completely satisfied him. However, he also claims to have been appalled when he contemplated his life from a detached, rational viewpoint, viewing it in the context of eternity and his impending death. From such a viewpoint he saw how absurd was his former satisfaction with his life. He searched for a viewpoint that would enable him to overcome the absurdity that he experienced in the face of the satisfaction he had reaped from his life until then: a sort of safe haven where he might find refuge from the two voracious


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monsters, eternity and death. In his search, he began to drop everything that had now turned into dead-weight in his eyes, getting rid of the possessions he had amassed in his life’s journey and all the things that previously had been so meaningful to him in it, but were not hardy enough to withstand death and eternity: everything that was incidental, transient, unique, and meaningful to him in only a personal way. In this way, he was finally left with nothing meaningful to him in a personal and unique way, except his life itself. Now that everything that characterized his life in a unique and personal way and made it personally meaningful to him was removed from consideration, the question was no longer a matter of personal quandary, concerning him and his own life only, but it had become a general question of equal concern to the life of any person; a question that might be posed by anyone pondering things and searching for the meaning of life in the face of eternity and death. Thus, instead of asking “What is the meaning of my life?” he began asking “What is the meaning of life?” in general. It is as though his own personal, everyday life was supposed to have another dimension, belonging to human life in general: a dimension that could give what he now referred to as “real meaning” to the lives of each and every one of us! My central contention here is that from the moment he formulated his question outside any concrete context of life, as a question of equal concern to the life of every human being, and left it unclear how it was possible to discover the meaning he was looking for, Tolstoy was expressing philosophical perplexity that did not connect with any recognized ways of answering questions in the stream of life. Philosophical questions are difficult to categorize by a single characteristic; philosophers are apt to be perplexed by many different things. However, Tolstoy’s question bears three characteristics that are typical of many philosophical perplexities. First of all, the question is not concerned with a merely person-specific context. A philosophical question is usually formulated in general terms. Philosophers are inclined to ask, “What is time? What is meaning? Are there moral obligations? How is it possible to know anything?” They do not ask, “What is the time in New York right now? What is the meaning of the word ‘rat’? Do parents have a moral duty to care for their children? How it is possible to know whether the prime-minister is telling the truth?” Another characteristic of philosophical questions is that they are perplexing. On one hand, it appears to us that we should know the answer, for these questions concern concepts we use daily and the meaning of which we already know. On the other hand, we have no idea how to answer the question, nor where to search for the answer. Perhaps because of this, philosophical questions often seem like riddles. The answer is supposed to be enciphered in the question itself, but it is unclear how to crack the riddle in order to extract the answer. A third characteristic of philosophical


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questions is the importance that the questioners ascribe to answering to them, as well as the irritation they often evoke in those who are not inclined to disengage themselves from the stream of life to seek the answers. These three features of discourse that are typical of philosophical questions are particularly noteworthy in the question about the meaning of life. The question embodies an attempt to transcend life and all that is encompassed in it, as if to try to glimpse life from an external viewpoint from which its meaning can be discovered, grasped, and evaluated. The philosophical urge that embodies this question expresses a stance that some of us would like to take toward various matters of concern for us: to stand back from our everyday involvement in them so as to reflect and evaluate our concerns from a more detached point of view. Indeed, this is what Tolstoy did, turning his reflection from his own life on life itself. However, having done so, he discovered that he had no idea how to search for an answer to the question he posed for himself.

The Psychological Context of the Question Despite what I have written here about the philosophical nature of the question Tolstoy posed, the question is often grasped in a personal, nonphilosophical context, as a question concerning what makes the life of the questioner meaningful to himself or herself. Those who understand the question in this way do not see it as a philosophical question. It might be said that for them asking “What is the meaning of life?” is the same as asking “How are you?” There cannot be any general answer to such a question, only a personal one. They are of the opinion that, even formulated in general terms, the question is always asked in a personal context only and should be understood and answered only in this way. S. Hugh Moorhead is a philosopher who used to address the question “What is the meaning of life?” by writing to various authors and philosophers, seeking out their responses. One of those he turned to was Paul Van Buren, author of The Secular Meaning of the Gospel. In his reply Van Buren deliberately avoided answering the question he was asked, on the grounds that it is a personal question, not a philosophical one: “What is the meaning of life?” is a question which is utterly worth trying to answer when it is raised in a quite specific situation. Whether asked in despair, or in genuine personal puzzlement, one who dares to answer for another would only do so on the basis of some rather personal relationship or trust or intimacy. To say anything in general to the question, as though it were a general question, seems to me to be a misunderstanding of the issue. Not knowing just what leads you to raise the question, I have no answer. I am puzzled


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to know in what context it could be conceived as a question on which to “comment.” I have known one or two persons who were also professional philosophers who have worried or wondered about the meaning of life. They convinced me that they were good philosophers in part by the fact that they did not seem to think that they were asking a philosophical question. I took them to be asking a personal question of considerable magnitude. I hardly have grounds to expect that you await from me a personal confession, so I shall also respect the question sufficiently to refrain from commenting on it.3

Van Buren’s remark demonstrates his sensitivity to the way in which posing a question about the meaning of life may manifest our most personal concerns with our life. It also demonstrates his sensitivity to the way in which a candid personal declaration in this matter discloses the declarer’s inner world to the public eye. His clarification of the personal aspect of any answer given to the question, even if formulated in general terms, is akin to a literary critic who explains that when poets ask in desperation “What is love?” they are not seeking a philosophical explanation of the concept of love, but expressing their frustration at love or lamenting the absence of love from their life. Van Buren’s view of the personal context in which the question is asked, and in the framework of which the answer should be sought, also accords with the way in which the psychoanalyst Victor Frankel regards the question. This is despite his general assertion that humans are beings who seek meaning to their life.4 According to Frankel, finding a personal meaning to our life is an existential human need that each of us must fulfill in his or her own way. No one can do it for us, or even tell us how to do it. Frankel tells of how he treated suffering patients who complained that their lives had no meaning. He developed a method of treatment he called “logotherapy,” which was meant to help them find meaning to their lives. To encourage them in their search, he would ask them provocatively, “Why don’t you commit suicide?” He claims that the question both astonished and encouraged them to search for and discover meaning in their lives. As in the previous instance, I am impressed by Frankel’s sensitivity to human suffering and find some philosophical interest in his assertion that human beings are in search of meaning. I am less impressed by his ability to cast philosophical insight on the matter. Indeed, it seems that philosophical discussion of the question about the meaning of life does not particularly interest him. Like Van Buren, he deals with the meaning that people ascribe to their lives only in a personal way. He does emphasize the existential need all human beings have of finding a meaning to their life, but in 3. Moorhead, The Meaning of Life, 204. 4. Frankel, Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy.


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this matter too he merely describes again the personal and private meaning their lives have to themselves, and their existential need of finding such a personal meaning. With great prudence, he avoids suggesting any advice or assisting in any way until he should know more about the person and the circumstances of their personal distress. The assertion that human beings need meaning to their lives does nothing to clarify what that selfsame meaning everyone needs might be. To try to say this is to begin clarifying what underlies that general human need—in the specific context of philosophical perplexity about the meaning of life. Two conclusions may be drawn from the insight psychologists give us into our use of the question about the meaning of life to express personal concern and anguish, as well as by their attempt to expropriate the question from the discursive framework of a philosophical perplexity to the field of psychological treatment. The first conclusion is that the question has long since found a home in everyday and psychological discourse. We might compare the different way Tolstoy approaches it from the way Frankel and Van Buren approach it with the different approaches of the eighteenthcentury philosopher David Hume and of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, to the concept of self or “ego.” Hume asserts that he can find nothing inside himself that corresponds to the concept of a self or “ego.” Freud, on the other hand, uses the concept to describe a psychological system that underlies the personalities of all human beings. The former dismisses the legitimacy of the concept in denoting anything at all, while the latter incorporates it in a comprehensive psychological theory that allows him to talk about “the structure of the ego” and to describe the “formative processes” that shape it. The second conclusion is that this question might have a strictly personal meaning, although it is formulated in general terms. This shows that the question might be used for different purposes and to mean different things in different discursive contexts. Tolstoy claims that the question concerns the life of all those who are able to wonder about the meaning of life, regardless of the meaning they may have ascribed to their lives before asking it. This is best exemplified by Tolstoy himself. In wondering about the meaning of life, he was not trying to discover the meaning his life had held for him until that time—what had made it meaningful before he began wondering about it. He knew all that. Indeed, he begins his contemplation by first taking inventory of everything that is personally meaningful to him in his life: his family, his estate, and his literary work. But having noted everything that makes his life personally meaningful, he asks his question in regard to the meaning of life in general. Furthermore, he addresses his question to everyone, even to those who have not bothered to ask it and feel no personal distress over the meaning they ascribe to their lives. He addresses his question to all of us, who may by


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this means abandon our usual manner of experiencing life and what happens in it as meaningful to us, in order to contemplate it anew from the viewpoint that the question discloses. All this is based on the assumption that, if there is an answer to the question, it must be the same for all of us. The distinction between the (psychological) search for a personal answer and the (philosophical) search for an answer of general validity makes it possible to clarify the philosophical framework in which Tolstoy asked the question. Tolstoy is not simply someone who has lost interest in his life and sunk into depression, whom a sensitive and empathic psychologist might help to discover things that are still meaningful. Nor does he lack the ability to determine the things that are meaningful to him in his life—to such an extent that his will to live is dependent on them, as they give crucial meaning to his life. He wonders whether there is anything that is so meaningful to all of us that we would choose it if we thought deeply about our lives and discovered it was within our reach. He wonders whether there is something both capable of justifying the great meaning we ascribe to our lives and capable of giving meaning even to the life of someone who has grown weary of it. All of this is despite the fact, or perhaps because of it, that his own life remains very meaningful to him, as long as he does not begin to wonder about the validity of the meaning that he attributes to it. In contrast to the meaning he personally finds in life, the general meaning of life he is asking about is supposed to give meaning to the lives of all of us, whoever we may be and whatever our circumstances of life may be. This meaning is supposed to be meaningful to everyone. Tolstoy can be compared in this respect to somebody who has a stamp collection, which is of sentimental value to that person for all sorts of personal reasons. By chance, the stamp collector finds out its market value and discovers that a great deal of money can be gotten for it. Now the stamp collector knows that the stamps are not only of great sentimental value to himself or herself, but of great value to others. At this point the stamp collector begins wondering whether they are valuable in themselves, and is appalled to discover this is not the case. Aside from the fact that someone wants and appreciates them, nothing gives them value. The anguish that Tolstoy experienced in regard to the meaning of his life stems from what he grasped as a general existential predicament: the absence of objective justification which would validate the value he ascribed to his life by finding it so meaningful to him. The two features that accompany this question, anguish and perplexity, do not contradict each other. What places his question in both a philosophical and a personal context is the intellectual effort to overcome his anguish by finding an answer of general validity, suited for all. The last remarks help to clarify at whom the question is directed. Taking into account Tolstoy’s anguish when he


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thought that life had no meaning, it seems he directed the question at those beings who are able to pose it and to wonder about the meaning of their lives in the context of a question posed about the meaning of life in general. In this way human beings are thereby rendered into beings who both can and ought to be concerned about the meaning of life.

The Religious Context of the Question Up to this point, what I have said about the philosophical aspect of Tolstoy’s perplexity and anguish about the meaning of life also accords with the way the question is both raised and then answered in religious discourse. Many religious worldviews purport to provide a general answer to the question “What is the meaning of life?” that aims to alleviate human anguish and suffering. Indeed, Tolstoy’s question might appear to have been lifted from a religious discourse, and his answer to it is markedly religious. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the discursive context in which he asked it was religious rather than philosophical. The context would have been religious if his perplexity had been religious: for instance, if he had asked, “Why did God create life?” or “What is the religious meaning of life?” or “Why does God permit so much suffering in life?” or “Why does the life that God created end in death?” In that case, the search for an answer would have begun in advance in a religious discursive context. Accordingly, he could then have turned to religious authority so as to instruct him, or he could have sought the answer in reading and interpreting sacred writings, or he could have prayed for a religious revelation. But he had not done this. His perplexity was concerned with the fact that he did not know where and how to look for an answer to the question. This intellectual aspect of his perplexity is an important part of the philosophical discursive context in which his question is posed. Philosophical questions—such as “What is time?” “What is truth?” or “How does one know something?”—are perplexing questions. They concern concepts that we regularly use in everyday life, but in the philosophical context in which the questions are posed, these same concepts suddenly become mysterious and inaccessible. It seems to us that we should be able to give an answer to what is being asked, but it is not clear to us what the answer is, nor how to go about looking for it. To decide to search for an answer by means of a psychologist, or a priest, is to transfer the question from its perplexing philosophical framework to a different one, one in which it is possible to rely upon knowledgeable authorities or on customary ways of searching for an answer. The philosophical framework of Tolstoy’s perplexity is even more apparent in the way he arrived at a solution. The answer he gave was indeed a


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religious answer, but the way it was revealed to him is not the way human beings usually arrive at religious revelation. Despite his contention that Western culture was mistaken in preferring thinking to doing on the way to belief in God, the solution was revealed to him by an idea that came to him in thinking. It did not happen to him while working in the fields, discovering to his astonishment that he was experiencing being guided in life by the will of God. He inferred that this is what would happen. As he himself wrote, “I saw that if I wanted to comprehend life and its meaning, I must live, not the life of a parasite, but the real life, and accept the meaning which real humanity has given it and, blending with that life, verify it.” The ironic element in Tolstoy’s anguish about the meaning of life, and in the way he arrived at his solution to the problem of life, is manifested by his desire to dissociate himself from the theological discourse. He wanted to arrive at the religious experience of doing God’s will by adopting a practical way of life, not by thinking about religious ideas, whose validity can be questioned. But he arrived at the very idea that such a course of action could lead where he was hoping to go by means of philosophical thinking about the way in which we could give religious meaning to our lives in an unmediated way and without thinking about religious ideas.


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chapter 3 An Existential Question

T H E S E C O N D T H I N G I want to say about Tolstoy’s question is that he posed it as an existential question, and that in two senses. The first sense pertains to the concept of existence, which, although not mentioned directly in the question, is nevertheless implicated by the conceptual connection between life and existence. Life, including the lives of creatures that are able to wonder about the meaning of life, is a mode of existence. Existence is an all-embracing concept. Accordingly, we speak of it in regard to a great many different things, to all of which we ascribe existence: stones, trees, animals, persons, feelings, beliefs, relationships, obligations, properties, forces, and more. One way we make use of this concept is by distinguishing between what exists and what does not exist. Along the way we also distinguish between what “really” or “truly” exists, as contrasted with what does not “really” or “truly” exist. We may say that demons and ghosts do not (really or truly) exist, that they exist only in fairy tales or in people’s mistaken beliefs. On the other hand, we relate to people and trees as to things that (really or truly) exist. We also speak about different “modes of existence,” which makes it possible to refer to an abstract mode of existence that numbers and ideas have. In contrast with these examples, life is a nonabstract mode of existence, lasting a given time, which we ascribe to various creatures occupying a particular place in the world. Inanimate things lack life, and so do the dead, which once were alive but are alive no longer. Although the concept of life allows for everlasting life that is not infringed upon by death, human and animal life inevitably leads to death, which is the end of life as a mode of existence. It follows that to talk about life, especially

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An Existential Question

human life, is to talk about a mode of existence that begins at a particular time and place, and ends in death. Furthermore, it is a mode of existence that by acquiring the concept of life we are able to grasp it as such and become conscious of possessing it, noting that we cherish it, as it is meaningful to us and eventually will lead to our death. Thus we may begin to wonder about the meaning of such a particular mode of existence. Tolstoy does that and reaches an impasse. To ask about the meaning of some particular mode of existence, such as animal or human life, is often to focus on it as embodying some significant feature that requires explaining. In the life sciences, theories that provide such explanations often do so by explaining why and how some particular form of life, such as the use of wings or diversity of living creatures, came into existence. Although he accepts what he is told about the “scientific meaning” of various features of life or even of life itself, Tolstoy fails to see the relevance of these explanations to what concerns him. In dealing with the meaning of various forms of life, science strives to provide a causal explanation of them. Likewise, in dealing with the meaning of life as a particular mode of existence, scientific accounts seek to explain how life evolved. Tolstoy, it might be said, fails to see how such an account can reveal a meaning that is bestowed on his life or on any human life. Knowing why things happen as they do does not render them meaningful to us, and the fact that they are meaningful to us does not lend them a meaning of their own! What prompts his question is a need to determine the meaning of life as a mode of existence that is meaningful to those who are conscious of both it and the fact that death awaits them, annihilating this mode of existence along with whatever was so personally meaningful about it to them. To ask about the meaning of such a mode of existence is to assume that there is some particular meaning to its very existence. What drives Tolstoy to existential despair is that when he does not find a valid way to answer this question, he concludes that the assumption implicit in the question was mistaken. Life has no meaning.

An Arrest of Life The second sense in which Tolstoy posed his question as an existential question is that he saw the answer to it as crucial to his continued existence. The question and the answer were so important to him that he could not see how he could go on living without finding a satisfying answer. It is as though the meaning of life was supposed to render life important and valuable, no matter what happens in it and despite the fact that it inevitably leads to death and to erasing what is meaningful to him about his own life. From this


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perspective, if life has a meaning we are justified in caring about it, for it is valuable and important. But if it has no meaning, we have no reason to value or care about it. Thus the question about the meaning of life is an existential question in the sense that it embodies existential concern about the very importance or value of life. As such it concerns our life in a more crucial and fundamental manner than the traditional ethical question regarding how one should live. This latter question assumes that life is important and valuable and, therefore, should be lived. The question about the meaning of life aims to explore this assumption. It is an existential question in the sense that the answer to it is supposed to determine whether life is worth living. In his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus, a twentieth-century novelist and philosopher who discussed this question himself, carries on Tolstoy’s line of thought. He does so by defining the philosophical nature of the question about the meaning of life as posing a fundamental philosophical problem that forces those of us who confront it to decide whether to go on living or put an end to our life. Accordingly, he claims that there is only one serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Determining in a personal and authentic way whether life is or is not worth living, he suggests, amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy, which he suggests is “the most urgent of questions.” A sense of seriousness, urgency, and personal commitment, such as Camus brings to the question about the meaning of life, imparts a measure of triviality and detachment to the usual topics discussed in philosophy. Camus is right, of course, in asserting that the question whether to commit suicide or live is an existential one. But is this indeed the nature of the philosophical context in which the question is usually posed? Not everyone who wonders about the meaning of life is considering whether or not to commit suicide, and vice-versa, too: not everyone who is seriously considering whether to commit suicide is wondering whether life has meaning. Plainly, what Camus is saying is that any serious philosophical inquiry must begin with the question, “What is the meaning of life?” which needs to be posed in an authentic philosophical manner, which he takes to be personal and existential: as if we are holding a loaded gun to our head and the answer will determine whether or not we pull the trigger. Without going into the issue of whether such seriousness and personal commitment are required to cast philosophical light on the question, I am impressed by two things in Camus’s comments on the philosophical nature of the question and its place in human discourse: one is the great importance he ascribed to it, regarding an answer to it as a good reason to either commit suicide or go on living; the other is the great importance he ascribed to what he grasped as a philosophical question. This attitude on his part toward the question can serve as a reminder to those of us who want to discuss it: even if asked as a philosophical question, it both may and ought to


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express our attitude toward our own life, which renders the answer to it with personal implications. Indeed, the discursive context, which makes it an existential philosophical question of utmost concern to writers such as Tolstoy and Camus, is the way in which they attempt to ponder the continuation of their lives in the light of the answer they are searching for. These three features—the need to ask the question, the search for an answer of general validity, and a readiness to allow the answer to the question to determine whether to continue their lives—are part of the authentic philosophical discourse that made it a philosophical question of existential implications to Tolstoy and Camus. The difficulty with the attitude they both assume and advocate regarding this question is that philosophical discourse is general and abstract by its very nature. For the discourse to have fundamental existential implications, we must be concerned about the answer to the question in a very decisive and personal way. We must pose the question to ourselves from a position of such concern that the answer to it will determine whether we go on living or not. Otherwise, it is hard to identify with the existential need to find an answer to it, and any discussion of the question and the answers given to it will remain at an intellectual, nonpersonal level, without turning into a fundamental existential question with the highest personal import. Tolstoy began to wonder about the meaning of life by posing the question to himself in general, nonpersonal terms. However, he viewed his inability to find a satisfactory answer to it in an entirely personal manner, describing it as “an arrest of life”—his own. This metaphor follows many of the common expressions we use in talking about human life. We often describe the way in which human beings pursue their lives as if life were a journey toward some objective. We talk about a “way of life,” the “roads of life,” the “flow of life,” or the “aims of life.” Accordingly, we also talk about a “stop to one’s way of life,” about “losing one’s way in life,” or “pitfalls on the road of life.” Death of loved ones, grave illness, divorce, war, economic ruin, cultural, social, or spiritual upheavals—these are all among the contingencies of life that may cause us to lose our way. Thus, Dante begins his Divine Comedy by stating that in the middle of his life he discovered he was lost in the midst of a thick forest. The image of a thick forest, from which no way out can be perceived, is common among Europeans trying to express spiritual confusion and the loss of a spiritual way of life. More common in the Bible is an image of wandering in the desert, which symbolizes a culturally barren place in which the search for a spiritual way of life is pursued. In contrast to these images, Tolstoy does not write that he stumbled upon pitfalls in his road, or found himself wandering, or lost his way. He writes that he experienced an “arrest of life,” despite the fact that nothing had changed in its circumstances. The difference I am trying to point out is that between experiencing an end to a


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way of life that occurs due to personal, ideological or social upheavals, in the course of which we may lose interest in whatever previously was our “aim in life,” and the arrest of life that Tolstoy is talking about, which occurs in the wake of philosophical thinking about the meaning of life and anxiety induced by facing our impending death. In either case, we are liable to sink into a sad plight, but it seems to stem from two different viewpoints taken on life: in the first case, we simply do not see how we can go on pursuing our former way of life, whereas in the second case we grasp that all ways of life pursued by human beings lead to nowhere. In his confession Tolstoy tells us about two arrests of his life. The first occurred when, at the height of his success, he began contemplating his life and what had been so meaningful to him in it, and began asking himself such questions as “What is the purpose of it all?” and “Where is this leading to?” At the same time he reminded himself that his own destiny, like that of every human being, was to die, and that in time everything dear to him would vanish and be forgotten. As he did this, he felt that he had removed himself all at once from the flow of his life and was contemplating his life and everything dear to him in it from a rational and objective perspective, as though from outside his life, against a background of infinite space and eternity. He discovered that from the perspective he now acquired, he had no way of justifying the great meaning he had until then ascribed to his life. The rational and objective perspective on his life detached him from the personal meaning he had found until now in his life, exposing it as superficial and trivial, leaving his life barren: a series of events and actions that he experienced as having personal meaning to him, although they lacked any objective meaning in themselves. This was not something strictly personal, of course. From a rational and objective viewpoint, the life of any of us is meaningless, and none of the things that are personally meaningful to any of us are objectively meaningful on their own. Of course, it might be said that Tolstoy’s attempt to contemplate the meaning of his life from a rational and objective viewpoint is like an attempt by someone who is tone-deaf to understand what other people find in the sounds they attentively listen to during a concert, or a Western anthropologist’s attempt to understand what motivates the naked natives in the jungle to perform their peculiar rituals, or the attempt on the part of apprehensive parents to understand what their daughter sees in her new boyfriend. In all these cases, when we try to grasp the meaning of things in a rational and objective manner, and not as they are experienced by those for whom they are so meaningful, we look upon them with an alien gaze and they lose their meaning. The difference between these cases and Tolstoy’s is that Tolstoy turned to contemplate with an alien gaze not what was meaningful to others, but what until then had been meaningful to him: his own life. He discovered


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that when he lived and acted naturally, according to his own will and in the light of what he longed for or was afraid of, he experienced his life as having meaning. When he stopped doing this and began contemplating his life and what was dear to him in it from a rational and objective viewpoint, he became alienated from his life, as though it was the life of someone who devotes his life to completely unimportant things. Both his life and life in general were then revealed as meaningless.

The Absurdity of Life The second arrest of life Tolstoy experienced occurred after he was unable to come up with an answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” Contemplating his life with a rational and objective gaze, it now became clear to him that there was no justification for the meaning he ascribed to his life due to what he experienced in it, just as there was no justification, from this viewpoint, for the meaning that anyone ascribes to his or her life. From a rational and objective viewpoint, the meaning we human beings ascribe to our lives was revealed to him, as life had been described earlier by Schopenhauer, as “absurd.” Absurdity is not a property of things that they have in themselves, as green color is a property of a leaf or hardness is a property of an iron bar. Absurdity is a relational feature. It manifests itself as a glaring incompatibility between things that are tied together by a form of twisted logic. Some hold the world to be absurd because the wicked thrive while the virtuous go unrewarded. Obviously, this is an absurd state of affairs only if someone has planned it this way, thinking, with twisted logic, that this is the way it should be. If the planner was evil, or if there is no intention or logic behind what happens in the world, and everything is accidental, then it is not an absurd but simply a regretful state of affairs. Nevertheless, we sometimes use the concept of absurdity to describe a situation that involves no planning, such as when it snows suddenly in the middle of summer, or when a wealthy person wins the lottery. To grasp something as absurd is dependent on the viewpoint of the observer. Someone with warped logic may not see the absurdity of his or her actions or of what is happening. The absurdity of life was revealed to Tolstoy when he placed two incompatible things side by side: the great personal meaning he experienced in life due to his success in everything he had turned his hand to, and the view acquired of life from a rational and objective perspective as devoid of any meaning. When he pitted these two against each other, the personal meaning that he derived from his life appeared to be absurd. In philosophical terms, it can be said that in the context of rational reasoning, which discloses the nonpersonal and objective nature of things, the meaning he


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both derived from his life and ascribed to it was revealed to him as something absurd.1 The discovery that life is devoid of objective meaning plunged Tolstoy into despair. It is not clear exactly why. Most of us find our lives meaningful and ascribe meaning to what happens in them. At the same time, we are perfectly willing to acknowledge that our lives and what happens in them do not have meaning for the general public, and we have no idea what might make them “objectively meaningful.” Why should this drive one to despair? The pictures taken of my family are meaningful to me, simply because my family members are meaningful to me. These pictures are not meaningful to my neighbor. It would be absurd on my part to interest my neighbor in my family pictures as a way of making the pictures more meaningful to me or as a way of preserving this meaning, and it is not clear what I would have to do to make them objectively meaningful. In practice, however, even though the first of the two ideas is absurd, this is exactly what we sometimes try to do. We sometimes disclose our life stories in public, erect monuments and name streets after people who are meaningful to us, educate our children according to customs that are meaningful to us, and so on and so forth. We enhance the meaning that certain things have to us by making them meaningful to others, as though in this way their personal meaning to us acquires a public meaning, and thereby some progress is made toward rendering them objectively meaningful. This had been Tolstoy’s way, too, before he discovered the absurdity of life, which was the discrepancy between the great personal meaning he ascribed to his life and its lack of any objective meaning. The above example of absurd behavior—attempting to interest my neighbor in the pictures of my family as a way of making them more meaningful to me or rendering them objectively meaningful—demonstrates that the absurd is not always a reason for anxiety and despair. The circus clown who attempts to bathe inside a pail is acting absurdly, but we laugh at the sight. Often enough, the ridiculous is allied to the absurd. A humorous attitude toward what happens in life makes it possible to derive enjoyment from absurd actions, as we do from a Marx brothers’ movie. Obviously, it is easier to laugh at someone else’s absurd actions than at our own, easier to regard other people’s lives with humor than our own. To view our own lives with similar bemusement, we have to stop experiencing them in a serious manner, cease being concerned with what happens in them and with what is liable to happen in them, as well as with the death that awaits us, and take the whole affair of life more lightly. A humorous attitude toward life makes it possible to defend against the concern and despair that can emerge from 1. On the concept of the absurd, see Thomas Nagel, “The Absurd.” I discuss it in Part 4.


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a serious attitude to life and death. In this way we might also turn to view the great personal meaning we attribute to our lives that have no objective meaning with a certain sense of self-mockery and amusement. The problem is that a humorous attitude toward our own life and death, treating them only laughingly and with self-mockery, alienates us from everything that is personally meaningful in life, including our life itself. Although Tolstoy was blessed with many talents, a sense of humor and self-mockery were not among them. He was not amused by the fact that he found great personal meaning in his life, even though it was devoid of any objective meaning. Instead of chuckling at the absurdity of his attitude toward his own life, he experienced this state of affairs seriously, as a tragic existential predicament that affects all of us, and he fell into a depression. It should be noted that to experience life in such a serious way, as a tragic predicament, is to experience it in a meaningful way, albeit not a pleasant one. Even to grasp the meaning that we ascribe to our lives from a rational and so-called “objective point of view,” as something ridiculous or absurd, is to grasp it in some meaningful way. Just as not all reasonable persons have a sense of humor, not all of them are apt to despair over what Tolstoy sees as the absurdity of life. His despair stems from the fact that after contemplating the meaning he ascribed to his life from a rational and objective point of view, and grasping it as absurd, he was unable to regain the former attitude he had toward his life. At this stage his first arrest of life, which had been devoted to a rational appraisal of life in order to evaluate the great meaning he ascribed to it, turned into a weighty and prolonged existential crisis, as if there were no more meaning to his life now that he had looked upon it rationally as an alien and objective observer. What began as an intellectual exercise suddenly turned into a nightmare. The philosophical features of discourse in which Tolstoy raised his question about the meaning of life can now be summarized. First, the question did not arise within the stream of his life, but as though from a position he had taken outside it. Second, when contemplating life from this stand he experienced “an arrest of life.” Third, it seemed to Tolstoy that the answer to the question concerned everybody, not just himself, and that it was impossible to go on without answering it, for everything depended upon it. Fourth, he also noticed that, besides himself and certain philosophers, nobody else appeared overly concerned with it. Fifth, he was unable to go back to the complacent attitude toward life and the great personal meaning it had for him previously without finding a satisfying answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” 2 2 2


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Philosophical Thinking as an Arrest of Life The expression “an arrest of life,” which Tolstoy used to describe what he experienced when he assumed a philosophical stance and began thinking about the meaning of life, expresses an inherent aspect of the philosophical discourse, not just in regard to the meaning of life. In the first chapter of his Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes tells of experiencing a similar philosophical “arrest of life” when he began to ponder the validity of the concept of knowledge. As a philosopher, Descartes represents the beginning of the modern philosophical discourse about the relationship between mind and world. Nonetheless, like Tolstoy he opens his philosophical meditations with a personal confession, which is a traditional form of religious-Christian discourse. He relates that many of the opinions and beliefs he held in the past were revealed to him over time as incorrect. (He does not tell which or why, but presumably he is referring to new scientific discoveries about the universe and the motion of the planets, as well as the new physical explanations regarding the physical nature of the world, which displaced previously accepted scientific ideas he had learned about the world through his religious instruction.) As a result, he states that he would like to examine whether any certain knowledge yet remains upon which one can rely in the process of searching for the truth. In light of this desire, he turns to examine which, among all his beliefs that seem to provide him with certain knowledge, cannot be refuted by new discoveries. To do this, he took himself away from his native country, delivered his mind from every care, and procured for himself “an assured leisure in a peaceful retirement.” He then adopted a method of casting systematic doubt on everything he had assumed to be true until then—all in order to discover one certain belief that cannot be undermined which could then be regarded as constituting certain knowledge. To do so he resolves to avoid accepting any belief as certain knowledge, unless it can be proven that it is impossible to cast doubt upon it, and therefore that whatever claim it makes is certain, providing him with true knowledge. Descartes writes that he was amazed to discover that not a single belief, among those he had held to be true as constituting knowledge, was immune before doubt and consequently certain. In an interim summary toward the end of this examination, Descartes explains that he was stricken by an experience “as if I had all of a sudden fallen into very deep water, I am so disconcerted that I can neither make certain of setting my feet on the bottom, nor can I swim and so support myself on the surface.”2 Descartes’s “Confession” has a happy end. He found a statement on which he could not cast any doubt. By means of it, he was able to reestablish many 2. Descartes, “Meditations on First Philosophy,” 149.


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other “beliefs” and “opinions” as representing true knowledge, and his tottering world was placed on what he took to be a solid philosophical foundation. Furthermore, despite his picturesque description of the experience of being able neither to find a footing nor swim in the depths due to his philosophical meditations, Descartes never seemed to have made philosophical skepticism his real attitude toward knowledge. The doubt he claimed to have cast on what he previously took to be knowledge was only what may be called “methodological doubt.” It did not express a true doubt that Descartes felt toward things, but an intellectual device that he adopted to get at the truth: a sort of philosophical stance. It may be compared to trying to prove a theorem by assuming for the sake of argument that it is false and showing that the assumption leads to a contradiction. Descartes never fell into the philosophical trap of the skeptical stance he purported to adopt. In contrast to Descartes, Tolstoy does appear to have fallen into the philosophical trap he laid for himself. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that he did not begin his search for the meaning of life by making a methodological assumption and adopting a philosophical stance. He began it out of true concern for the meaning he ascribed to his life, but things rapidly sped out of control down a slippery philosophical slope, and he found himself contemplating life—including his own—to be devoid of objective meaning and was horrified at the sight. To his even greater horror, he discovered that he could not go back to the complacent viewpoint he had previously enjoyed, when he had found meaning in his life. In one of his plays, Oscar Wilde defines the cynic as someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. Some of us sometimes assume the role of cynic by making funny cynical remarks about something or other, but rarely do such remarks express our true attitude toward life. It is as if we momentarily put on a pair of glasses that strip everything around us of its color, and then take them off when we go our way. Tolstoy momentarily put on the glasses of the philosophical rational worldview, and the sight he saw through them horrified him. To his even greater horror, he then discovered that he could not take the glasses off. The anguish and distress that Tolstoy fell into upon discovering that life has no objective meaning discloses the difference between his attitude toward a philosophical issue and that of average philosophers toward the issues they are discussing. In the modern era, philosophers have dismantled and shattered one brick after another in our conceptual edifice. They have rejected as unsound such concepts as material object, cause, soul, self, God, values, knowledge, truth, and more, contending that they either do not denote anything at all or do not denote what they purport to denote. But Tolstoy is no philosopher. The ideas that philosophers present and discuss in a placid intellectual manner, without having them influence their everyday


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attitudes toward life, he adopts with the utmost seriousness and is horrified by what he experiences through them. In contrast to many philosophers, who conjure up all sorts of ideas that merely explain the world in different worldviews, and then discuss the validity of these explanations among themselves, he is appalled by the sight of the world he perceives through a rational, objective philosophical worldview, falls into despair, and is unable to go on living. His ability to continue living depends on his ability to overcome the rational and objective worldview he has thereby adopted and which has completely devastated the meaning of his life.


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chapter 4 An Ancient Question

I want to say about Tolstoy’s question is that by defining it as “the Riddle of Life,” he bestowed on it the mystique of an ancient philosophical riddle. To see the point of this remark, note first that not every question is a riddle. When we ask someone, “What time is it?” we are not posing that person a riddle. A riddle is not just a question to which we may seek an answer. A riddle sets up an intellectual puzzle to which we seek a solution. Furthermore, it is in the nature of a riddle that the solution should be concealed within it. To extract the solution, we must contemplate what the riddle says in a way that will allow us to discover the hidden solution. Once solved, what formerly appeared mysterious and illogical now appears to be something comprehensible, from which the veil of mystery has been removed. Posing riddles and trying to solve them is an intellectual practice that attests to our ability to be mystified and our desire to overcome what is mysterious. Asking riddles and trying to solve them is one of the ways in which human beings sometimes amuse themselves in company. The Bible tells about a rather insipid riddle that Samson put to his Philistine companions: “Out of the eater came forth a meal, and out of vigor came forth sweetness” (Judges 14:14). The solution to the riddle required knowing something that could not be known from the wording of the riddle, namely, that Samson had killed a lion and later found a swarm of bees in its body that produced sweet honey. In the Bible, dreams are often grasped as riddles pertaining to what the future holds for the dreamer. The solution to the dream foretells what will happen. To arrive at it, one must know how to interpret what the dream symbolizes. As told in Genesis, Joseph

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both dreamed dreams that symbolically foretold the future and was able to interpret the symbols in the dreams of others. Early on, he dreamt that he was binding sheaves in the field with his brothers, when his brothers’ sheaves came round and bowed to his own (Genesis 37:6-7). His dream aroused the wrath of his brothers, who interpreted it as a symbolic indication of his hidden desire for ascendancy over them. Later Joseph turned into a skilled interpreter of dreams himself. In this role he interpreted Pharaoh’s puzzling dream. Pharaoh dreamt that seven lean cows came up out of the Nile and devoured seven fat cows that came up out of the river before them. He also dreamt that seven thin sheaves sprouted from a single stem and devoured seven fat sheaves that sprouted before them. Joseph foretold that seven years of famine would follow seven years of plenty, and Pharaoh utilized Joseph’s solution to his dream to prepare for the seven years of famine that was to overtake Egypt. In the modern era, literary use has been made of riddles in mystery novels. In this case, the riddle is spun around some crucial event, often a murder, and the detective is faced with a murder mystery that needs to be solved by using the power of thought. The detective must contemplate the facts and discover in them the evidence pointing to the murderer. When the solution is put forward, the facts suddenly fall together into a logical story; it is as if a formless assemblage of colored spots and lines were to suddenly turn into a clear and vivid picture.

The Riddle of Life The idea that not only striking events and dreams, but even life itself harbors a mysterious riddle that awaits a solution, is deeply rooted in human ways of thinking. For some, the riddle is made manifest by virtue of its existence as such. “Why is there something rather than nothing?” they ask in philosophical wonder. To others, the riddle is made manifest by the flow of life through its natural course of birth, childhood, maturity, old age, and death. They wonder what purpose there is to any life on earth, or why there is both suffering and pleasure in life, or why we human beings are self-conscious of our life and impending death. To yet others, the riddle stems from the way destiny plays with the lives of human beings. In Western theological discourse, two riddles that often arise are why God created the world, and why there is evil in God’s world. In the modern scientific discourse, which sometimes adopts ancient terminology for its own purposes, the Riddle of Life posed is how life emerged out of inorganic chemical processes. Similarly, some scientists hold themselves to be contending with the Riddle of Life when trying to answer the question, “Why does such a great variety of creatures exist?”—a riddle they seek to solve by means of the theory of natural selection.


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Talking about “the Riddle of Life” hints at a riddle that is embodied within life and concerns life itself. This does not mean that all human beings are conscious of the riddle inherent in their lives. Our everyday experience is not directed toward discerning it, nor does our usual involvement in what is happening around us disclose it to us. When we are busy with the everyday events of our lives—rushing to meetings; laboring at our jobs; enjoying the company of family; being concerned with love, health, money, or politics—we do not notice anything cryptic about our lives or life in general. To notice the riddle that is supposed to be enciphered within life, we have to get away from our everyday involvement with our lives. We have to step outside our lives, as it were, in order to view life in general out of a sense of amazement and wonder, as something mysterious and incomprehensible that is awaiting a solution to explain it. The solution to the Riddle of Life is supposed to expose “the hidden secret of life” or “the mysterious truth” enciphered within it. Just as the riddles with which we amuse ourselves, what is required to solve the Riddle of Life is not additional information, but an insightful viewpoint on what is enciphered in the riddle. For this reason, myths and legends often liken the Riddle of Life to a parable, the moral of which eludes the passing eye. An ancient example of the Riddle of Life arises from Greek mythology. It tells of the Sphinx that stood on the road to Thebes and put the following riddle to passersby: “Which creature walks on four limbs in the morning, on two at noontime, and on three in the evening?” All who passed along the road failed to solve the riddle and were devoured by the monster, until along came Oedipus. In his intellectual perspicacity, he recognized it as the Riddle of Life and understood that morning, noon, and evening were metaphors for the different periods in the life of human beings, who in infancy crawl on all fours, then reach maturity and stand erect upon their own two feet, and finally in old age walk with the aid of a cane. In the Greek myth and in the plays of Sophocles, the ancient story of Oedipus’s solution to the Riddle of Life was also accompanied by a moral. Despite his ability to solve the Riddle of Life, Oedipus was unable to avoid or prevent what he knew to be his destiny—to kill his father and marry his mother. All of which apparently is meant to teach us that to seek a solution to the Riddle of Life by means of our intelligence is a form of hubris—a kind of existential chutzpah. Despite the story’s pessimistic message regarding those who attempt to solve the Riddle of Life, at a much later period Sigmund Freud, the inventor of psychoanalysis, compared himself to Oedipus, its mythological solver. He contended that, like Oedipus, he had solved the riddle of the “self” by discovering that consciousness was not the master of its own house; instead, it is governed by the primary urges arising from the unconscious. Freud was not the only revolutionary thinker in the modern period to claim that he


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had solved the Riddle of Life. Even before him, Karl Marx boasted that he had solved it in the guise of the “riddle of history,” by discovering that what underlies the cultural changes in human history—manifested as values, social norms, and regimes—are economic relations between human beings that take the form of class struggle.

Worldviews as Solutions to the Riddle of Life Despite the differences in the formulation of the Riddle of Life during various historical periods and in various contexts of discussion, solutions to the riddle are manufactured through what in modern terminology is often called a “worldview” or “world-picture,” which purports to reveal the nature of human life and its place within the existential scheme of things. In many cases a life purpose is also formulated, according to which human beings are supposed to pattern their ways of life. In the history of Western culture it is possible to discern several modes of discourse through which such worldviews are put forward. One is to tell edifying stories about how things became what they presently are. Following the ancient Greeks, we call this way of presenting a worldview “myth.” In a similar way, sometimes edifying parables are told about the nature of life and how it should be lived. Another, more abstract way of creating a worldview is to formulate certain generalizations about the nature of life and the values and principles according to which life should be lived and regarded. In a less sophisticated manner, human beings sometimes present their worldview on life when, for instance, they crudely explain that life is merely the satisfaction of selfish desires regarding food and sex; or when, with the sagacity of shopkeepers, they explain that everything in life is a matter of profit or loss; or when, with the practical wisdom of politicians, they explain that life is just a matter of gaining authority and making compromises; or when, in an optimistic spirit of true believers, they explain that the main thing in life is not to lose hope. One of the things that characterize different attempts to present a worldview on life is a desire to say something general about life, according to which it may be determined how we should live and regard our lives. Thus, for example, if there is no God, then there is no point to taking his will into consideration. If there is no life after death, then there is nothing to hope for in this regard and no logic to acting on behalf of our own lives after death. If there are no moral values, then there is no reason to take them into consideration when determining our way of life. If happiness is unattainable, then there is no reason to aspire to it or delude ourselves about it. A sophisticated worldview, then, includes two elements, which are geared to help solve the Riddle of Life: it describes the nature of life, and it suggests how we


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should live in light of that nature. In philosophy, the first element is manifested in what is sometimes called “metaphysics,” which encompasses a basic division of all possible things into categories and the kind of existence they attain, or sometimes “ontology,” which is the logic of the concept of existence, pertaining to the foundations of what there actually is. The second element is manifested in what the Bible calls “torah,” the ancient Greeks called “ethics,” and in the modern era has come to be known as “ideology.” What is weird about Tolstoy’s solution to the Riddle of Life is that there is ostensibly nothing new in it, since he formulates it in traditional religiousChristian language: “God has so created man that every man may either ruin his soul or save it,” he asserts in his solution to the Riddle of Life. The souls of human beings will be saved when their lives are given a meaning not by aspiring toward selfish, earthly goals, such as pleasure, success, fame, or wealth, but through a religious meaning made manifest by submitting to the eternal will of God. The riddle that emerges in the reader’s mind at this point is what is supposed to be new here? All this is expressed and anchored in the religious worldview, which was formulated and discussed in the West thousands of years ago. What need was there for Tolstoy’s confession, his remarks on the meaning of life and the absurd, if this is all there is to his conclusion in the end? To answer this question, I need to take note of the worldviews that were once accepted in the West, the changes that occurred in them in the modern era through which the ancient Riddle of Life was put aside, and the transformation in the attitude toward life and its riddle that Tolstoy wanted to instigate.

An Ancient Greek Worldview of Life There have long been two types of discourse in the West, through which worldviews were and still are formulated with the aim of solving the Riddle of Life: philosophical and religious. The philosophical discourse initially took shape in ancient Greece. The worldviews fashioned by it—in light of which desirable ways of life for humans were formulated and discussed— were based on the development and refinement of the concept of nature into an extensive philosophical and scientific conception embedded with several articulated ideas. “Nature,” said Aristotle, “is source or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself . . .” (Physics, 192b).1 According to this conception of nature, natural development takes a teleological direction: it serves to fulfill a purpose that 1. My citations are to The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, trans. R. P. Handie and R. K. Gaye (New York: Random House, 1941).


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is essential to things by their very nature. The word “teleological” derives from the Greek telos, or “purpose”—thus the expression a “teleological worldview of nature.” According to this worldview, everything develops and behaves of itself according to its unique nature. Stones lie in place on the ground and do not move about of their own accord because lying in place on the ground belongs to the existential purpose, which forms the essential nature of stones. Fire rises upward of its own accord, for this is the existential purpose, which forms the nature of fire. In the same way, different creatures live, develop, and act in accordance with the existential purposes embedded in them. Any being that does not act in accordance with its natural existential purpose is deformed—it is not fulfilling its essence. The teleological conception of nature, then, has normative ramifications in regard to the desirable development and behavior of various beings, and especially those of a human nature—human beings. As the ancient Greeks saw it, the striking difference between human beings and all other things in nature pertained to two matters, according to which human nature was described and the purpose of human life was defined. First, all other things in nature behave the same way everywhere, whereas human beings are cultural beings, and cultural beings behave differently in different places. The fire in the hearth, it was noted, burns the same in Persia and in Greece. But the behavior of human beings around the fire differs in these two places. As formulated by the Sophists, this insight turned into a metaphysical distinction between two types of laws (or principles), which lie at the basis of all existence and determine what happens in it: those of nature, and those of social custom. The laws of nature were grasped as applying to things themselves and therefore as the same everywhere. The laws of social custom were grasped as applying to human beings through their affiliation in society and therefore as tending to change from place to place. Possessing the same human essence, human beings need the same things to sustain their lives; experience feelings, sensations, pleasures, sorrows, and anxieties; pursue their lives with the aim of being happy; possess certain intellectual abilities; have linguistic, social, and technical skills—wherever human beings are found. At the same time, human beings’ cultural essence, which is made manifest by their acting according to custom and their ability to interact with one another and to adopt social values, prompts them to live in accordance with the various laws of the societies to which they belong and to adhere to different conventions and worldviews regarding the “good life” that is most desirable. The Riddle of Life that the Sophists put to ancient Greece concerned the element in human nature that makes all human beings attempt to pursue their lives with the aim of attaining happiness: “What is the best and, therefore, most desirable way of life for human beings to win happiness?” This


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riddle was the launching pad for several different conceptions of happiness in ancient Greece. One of them can be discerned in a story the Greek historian Herodotus told about Solon, Athens’s celebrated lawmaker. Solon had gone to visit the fabulously wealthy Croesus, king of Lydia. Croesus took Solon on a tour of his opulent palace and showed off his riches. Afterward he asked Solon who was the happiest person he had ever met, expecting Solon to say it was he. But Solon refused to flatter him and mentioned the name of a fellow Athenian who, he said, possessed sufficient wealth, had good children, and died in battle for his hometown. Refusing to relent, Croesus asked him who the next-happiest person he had ever met was. Solon gave the names of two brothers from Argos, who labored hard to honor their mother with a dignified religious ceremony, and then lay down and died. Croesus still persisted, asking whether he himself was not worthy of being called a happy man. No person could be said to be happy, replied Solon, until he came to the end of his life. Fate is fickle. As regards happiness, one must look at a person’s life as a whole, from the beginning to the end, and reflect on it in virtue of its end. As if to prove his point, shortly afterwards Croesus’s beloved son was killed while hunting, and eventually Cyrus, king of Persia, conquered Croesus’s kingdom, confiscated all his wealth, and sentenced him to be burnt at the stake. As he was being dragged off, bound and fettered, Croesus remembered what Solon told him and loudly cried out: “Solon, Solon, Solon!” The Persian king inquired as to the meaning of this and, upon hearing the explanation, pardoned Croesus and allowed him to live out the rest of his days in dignity. (Plutarch, who regards Solon as one of the great men of Western culture, adds a moral of his own to the story, noting that in this way Solon saved one king’s life while enlightening another.) Solon’s assertion—that a person cannot be said to have a happy life until his life has ended—can be interpreted as a philosophical comment on the concept of a happy life. In this conception, a happy life is not a matter of experiencing many pleasures or being in a joyful mood. Pleasure, like joy and boredom, is a temporary and transient experience or state of mind. As I understand Solon, when we speak about somebody having a happy life, we are speaking about happiness that pertains to the entire complex of a person’s life, in which that person may experience pleasure and pain, joy and boredom. The concept of a happy life pertains to the way our lives—as a whole, timely enterprise—develop, are pursued, and reach their end. Solon appears to regard the life of a person like a story, with a beginning, middle, and end. A person who has a happy life is one whose entire life story has turned out well, and it is impossible to tell whether the story has turned out well until it reaches the end. The moral of Herodotus’s story about Croesus is that one should not boast of happiness until the entire story has come to


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its conclusion. This too is a form of hubris, which provokes fate and gods, which become unneeded. Despite this insight, in the philosophical discourse of ancient Greece, an effort was made to develop a conception of happiness which is not vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life and is not dependent on the arbitrary will of the gods and fate. This conception was developed by relating happiness to ethical traits of character known as “virtues,” so that the two may be seen to support each other. Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics can be read as a philosophical effort—which was followed up by generations of philosophers—to provide a conception of happiness based on fulfilling the ethical virtues, all in order to fortify our ability to attain happiness in the face of life’s trials and the vicissitudes of fate. Plato did this by describing an imaginary Utopia, which was compared to the soul of a person who attained happiness. This Utopia was a community governed by its most rational members and operating with complete social harmony among its constituents, members of the different classes: merchants and craftsmen, warriors and leaders. Since the community was comparable to the soul of human beings, the book indirectly describes a soul whose different parts coexist in marvelous harmony: desires and passions, sublime emotions of courage and honor, and rational thought. The harmony among all these leads to a sort of equanimity toward the fortunes of fate, stemming from the fulfillment of an ethical way of life that in turn leads to happiness. The ethical way of life is embodied in a series of virtues, having the form of good dispositions, traits of character, and qualities of spirit, which underlie a person’s attitude toward life and through which life then becomes happy. Aristotle, who unlike Plato abjured utopias and tried to show how happiness could be derived even in existing political society, nevertheless continued this same line of thought by describing in detail all the virtuous dispositions and traits of character that are embodied in attaining an ethical attitude to life that leads to happiness. Both these philosophical efforts can be seen as an effort to predicate happiness not on what happens in life, but rather on the nature or character of an ethical person. In this conception happiness is derived from a life in which the virtues have become part of a person’s nature. As Socrates asserted, when a person is faithful to the virtues that embody and guide his life, nothing bad can happen to him, regardless of how the story of his life ends. In this conception of ethics it concerns not only moral affairs but also the entire complex of desirable human qualities of character. Courage, moderation, rational thinking, artistic taste, honor, and more are all desirable qualities that provide for an ethical human nature. The Riddle of Life thus posed in Greek philosophy turned on the relationship between happiness and human nature. The solution to it preoccupied generations of philosophers from the Sophists through Plato, Aristotle,


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and the Epicureans to the Stoics. Looking back at these discussions, it may be said that they primarily concerned two matters, which were two sides of the same coin: one, which human qualities of character were best suited to achieving happiness; the other, which kind of happiness was most desirable. In the effort to solve this two-sided riddle, the Sophists and Stoics can be seen not only as marking the two poles of the temporal period during which it was discussed, but as representing two extreme and opposite solutions—while Aristotle, as always, suggests avoiding any extreme position. The Sophists preached a political approach to life, in which an effort should be made to gain political power in order to attain happiness through the control of others and thus derive various benefits from the world. The Stoics preached a contrary approach: to detach oneself from political affairs, stop attempting to influence what is going to happen in the future, and accept death as nonthreatening in order to gain full control over the only thing in the world that we have control of—namely, our attitude to our life and death—and in this way reach a serenity of spirit that begets enduring happiness.

An Ancient Biblical Worldview of Life Another ancient discourse in the West in which an effort was made to solve the Riddle of Life led to the development of a monotheistic religious worldview, which defined the purpose of life as predetermined by God. The religious worldview that grew out of it and was familiar to Tolstoy was first presented in the Old Testament, and then later refined and supplemented in the New Testament and in the Christian theology that grew in its wake. In contrast to the philosophical effort of ancient Greece to predicate a cultural way of life on a teleological conception of nature in general and human nature in particular, this religious worldview developed and refined a conception of God as a transcendent being, who created nature and determined the existential purposes of different things in it according to His transcendent will. In this view, like all other things, God created human beings. However, they were seen to differ from other beings in having an ability to become cultural beings. The cultural aspect of their lives, which sets them apart from all other creatures, was linked with their ability to determine their ways of life according to their own judgment and will, an ability they incurred as a result of transgressing against God’s injunction not to eat from the forbidden tree of knowledge about good and evil. According to the story told in chapter 3 of Genesis concerning Adam and Eve’s departure from the garden east of Eden where God had originally placed them, this ability leads not to happiness but to sorrow: for women, the sorrow of childbirth, of


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concern for their children, and of being ruled by their husbands; for men, the sorrow of toiling in the field for their subsistence. According to the biblical narrative, this universal cultural predicament of human beings underwent a singular dramatic change when God gathered the children of Israel unto himself at Mount Sinai and gave them the Ten Commandments, followed by a long series of injunctions that cumulatively amount to an entire Torah, embodying a cultural way of life that manifests God’s will. Those who follow it are enabled to do God’s will when leading a cultural mode of life by choice. In nature everything is done according to God’s will, but there is no choice and no cultural way of life. In other cultures everything is done only according to human will and convention. To the followers of God’s injunctions, the cultural way of life dictated by God gives life a dimension other than that of life in nature or in cultures based only on the promulgation of human customs. Human life now takes on a religious dimension of sanctity: of fulfilling a divine purpose above and beyond the mundane purposes of those who possess only natural will. In the Bible, this religious idea—that a cultural way of life which fulfills God’s will is preferable to any other—is substantiated even by Ecclesiastes, the pessimistic book quoted by Tolstoy in his confession. I wish to expand on the way the idea is presented in Ecclesiastes because it has direct implications for Tolstoy’s thinking on the absurdity of life. According to some interpretations, Ecclesiastes does not express a single worldview, but is actually a dialogue among several different ones. The voice of Ecclesiastes is just one in a chorus of voices, which is a discourse among several speakers. However, the voice that speaks to Tolstoy is that of the book’s opening verse, which reappears in a similar version toward its end, and which succinctly encapsulates a bitter and pessimistic outlook on life: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher.” As if to eliminate any doubt, the verse repeats itself, concluding with the generalization: “All is vanity.” Vanity of vanities is the very core of vanity; vain things are things of no value. (In Hebrew, the word for “vanity” is derived from the root referring to the vapor of one’s breath, which is of no further use, perishing and disappearing without a trace.) This foreword is followed by a poetic, bitter, and cutting lecture on the nature of human life, a sort of summary of the story of a life replete with numerous experiences and successes. The lecture is tinged with a melancholy air, exuding frustration and a sense of impotence, to which is attached a pessimistic moral on the need to enjoy the pleasures of life while one can, for everything comes to a bad end and vanishes like the vapor of one’s breath. Ecclesiastes testifies that over the years he himself had adopted various life purposes—from searching for wisdom to the pursuit of pleasure and wealth—and been successful in all of them. However, he always discovered afterward that they were insufficient. To use Tolstoy’s language, we could say


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that at the height of his success Ecclesiastes experienced an “arrest of life” when he began pondering the question, “What profit hath a man of all his labor?” Human beings are indeed able to pursue different life purposes for themselves—such as pleasure, health, and knowledge—and to take action so as to implement them. This sets them apart from all other creatures in nature, but it does not give their lives a different value. It bears mention that Ecclesiastes is not lacking what we would call “a conception of values.” He notes that certain things are better than, and preferable to, others: it is better to be happy than sad, young than old, wise than foolish, etc. However, he also determines that attaining all these good modes of existence does not change matters in essence. The very same fate will befall the happy and the sad, the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor, the young and the old: they will all die. Their lives will expire like the vapor of one’s breath, and with them whatever good there may have been in their lives. Only the earth abides forever. Twice in the course of his lecture, Ecclesiastes mentions something that he calls “the sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith” (1:13, 3:10). He does not say exactly what this is, but his words appear to have a double meaning. As I read it, the sore travail is what human beings exercise themselves with when they seek an answer to it. What it is, Ecclesiastes does not say. He may simply be referring to human life built upon labor and supported by one value system or another. Or he may be referring to the pursuit of happiness—which the ancient Greeks placed in the center of their solution to the Riddle of Life. A more illuminating interpretation is to see this as an attempt to find something in human life that is of imperishable value, like Ecclesiastes’ own attempts to adopt different life purposes as the values to guide his way of life. If we read Ecclesiastes as someone protesting against the perishable value of all human life purposes, we see that he is trying to find a way of life whose purpose will abide forever, like the earth, despite the transience of human existence. The hint is clear. What is needed is a life purpose different from all those enumerated to this point—wealth, wisdom, pleasures, and even happiness. What is needed is a purpose beyond the perishable, which can bestow on transient life a value that abides forever. It may also be clearer now why this beautiful but bitter and pessimistic book was included in the biblical canon, which is mainly devoted to furthering a religious worldview by telling how God created the world followed by stories and historical narratives about the ancient origins of the tribes of Israel, religious injunctions and prohibitions, instructions for the performance of religious ceremonies, moralistic parables, praises of God and his works, and descriptions of the special relations between God and the children of Israel. In the context of this religious worldview, Ecclesiates’ sayings


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serve as proof that no way of life based on life purposes arising out of a mundane ethics, like the one developed by the ancient Greeks, can give imperishable value to human lives. The message here seems to be anti-Epicurean in particular, as regards both the impossibility of guaranteeing a life of happiness, as well as the folly of unflaggingly pursuing one. Through negation, the positive emerges. One must search for the solution to the Riddle of Life outside life: not in nature or human culture, but in He who is above them. If any reader missed the message, the book’s editors have provided a clear and coherent moral toward the end: “This is the end of the matter; all hath been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (12:13). In other words, do not look for the purpose of life inside life, and do not try to ensure your personal happiness by adopting a philosophical ethics. Search for a way of life that rests upon God’s will. The profit we have for all our labor does not lie in our ability to adopt one cultural way of life or another in order to achieve happiness; it lies in our ability to worship God by choice. Having done so, the sore travail, which we human beings exercise ourselves with in our efforts to solve the Riddle of Life, comes to an end. There is no longer any need to choose life purposes according to one or another value system or ethical doctrine in order to achieve happiness by these means. Instead, the entire matter is thrust into the hands of the possessor of a transcendent will, who is above and beyond life. Accordingly, the Bible proclaims that whoever places his entire trust in God is guaranteed happiness. As said elsewhere, “Blessed is the man . . . [whose] delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalms, 1:1-2). In the Hebrew wording of the passage, the blessing is happiness. This is not to say that no problems were acknowledged as regards this worldview, or that it underlies all of biblical thinking. To the contrary, even the book of Ecclesiastes itself is suffused with other reservations in regard to what is good in life. Furthermore, as may be adduced from the book of Job, one of the most difficult questions arising from this worldview is why those who adopt the way of life dictated by God receive no reward for their actions, while those who behave contrary to it lead enjoyable lives: “Wherefore do the wicked prosper?” Like the annals of philosophical thought in the West on the relationship between ethics and happiness, a large part of the annals of religious thought in the West is a continuing effort to put forward an insightful worldview wherein this problem is brought to a satisfactory solution. In the context of this discussion regarding the transcendent purpose of human life, Christianity’s important contribution concerned three fundamental matters. The first was the idea of God’s boundless love for humanity. According to this idea, God had revealed himself to all human beings


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through Jesus out of divine love for them. He had chosen all of them, regardless of nationality, and consequently all have the ability to live according to God’s will. The second idea was the need to open one’s heart to divine love by shaping our thoughts and intentions according to it. The third idea was that whoever does so is redeemed or saved. Accordingly, Christianity developed and refined the idea of religious salvation, making it the foundation of its religious worldview and presenting it as a personal type of redemption that makes it possible for anyone to join what Jesus calls the “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of Heaven.” Entry to it becomes possible due to a life based on moral intentions, penitence, and a belief that the messiah has come. Believers who adopt this way of life and put their trust in such a faith are supposed to be redeemed, or saved, and that in two different ways. One occurs on the Day of Judgment, which according to St. Paul and later Christian theologists will take place after death, when each person is due to stand trial before God and be found worthy or unworthy of joining the Kingdom of Heaven and living forever beside God in the world to come. By means of this kind of salvation, those who suffer in life will be blessed after it. A second form of salvation is made possible in life itself, through the unique experience of divine grace, which is God’s boundless love for every person. Those who are able to put their trust in God, believe in the gospel of his messiah, and return God’s love are supposed to be rewarded with a personal religious miracle while yet they live: they may experience God’s wondrous and unique love for them, and thus be saved from the tribulations, concerns, anxieties, and torments that they experience in the course of their lives. They can now accept whatever happens in their lives with satisfaction and appreciation and stand fearlessly before the death that awaits them. According to this religious worldview, the purpose of life is to win the Grace of God—first in this life, and then in the world to come.

The Modernist Turn in the Riddle of Life I have noted these two types of discourse, philosophical and religious, through which worldviews meant to solve the Riddle of Life have been formulated in the West, because Tolstoy himself was familiar with them and with the worldviews that grew out of them. His posing of the question about the meaning of life as a riddle, like his great distress at being unable to find a solution to it when he began thinking about his own life, expresses his acknowledgment of the fact that he could not rely on them to adopt the worldviews associated with them, as had been done in the past. The reason for this lies in important changes that took place in the modern era in the culture of the West. These changes had a devastating


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impact on both the ancient conception of nature and God, shattering the teleological and religious worldviews associated with them and making it difficult for educated people like Tolstoy to rely on them any more. These changes bear mentioning. The modern scientific discourse on nature has abandoned the teleological conception of natural change, which was formulated in ancient Greek philosophy, of different purposes inherent in the nature of different kinds of things. Instead of explaining the multifaceted dynamics of nature on the basis of essential differences between kinds of things, science has developed a mechanical, causal explanation for the way everything operates in nature in the same way. At its basis lies belief in the existence of mechanical forces, which act upon all material bodies in the same uniform way and which can be described in universal laws of nature. The idea that different kinds of things have different essences, from which their different courses of development and change are explained, has ceased to be an explanatory factor in the formulation of natural laws in science. The concept of purpose still serves us, however, in everyday explanations that do not instantiate natural laws, as when we speak of the intentions and goals of particular human beings or what they desire and strive to achieve. But this is now grasped as an unscientific manner of speech that does not lend itself to law-like explanations. As a result, the scientific discourse on nature can no longer serve as a basis for extracting a universal ethics regarding the universal purpose in life of human beings. Along with this change, in the modern worldview, human beings are deemed able to determine their life purposes according to their own will and judgment, in accordance with values they freely adopt in the framework of their different conceptions of happiness. Instead of formulating an ethics that manifests universal goals of life for all human beings on the basis of a preferred conception of happiness, the modern scientific discourse does not aspire to explain human behavior in different cultures as instantiating a single natural purpose, nor does it aspire to articulate a universal conception of happiness which we should all seek to achieve. To the contrary: according to the liberal sentiments of the American Bill of Rights, all persons have both the ability and right to pursue happiness in their own way, and social regimes must enable them to do so as long as they adhere to principles of justice and morality. In the context of such a conception of human nature and happiness, it no longer makes sense to pose the Riddle of Life as a universal puzzle about how best to secure happiness for human beings, let alone to try to solve it, as we human beings differ from one another in our conceptions of happiness, and the laws of science are mute regarding how our personal goals in life may or may not lead us to true happiness. At the same time, significant devaluation has also taken place in the


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religious modern worldview regarding God. In it God is no longer conceived as a being who reveals himself to human beings and divulges His will to them. As Benedict (Baruch) De Spinoza wrote in this connection, the prophets who spoke of their experience of divine revelation were only expressing their devotion and personal state of mind. According to the principles of rational discourse propounded by Immanuel Kant, the religious worldview concerning God is based on ideas that are inaccessible to experience and not appropriate for acquiring knowledge. The conclusion to be drawn from all this is not only, as one might think, that it is impossible to solve the Riddle of Life because it is impossible to know what God wants, but that it is irrational to pose the Riddle of Life and search for an answer to the question, “What does God want?” The Riddle of Life has no place either in a scientific discourse based on concepts geared for acquiring knowledge or in the modern, rational secular worldview that does not acknowledge the existence of God. The magnitude of the conceptual change that Tolstoy sought to implement may now be appreciated. By placing the Riddle of Life on the agenda of modern humans, Tolstoy sought to foment a cultural transformation that could liberate us from the stifling grip of the scientific worldview and the liberal conception of happiness. This transformation does not begin with his answer to the Riddle of Life; this is where it ends. It begins with his placing the Riddle of Life anew on the agenda of the West, as a matter of utmost concern to the life of every person: a matter that cannot be ignored and must be dealt with personally by all human beings, as we are all able to be concerned with the meaning of our lives and to dwell on it beyond the scope of what we are presented by the modern worldview regarding natural cause and personal happiness. To succeed in experiencing our lives as embodying an unsolved transcendent riddle is to strike down a path along which the Problem of Life is now revealed as an acute personal problem of universal dimensions, one which renders human existence inherently problematic. It is a problem that, now that we have come to acknowledge it, we find ourselves desperately wanting to overcome.


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chapter 5 A Modern Question

I want to say about Tolstoy’s question is that it is a modern philosophical question. Strange as it may seem, in the writings of ancient Western philosophers it is difficult to find this specific formulation of the question regarding the Riddle of Life. Several similar puzzlements regarding life are expressed, but they are not phrased in quite the same way. Ancient philosophers ask such questions as “What is the purpose of life? What good is there in life?” They do not ask specifically, “What is the meaning of life?” But the question put by Tolstoy is not just a matter of idiosyncratic and innovative formulation for an age-old puzzlement. Focusing on meaning—both of words and of phenomena—has been a hallmark of modern philosophical discourse since the last decades of the nineteenth century. However, the focus on the meaning of life extends beyond academic discourse. Albert Camus, a modern writer himself, identified it as typifying modern thought. He contended that it lay at the basis of the fierce spiritual and personal tribulations of the heroes of modern Russian literature, as opposed to another philosophical issue that preoccupied the thinkers and literary heroes of ancient times. He phrased this difference in attitude and discourse as follows:

T H E F O U RT H T H I N G

All of Dostoevsky’s heroes question themselves as to the meaning of life. In this they are modern: they do not fear ridicule. What distinguishes modern sensibility from classical sensibility is that the latter thrives on moral problems and the former on metaphysical problems. In Dostoevsky’s novels the question is propounded with such intensity that it can only invite extreme

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solutions. Existence is illusory or it is eternal. If Dostoevsky were satisfied with this inquiry, he would be a philosopher. But he illustrates the consequences that such intellectual pastimes may have in a man’s life, and in this regard he is an artist.1

I suppose Camus’s hint regarding the “effects intellectual pastimes could have” refers to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Among other things, the novel tells of how one of the brothers Karamazov, an uneducated man, murders his father after having become convinced of the truth of his educated brother’s secular worldview. “If there is no God,” he cries out in justification of the murder he has committed, “then everything is permitted.” Camus’s remark on the way the question about the meaning of life manifests itself in Russian literature is interesting in its own right, though I remain unconvinced that the distinction he draws between the modern and ancient worlds is correct, at least not as he formulates it. Speculation about the nature of reality, and especially whether our conception of it might be only an illusion, is typical of religious and philosophical thinking in the ancient East and its various mystical schools of thought. The Chinese philosopher Xuang-Tse toys with the idea that the world is nothing but a dream inside the head of someone asleep, who will shortly awake. Certain mystical schools contend that all distinctions between different things are actually illusory. The idea that reality is nothing but an illusion also came up in the philosophy of the ancient Western world. Plato compares our everyday perception of reality to the shadow-images on the wall of a cave in which we live. According to him, true reality is the world of ideas, which can only be discerned by means of philosophical thought. From the perspective I am looking at this issue, what characterizes the modern worldview is acceptance of science as the ultimate authority regarding explanations about the nature of reality. In light of this, there is a clash between what science says and precludes from saying about the nature of reality and what religious believers say about it. Of course, a religious person may deny the authority of science regarding the nature of reality, but then he or she would not be a party to the modern worldview. Religious believers who adopt a modern worldview try to strike a compromise between science and religion. Enlightenment thinkers like Kant made a philosophical effort to defuse the clash between science and religious belief by removing the concepts important to religion from the field of scientific explanation. In this compromise, science is not supposed to deal with the soul, God, or Creation—as a world generated ex nihilo. Tolstoy is a modern. He accepts the demarcation of Kant’s philosophy 1. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, 77.


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regarding what can and cannot be known, and he accepts the verdict of science regarding the nature of the world that can be explained and known. But as opposed to Enlightenment thinkers, he does not see how religious faith can be integrated into the modern worldview. As I understand Camus on this matter, modern Russian novelists, such as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, do not accept the Enlightenment thinkers’ neat distinction between knowledge and science, on one hand, and religion and faith, on the other. In their view, there is an irresolvable conflict between these perspectives and the attitudes to life they promote. It is a metaphysical conflict concerning the origin and nature of reality and human existence, and it affects the way we regard and experience our lives and what happens in them. Either there is an eternal, divine hand behind human existence, according to which we must live, or all of religion is an illusion. According to the line of thought Camus outlines, in the ancient Western world the Riddle of Life was religious or ethical. It was concerned with what constitutes a good and happy life, or with what God wants of us. In the modern world, the Riddle of Life arises against the background of a tremendous spiritual and personal upheaval: a recognition that the transcendent dimension of reality and human existence, which religion has expounded, is merely an illusion. All of which brings up an existential question that is posed in an ethical, personal way: “Is it worth living in a world without God?” Such a world is described by Tolstoy as a world in which life has no meaning, for it is devoid of divine meaning. Accordingly, in the modern era the fundamental question about life has been reformulated as a question concerned with the meaning of life, rather than with the good or desirable life from either a religious or ethical perspective.

Kierkegaard’s Dissent A modern writer and philosopher who asked the question in its revamped formulation even before Tolstoy, and who apparently introduced it to Western intellectuals and their philosophical discourse, was Søren Kierkegaard. One of the many characters he assumes in his book Either/Or meditates with a degree of cynicism on the gap between people’s ways of life and what is supposed to constitute the meaning of life: What, if anything, is the meaning of this life? If people are divided into two great classes, it may be said that one class works for a living and the other does not have that need. But to work for a living certainly cannot be the meaning of life, since it is indeed a contradiction that the continual production of the conditions is supposed to be the answer to the question of the meaning of that which is conditional upon their production. The lives of the rest of them


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generally have no meaning except to consume the conditions. To say that the meaning of life is to die seems to be a contradiction also.2

In another of Kierkegaard’s works, a person writing a diary confesses that he is about to get married because he wants to experience the meaning of life. He would have liked to experience it through the love of God, he adds, but since he is unable to experience life’s meaning in this way, he has decided to seek out corporeal love.3 The self-mockery inherent in the last idea expresses Kierkegaard’s own complex attitude toward the search for the meaning of life. In his view, the meaning of life can be experienced from three different attitudes toward life that manifest three different modes of existence open to human beings. The first is what Kierkegaard calls, following Kant’s terminology in regard to the modes of experience which underlie our ability to gain knowledge, “the aesthetic” mode of existence. This is a mundane mode of existence that is constituted by the senses and the intellect. Those who live according to it act under the influence of mundane sensual experiences and rational thought. The meaning of life that arises from such a mode of existence is material and selfish, manifesting itself in the desire to achieve pleasure and avoid pain and to understand and be aware of the causal relations between things. Moral conceptions make possible a second mode of human existence. Those who live in light of moral values, which are grasped as being of universal and objective validity, give their lives a meaning that is not dependent merely on their own material existence and experiences that cause them pleasure and pain. A moral conception enables us to give meaning to our lives as moral agents that regard actions as desirable or forbidden from a universal moral perspective. Therefore, a moral conception makes it possible to experience life as having greater meaning than the selfish and material meaning that can be found in it when it is allied only with sensual pleasures and the attempt to avoid pain by rational means. The third mode of human existence is connected with a profound religious attitude and experience, which affords an unmediated acquaintance with God. By defining our entire existence uniquely in relation to God only, who is singular and eternal and loves us both for what is so human and singular to us only, we can lift our lives beyond their mundane or abstract-moral modes of existence and give them a unique religious-transcendent meaning. According to Kierkegaard, one person with such complete and utter faith in God was Abraham, as told in the story of Isaac’s sacrifice in the Bible.4 In this story God put Abraham to the test by commanding him to take his only 2. Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 31. Sometimes “significance,” instead of “meaning,” is the translation adopted. 3. Kierkegaard, Stages on Life’s Way, 238-39. 4. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling: A Dialectical Lyric.


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son, his beloved Isaac, and sacrifice him atop Mount Moriah. Abraham did not hesitate and immediately went about doing what God had commanded him. So great was his trust in God that he asked no questions, made no argument, made no attempt to change God’s will, and was not afraid of the consequences of his act. What Kierkegaard sees in Abraham’s attitude toward what he grasped as a divine commandment is the ultimate model of an existential-religious attitude toward life, which embodies a complete and nonspeculative faith in God. By putting aside all doubts and moral considerations, Abraham defines his existence in a unique and singular way, in relation to God alone. He no longer grasps himself as Isaac’s father, but as someone whose entire existence is defined by virtue of God’s unique attitude toward him, which he now returns.5 As I read Kierkegaard’s assertions in the present context of discussion, so profound was Abraham’s ability to define his existence in an exclusively religious manner that it did not occur to him to question what God had commanded him. Here arises what Kierkegaard sees as the Problem of Life in the modern era: human beings can no longer adopt an existential attitude to life that embodies absolute, nonspeculative religious faith, which precludes any other definition of their existence, such as Abraham held. Such an existential attitude is no longer tenable. We are therefore unable to experience the meaning of life in such a religious manner. At most, we may believe in a speculative manner that God exists. However, Abraham did not believe that God exists, just as we do not believe that people, trees, and rocks exist. We see them, and through this manner of experience are confronted with the fact of their existence, never dwelling on the possibility that they may be only an illusion. Such was Abraham’s attitude toward God. To attain the same existential attitude in the modern era would require an uninhibited existential leap of faith, from the heart of modernity directly into the religious experience out of which Abraham’s faith grew: one must renounce all other modes of existence in order to stand, naked, with fear and trembling, face-to-face before God. As a harbinger of existential philosophy, Kierkegaard utilizes the image of Abraham’s complete trust in God to break out of moral, social, scientific, or sensual conceptions of human existence, which would enable him to arrive at a singular self-conception of his existence as based solely on his relationship to a singular being such as God. It is easy to see both what might have impressed Tolstoy in Kierkegaard’s ideas and what may have aroused his reservations. One thing that might have impressed him is that striking expression, “the meaning of life,” by means of which Kierkegaard renews discussion of deep religious desires, 5. I am grateful to Yehuda Gelman for drawing my attention to Kierkegaard’s attempt to arrive at singular self-definition.


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despite his acceptance of the modern scientific worldview regarding the nature of life and the futility of dwelling on the purpose of life. Through it he is able to express a human existential need to bestow greater and more profound meaning on our lives than what finite, mundane life can give us or what the affiliation in universal or social goals might give us: a transcendent meaning. Likewise, he might have been impressed by Kierkegaard’s contention that complete and utter faith in God, such as Abraham had according to his interpretation, makes it possible to experience life as having the divine and transcendent meaning we would like to find in it, without any need for a theological worldview and theological explanations. He might have also been impressed by the idea that such faith constitutes a religious existential attitude toward life, through which its meaning can be experienced, rather than a problematic worldview that calls for justification before it can be adopted. However, Tolstoy may have had reservations regarding Kierkegaard’s attempt to define his life uniquely in a singular relationship to God only. Furthermore, he might also have had reservations regarding Kierkegaard’s view that such an existential attitude to life is no longer accessible to us, or that it requires an existential leap of faith. For he does not call for an existential-religious leap of faith in God that would have us define our entire existence in relation to God only. Instead, he proposes a difficult way of life, the fulfillment of which leads to experiencing life as having a religious meaning. For, as opposed to Kierkegaard, he thinks that there still are people who experience a religious meaning to their lives. These are the simple peasants, whose hard and simple way of life enables them to experience that they are guided in their difficult lives by the will of God—all without experiencing any new self-definition or engaging in any leaps of faith. What is required to experience the religious meaning of life, then, is a change in one’s existential attitude to life, so that it will resemble that of the peasants toward theirs. Such a change in attitude necessitates changing one’s way of life first. Instead of calling for an impossible, once only, existential leap of faith, which will afford us a new way of experiencing the religious meaning of life, and instead of seeking to define ourselves anew only in relation to God, Tolstoy calls on us to change our way of life to a traditional peasant way of life, claiming that this will enable us to experience life as having a religious meaning.

Recruiting the Concept of Meaning So much for the origins of the idiom “the meaning of life” and what might have prompted Tolstoy to adopt and disseminate it. Its prominent


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advantage over the older expression “the purpose of life” is its negotiability in the modern marketplace of ideas. It makes it possible to clothe the Riddle of Life in a new garment, and consequently to want to solve it once again. But to say exactly what merchandise this currency can be used to buy in the modern period, we have to know exactly what it denominates. Initially, it might seem that there is no advantage to the idiom “the meaning of life” over the older idiom “the purpose of life.” Nevertheless, it seems to me that to interpret the question about “the meaning of life” as being the same old question about “the purpose of life” is to exchange the brilliant, newly minted currency that Tolstoy has put in our hands for the worn-out coinage we have inherited from the ancients. The substitution misses what makes the new idiom so attractive in the modern era—even if it is only an illusion that it can buy conceptual treasures that remained hidden from the ancients, who sought to discover “the purpose of life.” The metaphor opens different channels of thought than those opened by the older metaphor of “the purpose of life,” which is in the nature of concepts shaped by means of rich and attractive metaphors. It might be said that someone who tries to understand new metaphors through older idioms is actually treating concepts like money—in other words, treating them as a medium for purchasing things that have value, but not as something that is of value in and of itself. As a general principle, we should try to understand new metaphors in their own right instead of converting them back into older currency—which can only buy old merchandise. Like any other idiom traded in the marketplace of ideas, the value of this coin is dependent on what buyers want to purchase with it and on what sellers are able to give for it. Some want to use it to buy the most expensive merchandise in the market, in accordance with its high denomination. Others regard it as glittering but worthless specie that cannot buy a thing. According to this criticism, Tolstoy’s question about the meaning of life is no different than asking, “What is the taste of tomorrow?” or, “What is the color of happiness?” Such questions, the critics will say, are intended to fool the philosophically innocent. Words and sentences have meaning by their very nature; their meaning is their linguistic sense. Actions have purpose by their very nature; their purpose is the objective or goal, toward the fulfillment of which they are the means. Instead of asking about the purpose of people’s lives, Tolstoy asks about the meaning of their lives, confounding his readers and planting illusions in their mind. The question he poses about the meaning of life is itself meaningless. However, this counter-ploy, which is meant to nip the question in the bud to forestall any need of searching for an answer, is too hasty. We not only speak about the meaning of words, but about the meaning of a wide variety of phenomena. Consider some of the ways in which we do so, none of which are reducible to speaking about the meaning of words.


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1. We speak about the meaning of an event or fact in connection with its causal relationship to some other event. We say such things as, “War means death, blushing means embarrassment, smoke means fire, high fever means illness, dark clouds mean rain.” 2. We speak about the meaning of an event or a fact in connection with what can be learned from it as a lesson for the future. We say such things as, “The meaning of the Second World War is that fascism needs to be confronted immediately.” We also speak in this way about the point of something, such as “The meaning of modern painting is obscure.” 3. We speak about the meaning of objects, events, or people in connection with what is important, significant, or valuable about them for us. We say to someone we care about, “You mean a lot to me.” We also talk in this connection about the meaning of an event, such as the meaning of the Holocaust for Jewish self-identity, or the meaning of fire for human cultural development and the meaning of the wheel for the advance of civilization. Within such a context of speaking about meaning we refer also to the sociological, historical, economic or personal meaning of a given event.6 In none of these examples can what is said about the meaning of an object or an event be restated by talking about the meaning of the words used to refer to it. To see the point of the distinction I am making here between the meaning of words and the meaning of objects, events, and experiences, consider the difference between the meaning of an event such as rain and the meaning of the word “rain.” We might want to explain to someone unfamiliar with the English language what the word “rain” means. If the person knew some other language, such as Hebrew, we could translate it into the Hebrew word “geshem.” If the person was a young child who did not yet possess adequate mastery of any language, we might explain what the word “rain” means by pointing out the window during foul weather and saying, “This is rain.” We might also urge the child to feel the rain falling, to note its wetness, saying at the time, “It is only drops of water falling from clouds in the sky.” In doing so we would be acquainting the child with the concept of rain. Having done so, we might want to discuss what rain means for different people. For example, we might want to talk about what rain means for farmers who depend on it for their crops, contrasting that with what it means to city dwellers, who are merely annoyed by rain because it wets their clothes or makes them take an umbrella with them when they leave home. A person possessing the concept of rain thus might know the meaning of the word “rain” but still not know what rain means for farmers whose livelihoods depend on it. In the latter case, as opposed to the first, to talk about 6. Some of these examples are drawn from Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations, 574-75.


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the meaning of something is often to talk about its significance or value or importance. It is what we also refer to by speaking about its being meaningful in one way or another. Significance and meaningfulness are context-dependent features. Things are not significant or meaningful on their own, irrespective of a context. We speak about the social, psychological, economic, or personal meaning of things, all of which manifest different ways in which things may be significant or meaningful. To be personally meaningful, things require a personal way of being appreciated. Clean air may be important for human survival, but without being grasped and valued as such, the significance of clean air is not appreciated in a personally meaningful way. To understand the significance of an event such as rain for someone is to grasp the way in which someone values it. The rain is significant or meaningful to farmers in one way and to city dwellers in another, because each group values it differently. However, both use the word “rain” to refer to the same event and mean the same thing by it. In light of this, it can now be seen that when Tolstoy places the question “What is the meaning of life?” on the agenda of Western culture, he is directing us to ponder the way we grasp life, including our own lives—as though life were something that could have different meanings, depending on both its sense and value and how we are able to appreciate it as such. Indeed, sometimes when we ask about the meaning of a certain puzzling action, we want to know what is its sense, wondering why it is performed or what can be understood or learned or inferred from it. Sometimes when we ask about the meaning of an action we want to know about its importance or value. It helps answering such questions by finding out what is the purpose or goal or end of the action. The connection between the meaning of an action and its purpose is manifested also in speaking about different “ways of life” that people adopt, as if life is an activity, a sort of march toward an objective or goal that has some importance or value to whoever is marching towards it and in the context of which its sense and value can be understood and appreciated. Thus the concepts of meaning, sense, value, significance, importance, and purpose in regard to actions are often interwoven.

The Meaning of a Transcendent Story So far I have considered the concept of meaning as it is used with respect to words, actions, and events. However, note that Tolstoy is not asking about the meaning of the word “life,” nor is he asking about the meaning of certain events that occur in his or anybody else’s life. He is asking about the meaning of life itself. Moreover, it is still not clear whether in asking this he is wondering about the meaning of life as an event that stands in a causal


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relationship to some other event, such as smoke being the meaning of fire, or whether he is wondering about the meaning of life as an action that is directed toward a certain goal that gives it both its sense and value, whereby it is rendered meaningful or significant to those who engage in it. Difficulties arise in both instances. Life is not an action among many other actions that we often perform. It is the necessary, underlying condition for being able to perform actions of any sort: a kind of stretched-out-mode-ofexistence that begins with birth and ends in death, a mode that human beings are conscious of as such and which they might find meaningful to them or not. But given the modern conception of nature, events in nature are no longer grasped by us as manifesting goals or purposes. As such, we do not conceive life as the kind of phenomenon that can make sense or lack sense, as an action may, when we consider it as a means for achieving certain purposes or ends. At most life may be an event that is meaningful or not meaningful, depending on how it is valued by whoever is experiencing it. However, if we take him now to be asking, “What is the importance or value of life as an event?” it is unclear how the question can be answered without having him clarify to whom its importance and value is relevant. He cannot simply be asking, “What is the importance and value of life to human beings?” This may be of interest to sociologists, but Tolstoy is no sociologist. Right at the outset of his discussion, he asserts that people find meaning in their lives by fulfilling the mundane life purposes they desire—in other words, in accordance with what is personally meaningful to them therein. However, he also concedes that the personal meaning he found in his life in the past, like the personal meaning that other human beings find in their lives, is absurd in the face of what we understand about the nature of life through rational contemplation, positing the meaning we find in our lives in the context of eternity and our impending demise. His question, then, is this: “Does life as a mode of existence that begins at birth and ends in death have a meaning that is not dependent on mundane life purposes that human beings strive to achieve, and which does not appear to us absurd in relation to our death and eternity?” But is he talking about life’s meaning as its importance or value or significance to someone, or is he talking about life’s meaning as it emerges from its causal connection to certain events, as fire happens to be the causal meaning of smoke? According to the question’s syntactical structure, he seems to be asking about its causal meaning, such as when we assert that smoke means fire. However, according to the context of the discussion, he seems to be asking about its value or importance—but still without clarifying to whom its importance may be relevant. It appears, then, that Tolstoy has deliberately left his question obscure. If he had said explicitly that he was asking about the religious meaning of life, or whether life has religious meaning or significance, the matter would have


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been clear, but he would have lost a great many of his readers, who would have seen in his question the traditional call for a return to religious faith. He wants to begin the discussion on ground common to both the secular and religious. However, in asking about the meaning of life he is already enticing us to regard life as an event authored and directed by someone who stands in an external relationship to it and lends it divine sense and value. One means of regarding life in this way is to look upon the course of human lives as the unfolding of a story, a deeply engrained tendency in human beings. We are storytelling animals: creatures for whom the storytelling mode of experience is a basic way of grasping and expressing the meaning of events. In accordance with this tendency, near the end of Macbeth’s gory life of bloodshed, Shakespeare puts in his hero’s mouth a bitter conclusion. Life, he asserts, “is a tale Told by and an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” It is unclear from Macbeth’s complaint whether he grasps life as a story without a point, a sort of parable without any moral, or as an illogical story that has no meaning—due to its unhappy end. In my interpretation of Tolstoy, in asking, “What is the meaning of life?” he is trying to find a way to experience life as a story that manifests a meaning other than that which made life meaningful to him in the past. In the past, his life had been meaningful to him because he enjoyed successes, because his life story had gone well. We are used to talking about people’s lives as manifesting stories that have different kinds of meanings: stories of success, failure, struggle, perseverance, love, dedication, suffering, disappointment, and so forth. Tolstoy, it appears, is looking upon the life stories of different people, including his own, and cannot understand what justifies the great importance that their heroes attribute to their lives. Whether a life story is one of success or failure, in the face of eternity and the universe, it is meaningless. The fact that our life stories are nevertheless so important to us only shows that our attitudes toward our lives are absurd. If the life of someone who is considered a success has no more meaning than that of someone who is considered a failure, then any attempt to forge a life story that has meaning is absurd. In light of this, Tolstoy is wondering whether there may not also be a different kind of life story, which has a completely different meaning than success or failure and gives life a meaning that has a completely different value: a life story by means of which human beings can make their lives meaningful, both in relation to eternity and their impending death. To ask whether such a life story exists is to ask whether there is a life story whose meaning is not dependent on success or failure in achieving any particular mundane objectives. To search for such a story is to search for a story that can give meaning to life that is not absurd in relation to eternity and death, but quite the opposite: a story whose meaning is dependent on eternity rather than on the vicissitudes of life. Such a story is neither


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authored by human beings nor by the vicissitudes of life. God is its author, and God determines what happens in it. The meaning of the story is indeed beyond the ken of the story’s hero, as it is known only to its author. However, it can be experienced as a story whose meaning is kept alive by its author for all time, by virtue of which this life is not absurd in relation to death and eternity. All that is required is to adopt a way of life that can help us experience our personal life’s story in such a manner. We must suffice with a story that has been constructed for us by an author other than ourselves: an ordinary and banal story, whose transcendent-divine meaning is beyond our grasp but through which we can experience that our life’s story has a transcendent-divine meaning—of which only God could be the author. The model that may have been guiding Tolstoy’s thinking is embedded in the Gospel story about the crucifixion of Jesus, who in his suffering cried out to God: “O God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Theologians have long noted that Jesus himself failed to understand the religious and transcendent meaning manifest in his life: his being the lamb of sacrifice meant to atone for the sins of mankind, although without ever doubting that his life has religious-meaning.7 Now we can also see what is so effective about the question that Tolstoy posed about the meaning of life. The question initially causes us to look upon our lives as a story whose meaning is manifested by our success or failure in achieving the mundane objectives of our will. Subsequently, our contemplation of eternity and death remove what was previously so meaningful for us in this story, exposing it as devoid of sufficient meaning. Furthermore, it makes us grasp how the meaning we formerly found in our life stemmed from an illusionary life story whose meaning now reveals itself as shallow and superficial. Looking upon life in these two ways is necessary in order to be perturbed by Tolstoy’s question, and by dint of being perturbed to want a life story that has a completely different meaning; a life story of which God is the author, and whose meaning is determined by him. To creatures who are able to look upon their lives in the light of eternity and death, such a story is supposed to be more meaningful than a story whose meaning is success or failure in achieving any particular mundane objectives. In philosophical terms it might be said that this is a story through which life is experienced as having transcendent meaning, though we cannot say what it is. When we adopt a life story whose meaning is beyond our grasp, but which is nevertheless experienced as having transcendent meaning because God is its author, we experience our lives as having greater and more sublime meaning than any mundane meaning we ourselves could give to our lives, a meaning which does not appear absurd in relation to eternity and our certain death. But we 7. I am grateful to Nehama Verbin for this example.


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still cannot say what the transcendent meaning of the story is, apart from the fact that it is important, dear, and meaningful to God. In this way, we are now enabled to experience life as having transcendent meaning out of the banal events of our lives, as events that were authored thus by God, the transcendent storyteller, for our enactment and benefit especially. When we experience our lives not as a story that we are constantly trying to shape and perfect, but as a story that God has written specially for our benefit, we are able to experience them as life that is conducted according to the will of God. Tolstoy wants the experience because he is convinced that it is impossible to grasp life in such a personally meaningful fashion through theological interpretation and explanation. Theology’s failure stems from our inability to find personal meaning in explanation and interpretation. He therefore relinquishes in advance any desire to understand the transcendent message manifest in the lives of human beings. He is satisfied by offering all of us the chance to experience our lives as a transcendent story written especially for us by a God. He wants to experience the transcendent meaning of life, even if this meaning cannot be understood. This passionate desire puts Tolstoy in the company of all religious mystics in all times. However, he differs from run-of-the mill religious mystics in that he is not satisfied with a singular and extraordinary experience of divine revelation, which most of us are unable to conjure at will. He turns to everyday experience—that experienced by people who work in the fields for their living and are worried by their family cares—and attempts to derive from it the same thing that mystics derive from their singular and extraordinary revelation. Through mundane, everyday experience Tolstoy wishes to arrive at what he thinks the peasants experience in their hard lives: their being guided in their everyday lives by the will of God. He wants in this way to transform the entire experience of his life and provide it with religious-transcendent meaning.


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chapter 6 A Defiant Question

thing I want to say about Tolstoy’s question is that it is a defiant question. Its defiance is directed primarily against the secular manifestations of modernity, particularly as they are exemplified in the ideological effort on the part of Enlightenment thinkers to formulate and establish a humanistic worldview based on the values of liberty and rationality, which they hoped could serve as an alternative to the religious worldview that dominated previous times. To see how Tolstoy’s question poses a challenge to this ideological effort in its various tributaries, it is useful to recall first what it was all about. The beginning of the idea of Enlightenment is anchored in the humanistic cultural efforts of Renaissance artists and thinkers in Europe. They sought to reestablish some of the values of ancient Greek high culture, which they took to have posited human endeavors at the center of human life, as an alternative to the religious worldview, which placed God at the center of human life. This humanistic project was carried on through the ideas of seventheenth-century philosophers, such as Hobbes and Spinoza, who asserted that the lives of human beings, like those of all other creatures, are based upon what they want to achieve and forestall. According to this approach, it is human will, like that of all other creatures, which gives things their value in the eyes of human beings. What we desire or are afraid of acquires value in our eyes. We grasp death as being bad because we fear it and want to avoid it. We grasp a pleasurable and enjoyable life as being good because that is what we want. Human beings are set apart from other creatures not by having free will, but by being able to suit their actions to their

THE FIFTH AND FINAL

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desires according to rational consideration. They can take into consideration the long-term effects of things, postpone the satisfaction of everything they desire at a particular moment, and formulate common rules of behavior for themselves in order to attain a better life. Even at its start, the project was accompanied by many reservations. While espousing a rational attitude to life, Spinoza also sought consolation in a mystic experience of rendering himself into a part of something eternal. Others opted for developing a more satisfying conception of values for human life. Human life, the purpose of which is reduced to the use of reason as a means of achieving pleasure and avoiding pain, seemed to them to lack any real value. It does not express the self-consciousness that human beings have or their ability to choose their ways of life in a rational manner and of their own free will. This kind of life is based on a purpose that does not set human beings apart from all other creatures, despite their use of reason in the selection of pleasures, managing social affairs, and creating civilized amenities. Later Enlightenment thinkers, like Kant, wanted to integrate liberty with rationality and endow them both with a value in themselves, as features of life that ought to be desired by human beings as they render our lives intrinsically valuable. One of the steps taken to accomplish this was by distinguishing the intrinsic value of actions performed out of liberty and rational reason from the instrumental value of actions stemming from natural cause, such as some craving or desire. “Everything in nature works according to laws,” claimed Kant. “Only a rational being has the capacity of acting according to the conception of laws, i.e., according to principles.”1 Principles are norms that rational creatures enact for themselves for the purpose of regulating their behavior. The ability to act according to principles is the ability to act according to what Kant called “rational will.” A being that is endowed with the ability to reason rationally, then, is one that determines its actions according to rational will. Out of rational consideration, it is able to choose not only the means for accomplishing its will but also the objectives that should and ought to be chosen, because they are good in themselves. It expresses the will to act according to impartial rational consideration, formulated as universal principles of action. To behave in such a manner is to act like a universal rational lawmaker who is not shackled by the narrow interest of his or her own cravings, a lawmaker set free of the instinctive desires that determine in a causal manner the behavior and life purposes of other creatures. Rational lawmakers determine their life purposes and the means to attain them freely and rationally, independently of their natural propensities and instincts. 1. Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals & What Is Enlightenment? 29. Hereafter cited parenthetically in the text.


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According to Kant’s conception of moral values, true liberty is an expression of rational deliberation, which enables us to regard every person, defined as a rational being, as being of equal value. The universal humanistic message that underlies this conception of morality makes every person an ally of God, someone who performs actions out of rational consideration that aims to be faithful to universal laws and to exercise free will. Kant did not think this sublime status was reserved only for the exceptional. He was convinced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s faith in ordinary human beings’ innately good nature and the possibility of educating people to behave in accordance with these values. Kant’s famous essay “What Is Enlightenment?” is an ideological manifesto that calls for allowing all human beings the possibility of founding their lives upon rational ways of reasoning and liberty by granting them political autonomy. In this spirit, he defined the Enlightenment as follows: Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! “Have courage to use your own reason!”—that is the motto of enlightenment. Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction . . . nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. (85)

Further on, Kant asserts that because human beings have not been allowed to grow up and turn into rational and free agents who use their minds to determine their way of life, they have become used to living according to what others tell them. If they shall be permitted to develop according to their inherent rational ability to reason, he explains, they shall succeed in emerging from their present tutelage, freeing themselves of the cultural fetters that shackle them with beliefs and inclinations foreign to a rational mind: “But that the public should enlighten itself is more possible; indeed, if only freedom is granted, enlightenment is almost sure to follow.” This assumption leads to Kant’s optimistic political conclusion: “For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom. . . . It is the freedom to make public use of one’s reason at every point” (86-87). The idea that human beings are capable of regulating their personal, moral, and political lives in a free and rational manner is a constitutive foundation in the optimistic ideology of the humanistic worldview that underlies what Kant regards as “Enlightenment.” Out of this approach toward the


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metaphysical nature of human beings, Enlightenment thinkers also glorified the concept of Historical Progress. History, it was claimed, is not just a series of events and changes in human culture. It embodies a record of human progress, a cultural and spiritual development toward attaining a freer and more rational way of life.

Renunciation of Liberty and Rationality Tolstoy’s proposal that we adopt a traditional-peasant lifestyle is a defiant rebuttal of everything that Kant sought to establish in regard to the humanistic ideology of the Enlightenment and the idea of Historical Progress to which it gave rise. Instead of extolling a rational way of life that expresses our free nature and our ability to conduct our life as we see fit within a common social endeavor, Tolstoy calls for the adoption of a traditional way of life based on ancient and common life purposes that in no way express our ability to live freely and to reason for ourselves. He calls upon us to stop examining everything according to rational consideration, bow our heads before reality, and willingly accept life’s tribulations as do the peasants, to whose ears the optimistic messages of the Enlightenment have not yet arrived. He asserts that such a way of life embodies God’s will and calls on all of us to be guided in our lives by God’s will rather than by our own. The human ideal that Kant posed to his generation was that of a grown-up steering freely down the path of life according to his or her ability to reason rationally. The human ideal that Tolstoy poses to his readers is that of a small child clutching the hand of his father, who leads his child securely to a destination determined by the father and about which the child knows nothing. In light of Tolstoy’s aristocratic standing, it is tempting to put a political label on his assertions that esteemed a peasant way of life, calling them “an ideology that serves the interests of the ruling class in society.” It is easy to contend that what it does is merely provide philosophical justification for the preservation of the existing class and political structure in his society. But this kind of political perspective trivializes the existential distress Tolstoy felt and misses the point of his ardent desire for salvation. First of all, Tolstoy addresses his question, first and foremost, to the educated members of his society. His confession is written for readers who are supposed to already have liberty and are enabled to reason rationally: educated people like himself, whom modernity has released from the bonds of dogmatic religious faith and who determine their ways of life for themselves. He appeals specifically to those people who know how to use their minds, those who have arrived at “maturity” and enjoy personal liberty, and he calls on them to follow the path of the peasants: to labor for their subsistence in the fields and


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adopt a traditional lifestyle in order to experience the religious meaning of life. Second, Tolstoy devoted a lot of effort to educating the peasants. The political contention takes no notice of the fact that his question expresses defiance toward the Enlightenment’s attempt to provide philosophical justification for the values of liberty and rationality. By merely characterizing it as “upper class ideology,” his defiance is not addressed but merely rejected. To address it, we need to note that Tolstoy’s rejection of the modern worldview, which posits our ability to reason rationally and has liberty at its center, relates to both of the modern worldview’s branches: that which, like Hobbes, values rationality as a means for bettering human life and that which, like Kant, values rationality as an inherent feature of our ability to exercise free will. As regards the first branch, which espoused rationality as a means for ordering and bettering our lives, Tolstoy seems to be asking: “What good are all your rational ways of reasoning to you? What meaning is there to life that is dependent on success in achieving mundane, transient life purposes in a rational manner? Is it not superficial and meaningless in relation to eternity and death? Does it not lead to constant anxiety in the face of possible failure and, ultimately, death?” As regards the second branch, which espoused rational life as a feature of free will, his question regarding the meaning of life discloses that a life which is based only on giving expression to the will to freely exercise rational reason according to some universal principle is not sufficiently meaningful to us. For we are creatures who are anxious about what may happen in our lives, who suffer grief over the death of those dear to us, who are overcome with dread in the face of our impending death: creatures to whom what is personally meaningful in life lies close to our mundane, human relationships, everyday practices, personal desires, and inevitable death. We are not creatures who give meaning to our lives in an abstract fashion, by means of rational considerations in respect to universal goals. Tolstoy’s critique can be formulated as follows: one side of the modern worldview instructs human beings to find the meaning of life in experiences that do not manifest any transcendent value: personal pleasures, security, comfort, and happiness. Another side instructs them that the meaning of life is to be discovered in the implementation of transcendent values, which require getting away from everything near to our mundane hearts and the way we experience what is meaningful to us. It can now be seen that in asking “What is the meaning of life?” Tolstoy not only challenged the modern worldview of his generation about the value of liberty and rationality, in the light of which human beings ought to live; he was saying that liberty and rationality are no solution to the Problem of Life, but the root from which it stems. Furthermore, no worldview can give personal meaning to our lives, and no personal meaning that we experience in our lives is secure from the devastating perspective taken on it regarding


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our impending death and eternity, which exposes it as absurd. In the past, religious belief had made it possible to unite the two elements, the eternal and what is personally meaningful to us in our lives. However, religious belief has now also been turned into a worldview. In this intellectual guise it is difficult for us, modern human beings, to put our complete faith in it. We are thus left with an existential problem that overburdens our hearts, a problem that when it is grasped and experienced as such, overshadows our entire existence. This is the Problem of Life.

Overcoming the Problem of Life To understand what the Problem of Life is and how exactly Tolstoy wants to overcome it, it helps noting first that he uses the singular rather than the plural to pose it. The latter, as in the expression “the problems of life,” refers to the difficulties we may encounter in the course of our lives, such as not having enough money to realize our desires, loving someone and not having our love returned, not being able to start the car in the morning, and so forth. But Tolstoy here is discussing only a single problem, a problem concerned with human life itself, which is thus perceived as an inherently problematic mode of existence. Human life is problematic because it is a mode of existence of beings who have an existential need to experience life as meaningful, but who are also able to understand that from a universal and objective point of view, life is meaningless. In the past religion provided a solution to this problem. It suggested that our lives are meaningful to God, a being who transcends all life, determines what occurs in it, and values human life in particular. The problem is how, at a time when we can no longer believe in what religion proclaims, to nevertheless experience life as having a religious meaning—a meaning that remains unvarying in the face of life’s tribulations, death, and the feeling of absurdity that engulfs us when we consider what is personally meaningful to us about our life in the context of eternity and death. Tolstoy’s proposed solution to the Problem of Life is to renounce any rational attempt to make sense of religious ideas in a way that reconciles them with a modern, rational worldview. Instead, he suggests we work hard, be satisfied with little, concentrate on what is inside our homes, abandon great ambitions, devote ourselves to simple, everyday life, and accept life’s tribulations and our own destinies without fear—and in this way we shall experience the religious meaning of our lives. Belief in God needs to be transformed from a religious supposition and worldview regarding God’s existence into a basic attitude toward life, including our own. It might be said that in order to overcome the Problem of Life, we require an experience


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of being “dependent on an alien will,” as Ludwig Wittgenstein expressed this point after reading Tolstoy: the experience of “being guided” in life by God. “To believe in God,” wrote Wittgenstein, “means to see that life has a meaning. The world is given me, i.e. my will enters into the world completely from outside as into something that is already there. . . . That is why we have the feeling of being dependent on an alien will . . . and what we are dependent on we can call God.”2 According to Tolstoy, in order to experience life in such a way, we must live a simple life based on labor and concern for the others who are close to us in the circle of our lives, and willingly accept what is thrown in our path by destiny. When we subordinate our personal ambitions to what life throws in our path in this manner, we can experience our lives as having religious meaning, still without understanding what this meaning is. Only by changing our way of life is it possible to change our attitude toward it, and only by changing our attitude toward it is it possible to experience our lives as having religious meaning. Tolstoy therefore proposes that we willingly bind ourselves to a traditional way of life, a life of hard labor and simple, everyday ambitions, like that of the Russian peasants. The implementation of such a way of life will make it possible, so he thinks, to experience being guided by God’s will in regard to everything that happens in our life and in this way overcome the Problem of Life. To assess the magnitude of the revolutionary step that Tolstoy would have us take, we must pay attention to the anti-ideological element in it. As he depicts the Problem of Life, the growth of liberal, nationalist, and socialist ideologies is merely the attempt to replace religious ideology with some other kind. However, what we need is not the substitution of another worldview for the religious worldview, but its replacement by an everyday way of life, which shall be able to give us what religious faith gave to believers in the past, but through everyday, mundane experience. The ideal of human life put forward by Tolstoy in this context is of a servant who subordinates his own will and understanding to those of the “master.” Instead of supporting our ability to determine our way of life by our own free will according to our own rational consideration, he extols our ability to subordinate the will and to subjugate liberty and reason before reality and tradition. It now becomes clear what attracted Tolstoy to the way of life of the Russian peasants. He seems to have considered it a way of life that was formerly common to all human beings, by virtue of which they experienced what they had ceased to experience in the modern era: their being guided by God in their everyday lives. The Russian peasants appeared to him to still be experiencing it due to their way of life. They appeared to him to willingly accept what their harsh destinies dealt them. They did not rebel against the 2. Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914-1916, 74.


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oppression and cruelty of life or ask the same questions he had asked, such as “What do I get out of it?” or “Where is all this leading to?” They wallowed deeply in their harsh lives and yet found meaning in them, without being embittered about the present, afraid of the future, or terrified of death, as if they experienced being guided in their lives by God’s will. Indeed, it may be supposed that when he spoke with the peasants about their harsh lives, they would proclaim—as religious people seeking to reassure themselves in the face of life’s tribulations often do—that “everything is by the will of God.”


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chapter 7 A Solution that Chases a Dream

about the Problem of Life and how it can be overcome prompted his readers to contemplate their lives and the way in which they experience their meaning. They had an especially powerful and profound impact on those who longed for what religion provided believers in the past, but who could no longer find their way to religious belief. Under the influence of these ideas, some were even motivated to transform their way of life in order to try to give a completely different meaning to their lives, in the spirit of Tolstoy’s solution to the Problem of Life. His ideas about the way in which it could be overcome even influenced some to renounce their urban lifestyles and to adopt a peasant way of life, referring to the change they evoked in their life as “self-realization”—the transformation of a philosophical idea into a way of life from within which life could be experienced as having a meaning that transcends their existence. On the other hand, most professional philosophers found it hard to understand the logic behind Tolstoy’s thinking and were generally unimpressed by his solution to what he presented as the Problem of Life.1 Only a few philosophers, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, were enamored by them. Nonetheless, his solution to the Problem of Life appears to me to harbor profound insight, even if it is plagued by several difficulties. It therefore deserves to be considered and evaluated also from a philosophical perspective.

TOLSTOY’S IDEAS

2 2 2 1. See Antony Flew, “Tolstoy and the Meaning of Life.”

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Difficulties in Tolstoy’s Solution to the Problem of Life To evaluate the validity of Tolstoy’s suggestion as to how to overcome the Problem of Life, one ought to distinguish between two issues that Tolstoy fails to distinguish between: one is the connection between a peasant way of life and an emerging attitude to life, through which it is experienced as having a religious meaning; the other is the connection between such an attitude and experience and the objective state of reality and truth. The first issue concerns the way in which the experience of doing God’s will can be acquired. The second issue concerns the validity or significance of this experience. To start with the first issue, I want to point out five difficulties in Tolstoy’s proposal as to how we need to go about overcoming the Problem of Life. First, in an ironic manner it was the attitude of the Russian peasants themselves to the way of life espoused by Tolstoy that refuted his ideas. To his disappointment, he discovered that the Russian peasants, whose ability to withstand life’s ills he so admired and attempted to hold up as a model for educated people, were not as enamored of their harsh way of life as he was. Their hard labor and poverty oppressed them. They would willingly have replaced their way of life with an easier and more enjoyable one. Given this wish on their part, it is not clear that his description of how the peasants experienced their lives was at all correct. Second, one of the ways to successfully cope with life’s ills and forestall the fear of death is to adopt an outlook on life that makes it possible to accept the good with the bad. The belief that everything is by the will of God makes this possible. It does not follow that life is actually being experienced according to what is both asserted and believed to be the case. We believe that the earth is round, that it revolves in space, and that matter is made up of atoms, but it does not follow that we experience reality according to these beliefs. They only provide us with an outlook on reality by which to explain what takes place in the world. Of course, according to Tolstoy, such beliefs on our part are only theoretical suppositions, whereas the peasants’ proclamations were not mere theoretical suppositions regarding the world; they were an actual expression of their experience of reality. But it is not clear what justifies this assumption on his part. Third, granted that many of the peasants whom Tolstoy met were at least inclined to proclaim that everything was by the will of God in their difficult moments, it still does not follow that they seriously believed that everything was by the will of God. Perhaps they were merely trying to encourage themselves in their difficult moments in life, using such proclamations to help carry them over difficult times, as we are apt to use the expressive affect of rituals, chants, prayers, and blessings for the various psychological affects they have on us. Expressive uses of language are often metaphoric and


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picturesque. We proclaim that the love we feel for someone fills our heart, that we are tearing our brains apart trying to find a solution to a difficult problem, that we experience an arrest of life when wondering about the meaning of life. If challenged to say whether we seriously believe that our hearts have stopped pumping blood and are now filled with love instead, or that we have actually removed our brain from its place in our skull and torn it to bits, or that life can be stopped even while we go on living, in the same way that we can stop walking and stand still—the answer is that these are only picturesque ways of talking. They should not be taken as literally true. Fourth, many religious believers in the past have felt, and many still feel, that they are acting according to God’s will without having adopted the narrative Tolstoy would have us adopt as a way of life. Many religions do indeed insist upon performance before faith. However, what is required is usually concerned with ritual, certain ways of doing ordinary things, and compliance with ethical and moral injunctions, rather than hard labor in the fields, concern for others, and sufficing with little. Tolstoy is seeking a kind of universal traditional ascetic way of life that does not manifest itself through religious ritual, but it is unclear why a peasant way of life in particular should be preferable in this respect to other simple, traditional, non-urban ways of life, or to other ways of life entirely. Obviously he disdains urban life as compared with a traditional way of life more closely related to nature in the setting of a village. (In his novel Anna Karenina, Tolstoy expresses this idea through the character of Levin, who finds that city life dispirits him, whereas the village life, with its simple religious-social tradition and work in the fields, cleanses his spirit and revitalizes his soul.) So peasantry is just an example with which he was familiar. The meager lives of northern fishermen or desert shepherds would also suffice for this purpose. Tolstoy seems to assume that a traditional practice of living by drawing sustenance more directly from nature can lead us into experiencing a religious-transcendent meaning to our lives, in a way that is not possible when we make a living by working in factories, shops, stores, offices, stock markets, court houses, and universities. But even if it is true that in most circumstances such occupations do not lead those who are working in these environments to experiencing their ways of life as having a religious-transcendent meaning, it does not follow that such an experience can only be derived in respect to the way in which we make our livings or by adopting traditional cultural roles that men and women had in more ancient times. There are many inspired religious believers who take themselves to experience their lives as if guided by the will of God without adopting the way of life that Tolstoy advocates. Fifth, Tolstoy assumes that a way of life that manifests God’s will gives our lives meaning, which is preferable in our eyes to the meaning we give to our lives in a personal manner without any recourse to God. However, it is


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unclear on what basis he makes this assumption. There are people who do find personal meaning in their lives, and in the modern era many of them find such meaning specifically because it appears to them that they have chosen it, created it, and sustained it by their ingenuity and effort, and they prefer it to the arcane transcendent meaning that God is supposed to provide to everyone should they adopt a harsh and ascetic way of life. Although a simple traditional way of life that embodies a religious experience, such as that recommended by Tolstoy, is supposed to grant us a feeling of comfort and security, making it also possible to overcome the fear of death and the anxieties that plague us about the future and the sorrows that befall us, it does so at a steep price: the renunciation of liberty and the ability to reason rationally, as well as the satisfaction gotten from feeling that we have given meaning to our lives in our own unique, personal way. It seems that many people in the modern era prefer to feel they have determined their own way of life and given personal meaning to their lives on their own, despite the insecurity, frustration, suffering, anxieties, fear of death, and sorrows that accompany them. Tolstoy sets an interesting example in this respect. While lauding the transcendent-religious meaning gotten out of a traditional way of life and belittling the meaning gotten out of a personally wrought way of life, he nevertheless adopted the latter over the former. He did not give up his considerable wealth or his literary writing for the sake of an ascetic peasant lifestyle, despite claiming that it can bring about a new and much more meaningful religious experience of life. From Tolstoy’s viewpoint, the difficulties I have raised here can all be swept aside by a single move. It might be said that the solution he proposed to overcome the Problem of Life is intended for those of us whose lives are disturbed by it. What we need to do is stop wrestling with the problem in an intellectual manner. We then need to try to overcome it by changing our way of life so that it can be experienced as meaningful in a different way. By understanding Tolstoy’s solution to the Problem of Life in this way, it at least begins to make sense. According to the sense thus inherent in it, a return to simple everyday life, out of a willingness to accept everything it may bring, for better or worse, without predicating its meaning on successes and without being afraid of failures and disasters, as if the matter lies not in our own hands but in hands far better than ours, makes it possible to accept life with a new attitude and to experience its meaning differently. The adoption of such an attitude toward life eliminates three factors that previously cast an evil spell over our life: concern for the future, fear of death, and philosophical speculation about the meaning of life. The last factor is particularly important in the present context of discussion, which is after all a philosophical context of discussion. After the frustrating attempt to discover the meaning of life in a philosophical manner, by thinking, a return to mundane life


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and everyday endeavor makes it possible to discover new meaning in life, which through philosophical ways of thinking we were unable to discern. It is like trying without success to define a word that is important to us in our everyday affairs, hoping in this way to shed light on what it means and how it should be used, and then, when giving up on this effort, noticing that we have no need for the definition, as we knew all along how to use it. According to this understanding of Tolstoy’s solution to the Problem of Life, when we ponder it and try to solve it, we lose the profound meaning that everyday, ordinary things have in our lives. Coming back to them from our unsuccessful philosophical effort, we discover they are pregnant with meaning that formerly we failed to acknowledge. By no longer trying to predicate the meaning of life upon our successes and pleasures or on some intellectual overview of it, we are able to derive from life’s mundane events and everyday cares a satisfying meaning that we vainly searched for in worldviews that would satisfy us. According to this understanding of the matter, such satisfaction with life’s meaning is what in the past religious believers experienced when they felt they were guided in their lives by God’s will. Tolstoy’s preference for meaningful experience over belief in religious and philosophical worldviews is understandable. However, for this reason exactly it is hard to justify his dogmatic remarks about what the change in one’s way of life and the experience this involves reveal about the religioustranscendent meaning of life. Could there possibly be any real connection between an experience, meaningful as it may be, and any claim that follows it about the nature of the reality or world? This issue does not only concern a religious experience. The view from the top of the mountain is breathtaking, especially after an exhausting climb, and certainly for someone unaccustomed to it. Amazement at the sight of the landscape might sometimes draw gasps of wonder from the spectators. But the experience of being amazed by the view from the summit only manifests the way the spectators themselves grasp the world, rather than its true nature, and their gasps of wonder do not constitute sufficient testimony to the true nature of things, but only to the way they experience them. This also holds true as regards the experience of being guided by the will of God. To speak of experiencing anything— heat, cold, or the meaning of life—is to restrict the range of the discussion to how we feel and are affected, regardless of what is the true nature of reality. All of which brings me back to one final puzzlement regarding Tolstoy’s proposed solution to the Problem of Life. Does his solution entail that whoever is bothered by the Problem of Life should give up seeking the truth about the meaning of life and take appropriate action instead, so as to change his or her attitude to life, whereby it can be experienced as having a religious meaning; or is there in his solution the trace of a delusion, according to which experiencing life as having a religious meaning not only


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manifests our attitude toward our life by means of rich and satisfying metaphors, but also discloses the truth about the nature of life?

The Dream Tolstoy’s confession is not a philosophical essay. In it he offers no justification for his decisive assertions about the Problem of Life and how to overcome it, nor is it easy to find answers in it to the difficulties I have pointed out. Therefore, his confident assertions regarding the solution to the Problem of Life through the adoption of a traditional peasant way of life come across as dogmatic proclamations. It seems that he himself recognized this in retrospect. Three years after writing his confession, he related what had been revealed to him about the meaning of life, which was so insightful and convincing to him. However, this time he preferred to tell about a dream he had dreamt.2 In his dream, he is lying on his back in bed. He is not ill, but he is not feeling too comfortable either. He begins to wonder what he is lying upon. He examines his bed and discovers that it is made of played rope strips that are attached to the sides of the bed, his legs resting on one strip and his back on another. He tries to adjust his body to a more comfortable position but in doing so he pushes some of the strips away, and his legs dangle down. The more he tries to adjust himself on the bed, the worse it gets. Only now he asks himself, “How and on what am I lying?” He looks down and cannot believe his eyes. He is at such an unimaginably great height that he cannot see anything below. His heart compresses in terror. He does not dare look down again, for fear he might slip from his fragile hold upon the bed. The thought occurs to him that it is only a dream. He tries to wake up but cannot. Desperate, he looks upwards into the abyss above. The infinity up above, in contrast to that beneath him, attracts him and is reassuring. Now, feeling more composed, he again glances to see how his body is being held up. He discovers that a strong and well-balanced strip is supporting the middle of his body in the most stable equilibrium. As so often happens in dreams, the mechanism that is supporting him seems completely natural and comprehensible, although upon awakening “this mechanism has no meaning whatever.” In his dream, he wonders why he had not understood before how securely he is supported upon his bed by such an ingenious mechanism. Now he understands, and he is relieved. “There cannot even be a question about falling.” He is happy and calm. It is as though someone were saying to him, “Remember! Do not forget!” And then he awakens. 2. Tolstoy, “My Confession: Introduction to the Critique of Dogmatic Theology and Investigation of the Christian Teaching,” 88-90.


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Referring back to what he had written earlier in his confession, it might be said that what Tolstoy’s dream revealed to him was that the mechanism required to support him securely upon the bed of his life, without any fear of falling out of it into the menacing abyss beneath him, was a way of life that provided him with the experience of fulfilling God’s will. When he experienced his life in this way, he felt absolutely safe. No harm could come to him. The magical spell of a dream does not lie only in the wondrous sights it provides the dreamer, but also in the meaningful experience derived through it. As I read it, what was so meaningful to Tolstoy in his dream was the way in which, through it, he suddenly understood how turning away from anxietyinducing philosophical reflections about life and death, while curbing his selfish ambitions and putting his faith in God, could change his attitude toward his life by providing him with an experience of being guided by God’s will. This change in attitude could now enable him to overcome any possible philosophical difficulty regarding a theologically formulated, religious worldview, for through it the fact that life has a transcendent-religious meaning was at once revealed by direct experience. This attitude to his life was the strip that bore him securely upon the bed of his life, above the abyss that threatened to swallow him. It was the only mechanism required to give satisfying meaning to his life. It is in the nature of dreams to sometimes provide us with a solution to what perplexes and troubles us in life. The problem is that, upon awakening, the dream vanishes, and with it disappears the solution, leaving the dream itself an unsolved and perplexing riddle. To ask whether in his dream Tolstoy understood something that we fail to notice when awake, or only thought he understood, just like wondering whether the mechanism that bore him securely upon the bed of his life in his dream could be implemented when awake, is to seek a solution that catches up with the dream and provides us, when awake, with the same wondrous experience of insightful understanding to which philosophy aspires, as it attempts to emulate in a rational, reasoned, and readily accessible public discourse what a dream reveals during sleep in a magical and unreasoned way—but only to the dreamer. However, it seems to me that with regard to the Problem of Life that tormented Tolstoy, the philosophical solution he arrived at when awake, and which he wanted to bestow upon all his fellow human beings, chases after the dream he dreamt in his sleep without ever quite catching up.


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PART I I

THE

SENSE

OF T H E WO R L D


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chapter 8 Wittgenstein Turns to Philosophy

World War I, a young Austrian soldier entered a small bookshop in the town of Tarnow in western Galicia, looking for a book to read. The bookshop contained mostly picture postcards, with only one book for sale: The Gospel in Brief, as retold by Tolstoy. The soldier bought the book, and in the following days he read and reread it with great interest.1 In this book, as in other works, Tolstoy employed his literary skill to induce his readers to acknowledge what he called “the Problem of Life,” and to point out to them the only way it could be overcome. He described the problem as existential distress, stemming from a need to believe that life has greater meaning than that which results from our success in realizing personal objectives, a meaning that transcends our life and life in general, together with the difficulty a modern person has believing in what religion has to offer in this matter. The solution he proposed was to stop trying to ascertain the religious meaning of life by means of a religious worldview, and to adopt a way of life consisting of manual labor, concern for others, and sufficing with little, claiming that it is a way of life that God has intended for all human beings. Only then, he contended, does the religious meaning of life reveal itself through the experience of “being guided in life by the will of God”—all this without relying on a religious worldview, which is based on picturesque but senseless expressions, or on abstract theological assumptions, which cannot be validated. DURING THE COURSE OF

1. This account is based on Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life: Young Ludwig, 1889-1921, 220-22.

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Tolstoy’s declarations about the way the religious meaning of life could be experienced raised the spirits of the soldier who had bought the book, but they prompted his philosophical criticism as well. The soldier was Ludwig Wittgenstein, the youngest son of the wealthy Wittgenstein family from Vienna.2 His grandfather on his father’s side was a Jewish merchant who had converted to Christianity. His father was a great industrialist, who made his fortune reconstructing the steel industry in Austria, and a knowledgeable connoisseur of the arts. His mother was Roman Catholic, the daughter of a family of Jewish origin that had converted. The family members were talented and sensitive, and his four brothers were also vulnerable.3

Early Philosophical Influences Eight years earlier and before he was twenty years old, Wittgenstein had taken his degree as a mechanical engineer and set out for Manchester, England, to do aeronautical research. Until that time, his worldview had been shaped through his education at home until the age of fourteen; his scientific and technical studies, first at the Realschul in Linz in Austria and later at the Technical College in Charlotenburg, Berlin; his reading of scientists such as Heinrich Hertz and Ludwig Boltzmann for their views on the philosophy of science; and his reading of the philosophical works of Arthur Schopenhauer.4 Schopenhauer was a bitter, tart-tongued philosopher, who preached a pessimistic worldview in regard to life. The metaphysical portion of Schopenhauer’s thinking was based on drawing harsh conclusions from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, whom he regarded as the greatest philosopher of the modern era. At the root of these conclusions lay Kant’s distinction between the world that is grasped through experience as phenomena in space and time and the world that exists unto itself, what he called “a thing in itself.” We are able, he contended, to know and investigate the world as a collection of phenomena in space and time, as we are also able to form scientific theories in regard to it by means of concepts that make it possible to perceive and distinguish phenomena under the categories of substance, cause, effect, quantity, quality, and so forth. However, we are unable to know anything at all about the world as it is in itself. In light of this, Kant steered the philosophical discourse away from the traditional speculative investigation 2. On Tolstoy’s influence on Wittgenstein’s thinking, see Caleb Thompson, “Wittgenstein and the Meaning of Life.” 3. Two edifying biographies of Wittgenstein are Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein a Life, and Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. 4. On Schopenhauer’s influence on Wittgenstein’s thinking, see David Avraham Weiner, Genius and Talent: Schopenhauer’s Influence on Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy.


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dealing with the metaphysical nature of the world as it is in itself, to an investigation of the conditions that make possible any knowledge, which he referred to as “transcendental conditions.” In the framework of this investigation, space and time were considered transcendental forms of experience that shape all our knowledge of the world. The “self,” which philosophers of earlier times had spoken of as “the subject of experience,” constituting a metaphysical entity that exists in itself, Kant turned into a transcendental condition for experience in the form of consciousness. He argued that it must be supposed as accompanying every experience and uniting the multifarious mishmash of sensory impressions into what is familiar to us as phenomena. By contrast, the self as a soul, which is something not limited to existence in time and space and which may survive after death, was described by Kant as a speculative idea, about which no knowledge could be gained. Any talk about God as a being who exists outside time and space and who created it all, ex nihilo, he also described as a speculative idea, which might nourish our lives but about which no knowledge could be gained. Schopenhauer was deeply impressed by Kant’s ideas, but he sought to go beyond them. In his philosophy, the transcendental assumption regarding the existence of something in itself evolved into the idea that this was will. Under the influence of mystical ideas he had absorbed from his readings in Indian philosophy, Schopenhauer viewed the will of human beings and animals as the manifestation of a world-will. Thus living creatures were deemed to operate out of this will, which directs them toward different objectives, which are grasped through consciousness as the world, which he termed an “idea” or “image.” The pessimistic element in Schopenhauer’s metaphysical worldview stemmed from his belief that the encounter between will and experience in the phenomenal world is frustrating and does not lead to happiness. At most life offers only fleeting pleasures, which end in disappointment and suffering. Death, which is the disappearance of life, and with it the disappearance of the experience of personal will, consciousness, and the phenomenal world, marks the end of the frustration, suffering, and disappointments that accompany life. He was therefore of the opinion that death is preferable to life. It was best to acknowledge this, gratefully accept it, live in the present without expectations or hopes, and thus forestall both the fear of death and any frustration with life. Schopenhauer’s ideas resounded in the hearts of many educated people of the late nineteenth century. His writing was easier to read than Kant’s, and the Viennese, especially the educated among them, preferred to read his writings. It seems that his pessimistic outlook on life was also near to their hearts, more so than the optimism of the Enlightenment expressed by Kant. During his stay in Manchester, while he was working on his aeronautical research, Wittgenstein read Bertrand Russell’s Principles of Mathematics and


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was profoundly impressed by it. In it he first encountered philosophical thinking based on modern logic, which had been fashioned and formulated in mathematical style by Gotlieb Frege. In this method of formulating the principles of logic, propositions in ordinary language were reduced to a propositional form, in which a predicate is ascribed to a variable, with the use of a universal and an existential quantifier. Thus, for instance, the proposition that traditionally serves as an example of a general assertion, “All human beings are mortals,” was rendered into a complex propositional form: “For every x, if x has the property of being human, then x also has the property of being mortal.” The expressions “if,” “then,” “or,” “and,” etc., which served to depict logical relations between basic propositional forms, were defined as “logical connections.” Their truth value could be calculated according to the truth values of the basic propositional forms of which they were composed. According to this mode of calculation, it was possible to separate propositional forms whose truth value always came out true in every instantiation from those that could be true or false. (For example, the sentence “All human beings are mortals” instantiates a complex propositional form that may be either true or false. From this, it follows that there could be a human being who never dies. By contrast, the sentence “It will rain tomorrow, or it will not rain tomorrow” instantiates a complex propositional form that is always true.) The concept of “logical truth” came to be understood as a function that exhibits only truth values in all its possible instantiations, something that Wittgenstein eventually termed a “tautology.” In this way it was possible to distinguish clearly between what traditional philosophy had called “necessary truth” and “contingent truth.” Logic was grasped as manifesting the most stringent field of necessity that could possibly be conceived, which henceforth turned into logical, rational, linguistic, and conceptual necessity. By contrast, science was grasped as providing factual propositions about contingent truths, which describe only “causal necessity,” such as physical, biological, or psychological necessity, which from a logical point of view could also be otherwise. Russell contended that the new logic provided philosophy with what it had lacked until then: a scientific method of thinking. Impressed by Russell’s book, Wittgenstein abandoned his aeronautical research and began pondering the principles of logic. He also traveled to Germany to meet Frege and discuss the foundations of logic with him. On Frege’s advice, he returned to England and enrolled at Cambridge University, where Russell was teaching at the time. Russell devoted a great deal of attention to his new student, and the strong bond that developed between the two men prodded them both into intensive philosophical thinking. Despite the profound differences of character between them, which over the course of time made it hard for Wittgenstein to maintain their personal and intellectual relations, they shared much in common with regard to their


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education and attitude to their world. Both men, until their adolescence, grew up and were educated not at school but at home, in a closed and conservative family environment of an aristocratic character, which protected them from the outside world. (Russell, who was orphaned as a baby and grew up in the strict religious atmosphere of his grandmother’s house, recounted that most of his life he felt like a ghost among other persons: as if a glass wall separated him from them and prevented any contact.5) It could be said of both men that they felt like aliens in the world for much of their lives. Their efforts to confront the world through philosophy oscillated between a desire to overcome the alienation they experienced in the world and a desire to justify it. Understanding would be paved by means of investigation, probing the connections between logic and the world: between what was necessary and what was contingent. Wittgenstein’s studies at Cambridge lasted a year and a half. Then he left the university and moved to a small Norwegian village situated on a fjord, where later he built an isolated cabin for himself on the mountain slope. There he pondered philosophical issues and jotted down his thoughts in notebooks that he kept as a philosophical diary. At this time he also began reading the writings of the famed Viennese cultural critic, Karl Kraus, and was highly impressed by him. Kraus was an essayist and the editor of his own newspaper, as well as a public speaker to whose lectures the educated came in droves. His critiques dealt with social, artistic, political, and conceptual issues, and they exerted a strong influence on the city’s intellectual, social, and literary discourse. His influence on Wittgenstein can be discerned in three ideas, which the latter adopted and developed in his own unique way.6 The first idea concerned the existence of an internal connection between aesthetics and ethics—an idea that Schopenhauer also propounded. According to this view, any aesthetic expression in literature, painting, or architecture embodies an attitude to life with ethical ramifications: the character of the artist and the spirit of the times. Positive and negative qualities of character, as also noble or decadent tendencies, are manifested through the artist’s artistic expression. Therefore, in his literary and political critique, Kraus devoted attention to the use of language by a novelist or thinker, seeking to reveal the negative ethical attitude they expressed. The second idea concerned the linguistic standing of his critique of art, society, and politics. Kraus contended that in his critique he was only making “grammatical distinctions,” the purpose of which was to put things in their proper place in order to prevent confusion among categories and concepts, which in his 5. Ray Monk, Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude, 3. 6. On Kraus’s influence on Wittgenstein, see Paul Engelmann, Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir, 122-32, and Yuval Lurie, “Wittgenstein on Culture and Civilization.”


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opinion was typical of the modern era. The third idea was the need to distinguish between a senseless statement and what cannot be said, but nevertheless shows itself. In his view, what intellectuals in various periods had attempted to say in metaphysical assertions about the world and in religious declarations about God could not be said and was therefore senseless. However, it is manifested in the way the world is grasped and experienced, and it can be given expression in artistic, religious, and social practices.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus In the summer of 1914, while Wittgenstein was visiting with his family in Vienna, World War I broke out. At first he was in doubt as to what he should do. Although he was exempt from conscription, within a short while he volunteered for the Austro-Hungarian army and served in its ranks throughout the war. At first he was a simple soldier, serving aboard an armed riverboat patrolling the Wisla River. Later he served in the artillery corps, and he was even commissioned an officer. Throughout his military service, Wittgenstein continued to ponder philosophical issues and jotted down his thoughts in a notebook. Toward the end of the war he served on the Italian front, and upon its conclusion he was taken to a prisoner-of-war camp, from whence he wrote to Russell, who had not heard anything from him until then. Wittgenstein told him in the letter that he had written a book of philosophy, in which he had succeeded in solving all the problems they had both confronted. Russell took action to have Wittgenstein freed, and the two men met at the Hague, conversed at length on philosophical issues, and Russell read the book. It was a book of small dimensions, written in brief, numbered paragraphs, sometimes consisting of only a single sentence. Some paragraphs were phrased in simple, everyday language, others in logical terms. Although Russell found some of it incomprehensible and differed with other parts of it, he nevertheless realized its philosophical importance and agreed to write an introduction to promote its publication. Wittgenstein himself called the book a “philosophical notebook.” On the occasion of its translation into English in 1922, George E. Moore, who had been at the time one of Wittgenstein’s teachers at Cambridge and who had also visited him during his stay in Norway to learn of his new philosophical ideas, suggested the title Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus—on the analogy of Spinoza’s famous opus. The book had a tremendous impact on the thinking of philosophers of an analytical bent with a scientific worldview. In the foreword, Wittgenstein summarized the meaning of the book as follows: “The book deals with the problems of philosophy, and shows, I believe, that the reason why these problems are posed is that the logic of our language is misunderstood. The whole sense of the


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book might be summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.”7 The book is written as a collection of succinct declarations, almost entirely lacking any explanation. (When Russell once begged him to explain his declarative remarks, Wittgenstein contended that offering an explanation for them is like touching a flower with dirty fingers.) In general, there is first of all a declaration of a general character, followed by further declarations that are sort of inferences stemming from it. (The declarations are numbered decimally from 1 to 7, a general declaration that introduces a new term appearing under each whole number. This is subsequently clarified by further declarations numbered fractionally.) The book gives the initial impression of being a logical tract, in which the declarative statements are supposed to stem one from another. However, the subject matter goes beyond anything in books of logic, and the style throughout is compressed, poetic, and powerful. The book opens with declarations about the world, going on from there to declarations about logic, language, thought, and meaning, proceeding from there to declarations regarding metaphysical issues, such as solipsism and realism, the nature of scientific theories, the standing of the self, the sense of the world, death, eternity, ethics, mysticism, as well as what shows itself but cannot be said. Among these are also declarations about what is called “the solution to the Riddle of Life,” which is discovering its meaning, as also about what is called “the Problem of Life,” which is how to live when it is impossible to solve the Riddle of Life by discovering the meaning of life. In an image borrowed from Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein likened his book to a ladder. According to this comparison, the declarations in the book are the rungs of a philosophical ladder; as one climbs them, it becomes possible to understand how to confront the problems of philosophy, including the Problem of Life. This is where philosophical investigation ends, and the ladder employed for this purpose is revealed to be an element alien to the world and to life, and consequently as a collection of nonsensical declarations.8 Now the final step is required: the climbers must return to their world. They must abandon the philosophical investigation, which is alien to the world, and begin living in the world without troubling themselves further with the problems of philosophy, because of which they had looked upon the world and their life as though they were alien beings standing outside them and talking about them. Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is an exceptional philosophical 7. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 3. 8. On discarding the ladder after climbing it, see Cora Diamond, The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind, chap. 6.


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text both in concealing the fact that its focus is on the desire to confront the Problem of Life and in having been written in a very condensed and often aphoristic poetic style. It sublimates the goal behind religious and mystical texts that mark a road for gaining salvation into that of gaining philosophical enlightenment about the meaning of life. In doing so it transforms a philosophical quandary into a personal and existential effort to change an attitude to life through philosophical clarification. Therefore, unlike my discussion of views about the meaning of life put forward by other writers, my discussion here will follow closely several declarations that emanate from this book and the way in which they unfold toward its central goal. My aim is to illuminate the crucial rungs of the philosophical ladder put together by Wittgenstein, which allows readers who climb it to arrive at an understanding of the nature of the question about the meaning of life, to consequently abandon the desire to discover the answer to it, and to direct their efforts, instead, to overcoming what is now recognized as the Problem of Life.


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chapter 9 The Logical Limits of the World

opens with a grandiose declaration, which is the first rung of the ladder he constructs to deal with the question about the meaning of life: “1 The world is all that is the case.” Since his is a philosophical book that strives to grapple with the question about the meaning of life by formulating the essence of all things underlying life, the term “world” obviously does not refer to the planet earth, which is a physical object described and explained by the sciences of geography, geology, and astrophysics, none of which have direct relevance to the question about the meaning of life. The reference is to something more comprehensive and basic, something that worldviews undertake to display as they purport to explain the essence of existence. In Wittgenstein’s worldview what exists is everything described in true propositions about what happens to be the case, all the facts that obtain: for instance, that it is raining, that the book is on the desk, that the earth revolves around the sun, that I am hungry, and so on. The next declaration clarifies this: “1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.” A fact is what we describe by means of a proposition and what renders some propositions true. A fact is also something that might not have been the case, but is the case. Hence, the world, which is the totality of facts, is contingent. It might not have been or at least might not have been as it is. It is tempting to classify these declarations under a familiar philosophical title that Wittgenstein refuses to use. They are claims presenting an initial metaphysical distinction on the way to formulating an ontology: a philosophical worldview that defines the fundamental elements underlying any possible

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reality and stipulates how existence takes form and is manifested. In Wittgenstein’s proposed ontology, existence is “the world,” which is all that is the case: the totality of facts. By predicating what exists on facts, he is able to provide an answer to three different metaphysical questions that have traditionally preoccupied philosophers in regard to existence: 1) What is existence? 2) What (in fact) exists? 3) What are the fundamental elements that shape any possible existence? In standard metaphysical terms, it might be said that the ontology that opens these declarations presents existence as a collection of contingent events manifested as facts, which might not have been, and which together constitute the world. However, Wittgenstein is reluctant to refer to his declarations in these terms. The term “metaphysics” acquires a pejorative connotation in his philosophy, referring to speculative worldviews that lack sense: “6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science—i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy— and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.” Therefore, the declarations regarding the form that existence takes and the fundamental elements that give shape to any possible reality are referred to, according to Kant’s terminology, as “transcendental” conditions. In Kant’s critical philosophy metaphysics is described as a philosophical effort striving to gain knowledge about such things as the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, freedom of the will, and whether the world is eternal or created. He argued that such matters are transcendent or metaphysical matters, and therefore inaccessible to knowledge. Philosophy should thus concern itself with investigating the transcendental conditions that are necessary for acquiring knowledge, thereby setting a limit to what can be known. Wittgenstein adopts this terminology, going even further than Kant by regarding what is asserted though metaphysics not merely as speculative ideas that transcend all possible knowledge, but as nonsense. In doing so he shifts the philosophical investigation from its previous focus on the necessary conditions for acquiring knowledge to those that determine sense and with it to the transcendental conditions that determine what can be the case, which is what might be a fact. The contingent aspect of the world is conjoined with another aspect of it, namely the logical form underlying it. The world is not an immense collection of different things, just as a house is not a collection of stones, blocks, pillars, slabs, and beams. The objects of which houses are made could also have been strewn about in a sort of chaos, lacking any order, and there would have been no house. Facts take shape and obtain when things come together in a certain order. Human beings, for example, are a huge accumulation of physical, biological, historical, and psychological facts. From a


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linguistic aspect, facts are what propositions describe; a fact is anything described by a true proposition. The proposition “There are elephants in Africa” is true because there is a fact that corresponds to it. The proposition “There are elephants at the North Pole” is false because no fact corresponds to it. The relation between the proposition and the fact that renders it true also manifests what is required of things in order to come together as a fact. Just as a collection of words, such as “Africa, elephants, there are,” does not constitute a proposition, so too the existence of elephants and Africa does not suffice to constitute the fact that there are elephants in Africa. For the fact that there are elephants in Africa to be realized, a certain relation has to subsist between these two things: the elephants have to be in Africa. Otherwise, the proposition that they are in Africa would be false.

Logical Space Not everything that could have been the case actually is. There are elephants in Africa, but there are none at the North Pole. However, from a logical point of view it is merely a contingent matter that there are elephants in Africa and not at the North Pole. The facts could have been otherwise. Just as metaphysics is not concerned only with what happens to be the case but with what could be the case, a transcendental investigation into what makes sense is concerned with the necessary conditions for anything that can be the case: with what is necessarily required for any possible world. For it is possible to imagine a different world than what actually is and around which human discourse revolves: for instance, a world in which there are elephants at the North Pole and not in Africa. The importance of a transcendental investigation into the logical form of the world arises from its allowing us to note what makes sense and what does not make sense and therefore what could be and what could not be the case. It determines the absolute limits not only of our world but that of any possible world. It is a fact that human beings have sensations, feelings, and thoughts, and chairs do not. But could there be a world in which chairs sense, feel, and think? Could there be a world in which numbers are fast or slow, sour or sweet, green or red? And if not, why not? Since facts are shaped by the relationship obtaining between the things comprising them, to ask such a question is to ask whether chairs or numbers could stand in the kind of relation to things described by propositions that purport to represent such facts. For Wittgenstein, this opens the path to integrating the principles of logic into his discussion of the transcendental conditions for asserting propositions that make sense. For, like metaphysics, logic also deals with what is necessary and holds true for any possible world by determining the propositional


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form of any proposition. Through logic, it is possible to describe the form of every possible fact and thereby of every possible world. What it cannot describe cannot be. Unlike the world, in logic nothing is contingent. The truths expressed through it are absolute. The weatherman, asserting that “It is going to rain tomorrow,” sometimes speaks truthfully and sometimes falsely. The logician, asserting that “Tomorrow it will either rain or it will not rain,” always speaks truthfully. Thus logical truths reveal the form of the world, which is its essence. The world, then, is the sum total of states of affairs that have been realized and are in the nature of facts. It is constituted out of necessity and contingency, logical form and empirical content. Just as the essence of the world is determined by logical form, the essence of things that comprise facts is determined by their logical form. The different possibilities contained in the form of things that shape facts are what Wittgenstein terms “states of affairs.” This is proclaimed by the proposition that opens the discussion of what he calls the “logical space” of the world: “2. What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs.” A state of affairs is a possible fact. An actual fact is simply a state of affairs that happens to be the case. Both are constituted of things and the possibilities inherent in them. “2.013 Each thing is, as it were, in a space of possible states of affairs. This space I can imagine empty, but I cannot imagine the thing without the space.” Every thing—whether a material body, number, sensation, thought, taste, or color—makes certain facts possible by its logical space, which determines the possibilities open before it. They are what in the past has been referred to as its “metaphysical essence.” The logical possibilities inherent in anything are its essential features. They determine the states of affairs that can arise in its connection, and as such are possibilities that are also determined by logic. An elephant, for instance, can be alive or dead, heavy or light, angry or placid, brown or green, in Africa or at the North Pole. These are all state of affairs that could obtain as facts on the basis of the logical space elephants occupy, which determines their elephantine essence. An elephant cannot be an odd or even number, before Tuesday or after Sunday, true or false. These are not possibilities within the range of the logical space open to elephants. Therefore there cannot be any such facts in any possible world. Hence assertions that purport to describe such states of affairs fail to make sense. Wittgenstein summarizes these points by noting how logic determines the absolute form of things: 6.1224 It also becomes clear now why logic was called the theory of forms. . . . 6.124 The propositions of logic describe the scaffolding of the world, or rather they represent it . . . logic is not a field in which we express what we wish with the help of signs, but rather one in which the nature of the natural and inevitable signs speaks for itself. . . . 6.22 The logic of the world,


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which is shown in tautologies by the propositions of logic, is shown in equations by mathematics.

To see the point of these declarations, note that without the scaffolding of logic, there would be no facts and no world and no language in which it can be represented. Indeed, due to the way in which the world is so constrained and determined by logic, contends Wittgenstein, “something about the world must be indicated. . . .” What exactly this might be he does not say, at least not at this stage. What does emerge at this stage is that the world, like the language we use, is limited within logic by its very nature. Therefore, when we attempt to formulate the principles of logic in any “sign-language,” we find there is logic behind every possible language, for without it there are no signs and there is no language. Logic has transcendental priority over every possible existence or determination, which also includes every possible language. Therefore, “6.124 . . . If we know the logical syntax of any sign-language, then we have already been given all the propositions of logic.”

Thoughts as Pictures From here, Wittgenstein goes on to contend that the same logical principles that determine states of affairs also determine what can be sensibly said or thought. Logic is not a product of thought, but vice versa: thought, like everything else about the world, is only possible on the basis of logic. The concept, which Wittgenstein uses to clarify what can be said and thought with sense, is that of a picture. “2.1 We picture facts to ourselves,” he declares. “2.11 A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states of affairs. 2.12 A picture is a model of reality.” The representation of states of affairs as pictures is performed in various ways, as by means of thoughts or the formulation of propositions in language. They, in turn, are determined by logic, which determines the form of every state of affairs and its method of representation in language and thought. Therefore, logic turns into a transcendental condition for what can be said and thought. It is the ultimate substructure that makes both world and thought possible. The philosophical step of giving precedence to logic over thought had already been taken by Frege and Russell. Instead of explaining logic as the principles of abstract thought, they had described the relation the other way around: abstract thought, like all other thought, manifests logic and is possible because it is based on logic. Wittgenstein buttresses this understanding by presenting the principles of logic as standing in their own right. It is they that make possible thought, language, sense, science, and world.


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The claim that we represent pictures of states of affairs in speech and in thought leads to two conclusions, both of which are important to the ensuing project: 1) Our world is twofold, containing both facts and thoughts in the form of propositions, which are also facts; 2) Thought is a propositional form of representation that has sense. Hence, what now needs to be clarified is how certain facts, such as thoughts expressing propositions, can constitute pictures representing states of affairs. Wittgenstein tries to clarify this by claiming that the sense of propositions stems from their being pictures that represent certain states of affairs. They are able to do so by dint of two characteristics. First, they have the same logical form as the states of affairs they represent. (When we say, “A book is on the table,” the relation between the concepts “book” and “table” represents a relation in the world between a particular book and a particular table.) Second, behind the linguistic instantiation of the proposition, which is the physical realization of a picture—as behind the images and contents of thought, which are the psychological realization of a picture—lies an intentional act of a projection. The sound of rain beating upon the roof may sound like the proposition “It is raining”; however, there is no intentional act of projection behind the sound, as no one is seeking to say anything thereby. Therefore, it is not a proposition and no picture of a state of affairs is represented by means of it. These two, the projection of thought through a proposition and its logical form, are necessary in order to be able to generate a picture—which is a fact having sense. This leads to a declaration regarding what sense is: “2.221 What a picture represents is its sense.” Formulating this idea in terms of “thoughts,” he declares the following: “3. A logical picture of facts is a thought. . . . 3.1 In a proposition a thought finds an expression that can be perceived by the senses. . . . 3.11 We use the perceptible sign of a proposition (spoken or written, etc.) as a projection of a possible situation. The method of projection is to think of the sense of the proposition.” From this, it follows that we can say things of a different sense with the same word pattern. It all depends on the way in which the words that are used are projected; on the way thought takes place by means of them. To know the sense of a proposition, we have to know the method of projection employed by the person who thinks by means of it. Wittgenstein’s intent becomes clearer if we think of a code to which the cipher is missing. To understand it, we have to know which concepts the signs of the code represent and what the logical relations between them are.

Conclusions Wittgenstein summarizes the philosophical conclusions to be drawn from his investigation into the logical limits of the world in several declarations


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about the logical limits of his language and the way in which the limits of his world are determined through it: 5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. 5.61 Logic pervades the world: the limits of the world are also its limits. So we cannot say in logic, “The world has this in it, and this, but not that.” For that would appear to presuppose that we were excluding certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case, since it would require that logic should go beyond the limits of the world; for only in that way could it view those limits from the other side as well. We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think we cannot say either.

As disclosed by these remarks, specifically his use of expressions such as “my world” and “my language,” the discourse has become personal. Readers climbing the ladder in his footsteps are supposed to apply what he is saying to themselves. However, the personal element melts into logic, which constitutes the transcendental limit of every language and of every world. It might be argued that the ability to think logically is only a subjective restriction. It is not a restriction that applies to the world, and it does not prevent others from thinking differently. Even though I may be unable to understand a description of a world that is not logical, such a description could be comprehensible to someone irrational or someone equipped with a logic other than my own. However, this idea does not stand up to criticism. I cannot understand what “a logic other than my own” might be. As something void of form, it cannot be represented by a sensible proposition. If someone represents it, then it has a logical form. From the idea that I cannot conceive of a world without logical form, what emerges is that the logical structure of thought and language determines the limits of every world I can conceive. I cannot conceive of a world that is not logical. One of the conclusions to be drawn from all this is that it is impossible by means of thought to venture outside language. To try to do so is to attempt to think outside logic. This cannot be done. Logic is the limit of every state of affairs that can exist and of every sensible thing that can be said or thought. It has no outside. This is encapsulated in the following declaration: “5.143 . . . Contradiction is the outer limit of propositions: tautology is the unsubstantial point at their center.” A contradiction violates logical principles; a tautology expresses them. In his notebook two years earlier, Wittgenstein had described the inner limit disclosed by tautologies as analogous to a point at the center of a circle, which he compared to the “inner limit” of the circle. A tautology posits the limits of the world from the inside, like drawing a circle with the aid of a compass. The circumference of the


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circle, which is its limit, is determined by means of the compass from a point inside it at its center. Logical propositions are like the movements of a compass drawing the circumference of the circle, which is comparable in this case to the logical space in which propositions are formulated, thoughts are represented, and facts come into being. At this point of the investigation, the transcendental standing of logic in relation to the world and to thought having been clarified and formulated, Wittgenstein undermines the standing of his own investigation of logic. (This is also the point in his investigation from which Russell and other philosophers refused to follow in his footsteps.) Logic, he contends, cannot be explained; it can only be expressed more or less clearly. He does not explicitly say why, but two strands in his line of thought can be picked out and noted. 1) Logic provides the transcendental limits of every world that could be and everything that can be thought. To explain it is to try to reach beyond it: to say why it exists and what makes it possible. To do this, we must venture outside logic, as the Bible does, telling us about a creator of the world, before which everything had been void of form. However, taken as an explanation rather than as an expression of awe, it is mired in metaphysical difficulties. Answers to the question whether the creator of the world is the creator of logic or logic is eternal in its own right lead to theological and philosophical contradictions. The conclusion is that if logic is the transcendental limit of both thought and any possible world, there is nothing more basic by which logic can be explained. Its standing is no different from that of God in the Biblical narrative, who is described but also not explained. 2) Moreover, it is impossible to represent the relationship between logic, thought, and world in a picture through propositions that make sense. To try to do so is to use logic, not to represent it. For this reason, Wittgenstein asserts that his philosophical declarations about the relation between logic and the world do not represent pictures of states of affairs. As this is the transcendental condition for making sense, they fail to make sense. Philosophy, even as a transcendental attempt to represent the relation between the limits of the world and thought, is destined to failure in advance. What he tried to say in his book, he concludes, does not have any sense, despite its manifestation through the very existence of world, language, and sense. It shows itself but cannot be said.


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chapter 10 The Cognitive Limits of the World

W I T T G E N S T E I N D E R I V E S the second transcendental limit of the world from consciousness as it is embodied in cognition: on the basis of how we experience things, become acquainted with facts, and arrive at knowledge. In this matter he does not rely upon the logic of Russell and Frege but on Schopenhauer’s philosophical theory of knowledge, or epistemology, and through him on Immanuel Kant’s philosophical claims and those of a long series of philosophers who developed the modern metaphysical worldview dealing with the relationship between the world and our knowledge of it. In the modern metaphysical worldview, an ontological gap has opened up between what is termed “the world as we know it” and “the world as it is in itself.” This gap, which is also described at times in philosophy as the distinction between “appearance and reality,” is manifested in the difference between subjective and objective descriptions of the world. The former express the way in which we are acquainted with the world, perceive, and experience it. The latter are supposed to be independent of the way in which we are aware of the world, perceive, and experience it. According to Kant, time and space, as well as concepts that refer to material objects— color, cause, substance, and more—do not refer to features of the world as it is in itself, but to features of phenomena, which are things as we are acquainted with them due to the nature of our cognitive abilities. They belong to the world as we perceive it and are acquainted with it, rather than the world as it is in itself. A description of the world as it is in itself is supposed to be a description of the world in isolation from the way in which we come to know it due to the nature of our cognitive abilities and the concepts

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that arise in their connection. Any such description, contended Kant, is metaphysically speculative. It is not based on our experience and the concepts that embody it, and as such it does not provide any knowledge.

Dissolving the Controversy between Idealism and Realism The gap in meaning that emerges between talking about “the world as we know it” and talking about “the world as it is in itself” lies at the basis of the controversy between two contesting metaphysical worldviews known as “realism” and “idealism.” The proponents of these views argue over the question whether cognition is dependent on the world, or vice versa. According to the realistic view, there is a world that exists in itself, and it can be perceived and known in different ways, depending on different modes of cognition. According to the idealistic view, the world is only a product of our cognitive abilities. As the world in itself cannot be known, some argue that it does not make sense to try to refer to it as such. This latter view sometimes leads to solipsism, according to which talking about the way others perceive the world also cannot be known and therefore also does not make sense. It is just like talking about a world that exists in itself, since it is impossible to be acquainted with the way in which others perceive the world and experience it. At this stage the discussion turns personal, with the solipsist presenting his or her idealistic view in the first person: “If the existence of the world depends on perception,” the solipsist asserts, “then it depends on my perception.” Wittgenstein’s solution to this metaphysical controversy is to eliminate the basis for it, which is the difference between the realistic ontology with its metaphysical worldview and the idealistic ontology with its metaphysical worldview in its extreme incarnation as solipsism; in other words, to eliminate the very distinction between a world that exists in itself and a world as we perceive and know it phenomenally. Both are based on the assumption that the concepts of world and my world, my life, and my life refer to different events. However, Wittgenstein contends now that the concepts, which he employs to talk about the world, his perception and awareness, his life and life in general, all refer to the same thing, and he uses them in propositions to represent the same facts: those that he has come to know in different cognitive ways and from which his life is shaped. Identifying the reference of the concept of world with his cognition of facts, and his cognition of facts with his life, forces Wittgenstein to contend with the response that it makes sense to talk about facts of which he is unaware and that he himself does not perceive, so that these are not concepts that refer to the same thing. Although he does not say so explicitly, for the purpose of identifying his cognitive states with his life and his life with


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the world in its entirety, he seems to assume that two types of cognitions are available to him: knowledge of facts that he has acquired directly, through his own personal perception and experience, and knowledge of facts that he has acquired indirectly, through some sort of inference. When he talks about what he sees and hears, he is talking about facts by dint of direct knowledge—or personal cognition. When he talks about facts that he has not seen for himself, he is talking about facts by dint of indirect knowledge—or on the basis of inference. This is an epistemic distinction that Russell formulated as the difference between “knowledge by acquaintance” and “knowledge by description.” (Wittgenstein was likely familiar with it from Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy. At one time he expressed his annoyance with the book to Russell by calling it a cheap philosophical thriller, but in this matter he appears to have followed after Russell.) In either event, what is given to him is his life, which is shaped by different cognitive events. It follows that there is no basis for the metaphysical controversy. The realist asserts that talking about the world in itself, and not only as it is known or may be known to us, is sensible. The solipsist asserts that only talking about the world as he or she knows it, is sensible. Both of them are trying to say what cannot be said in propositions that represent states of affairs. The former is trying to say something about the world, which he or she cannot represent as facts—without thereby representing it and becoming aware of it. The latter is trying to say something about him- or herself, which cannot be represented by facts—that he or she is the possessor or owner of cognitive events about facts in the form of beliefs and perceptions. This possessor or owner is referred to in philosophy as “the subject” or “the metaphysical self,” embodying in metaphysical idiom the attempted conversion of the concept of soul common to religion and ordinary speech into philosophical discourse. Kant minimized this metaphysical self into a transcendental condition for cognition that accompanies experience, giving it a unifying form and rendering it into our own experience. Wittgenstein takes the step of first advocating the solipsistic assertions and then negating their metaphysical status. He does this by rejecting the philosophical attempt to talk about a “metaphysical self” or “the subject” of experience as something that lies outside the phenomenal world of which we are aware, something that is supposed to possess consciousness, to have experiences, and to acquire knowledge. He contends that philosophers tend to assume the existence of such a self because they think of cognition as the visual field of the eye, and of the metaphysical self as the eye. He does not clarify what is wrong with this way of thinking, but we may surmise. First, the existence of an eye is a fact that is part of the world and so is the visual field. It is possible to see someone else’s eye or one’s own eye in the mirror; one can even touch it or conceal the field of vision by obstructing it. Thus the


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causal relationship between eye and visual field can be explored. However, the metaphysical self is unlike the eye, in that it is not part of any possible world. So the relationship between it and cognition is not that of a state of affairs. To the extent that it cannot be in any relationship to things that comprise states of affairs, it is not in any logical space. Hence, unlike fictitious beings, such as ghosts and mythical creatures that exist only in stories and fantasy and not in the world, the metaphysical self cannot even be referred to or spoken about sensibly. Second, the causal relationship between the eye and the visual field seen through it is not that of ownership or possession. The eye does not see the visual field. It is not aware of it, and it does not own or possess it. It is merely an organ through which a certain kind of cognitive experience in the form of seeing emerges. Therefore, the relationship between the eye and its visual field is inappropriate for representing the purported relationship between a cognitive event such as seeing and the metaphysical self that is held to own or possess it. The problem is not of finding a more congenial example to explain it; the problem is that the idea of a metaphysical self possessing an experience and owning a cognitive event such as perception cannot be represented as a state of affairs. It follows that the philosophical assertions about the metaphysical self, as the owner or possessor of consciousness and perception, do not make sense. Thus, it is not merely that the nature of a metaphysical self cannot be known, as Kant asserted; nor even that we cannot know if it even exists. Since assertions with regard to the metaphysical self and its relationship to experience do not represent a possible state of affairs, it cannot be referred to in propositions. Even talking about its possible existence does not make sense. The problem that Wittgenstein needs to overcome is that it is not only in philosophy that we assume that consciousness or experience is a form of cognition possessed by someone. In everyday language, too, consciousness, experience, or perception is always attributed to someone. If he wishes to reject the metaphysical owner or possessor of consciousness in the form of cognitive events from sensible speech, he has to explain what should be made of everyday assertions that attribute consciousness and perception in the form of a cognitive event to someone. Wittgenstein does this by analyzing propositions in which cognition in the form of propositional attitudes is attributed to someone. Russell coined the term “propositional attitude” to refer to such concepts as believe, know, fear, hope, and wish that are used by conjoining them to propositions. We attribute to a person knowing that it is raining, believing that it is raining, seeing that it is raining, fearing that it is raining, hoping that it is raining, and so forth. Wittgenstein’s ploy is to analyze propositional attitudes in such a way that replaces them with propositions that do not refer to propositional attitudes, eliminating in this way both the possessor of those attitudes and the specific cognitive event they are held


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to embody and replacing them with a concept that describes a form of representation that does not presuppose ownership or possession by someone. What remains after this analysis is only the assertion that certain representational facts represent certain facts. His wording is very succinct, and much of it is unclear: “5.542 It is clear, however, that ‘A believes that p’, ‘A has the thought p’, and ‘A says p’ are of the form ‘”p” says p’: and this does not involve a correlation of a fact with an object, but rather the correlation of facts by means of the correlation of their objects.” As I understand this declaration, take an assertion such as “A thinks that it is raining.” Wittgenstein is saying that it should be replaced with the assertion, “The proposition ‘It is raining’ is manifested as a cognitive event, which is a psychological fact that constitutes a picture that represents a certain state of affairs as a fact.” In this way it no longer refers to someone who is the “possessor of a thought” or the “owner of a belief.” All that remains is an assertion about the manifestation of the proposition “It is raining” as a form of representation through a cognitive event that is the thought that it is raining. A proposition manifested in consciousness is merely a fact that represents a fact: in other words, a picture. In this view, cognitive life is a sequential series of pictures. Typically, such cognitive events described as “thinking” and “believing” are facts dealt with by psychology, which purports to explain the constituents of the soul. However, since there is no sense to talking about a “metaphysical self” or a “subject” as the owner or possessor of cognitive events, psychological investigation of the soul cannot cast any light on the nature of the metaphysical self or the subject: “5.5421 This shows too that there is no such thing as the soul—the subject, etc.—as it is conceived in the superficial psychology of the present day. Indeed a composite soul would no longer be a soul.” By “psychology,” he is apparently referring to a scientific theory by means of which the soul is explained as a mechanism that generates sensations, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and desires. A mechanism is not a soul or a metaphysical self, but something natural and composite. The terms “soul” and “metaphysical self” are supposed to denote something unnatural, which is the possessor of consciousness. A mechanism is not the owner or possessor of anything. The mechanism that underlies the digestive system and through which it functions is not the owner or possessor of its various parts and operations. A soul that is merely a natural mechanism is not the possessor of a person’s body, or of a person’s cognitions, in the form of perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs. In such a psychological explanation, we also are not talking about what was grasped in the past in religion as the soul, which is something unnatural and indivisible, with which lies the responsibility for choosing between good and evil, and which may survive after life. Thus, when we replace what is said about the soul in religion with talk about a


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metaphysical self or subject in philosophy, it turns into a statement that lacks any sense, and when we replace it with scientific explanations about various mechanisms, it does not explain the soul as the possessor of consciousness. The outcome is that both metaphysics and science fail in their attempt to replace religious pronouncements and ordinary speech about the soul with sensible propositions. Once the idea of the subject or the metaphysical self is rejected as nonsensical, there is no longer any bone of contention between the solipsistic and realistic metaphysical worldviews. There are only different kinds of cognitive events, which are all pictures of states of affairs. If talking about a subject or metaphysical self is not sensible, then we also cannot assume that besides the different kinds of cognitive events about the world, there is also a possessor or owner of them who is not part of the world: “5.64 Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.” On the one hand, the possessor or owner of cognitive events disappears; on the other hand, the world that exists in itself disappears. There remain only cognitive events representing various states of affairs. What philosophers are attempting to say by means of the solipsistic view is not sensible. Nonetheless, “5.62 . . . what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of the language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.” As I understand him here, solipsism makes itself manifest in that I am unable to refer to the world without the linguistic frame of reference given me through my initial cognition of it. In this sense my cognition renders the world into my world. Realism makes itself manifest in that I have a desire to speak about “the world as I found it.” However, it is not possible to replace what makes itself manifest through cognition with sensible propositions. Two years earlier, Wittgenstein had written the following in his notebook: “Idealism singles men out from the world as unique, solipsism singles me alone out, and at last I see that I too belong with the rest of the world, and so on the one side nothing is left over, and on the other side, as unique, the world.”1 Thus the limits of my cognition turn out to be the limits of the world. 2 2 2

1. Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914-1916.


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World, Consciousness, Life, Death, and God Wittgenstein summarizes the conclusions from his clarifications as follows: 5.621 The world and life are one. 5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.) 5.631 There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains ideas. If I wrote a book called The World as I found it, I should have to include a report on my body, and should have to say which parts were subordinate to my will, and which were not, etc., this being a method of isolating the subject, or rather of showing that in an important sense there is no subject; for it alone could not be mentioned in that book. . . .— 5.632 The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of the world.

The subject (as the metaphysical self) is a transcendental limit of the world, just as logic is a transcendental limit of the world. Logic is empty of any factual content. The metaphysical self is also empty of any factual content. The factual content found in consciousness does not define the metaphysical self, since “the world as I found it” could have been otherwise. That means that my life could have been different and therefore I could have been other than I am. The characteristics that shape my personality, and the events that shape my personal biography, do not shape the metaphysical self that I am supposed to be. The metaphysical self is like the point at the center of the circle of life that is drawn by a compass shaped by logical possibilities and cognitive events; like that point, it lacks any factual content. Therefore, the world as I found it is I myself—or my life. My death, which is the end of my life and consciousness, is the end of my world. At death my consciousness ceases to be and the world disappears. To express this insight in a general form, it might be said the death of someone else is a fact in the world to us, which we might experience or come to know in various ways. Our own death is not such a fact. Therefore, our own death cannot be experienced or be known by us, and therefore it is not part of life or our world. It is a personal transcendental limit of the world, which we are unable to cross. All of this gives our lives something of eternity’s limitless dimension: “6.4311 Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.” Two ideas emerge out of the last declaration. The first concerns living in the present, which Wittgenstein characterizes as “timelessness.” Our concept of time allows reference to past, present, and future. It is difficult to understand what might be a concept of time that allows reference only to the


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present, for through it what is experienced cannot be grasped as what did not exist before and might not exist later. Without these conceptual reference points it is difficult to make sense of the concept of an event or time. Someone who experiences life in this way does not experience it in a timely fashion, as constituted of events that have a limited duration. Consequently, such a being also has no conception that what is experienced is in the present, since it has no concept of time that allows reference for something happening as contrasted with something that happened before or is yet to happen. We need a conception of past and future time not only to make us aware of the present as such, but also to deal more deeply and broadly with what is still in the present and to experience the present in a more meaningful way. A conception of future time is required in order to plan, worry, wish, and hope. A conception of past time is required in order to remember and to feel shame, guilt, longing, regret, and satisfaction with regard to what occurred in the past. Beings that are unable to conceive of their lives in these ways have no expectations or fears regarding what might happen in the future. They are also not bothered by what happened in the past. (It is sometimes suggested that this is how animals experience their lives.) According to Wittgenstein, although we possess a concept of time enabling us to consider our life in relation to the past and the future, when we manage to avoid focusing on our life through it, we can experience our life as if it were eternal life. (Those among us striving for such eternal life should note that the ability to experience what happens in our lives in the context of past and future enriches, deepens, and broadens the experiences. Memories that manifest regrets, satisfaction, and longings, just like plans, hopes, and worries, enable us to enrich and deepen the experiences of our lives by reference to past and future events. I return to this point in Part 4.) The second idea expressed by the declaration about the transcendental nature of life as eternal is that life is not like a certain living space, such as a courtyard or a region of a country, which has limits. We can cross the limit of a given living space, but we are unable to step outside of our own life and cross its limit. The analogy Wittgenstein suggested for thinking about the limits of life is that of the visual field, which constrains all our visual experiences and from which it is impossible for us to see outside. In this way, the two great concepts of space and time, which according to Kant are transcendental features of any possible cognition and through it of any possible phenomena, turn into inherent aspects of life as we experience it. According to this clarification, the concepts of time and space are inherently related to the concept of life. Thus, any attempt to talk about them as “objective” or “realistic” features of life that exists irrespective of the way in which we experience our lives is misleading, as we can never experience our own lives in such an “objective” or “realistic” way. It follows that with respect


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to our own lives, talking about the end of life is senseless. In this clarification of the concepts of death and time in the context of how we experience our own life, it turns out that what causes the fear of death is the use of the concepts of space and time in a metaphysically misleading way. This happens when we use them as detached from our own experience, as if they were the features of things in themselves or some states of affairs that do not apply to our experience. If we succeed in dismissing our anxieties and expectations in regard to the future and our regrets and sorrows in regard to the past, we can experience our life as detached from a conception of a future time or past time. Such an experience of life is entirely detached from any objective conception time. In the same way, if we return the concept of space to what is given to us in experience only, without assuming the existence of a metaphysical self who stands behind it all, our experience of the world is rendered into what we also refer to as “the world,” and our lives are rendered into what we refer to as “life in general.” Any talk about the world and life that are not our world and not our life then becomes senseless to us. In the prevalent religious worldviews of the West, God is held to be a transcendent, non-natural, divine being situated beyond the limits of space and time who graces the souls of human beings with a divine spark. By rejecting the existence of a metaphysical self, and by turning space into a limitless internal feature of his life and time into a limitless internal feature of his life, Wittgenstein succeeds in shaking off the dread of death and giving his life something of eternity’s soothing dimensions. And he does all this without any recourse to religious belief in an eternal and infinite being that lies outside life, and without assuming that behind his life lurks an eternal soul in the shape of a metaphysical self possessed of a divine spark.

Existential Philosophy The idea that our own lives and life in general are one and the same thing to us, as well as the idea that there is no metaphysical self in the shape of soul that stands behind them, makes Wittgenstein’s thinking akin to existential philosophy, particularly as it is given expression by Søren Kierkegaard. In this philosophical approach, one notes that one’s own life is experienced as a mode of existence that is of a singular significance to oneself. As such life is a mode of existence that general descriptions of various modes of existence given to us as human beings—such as that we are rational, lustful, social creatures who possess body, soul, free will, and self-consciousness, and that we are destined to die—fail to capture the way in which each of us experience it, for it is a mode of existence that is experienced by each and every one of us as something singular. To use an example drawn from Wittgenstein’s


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later investigations in philosophy, it might be said that other people’s sensations of pain are all the same to me, in one way or another. They are all pains that I do not experience. My sensations of pain are unique among them inasmuch as they are the only ones that I experience: they are the only ones that actually hurt me! To enhance the singularity of his life as he thus experienced it, Kierkegaard sought to posit his existence in direct relation to God. Wittgenstein gets the same existential import of singularity regarding his life that Kierkegaard was striving to express without bringing God directly into the discussion. By forging an identity between the world and his world, between his life and life in general, he experiences them as one singular event, which will disappear and be annihilated with his death. In this way Wittgenstein manages to grasp and express the existential singularity of his life for himself, without having recourse, like Kierkegaard, to a religious worldview that posits the existence of God and through whose regard for him he is he able to grasp the singularity of his own life. Wittgenstein also adds an innovative idea to all this: since he cannot experience his own death, as long as he focuses on the singularity of his life for himself, it is experienced as eternal. And since logic is an inseparable part of his life, pervading anything that has sense, absolute but empty logical necessity, rather than divine care, is an inseparable, constitutive part of it.


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chapter 11 The Ethical Limits of the World

a philosophical attempt to answer the question about the meaning of life should aim to draw the transcendental limits of life in three contexts of inquiry: logical, epistemic, and ethical. Since life has turned out to be identical with the world as we “found it,” a philosophical endeavor of this sort concerns the transcendental limits of the world that is our own life. The first limit describes what can possibly be in life, the second what can possibly be known about what there is in life, and the third what should or ought to be our attitude toward life—and in light of this, how we should or ought to try to live. The declarations about logic and states of affairs in Wittgenstein’s book are formulated in the first transcendental context of discussion. The declarations about what is and what is not given to consciousness in various forms of cognition are formulated in the second context of discussion. Still missing are ethical declarations. However, rather than rectify this absence, Wittgenstein aggravates it by claiming that “6.42 . . . it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics.” In this way the issue of ethics turns into the vital crux of the book. Fittingly, when writing to a prospective publisher of his manuscript, he once described it in the following way: “. . . the point of the book is ethical . . . my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one. For the Ethical is delimited from within . . . It can ONLY be delimited in this way.”1 With this idea in mind, he

AS I READ WITTGENSTEIN,

1. See Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life: Young Ludwig, 1889-1921, 288; Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, 178.

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sometimes characterizes ethics as being concerned with what we cannot speak about but “must pass over in silence.” It is, he explains, what “makes itself manifest” but cannot be said. In this chapter I want to explain these cryptic remarks by tracing out some of the reasons for the claim that ethical propositions cannot be asserted, so that the ethical limits of life and world cannot be drawn.

In Absence of Ethical Propositions Instead of saying anything of ethical validity, Wittgenstein clarifies what ethics is supposed to be and why it is impossible to say anything with ethical content. In this framework, he asserts four things with regard to ethics: 1) that ethics is transcendental (6.421); 2) that ethical propositions cannot be formulated (6.42); 3) that ethics has something to do with the will (6.4236.43); 4) that ethics and aesthetics are one and the same (6.421). All four ideas are concerned with his understanding of the question about the meaning of life, and explaining them requires detailed discussion. The term “ethics” is borrowed from its use in Greek culture. In philosophical doctrines that emanated from it, ethics was concerned with the good and desirable qualities of character, the development and realization of which was supposed to enable human beings to live a good, desirable, and happy human life. In modern philosophy, ethics is often grasped as a doctrine of values, according to which it is both good and desirable to operate in various fields of life. However, it is also used in connection with moral values, which are held to be absolute values, in that they are not merely good and desirable but obligatory. The emphasis on moral values as being absolute values is necessary, since we can distinguish values in many fields of activity, the realization of which leads to a good and desirable execution of those activities: of this kind are values that underlie military and sporting activities, the profession of carpentry, the managing of business affairs, etc., none of which are obligatory or binding, unless a moral issue is involved in them. When spoken of in a distinctively moral context, ethics is held to concern absolute values: these are supposed to take precedence over all other values, determining the standing of all fields of endeavor in which human beings might participate, as well as how we must engage in them. Kant, who introduced the concept of absolute moral values into the modern philosophical discourse, contended that moral values have absolute validity from four aspects: 1) they manifest imperatives that leave no room for choice of our will; 2) they express demands that take precedence over any other demand arising from any field of activity in life; 3) they are universal in their range of application, being relevant to all who are capable of


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understanding them; 4) they are always good, as their value is not dependent on outcome and circumstances. According to Kant’s line of thinking, only one thing is of such absolute value that it can provide a metaphysical foundation to everything that is morally required of us. This is a good will. Everything else either is not absolutely demanding or its value depends on the circumstances of life, but a good will has absolute value despite anything that might be the case in the world. From this, it follows that if ethics purports to formulate values of absolute validity, it must do so in the context of will that is good absolutely, no matter what takes place in the world. Therefore, according to Kant, a morally good will is manifested by the intention to act according to a principle of behavior of absolute validity, such a principle that applies universally and might serve as a general law, akin to a law of nature. Ostensibly, it might be thought that what makes it difficult for Wittgenstein to make room for ethical assertions is that according to his conception of language, we use it to represent pictures of states of affairs. Any picture of a certain state of affairs, of a war, for instance, does not show us whether war is good or bad from a moral perspective, or whether the killing of human beings ought or ought not to be avoided. On the other hand, the assertion that killing human beings is forbidden, or that killing someone who threatens your life is permitted and even demanded, does not appear to be a picture of a state of affairs. There indeed have been neopositivist philosophers who have understood the idea in this way, thinking that ethical statements cannot be predicated upon propositions that represent states of affairs, and that they therefore only express the speaker’s attitude, but lack any factual sense—or “cognitive meaning,” as it has sometimes been termed. However, this understanding of Wittgenstein’s idea can be misleading. Wittgenstein’s conception of language does not forestall the formulation of sensible normative propositions regarding what is good and bad in life, what is desirable and forbidden, and what should or should not be done—so long as such propositions have no absolute ethical ramifications. The assertion that the killing of innocent people is bad and therefore forbidden, for example, can be formulated in a utilitarian social context. Its sense would then be the following: “A society that allows the killing of innocent people undermines the reason to be law abiding and thus leads to a social state of affairs that is bad for everyone concerned. Therefore the killing of innocent people should not be allowed.” The problem with this kind of formulation is that the normative element in it is diluted and relativized. Implicit in it is the assumption that we ought to care about the common good. But why should we? In answer it is sometimes argued at this point that it is personally beneficial to act for the common good. But this assumption does not give absolute ethical value to the demand to act for the common good. Instead, it renders it


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contingent on the fact that personal benefit can ensue from it and on our wish to gain personal benefit, which we are free to give up. Without explaining in a convincing fashion what gives absolute validity to the demand to act for the common good, the demand turns into a technical instruction regarding the best way to act in order to achieve a certain goal, which appears arbitrary, until it is established why we must want to pursue such a goal. Ethics is supposed to present us with values of absolute validity, such that they apply in every case and are so binding that they do not depend for their validity or justification on our will and the goals of life we choose. As Wittgenstein understands Kant, such an ethics is “transcendental,” in that its values are absolute values, binding in every possible world and determining what we ought to want to do whatever is the case. Obviously, there can be beings with no ethical conception, but in this understanding of the concept of ethics there cannot be any with different ethical conceptions, just as there cannot be languages based on different kinds of logic. There is only one logic, and the same should hold true for ethics—which, like logic, is transcendental and of absolute validity. A transcendental ethics is supposed to present values of an absolute and universal validity. Like logic, which is transcendental—in that it determines the form of all possible propositions and states of affairs—so, too, ethics is supposed to determine for us what a good will is absolutely: the will to act out of commitment to values that are absolutely good and absolutely demanding. The problem here, as Wittgenstein sees it, is that ethics, unlike logic, cannot be formulated. But why can it not be formulated? And why assume that ethics is supposed to be transcendental? To see why, in Wittgenstein’s view of ethics it is supposed to be transcendental and why, unlike logic, ethical propositions cannot be formulated, we have to go back to the initial point of his thinking about ethics. There he described ethics as an attempt to determine what ought to be desired absolutely, which is an attempt to talk about the will and the goals of life that we ought to want. Indeed, the third idea mentioned above, among Wittgenstein’s few declarations on ethics, was that ethics has something to do with the will. This appears to be the point of departure for his thinking on ethics. His conception of the connection between ethics and the will can be clarified by analogy to logic and consciousness. Logic is the transcendental condition that makes the world possible. It determines the absolute boundaries of any possible world by determining all possible states of affairs that may constitute facts, and by this manner also what can be represented in propositions—as having sense. Consciousness is manifested in the cognitive experience of finding a world shaped by contingent states of affairs limited by logical form: a world that is our lives, and whose absolute limit is a death that cannot be experienced. Ethics is supposed to determine which states of


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affairs are absolutely good and ought to be desired unconditionally in any possible world: in other words, it pertains to the transcendental condition for leading a life based on an absolutely good will, which is not dependent on whatever is the case in the world. It follows that a discussion of ethics has to begin with a clarification of the concept of an “absolutely good will,” which is a will of a person who aims to live ethically.

Ethical Will As I understand his thinking on this matter, Wittgenstein’s first step is to differentiate between a will that can be assessed in ethical terms of good and evil, and a will that is only a desire in the world and therefore not a will that might be assessed ethically. The desire to eat that materializes as hunger is a (psychological) fact, and as such a part of the world. As a psychological cause for behavior, it may be good or bad for whoever has the desire. However, from an ethical viewpoint its standing is no different from that of the fact that it is raining, which may be beneficial or injurious to human beings, depending on the circumstances in which it occurs, but testifies nothing to their ethical nature. In his notebooks Wittgenstein wrote the following thoughts on this issue two years previously: “I will call ‘will’ first and foremost the bearer of good and evil.”2 However, as may now be recalled, Wittgenstein’s analysis of expressions evoking propositional attitudes, which transforms them into a form of representation that is not attributed to anyone (5.542), mentions only the verbs “believe,” “say,” “imagine,” and “think.” Are we to presume that the same analysis applies as well to “A hopes that p,” “A wishes that p,” and “A is afraid that p”? Is the rejected metaphysical self merely the “subject that thinks and entertains ideas,” or is it also the “subject that wants, wishes, hopes and is afraid”? It is hard to give a clear answer because of Wittgenstein’s difficulty in incorporating the concept of will into his transcendental project regarding what makes sense. Behind his difficulty with this issue stands the traditional distinction between human beings, whom we evaluate as having a good or bad will from an ethical point of view, and creatures that we do not tend to evaluate from an ethical point of view, such as fish, birds, and animals. According to the religious worldviews, human beings, unlike fish, birds, and animals, have been endowed with a soul possessed of a divine spark, giving them free will and the ability to understand and reason in an abstract and logical manner. Therefore, human beings also bear moral responsibility for their actions and intentions. Kant put this idea into secular formulation, identifying a free will 2. Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914-1916, 76.


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with a good will, which he described as a rational will that is instantiated by wanting to always follow universal laws. He thought that when such laws are adopted in a categorical fashion as personal imperatives, they manifest a transcendental ethics that gives absolute moral value to a will that is committed to following them. The contents of any such will are supposed to be determined by means of categorical moral imperatives regarding the intentional component in actions, toward which the will should be directed. It follows that an ethical will is a will to act according to a supreme categorical moral imperative, which Kant also formulated. Wittgenstein only adopts the formal point in Kant’s distinction. He appears to distinguish between a sensual desire, which is only a link in a causal chain of events, a fact like any other fact, and a will that is supposed to be the subject of ethical evaluations. As I understand his thinking on this matter, hunger, which is a desire to eat, does not manifest a will that has been described as “free” and “rational,” which is the “subject of good and evil” from an ethical point of view. As opposed to hunger, our desire to always have sufficient food for ourselves, or for everyone else in the world, manifests a wish that encompasses an aspiration for certain facts in the world: the kind of world we would like. There are fairy tales in which people are given the opportunity to have their wishes granted. The wishes they ask for express what they want there to be in the world. As such they testify to themselves, in that they express the kind of world they would like to have. In wishing, someone wills a world. Out of everything that could be in the world, such a person chooses a certain state of affairs to be realized as a fact. Unlike the desire to eat, the desire that is manifested in a wish is self-generated and thought out. One can wish otherwise, thereby choosing otherwise. To a large degree, also of this kind is the desire that is manifested in the decisions and goals behind our thought out actions—such as deciding to steal in order to alleviate one’s hunger, or intending to pursue the common good. Being both self-generated and thought out, an intention manifests a willingness to act, referred to as “will,” which can be evaluated in terms of “good and evil.” Usually this is done by evaluating the “possessor” or “owner” of the will. By wanting a certain kind of world, one places oneself in the position occupied, according to religion, by the creator of the world. From an ethical point of view, the important difference between God’s will and human will lies not in our limited ability to implement our will as opposed to God’s unlimited ability to do so. A magically endowed sorcerer, who is capable of granting his own wishes, still does not possess a will such as God has. The difference lies in that God’s will determines which facts are of absolute value, worthy of being desired by everyone. What is absolutely good manifests God’s will, and what is absolutely bad negates it. In light of this, we might wonder to what extent people’s wishes and intentions conform to God’s will.


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In religion, the concept of an absolutely good human will is sometimes rendered into the concept of a will entirely devoted to doing God’s will. In Kant’s philosophical view of transcendental ethics an absolutely good will is a will that manifests an intention to follow a categorical imperative to act according to principles that posit freedom and rationality into the goals of life. An intention that manifests such a will is thereby rendered into an absolutely good moral will. Wittgenstein travels down the religious and Kantian path only so far as to assert that ethics is supposed to determine what an absolutely good will is. However, as opposed to religious worldviews and Kant’s pronouncements, he declares that it is impossible to say what such will includes. It is impossible to formulate values of an absolute ethical validity. Indeed, ethics is supposed to resemble logic, in which proclamations of an absolute nature are also formulated. But contrary to logic, which can be formulated, Wittgenstein declares that ethics “cannot be put into words” (6.421). It is not possible to say what is demanded of us from an absolute ethical point of view. It follows that there is no sense to any talk about good will in an absolute way, and therefore there is no sense to any talk about ethical will. To acknowledge this is to acknowledge that any talk about absolute values and imperatives is nonsensical. (As before, it is not that there are none or that they cannot be known, but that it is nonsensical to talk about them.) Wittgenstein formulates this idea in a slightly vague manner: “6.42 Propositions can express nothing that is higher.” The term “higher” refers to absolute values and imperatives, which represent states of affairs that are desirable to God or are the instantiation of a universal law and should therefore be desired by us. Since there is no sense to talking about such values, there is no sense to purported ethical claims about an absolutely good will: “6.423 It is impossible to speak about the will in so far as it is the subject of ethical attributes. And the will as a phenomenon is of interest only to psychology.” Wittgenstein agrees with Kant that ethics is supposed to be transcendental. The values and imperatives spoken of in such an ethics are not dependent on whatever is the case in the world. He also agrees that the concept of the good and desirable from an ethical aspect is what everyone should desire absolutely. However, he contends that it is impossible to say what this concept encompasses, as it is impossible by means of it to create a picture that shows its sense. Put differently, you could say that it is an empty outline that we are unable to fill with content. Therefore, it is impossible to formulate propositions of a transcendental ethics, which represent absolute imperatives and values. As opposed to logic, which can be formulated but not explained, ethics cannot be formulated, despite the pressing need that many of us have for such an ethics and the illusion that we can talk about it. 2 2 2


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Ethical Will Revisited Wittgenstein’s declarations regarding ethics are cryptic and scarce. In a lecture given twelve years after writing his book that set out to confront the question about the meaning of life more explicitly, he returned to the matter of ethics again in an attempt to explain why it is impossible to formulate propositions of ethics: “Ethics is the enquiry into what is valuable, or, into what is really important, or I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into the meaning of life, or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living. . . . [A]ll these phrases . . . [are] actually used in two very different senses . . . the trivial or relative sense on the one hand and the ethical or absolute sense on the other.”3 In a trivial sense, values represent in abstract fashion goals of life that human beings want and that experience has shown to be beneficial to us. In an absolute sense, values are supposed to determine goals of life that should be desired absolutely, regardless of what people usually want or what happens to be the case in their lives or what is beneficial to them. As I read Wittgenstein on this issue, without answering the question “What is the meaning of life?” it is impossible to say why life itself has an absolute value, despite everything that happens in it. And without doing this, it is impossible to formulate an ethics that has absolute values for life. In his lecture Wittgenstein sought to clarify this by analogy to a road that constitutes an ethical way of life: The right road is the road which leads to an arbitrarily predetermined end. . . . Now let us see what we could possibly mean by the expression, “the absolutely right road.” I think it would be the road which everybody on seeing it would, with logical necessity, have to go, or be ashamed for not going. And similarly the absolute good, if it is a describable state of affairs, would be one that everybody, independent of his tastes and inclinations, would necessarily bring about or feel guilty for not bringing about. And I want to say that such a state of affairs is a chimera. (40)

The “chimera” concerns the very concept of an “absolute value,” which undertakes to refer to what is desirable in itself and that everyone should want. “No state of affairs has . . . the coercive power of an absolute judge,” asserted Wittgenstein in his lecture on ethics (40). That it is impossible to derive imperative statements from a description of states of affairs, as David Hume had contended, is not the problem. A full description of the facts in 3. Ludwig Wittgenstein, “A Lecture on Ethics,” 38. Hereafter cited parenthetically in the text.


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the world is also supposed to include whatever causes enjoyment and suffering, and from that aspect it might also include whatever we value and abhor, and with it recommendations as to what we ought to strive after to implement what we value and avoid what we abhor. But it does not include an ethics of absolute values, as such values are supposed to incorporate in them a description of a state of affairs that would compel us to want to act according to what they suggest that is valuable. However, no state of affairs can influence us in this way except one which we know to have been set up by God, who presents it to us as a “road” leading to a goal determined by Him, a road we shall necessarily desire to take upon seeing it. No other state of affairs can compel us to act according to it, and no value which has been determined for us on the basis of any state of affairs can compel us to desire it or the life that is manifested through it. Therefore, “there is only relative value and relative good” (40). The validity of values depends on the goals we choose. Absolute values represent the goals that we ought to choose and necessarily would choose when confronted with them. However, no description of what there is in the world can represent such values. These last contentions negate two famous theories of absolute values put forward in the framework of modern philosophical efforts to establish a metaphysical foundation for morality that is devoid of religious assumptions. One of these was Kant’s, according to which the will to act as a universal lawgiver has an absolute and binding value. We therefore ought always to want to act according to it. A second theory was put forward by utilitarian thinkers like John Stuart Mill, who claimed that the common good is the supreme moral value that we all desire and which obligates us to choose actions that promote it. As I understand Wittgenstein’s thinking on these matters, these ideas are merely expressions of philosophers’ metaphysical delusions as they labor to develop ethical secular worldviews. To want to act according to a will that operates according to universal law, or to want to act with a view to promoting the common welfare, means to adopt certain goals of life as values. These are goals of life only because someone has chosen them and wants to fulfill them. Nothing in them can compel anyone to choose them or want to act according to them. Although Wittgenstein offers no further argument to substantiate his conclusion, we can understand what underlies it. Nothing about the common welfare compels me to want to sacrifice my life on its behalf; nothing about a universal law compels me to want to act according to it. Wittgenstein appears to think that if ethical values were to manifest God’s will, then the issue would be resolved. If what is required from an ethical point of view were such because God wants it, then there would be a clear answer to the question, “Why ought we to be ethical—or moral?” Ethical values would then have absolute validity for us, not only from a formal point of view, in that we are called upon to act according to them


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unquestioningly, but also through their influence on us, in that we would truly want it to be directed by them. However, only a goal of life that manifests God’s will can have such absolute value. If there was any sense to talking about God’s will, it would be possible to refer to absolute values. They would mark the way of life that God wants us to take. An absolutely good human will would then be defined as the will to be guided in life absolutely by God’s will, regardless of what consequently happens in life. Ethics, as a series of proclamations in regard to what God wants us to want, would then present us with transcendental values for our lives that ought to be adhered to in any event and which we would want to adopt. There would then be an answer to the question about the meaning of life. However, it is nonsensical to talk about what God wants, and it is therefore nonsensical also to talk about values of absolute validity. This is why we cannot formulate absolute ethical propositions about what ought to be desired in life. The transcendental limits of the world, which were supposed to have been delineated by ethics in parallel to the logical and cognitive limits of the world, cannot be formulated and therefore cannot be spoken about in a meaningful manner. All that remains of the idea of a transcendental ethics, which Kant attempted to formulate, is our desire to be guided absolutely by values that stem from God’s will, talking about which is nonsensical.4 But why is talking about God’s will or absolute ethical values nonsensical? Is it because God’s will and absolute values stem from a source that is beyond the world? And why cannot we understand what is spoken about in this manner? Is it because the concepts of God and absolute value, just like the concept of a metaphysical self, do not refer to anything? And why do they not refer to anything? It is almost as if Wittgenstein refuses to say anything further, and the question stands. To explain his thinking on this issue, we need to clarify how wanting to talk about what cannot be said by means of ethics expresses a desire to discover the meaning of life, and how the failed attempts to formulate a transcendental ethics cast a long, dark shadow not only over the possibility of discovering the meaning of life, but over the very meaning of the expression, as well.

4. There is the possibility of identifying logic with the metaphysical subject and with God, all three of them constituting a single metaphysical limit of the world. The difference between them is that logic and what is given to consciousness can be formulated, whereas what God wants cannot be formulated. See Eddy Zemach, “Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of the Mystical,” 359-76.


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chapter 12 The Meaning of Life as the Sense of the World

W H A T R E M A I N S T O be explained is how Wittgenstein deals with the perplexing question Kierkegaard and Tolstoy laid at the door of modern Western intellectuals when they challenged them to answer the question, “What is the meaning of life?” In light of his declarations about what can be said sensibly, to try to solve the Riddle of Life by answering the question about the meaning of life, the question must first be understood, and this is only possible if it makes sense. Thus the major focus of his inquiry turns now on what, if any, is the sense of the question about the meaning of life?

The Meaning of Words and the Meaning of Events and Facts The concept of meaning on which the question turns has emerged as both a central and contested concept in modern philosophy, particularly as it has been pursued in analytic and phenomenological schools of thought in the twentieth century. It is worth noting, therefore, that the concept of meaning through which the question is raised serves us in talking both about words that are used to assert propositions and about facts or events that make up the world. We may wonder about the meaning of the words through which someone asserts that it is raining. We may also wonder about the meaning of an event such as rain or the fact that it is raining. In the first case we would be wondering about the sense of the assertion that is expressed by the specific word combination. In the second case we would be wondering about what is meaningful about the fact that it is raining: what is 125


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its importance, significance, or value, or what does it teach us? The theory of meaning developed by Wittgenstein is concerned with the transcendental conditions for the existence of propositions that represent their sense and with the transcendental conditions that enable concepts expressed through words to refer to things. He does not discuss what makes facts (as well as events and actions) meaningful to us. The reason is not stated, but it may be surmised. What makes certain facts or events meaningful is what gives them value or importance to us, and this depends not only on the nature of things but on who we are, what we value, and on what concerns us. The facts of life may be meaningful to different people in different ways. Rain is highly important to farmers whose livelihoods depend upon it. It is therefore a desired and valued event for farmers, which is very meaningful to them. It is not as important, desirable, or valuable to city dwellers, and therefore it is less meaningful to them, as their livelihoods do not depend upon it. Unlike the meaning of words and the sense of propositions expressed in some language, which may be understood by all of us in the same way regardless of who we are and what is important and valuable to us, what is meaningful to us is not merely what we understand. It is also what concerns our will and what is experienced and judged to be desirable or not. If a transcendental ethics could be formulated, it would be possible to determine what ought to be desired and valued by us in any event, regardless of who we are and regardless of what are our particular concerns. The transcendental theory of meaning postulated by Wittgenstein is formulated only with regard to linguistic meaning in connection with the transcendental conditions that determine the meaning of words and the sense of propositions expressed in some language, whatever their content might be. In this conception of linguistic meaning, a proposition has sense because it constitutes a picture that represents a certain state of affairs. At the same time, in the ontology at the basis of his transcendental theory of concepts that derive from our experience, the world and life are one and the same: the facts accessible to consciousness. Hence, “5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm).” In light of this, to solve the Riddle of Life is to discover the worldview representing the sense of the world and in this way to discover the (transcendental) meaning (or value) of life. If this could be discovered, it would be possible to say what God wants of us by granting us life and creating a world such as it is. The Riddle of Life posed by Tolstoy and Kierkegaard in their provocative formulation, “What is the meaning of life?” now becomes a question that can be posed in either of two ways: one is semantic, which Wittgenstein formulates as “What is the sense of the world?”; the other is ethical, which traditionally has been formulated as “What is the value or purpose of life?” Earlier, Wittgenstein had contended that there is no difference between realistic


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metaphysical worldviews and idealistic (or solipsistic) ones. Since the world in general and my own particular world are one and the same, and since the world is life, life is actually my own life. Thus, to ask, “What is the meaning of life?” is to ask, “What is the meaning of my life?” and vice versa.

Why the Question Cannot Be Answered Whether the question about the meaning of life is formulated in a linguistic context, as a question that concerns the sense of the world, or in an ethical context, as a question that concerns what is meaningful about life and gives it absolute value, Wittgenstein contends that it cannot be answered. Therefore, it is impossible to formulate a transcendental ethics. But why can the question not be answered? Philosophers of various schools of “analytic philosophy,” who have been influenced by Wittgenstein’s ideas concerning the nature of linguistic meaning, have been inclined to assume that the question about the meaning of life cannot be answered because it is nonsensical. This assumption, though not often discussed, is based upon the understanding that, in Wittgenstein’s method of philosophical inquiry and clarification, the focus placed on the concept of meaning replaces the focus placed on the concept of knowledge in Kant’s philosophy. According to Kant, as a transcendental inquiry, philosophy is supposed to tell us what can be known, what ought be done, and what can be hoped for. What emerges from Wittgenstein’s declarations is that the only thing that can be discovered through philosophy are the transcendental conditions necessary for making sense and thus which statements and questions are sensible and which are not. Philosophy does not have a voice of its own, through which sensible propositions are asserted about the world, the way we ought to live in it, and what we may hope for. It therefore cannot say anything about the meaning of life or the sense of the world: 6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science—i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy—and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person—he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy—this method would be the only strictly correct one.

Propositions of the natural sciences describe and explain the world. They are of no help to us in answering the question, “What is the meaning of life?”


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Ethics is supposed to address this question and explain the meaning of life, but it cannot be formulated. It is impossible to say what is absolutely valuable and therefore absolutely desirable. Although we may be speaking in such an ethical manner when we talk about the meaning of life, this manner of speech does not actually succeed in referring to anything. The propositional form in which it is cast misleads us into thinking that we are confronted with ethical propositions that have sense. We are not. In light of this, it appears that it is impossible in principle to answer the question about the meaning of life by describing the sense of the world—not because the answer cannot be known, but because the question itself is nonsensical. Analytical philosophers have been, in general, inclined to accept this conclusion and have tended to dismiss the question as nonsensical. This inclination on their part is exemplified by Peter Strawson’s cryptic response when confronted by another philosopher with the question, “What is the meaning of life?” Instead of answering it, he asked in a dismissive response, “What is the meaning of language?”1 It seems that Strawson considered the two questions to be of the same ilk. The question about the meaning of language is indeed nonsensical. Words in language have meaning, and propositions said through language have sense. However, language is a medium through which meaning and sense are made manifest. Language itself has no sense or meaning. From this analogy between language and life, it follows that the question about the meaning of life is judged as nonsensical. It also follows that, just as it is possible to say sensible propositions in language, it is possible to regard certain things as meaningful in life, but not life itself. This response tallies also with John L. Austin’s assertion that, whereas the question “What is the meaning of the word ‘rat’?” does have sense, the question “What is the meaning of a word?” does not, as it lacks a context in relationship to which questions about meaning might be answered.2 Similarly, some dismiss the question because it seeks an answer to the meaning of “everything,” without indicating a context whereby meaning might be attributed to “everything”: it is as if I were to ask, “Where is the universe located?” Things within the universe are located in relation to one another. It is unclear what sense there might be to trying to locate the entire universe in some particular place. However, the analogy between these examples and the question about the meaning of life breaks down if, on Wittgenstein’s clarification, “life” is rendered into “my life.” For we may regard our life itself as valuable and therefore also as meaningful to us or as no longer valuable to us and therefore as no longer meaningful to us, although it is nonsensical to inquire about the 1. S. Hugh Moorhead, The Meaning of Life, 190. 2. Austin, “The Meaning of a Word,” 23-43.


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sense of our language, the meaning of a word, or the place of the universe. Moreover, the difference between the question about the meaning of life and such nonsensical questions raised by analogy to it is that we grasp these other questions as confused, even if we cannot say why they are confused, whereas the question about the meaning of life may be grasped as important and profound even when we are unable to answer it. In any event, these examples of nonsensical questions proffered by analytic philosophers miss Wittgenstein’s reason for dismissing the question about the meaning of life, as well as his attitude toward it. Despite his understanding that the question is nonsensical, he sees it as an expression of a human concern that he values highly. However, he begins his critique not with an analysis of the question directed toward exposing its lack of sense, but with what he presents as two opposing attempts in Western culture to use an established discourse to formulate a worldview that purports to represent the sense of the world: science and religion. In his criticism proponents of science are said to attempt to tell us what the sense of the world is by explaining why whatever is the case in the world is necessarily so. Proponents of religion attempt to tell us what the sense of the world is by disclosing God’s will that determines why the facts of life are necessarily such as they are. Both these efforts have the same aim: to use assertions made within their discourse to formulate a worldview that will solve the Riddle of Life as they conceive of it. Both attempt to overcome the experience of contingency in life by explaining why the world is necessarily as it is. As such, they both are ways of trying to explain the meaning of life.

The Failure of Religious and Scientific Worldviews Wittgenstein’s first critique of the attempt to provide a worldview that can overcome the experienced contingency of life is directed toward proponents of science. He contends that a scientific attempt to explain the sense of the world regards basic laws of nature as explaining why the facts that make up the world are as they are. The explanation rests on sketching a picture of the world that organizes whatever is the case in the world according to a certain method—Newtonian mechanics, for example. Proponents of this method explain why whatever is the case is necessarily so according to the mechanical net of concepts they cast over the world. Accordingly, whatever is the case in the world is necessarily the case because of the laws of nature described by science. Wittgenstein appears to be claiming that this does not suffice to solve the Riddle of Life, to explain why the world is as it is, because any picture of the world presented by means of scientific theory stems from the nature of the conceptual net that is cast over the world (6.341-6.342). However, different conceptual nets can be cast over the world


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from which different pictures of the world can be drawn, depending on the desired inferences. Generally, the reason for preferring one net over another is either the simplicity of its explanation or better results in prediction. (Wittgenstein does not say what is wrong with this, but we may presume that this preference involves our psychological nature rather than the world.) It is against this background that he offers the following declaration: “6.371 The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.” They are not explanations of natural phenomena for two reasons: first, because they do not explain why the world as explained by means of the net is necessarily as it is when it could also have been otherwise from a logical point of view; second, because they do not explain why a mechanical explanation, for instance, should be accorded preference over an explanation that assumes laws of nature of a different kind. Their function depends on our goals and on our inclination to prefer one such instrument (in the form of a given conceptual net that is cast over the world) to another. In the past, whatever happened to be the case in the world was said to derive either from God’s will or to be a function of fate. These are not explanations as much as a way of terminating our desire to find an explanation. In science we avoid saying such things, but at the same time scientists seem to think that they have arrived at an explanation capable of answering the Riddle of Life, as in the past assertions regarding God’s will and fate were able to terminate the quest for an explanation by allowing us to reach a final impasse in our question: “6.372 Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages. And in fact both are right and both wrong: though the view of the ancients is clearer in so far as they have a clear and acknowledged terminus, while the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were explained.” Having dismissed science’s ability to solve the Riddle of Life, Wittgenstein goes on to dismiss theological claims purporting to present a religious solution to the riddle. According to a religious worldview such as Christianity, God dispensed souls to humans and whatever is the case in the mundane world is meant to try us. Thus we are given the opportunity to either waste the gift of life and sentence our souls to eternal damnation, or use life to achieve eternal salvation. It follows that a (happy) eternal life is the solution to the Riddle of Life: we must invest in life in order to win the grace of God, and in this way we can attain happy eternal life. Wittgenstein’s critique of the theological solution to this is that eternal life is just as problematic in regard to its (transcendental) meaning or value as is finite life: 6.4312 Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case,


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this assumption completely fails to accomplish the purpose for which it has always been intended. Or is some riddle solved by my surviving for ever? Is not this eternal life itself as much a riddle as our present life? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time.

In opposition to the theological worldview, he again posits the approach of those he calls the “ancients,” who he says contended that everything happens by the will of God or in accordance with fate, but without resting on theological assumptions. They had therefore spoken in a more profound manner, marking out the limits of their understanding, not knowledge, by means of a religious discourse. Wittgenstein appears to be suggesting that it is specifically out of a religious attitude toward life that one ought to say that there is no possibility of giving an answer to the Riddle of Life. In any event, it is from here that he takes his point of departure as to why it is not possible to solve the Riddle of Life by discovering the sense of the world, and from here stems his conclusion as to why it is not possible to formulate an ethics with transcendental values.

The Riddle Does Not Exist At first sight, Wittgenstein’s critique of these two worldviews appears to be Kantian. In the second part of his Critique of Judgment, Kant raised the question “What is the purpose of the world?” contending that we cannot know the answer. We can only believe that the purpose of the world is human existence. Accordingly, Kant would have said that it is impossible to know what the meaning of life is, because it is impossible to know what God wants. This is because religious discourse is not based on concepts through which knowledge can be acquired. It is based on speculative ideas through which we attempt to express our beliefs about what lies beyond the phenomenal world—the world as it is in itself—which we may use to regulate our lives and lend them spiritual sustenance. (Therefore religious talk is not science, and scientific talk does not constitute a worldview.) However, Wittgenstein would like to dismiss the question on linguistic grounds, because it is nonsensical. About what has no sense at all we are unable even to speculate and to entertain ideas and beliefs. As I understand his declarations concerning the sense of the world, to ask “What is the meaning of life?” is to assume that God’s will is reflected through whatever happens to be the case in the world. The facts through which God demonstrates his will are facts possessing wondrous meaning, as they are like propositions in which the sense of God’s message is represented. In Western religious traditions, such facts have sometimes been termed “signs from


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Heaven.” If we could understand the sense of the world, we would be able to understand what God is saying through what happens to be the case in the world. We would then know what God’s will is, and we would immediately want to live our lives according to it. According to this clarification, the question about the meaning of life assumes that whatever happens to be the case in the world constitutes a picture through which it is possible to understand what God is saying and wants. Indeed, this is exactly what religious worldviews attempt to interpret for us. Trying to solve the Riddle of Life means trying to discover which religious worldview shows the sense of the world, and in this way discovering the (transcendental) value of life. If this were possible, it would be possible to say what God wants of us and thus solve the Riddle of Life. However, the idea that whatever happens to be the case in the world in its entirety might have sense, or that our life might encipher a statement of wondrous divine meaning, is an illusion. In any event, it is from here that Wittgenstein takes his point of departure regarding the meaning of life as constituting the sense of the world, and also as to why it is not possible to answer the question “What is the meaning of life?” by discovering the sense of the world: 6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists—and if it did exist, it would have no value . . . What makes it [the world] non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside the world.

Three ideas are packaged inside these declarations. The first is that to talk about the sense of the world, which is to talk about the meaning of life, concerns the transcendental value of life, which the sense of the world is supposed to display. A picture of the world that represents its sense is supposed to show the absolute values that one should desire and according to which one should live. Such a picture of the world is supposed to be represented through ethics. It is supposed to show why the world exists such as it is and thereby explain why it is always good and preferable to nothingness. Since the world and life are identical, ethics is supposed to show why life is better than death and why we should want to live. The second idea is that whatever gives absolute value to life cannot be something contingent. Just as logic is necessary for the existence of the world and not dependent on any fact that happens to be the case, whatever gives absolute value to the will to live must be necessary for a good and desirable life and not dependent on anything that happens in it. The third idea is that if life does have an absolute value, the facts of life cannot constitute a picture that represents this. Of course,


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there may be a worldview affirming the existence of a divine will that posits an absolute and transcendental value to life, such as the eternal salvation of the soul, but whatever is the case in the world cannot constitute a picture that represents this. Wittgenstein does not say why not, but this may be inferred. If whatever is the case in the world constitutes a picture, story, or idea through which God represents his will, such a picture cannot represent its sense to anyone whose life is this world. Just like a picture, a propositional sign is not understood by the signs of which it is composed. Only someone who manages to use it to entertain the sense that the signs represent in a proposition can understand it: that is, someone looking in from the outside. To formulate the sense of the world through the facts that obtain it would be necessary to stand outside them and project sense through them. To understand the sense of what the world represents, it would also be necessary to stand outside the world and observe its projected sense. According to the religious worldview in the West, in this “place”—outside the world— stands the creator of the world, namely God. Whatever is the case in the world is supposed to manifest God’s will. It is in this context that the Riddle of life has been formulated by asking what is the sense of the world. According to my reading of Wittgenstein, there is an essential mistake here. If the world is everything that is the case, then there is no place in the world where a picture of the entire world can represent its sense. Ostensibly, this is in part also the contention of religious believers, who hold that the Riddle of Life cannot be solved inside the world, because it is unclear how to “read” the facts that happen in it to be the case. According to this contention, whatever is the case in the world can be interpreted according to different meanings hiding behind what God says or does. For this reason, it is unclear how God projects his intentions into the world through whatever is the case in it. However, this is not what Wittgenstein contends. According to this view, the world has a sense, but it is impossible to know what it is. When Wittgenstein declares that “the sense of the world must lie outside the world,” he leaves no room for the possibility that the world could have sense. The reason is not stated, but it may be construed. Sense is represented through the logical form of a proposition, which is itself a fact, and as such part of the world. So there cannot be propositions that represent their sense outside the world, as this sense would lack any logical form; it would be mere nonsense. The conclusion is that there is no place outside the world where a picture can represent its sense, and there is no place inside the world where the sense of the entire world as a picture can be represented—enabling it to be true or false by comparison to the facts! From this it follows that the very idea of a worldview that represents the sense of the world cannot be understood. The outcome of this clarification is that it is nonsensical to talk about


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God’s will being manifested in whatever happens to be the case in the world, as it is also nonsensical to talk about absolute ethical values, according to which one should live and find meaning in life. As Wittgenstein puts it: “6.42 . . . so too it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics. Propositions can express nothing that is higher.” What is supposed to be higher is what lies beyond the world that is given to us as facts: God’s will, which gives transcendental value to life and sense to the world. But all of this cannot be said in sensible fashion. If it were possible, then it would be possible to pose the Riddle of Life in regard to what God wants and how one should accept life and live in light of it. It would then be possible to ask: “What does God want?” And it would at least be possible to say that we do not know what God wants, or that we do not know according to which transcendental values we should live and give transcendental meaning to life. But since we are unable to pose any sensible question in regard to the meaning of life, we are also unable to pose any sensible question in regard to a transcendental ethics. Therefore any riddle formulated in regard to God’s will, or to the nature of values of absolute validity, or to the meaning of life—is nonsensical. Therefore “the riddle does not exist.” Wittgenstein resorts to this last ploy time and time again in discussing philosophical questions. It is based on the idea that if there is an essential difficulty in finding the solution to a philosophical question, it is a sign that there is something wrong with the question: “6.5 When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it.” Strictly speaking, he does not explicitly declare that the question “What is the sense of the world?” or “What is the meaning of life?” is nonsensical. He writes that it is impossible to put the answer into words, and therefore the question cannot be “framed.” But despite his reluctance to say it, this is the obvious conclusion. One can speak the words “What is the sense of the world?” just the same as “What is the meaning of life?” but in this deceptive syntactical form they do not present a question that has any sense. Wittgenstein’s consolation for the loss of the riddle is that it takes the bite out of religious and ethical skepticism. Religious skeptics dismiss belief in the existence of God. Ethical skeptics dismiss belief in absolute values. In both views, there is no meaning to life. Their declarations leave the impression that it may be sensible to talk about God’s will, absolute values, and the meaning of life, but that nothing actually obtains in this regard. “The king’s throne is empty,” they contend. “There is nothing behind the screen.” However, if it is impossible to ask “What is the sense of the world?” or “What is the meaning of life?” or “Is there a God?” then it is also impossible to formulate a skeptical position in reply to the question. If the question “Is Tuesday fat or skinny?” has no sense, then any answer which chooses one of these pos-


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sibilities also has no sense. In the same way, if we cannot talk about the existence of God and the sense of the world, we are also unable to determine that the world has no sense or that there is no God: “6.51 Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical.” The conclusion is not, as Tolstoy feared, that life has no meaning; the conclusion is that an assertion ascribing meaning to life cannot be understood, to the same extent that an assertion ascribing lack of meaning to life cannot be understood. In regard to the meaning of life we should not entertain any hopes or expectations, but we should not be disappointed or despairing either. What we would like to be the case, in consequence of our uncritical ways of thinking, is simply nonsensical. To formulate this in terms of the meaning of life, it might be said that only whatever is the case in life can have meaning. There cannot be any meaning to life in its entirety—despite our inclination to wonder about the meaning of life itself.


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chapter 13 Mystical Experience as a Substitute for Ethics

clarification is how something nonsensical, such as the question about the meaning of life, can affect us so profoundly: make us wonder about the meaning of life, endeavor to live according to God’s will, and search for absolute values. One explanation has been proffered by generations of philosophers faithful to the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment, who have taken up Kant’s critique of the philosophical attempt to turn ideas of “pure reason” into knowledge about the world. In this spirit, Marx explained religion as an “ideology” that serves the interests of the ruling classes and leads to “false consciousness,” calling for its complete rejection and abolition. In the same spirit, Freud explained religious belief as an irrational “illusion,” stemming from infantile needs that should be overcome and replaced with a scientific worldview. These critical approaches of religious belief allow sense to religious worldviews but discount both their truth and the value of the experience that lies at their base. Wittgenstein, to the contrary, disclaims the sense of the worldviews but wants to fortify the experience from which religious belief springs and to mold his own attitude toward life upon it, all without lending support to the metaphysical discourse that seeks to provide religion with a rational basis through a theological worldview. It is hard to recognize this aim because in his book he refrains from declaring it explicitly. Instead of saying that there are profound and valuable (for him) experiences that are the source of our desire to discover the meaning of life and formulate a transcendental ethics with absolute values for life, he turns immediately to discussing such an experience and begins issuing declarations on mysticism.

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Correct and Incorrect Paths to Mysticism Sometimes a mystical experience is associated with an extraordinary experience that enables us to be acquainted with astonishing facts that are the case in the world. According to this view—as Shakespeare has Hamlet tell Horatio—“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in . . . philosophy.” Here, the term “philosophy” refers to what we now call “science,” which was called also “natural philosophy” in the past. A mystical experience is supposed to facilitate an acquaintance with astonishing facts not revealed through science or everyday perception of things, such as a supernatural world of fantasy and magic. A more sophisticated version of mysticism aspires to an experience that overcomes the conceptual distinctions through which we grasp things, events, and facts. According to this approach, our conceptual distinctions regarding different things—inanimate and animate, objects and words, properties and actions, time and space, world and consciousness—prevent us from penetrating to the true nature of reality. When these are overcome, everything fuses into everything else, and all the differences previously perceived between things, which we grasp by means of our concepts, disappear. Reality is then experienced as a single, unified whole, indefinable and not amenable to any conceptual distinction. This kind of experience is supposed to expose what things are in themselves—over and above their misleading appearance through the veil of concepts and logically determined states of affairs. Wittgenstein dismisses both of these expressions of mysticism. An acquaintance with astonishing facts does not put us in touch with a mystical reality. Mysticism does not rest on an experience that brings us to believe in magic, spirits, or witchcraft, nor is it based on an experience that overcomes all our conceptual distinctions. Conceptual distinctions are founded on language, which itself is founded on logic. Logic is an absolute, transcendental, formal, limiting framework, which enwraps both reality and our sensible conception of it. The desire to grasp a reality beyond it is a confused metaphysical desire that would have us delve into the essence of reality not shaped by logic, a reality that logic hides from our eyes, in order to experience reality as it is in-itself: the bare essence or nature of things without their logical form. Wittgenstein rejects the entire matter as nonsensical. The essence of things is revealed through logic, and their law-like but contingent nature is discovered through science. It makes no sense to aspire to an experience that provides knowledge or truths that transcend logic and all our conceptual distinctions. According to his clarification, a true mystical experience is one of amazement at the very existence of facts: “6.44 It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.” Such an experience of the world or life enables us to be astonished that there are any facts at all. That is the


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wonder of it. In mystical experience, the world, which is embedded within the logical structure that is given to us for entertaining thoughts and perceiving facts, is grasped as something miraculous. Its very existence is thus experienced as something wondrous deserving of astonishment. As “the world is all that is the case,” any fact whatever may provoke a mystical experience of wonder on realizing that it is fixed within a transcendental limiting structure of logical form. This remarkable feature of the world affiliates it with something eternal, without which it could not exist. To experience with wonder the existence of the world as constrained by logical form is to experience its existence as something wonderful: in other words, to experience the existence of the world as a miraculous event. Since the world is our world and our world is our life, on my interpretation of this declaration one aspect of a mystical experience is also wonder at our very existence. Such an experience manifests amazement at our own existence and enables us to regard our life as something singular: a complete whole upon which death cannot infringe, as our own death is not a part of our life: a life that is fixed within the bounds of logical form, embodying something eternal. A mystical experience of this sort awakens in us a sense of wonder at what we ordinarily accept in everyday fashion without noting its miraculous essence. We could say that Wittgenstein would have us wonder at what is given to us in an ordinary, everyday manner through the banal experiences and understandings that constitute and shape our lives. The experience of wonder at our life as a life that is constrained by logical form lies at the foundation of our ability to put aside our intellectual aspiration to provide an explanation for everything and begin to be amazed by whatever happens to be the case. It also underlies our conception of whatever is the case as having wondrous meaning, and of the things that shape our lives as manifesting something wondrous. This kind of experience is vital to the attitude toward the world that the Western-monotheistic worldview has attempted to present: the world being in the nature of a divine creation, and therefore a miracle of coming into existence ex nihilo. Following Wittgenstein’s ploy, all that is left of this worldview is the experience of wonderment at the world’s existence, which is at once wonderment at his own life. As regards the historical context, behind this declaration of the mystical dimension of the world appears to lie an attempt by Wittgenstein to position himself in regard to a public philosophical debate that once took place between Bertrand Russell and Henri Bergson. In his article “Logic and Mysticism,” Russell presented the debate between them as manifesting two different metaphysical approaches to the world: one that leads people to mysticism, the other prompting them to put their faith in science. Bergson’s philosophy he identified with the mystical urge, criticizing it accordingly. In opposition to it he posited what he called “scientific philosophy,” which is


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founded on investigations of a logical nature. Wittgenstein’s solution to the controversy is to view logic as the absolute transcendental framework for everything that can exist and everything that can be said that has sense. Those of a mystical persuasion, like Bergson, are trying to dodge logic through an acquaintance with extraordinary facts by means of some special intuition, which does not rely on scientific investigation and is not curtailed by logic. This is a mistake. It’s impossible to know facts that transcend the bounds of logic, and it’s impossible to say something about the world that has sense other than in the framework of logic. Instead, we should say that the mystical urge arises out of an experience of wonder at the very existence of the world constrained by logical form, rather than out of a nonlogical conception of what happens to be the case in it. In this manner the mystical aspect of the world comes knocking on logic’s door through whatever is the case. Since the world is our own life, this is also amazement at the wonder of our own existence. By giving philosophical expression to this experience of wonder, while adhering to the principle that whatever can be said can only be said by means of language that is based on logic, Wittgenstein seeks to avoid falling into the metaphysical meshes of both Bergson, who tries to describe the wondrous in nonscientific propositions about what is the case in the world, and Russell, who will not allow any ontological wonder but scientific explanation only.

The World as a Limited Whole It is now also possible to explain Wittgenstein’s second declaration about the mystical dimension of the world, regarding the internal connection between the mystical and the eternal: “6.45 To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole—a limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole—it is this that is mystical.” This remark relates a mystical experience to existential wonder at a life and world that are a part of something eternal and are constrained by it. The world or life as a limited whole is the whole of existence, which is everything that is the case. It is constrained and limited by its transcendental form, which is logic. According to Wittgenstein, to experience the existence of the world or our life as something limited by logic is to experience it as belonging to the domain of the eternal, or sub specie aeternitatis, as Spinoza defined it. The goal behind Spinoza’s Ethics was to establish a worldview that could provide philosophical salvation for those who manage to experience their life according to it. However, in Wittgenstein’s case pursuit of salvation is to be achieved without any worldview. What is required is an experience that transforms our everyday experiences of the world or life into an experience of the


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world or life as belonging to something eternal. This experience awakens in us a desire to base our lives on what belongs to the eternal rather than the contingent. Put differently, it might be said that the experience of life as being part of something eternal sparks a desire to live according to an ethics that is also eternal and absolute, like logic. In religious discourse this experience is expressed as a desire to live by the will of the world’s creator—even though to talk about such an ethics or such a creator is nonsensical. Thus, human beings who experience their life and world from such a mystical-religious point of view are driven to want to live their lives according to a transcendental ethics that manifests the will of the world’s creator. They are thus also apt to create nonsensical worldviews about the sense of the world or the meaning of life. However, on Wittgenstein’s clarification of the experience of life or the world as both a limited whole and belonging to something eternal, it is only to grasp life or the world as transcendentally bounded and limited by its logical form and our own consciousness. As the first limit is a timeless form, and the second limit is an acquaintance with facts that is bounded by a death that cannot be experienced, to grasp our life or world as limited in this way is to grasp it as embodying something whole that belongs to something eternal. But while it makes no sense to explain the wonder of life or world given to us within such transcendental limits by means of scientific explanations or metaphysical and religious worldviews, we can experience the world or our life in these ways: as embodying a limited whole that belongs to something eternal. In doing so we transform our entire attitude to our life or world by acquiring an extraordinary perspective on our life or world: a perspective from which it is revealed as something wondrous, embodying in it the eternal while being contingent. This is the mystical experience that also lies at the basis of religious faith in the West.1

Similes that Cannot Be Formulated in Sensible Propositions Wittgenstein’s declarations on mysticism and ethics are few and pithy, and their connection to the riddle about the meaning of life is not clearly elaborated. Perhaps this is why he felt a need to address all this again in a lecture on ethics that he delivered some twelve years later, in which he traced in greater detail the origin of the desire to discover the meaning of life through transcendental ethics. He mentioned three such experiences in his lecture. 1. For an edifying reading of Wittgenstein’s remarks on the mystical, which posits logic and consciousness as “the two godheads” of the world, see Eddy Zemach, “Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of the Mystical,” 359-76. I am also indebted to a conversation with P. M. S. Hacker that helped me clarify my thinking on this issue.


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According to his explanation, all three underlie religious faith in the West, and all three also arouse a desire to talk about the meaning of life. The first of these is the mystical experience of wonder, of which he had spoken earlier in his book: I believe the best way of describing it is to say that when I have it I wonder at the existence of the world. And I am then inclined to use such phrases as “how extraordinary that anything should exist” or “how extraordinary that the world should exist.” I will mention another experience straight away . . . the experience of feeling absolutely safe. I mean the state of mind in which one is inclined to say, “I am safe, nothing can injure me whatever happens.” . . . A third experience of the same kind is that of feeling guilty and again this was described by the phrase that God disapproves of our conduct. Thus in ethical and religious language we seem constantly to be using similes. . . . And if I can describe a fact by means of a simile I must also be able to drop the simile and to describe the facts without it. Now in our case as soon as we try to drop the simile and simply to state the facts which stand behind it, we find that there are no such facts. And so, what at first appeared to be a simile now seems to be mere nonsense.2

Each of the three experiences mentioned by Wittgenstein is an experience attaining its ultimate peak: absolute wonder in the first, an absolute sense of security in the second, and an absolute feeling of guilt in the third. Each involves taking an everyday experience to the ultimate extreme, to its highest possible peak. Each of them manifests an attitude toward the infinite and the eternal. Each is a part of the experiential basis from which springs religious belief in God: the eternal creator of the world ex nihilo, who can dispel all evil that may befall us, and before whom we feel an irrepressible need to render full account of our actions. Due to their intensity and absolute personal validity, these experiences make all other experiences of wonder, security, and guilt, in their everyday and mundane contexts, pale into insignificance. They give absolute meaning to the lives of those who experience them, insofar as in them this entire matter is exhausted. Nothing stands facing them, and nothing overshadows them. Ostensibly, a worldview about the meaning of life could be formulated upon propositions that are based on such extraordinary experiences, explaining in this way the spiritual-religious or spiritual-metaphysical meaning of life. However, as Wittgenstein makes clear about the standing of these experiences, any such conclusion is an illusion. The theological and ethical pronouncements derived from such experiences are only figures of speech, expressing a certain attitude toward life: what Wittgenstein calls a “simile.” 2. Wittgenstein, “A Lecture on Ethics,” 41-43.


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Similes are figures of speech that express an experience or attitude in a striking manner. They are not literal descriptions of facts. Wittgenstein does not object to the use of similes. Poetry, for example, widely employs similes to express experiences in a rich and profound way. Such statements as “My heart is full of love,” or “I am bursting with anger,” make use of similes, which can be replaced with linguistic terms that refer to emotional and behavioral inclinations that are not metaphorical. Someone “bursting with anger” is very irate, and love that “fills the heart” is the kind of love that turns the loved one into the focus of life. In contrast to such similes as these, the similes through which we express an attitude toward life that gives it a transcendental and absolute meaning are not of the same kind. On Wittgenstein’s explanation this is because the similes used to express such experiences are nonsensical. They do not represent possible states of affairs, such as the expression “bursting with anger,” which can be restated by describing someone as very irate. To try to restate expressions used to express an experience of life that lends it absolute value or meaning is to transform it into a proposition that represents certain states of affairs that constitute the “facts of life.” However, the whole point of these expressions is to describe an experience that relates to an extraordinary fact: one that gives life or world in its entirety absolute meaning or value. Indeed, the whole point of both religious discourse and transcendental ethics is to use language to represent the value or meaning of life or world from an extraordinary vantage point outside of it. However, it does not make sense to postulate such a factual vantage point, as it does not represent a state of affairs that is limited by logic and can be a fact. Thus to “talk Ethics or religion” is “to run against the boundaries of language.” In light of this last explanation, several things that Wittgenstein declared in his book without bothering to explain them become clear. The first is that to talk about transcendental ethics and God, which is the same as talking about the meaning of life, is to use similes. They express experiences and feelings that ostensibly represent the sense of the world, but since this kind of talk does not embody propositions that represent pictures of states of affairs, it does not have any sense. The second is that similes of this kind cannot be replaced by sensible speech embodying propositions representing possible states of affairs. Any attempt to do so is an attempt to say what cannot be said—except through the expressive agency of similes. Their standing is equivalent to that of musical expressions, which arouse and express our feelings. Such expressions are of great value to us, but they do not refer to anything and do not represent any state of affairs that may be true or false. In his lecture he explained this in the following way: I see now that these nonsensical expressions were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was


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their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond the world and that is to say beyond significant language. My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it.3

In comparing transcendental ethics and religious assertions to similes that cannot be translated into truth-valued propositions, Wittgenstein is claiming that religious and ethical discourse has no sense. Whatever is said thereby has no truth-value. Such speech only serves to express an ethical or religious attitude toward life. The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that there is no sense to a statement ascribing the meaning of life to something external to life, and there is no absolute value or divine sense to any statement ascribing the meaning of life to anything factual that happens in it. We are thus left with the desire to connect with something of absolute value, which is a desire to live according to an absolute ethics or to be guided in life by God, together with the realization that it is not only that this desire cannot be fulfilled, but that it cannot even be formulated in a sensible way. This kind of desire is manifested in experiences that we tend to express by means of similes, such as “experiencing something absolute and eternal.” These experiences express a desire that embodies an attitude toward life that is important to certain people, but which cannot impart sense to philosophical assertions about transcendental ethics or theological assertions about God’s will. Such assertions assume that the question “What is the meaning of life?” has sense, and that the question poses a true riddle, which can in principle also be solved. In both these directions, the religious and the philosophical, an intellectual attempt is made to impart sense to the desire to base one’s life on an eternal and absolute foundation; in both an intellectual attempt is made to present the Riddle of Life and find a solution to it. In both the attempt is doomed in advance to failure.

3. Ibid., 44.


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chapter 14 Overcoming the Problem of Life

O N C E T H E Riddle of Life has been revealed to be senseless, what remains after its demise is what Wittgenstein calls, following Tolstoy, “the Problem of Life.” The Problem of Life for Wittgenstein is how to resolve the profound need he has to believe that life has a religious or metaphysical meaning with the philosophical clarification showing that any talk about such meaning is nonsensical. The question of how a profound need for something nonsensical can develop in people is a theoretical problem that calls for a psychological explanation. The Problem of Life is not of this kind, and what it demands is not a psychological explanation. The Problem of Life is an existential problem: namely, why live, when what is needed for rendering life meaningful cannot be satisfied? This is the problem. Though they may perfectly understand the issue, there still are in people such as Wittgenstein the same spiritual needs from which religious belief sprang in the past and on the basis of which people began using similes regarding God’s will and formulating nonsensical philosophical views about absolute values in order to give a religious and transcendental meaning to their lives. The needs from which these similes and nonsensical views sprang still exist. Only now that these needs and their colorful modes of expression have been clarified and shown to be nonsensical, it is no longer possible to satisfy them with what religious or philosophical worldviews used to provide for those who believed in them. As a result, Wittgenstein, like many intellectuals in the modern era, is left with the desires that were once expressed and resolved through religion and later through philosophy, without being able to complement them with religious

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belief or a philosophical worldview. The Problem of Life is an existential problem. It renders the life of those who are affected by it inherently problematic, casting a grave shadow on the ability to go on living, as the divide between what one now understands and what one needs to continue living becomes unbridgeable. So why go on living? This is the problem with which he has to contend. To understand how Wittgenstein contends with the Problem of Life, it is useful to bear in mind that a problem is not simply a question that is difficult or even impossible to answer. It is difficult to give a correct answer to the question, “How many grains of sand are there in a given beach?” But it is doubtful whether anyone has a problem concerning the issue. Nor is a problem a riddle that contains the solution within itself, but is hard to solve. If we do not feel a need to find a solution to the Riddle of Life in order to go on living, then the Riddle of Life does not pose an existential problem for us. First and foremost, a problem is a difficulty that someone has, and which he or she feels a need to resolve or overcome. It is something inherently subjective rather than objective that bears directly on one’s will and desire. The difficulty disappears when a solution to the problem is found or when the desire or need to find a solution to it disappears. Given this understanding, the Problem of Life with which Wittgenstein is preoccupied is not necessarily everyone’s problem of life. There are people who do not feel the need for an ethics with absolute values or for a belief in God to give meaning to their lives. They are satisfied with the mundane joys, pleasures, and successes of their lives, seeking no more. The difference between Wittgenstein and someone unconcerned with the Problem of Life is the same as the difference between someone who is disturbed by the noise in the street and someone else who is not—the former has a problem, the latter does not. Then again, there are people who have a need to believe that life has religious or metaphysical meaning but who also delude themselves regarding the existence of absolute values or that their lives are being conducted according to God’s will. They are like children who rely on their parents and trust them. Both the former and the latter have not given sufficient philosophical thought to their lives, so much so that their lives have become a problem to them. Wittgenstein, like Tolstoy and like many philosophers and intellectuals in the modern period, is in a different existential predicament. He feels a need to believe that there is a meaning to life, but he also knows that any such belief is nonsensical. He therefore comes up against the Problem of Life, which is how to go on living when he knows that what he needs to want to continue living—a belief that life has a meaning—is nonsensical. A riddle is an intellectual puzzle that calls for a solution; a problem is an experienced difficulty that needs to be overcome. As the Problem of Life is an existential need that in principle cannot be satisfied, it turns life itself


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into a problem that has to be overcome in order to want to continue living. The method that Wittgenstein adopts to overcome the Problem of Life is to mandate an attitude toward life that embodies a desire for a life that has meaning, which served in the past as the inspiration for religious belief and nonsensical philosophical views about absolute values, without stooping either to religious belief based on a theological worldview or to a philosophical worldview that postulates the existence of a transcendental ethics. It might be said that Wittgenstein’s method of overcoming the Problem of Life is to try to adopt an attitude toward his life such as a religious person might have, but without accepting any of the claims made by various religious worldviews about life.

Attitudes toward Life In order to shed more light on Wittgenstein’s method of overcoming the Problem of Life, I need to say a few things about attitudes, and consequently about the importance that Wittgenstein ascribes to one’s attitude toward one’s life. Take, for example, the question with which we commonly greet each other, “How are you?” It may be asked from different attitudes toward people and their welfare. One may ask it offhandedly, out of courtesy, with sincere interest, with lack of interest, with curiosity, with concern, disingenuously, sarcastically, disapprovingly, and so forth. The sense of the question does not change in all these various instances of asking it, but its significance, meaning, importance, or value (to the questioner and to the person addressed) does. One way in which Wittgenstein clarifies the concept of attitude in his later writings is by drawing a distinction between having an attitude toward things and having opinions about them. “My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul,” he writes. “I am not of the opinion that he has a soul.”1 An opinion communicates ideas and is entertained through propositions. Opinions often arise in the context of reasoning, and they may be assessed accordingly as sound or unsound, rational or irrational. When we say, for example, that it is too late to go to the movies, we are voicing our opinion about the feasibility of going to the movies. When we say that we are not in the mood for going out to see a movie, we are expressing our attitude to going out to see a movie. It is possible to exchange opinions with another person, debate them, and support them by arguments. Attitudes are somewhat different. They are not composed of ideas and are not entertained in the mind through propositions. We have an attitude of concern over the 1. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Part II, 178.


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health of our children, especially when their health worries us. This attitude is replaced by one of relief when we find that what concerned us is no longer worrisome. To be only of the opinion that they are not healthy is not yet to be concerned about them. This is a point of view that may be held by any observant, uninvolved bystander. Attitudes are related to emotions, to likes and dislikes. They are ways in which we grasp the significance of things which make up our lives in a very basic, personal, immediate, and non-inferential fashion. Attitudes are manifested in how we relate to the things that make up our lives: in how we feel about them, react to them, and treat them, rather than how we reason about them. Our opinions belong to our intellectual makeup: to what we think is the case. Our attitudes embody our attachments, cares, and aversions to things: how the case affects us. This is not to say that attitudes lack content. Attitudes are ways of apprehending both the nature and significance of things for us. As such they are rich in content and may be expressed in beliefs, supported by opinions, and accompanied by feelings and thoughts. In rational human beings, attitudes and opinions are often related to one another, with one affecting the other. Opinions may support attitudes and attitudes may be expressed in opinions. When my attitude of admiration for someone diminishes, my previous high opinion of that person diminishes also, and vice versa. Sometimes it is possible to wean a person from an entrenched attitude to some matter of fact by reasoning. Sometimes it is not. These remarks on the conceptual difference between opinions and attitudes are pertinent to elucidating Wittgenstein’s solution to the Problem of Life. For in a similar manner to these examples, our attitude toward our lives embodies the importance or value that we ascribe to them—what is meaningful and significant to us therein. Our attitude toward our lives may embody satisfaction with life, disappointment, bitterness, despair, boredom, enthusiasm, wonder, anxiety for the future, fear of death, hope, etc. Through each of these attitudes toward our lives we seemingly breathe a different spirit of life into the facts that are the case in our world and experience our lives differently. Each of them manifests what is significant, important, and valuable to us in our lives in a different way. This is the hub of the circle of everything that was, is, and still could be the case in our lives. It is what gives our lives their value to us. Thus the solution to the Problem of Life lies in realizing that what is required to solve the problem is a change of attitude to life, rather than finding a theoretical view that enables us to have a different opinion of life. According to this last clarification, the difference between a religious person who trusts in God and a secular person who despairs over the lack of divine grace does not lie in their different opinions concerning the question whether God does or does not exist; the difference lies in their different


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attitudes toward their lives and life in general. A religious person who trusts in God is someone with a religious attitude toward life and what it contains. Such a person is not someone who is convinced by the idea that God exists. He or she is someone who experiences life and whatever is the case in it through an attitude such as that described by Wittgenstein in his lecture on ethics: an absolute wonder at life, an absolute sense of security, and an ability to feel guilt that demands absolute forgiveness. The thought that such an attitude to life does not reduce to a set of propositions that are held to be true is fundamental to Wittgenstein’s thinking on this issue. Elsewhere, he again attempts to describe the religious attitude toward life, elucidating it as an attitude in which death, as well as all that is the case in the world, is no longer grasped with such utter seriousness: The attitude that’s in question is that of taking a certain matter seriously and then, beyond a certain point, no longer regarding it as serious, but maintaining that something else is even more important. Someone may for instance say it’s a very grave matter that such and such a man should have died before he could complete a certain piece of work; and yet, in another sense, this is not what matters. At this point one uses the words “in a deeper sense”.2

It might be said that the attitude toward life that he would like to adopt is one that gives his life such a “deeper sense,” which transforms everything that is the case in life, as well as the prospect of death, into something that is not “what is important.” All this despite the fact that it remains impossible to state clearly what is more important than all that is the case in life. In one of his clarifications of this issue, a person’s ability to develop such an attitude toward life may be expressed in two ways: first, by wanting to live, despite the suffering experienced in life; second, by being able to find happiness in life, despite whatever may be the case in it. The will to live stands in opposition to the will to die, which manifests itself in the act of suicide. Suicide expresses an attitude toward life that manifests a preference for death over everything that life has to offer and as such that life has no value. In the religious worldview, which sees life and whatever happens in it as an expression of God’s will, suicide is grasped as a sin, as a refusal on our part to accept the gift of life given to us by God, and as a preference for death over whatever God places in our path in life. At the same time, the fear of death also testifies to the lack of an absolute faith in God. From this viewpoint, a religious attitude toward life, which gives one absolute faith in God, is manifested by the ability to affirm life despite all that is the case and without being afraid of death, 2. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 85.


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and vice versa. A person who succeeds in adopting such an attitude feels as if God is guiding him or her through life. This is the attitude toward life propounded by Tolstoy, and Wittgenstein would verily adopt it in order to overcome the Problem of Life that he experiences: how to continue living, despite the inability to believe in what the religious and philosophical worldviews proclaim. In his notebook, he recorded his thoughts about the connection between suicide and the yearning for an ethics that would enable him to adopt such an attitude to life: If suicide is allowed then everything is allowed. If anything is not allowed then suicide is not allowed. This throws a light on the nature of ethics, for suicide is, so to speak, the elementary sin . . . Or is even suicide in itself neither good nor evil?3

It is edifying to bear in mind that Wittgenstein predicates his yearning for a transcendental ethics not on a desire to find absolute values, according to which one might determine how to live, but on the very will to continue living, come what may. According to this line of thought, if it were possible to formulate a transcendental ethics, it would be possible to say why life is absolutely desirable. However, a transcendental ethics cannot be formulated because it is impossible to say what the meaning of life or the sense of the world is. This brings up the Problem of Life full-force: why not commit suicide, when the will to live is gone and any talk about the meaning of life is nonsensical? As can be seen, confronted by the problem he has set himself, Wittgenstein’s first step is to try to overcome his difficulty in continuing to live by adopting an attitude toward life that affirms life absolutely. It is necessary to want to live, in spite of everything.

Happiness Despite the Problem of Life The attempt to induce himself to want life, come what may, prompts Wittgenstein to consider how the pursuit of happiness should be regarded. As I understand his thinking on this matter, the absolute affirmation of life cannot depend on happiness, but the other way around: someone who affirms life absolutely adopts an attitude toward life such as that of someone who places full trust in God. Such a person is grateful for life, for better or worse, and is happy simply to be alive—whatever is the case in the world. To judge by the way Wittgenstein connects the concept of happiness with the Problem of Life, to want life like some wondrous gift, despite whatever 3. Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914-1916, 91. Hereafter cited parenthetically in the text.


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happens in it, is to be happy simply for being alive. This clarification of the concept of happiness manifests an attitude to life that enables us to experience life as good. Therefore, happiness is an attitude to life that has ethical implications. In his notebook, he expressed this idea as follows: “I keep on coming back to this! Simply the happy life is good, the unhappy bad. And if I now ask myself: But why should I live happily, then this of itself seems to me to be a tautological question; the happy life seems to be justified, of itself, it seems that it is the only right life” (78). As indicated by Wittgenstein’s remark, he believes that he will have attained happiness when he grasps his life as “justified of itself,” regardless of whatever is the case in it. It follows that the ability to be happy regardless of whatever is the case manifests an ability to want life absolutely. Happiness lies in our own hands, not those of fate: it is in our capacity to want our lives. This clarification sheds light on his declaration in the book about the worlds of the happy and unhappy man: “6.43 The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man,” he declares. Since in his ontological clarification the world and life are one and the same, what he is actually saying is that the life of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man. Initially it might be thought that different facts make up the world of the happy man than those of the unhappy man; therefore, one is happy and the other is not. However, Wittgenstein strives for another answer, one that relates happiness not to whatever is the case in the world, but to one’s attitude toward whatever is the case in the world. Indeed, some people find happiness in their lives in spite of tragic misfortunes that befall them, and some people are unable to find happiness in their lives despite all their successes and pleasures. It is not what happens in our lives that determines whether we are happy or unhappy. It is our attitude toward our lives as desirable or as undesirable that determines whether we are happy or unhappy. According to this answer, a happy person and an unhappy person have different attitudes toward their lives. To be happy in life, one must be able to accept the good with the bad, and not allow what happens in life, which is whatever is the case in the world, to determine our attitude toward our lives and our desire or the lack thereof to go on living. In the insight that thus emerges, a person whose life is unhappy because of the Problem of Life must find a way to adopt an attitude toward life that gives preference to life over death, despite the philosophical revelation that it is nonsensical to search for the meaning of life. This means that to overcome the Problem of Life, one must want to live in the world as it is, and arrive at happiness in this way. For someone who is concerned with the Problem of Life, true happiness involves adopting an attitude toward life that makes it possible to accept the world willingly, without explanation. One must learn to maintain an equanimity toward whatever is the case in the


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world, without justifying it by one worldview or another: “In order to live happily,” he writes, “I must be in agreement with the world. And that is what ‘being happy’ means” (75). Also: “The only life that is happy is the life that can renounce the amenities of the world. To it the amenities of the world are so many graces of fate” (81). Such an attitude toward life is no different from the attitude toward life at the basis of religious belief, although it is not founded on a religious worldview. As he once explained in regard to himself, “I am not a religious man but I cannot help seeing every problem from a religious point of view.”4 In my elucidation of this remark, although theology and philosophy have only provided us with illusory worldviews by trying to say what cannot be said, we can experience life according to what cannot be said. When human beings who are in spiritual need of what religious worldviews have to offer, but are no longer able to believe in their gospel or understand it, experience the world from an attitude that manifests wonder at their very life—an absolute confidence that they will come to no harm— and a will to live in a manner that would have earned them absolute absolution, they experience life as if it has transcendental-religious-ethical meaning, without adopting a misleading worldview that explains it as such. As they succeed in doing this, the problem that had troubled them earlier disappears. Their will to live changes and they become happy, without submitting to a nonsensical worldview concerning the meaning of life. They just cannot say which facts in the world justify this attitude toward life, for it does not depend on certain facts at all. This understanding of what is required to be happy no matter what happens in life leads to the solution of the existential problem that confronts him: “6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have then been unable to say what constituted that sense?).” According to this solution, those of us who, like Tolstoy, believe to have discovered the meaning of life are deluding themselves. They have simply succeeded in adopting a satisfying attitude toward life that overcomes the problem. This may be a mysticallike attitude to life through which it is experienced as something wondrous, it may be a religious-like attitude toward life of feeling absolutely safe by placing one’s trust in God, or it may be an ethical-like attitude to life of undertaking to live according to what are grasped as absolute values. Of course these expressions do not describe anything sensible. However, once we succeed in adopting an attitude toward life that is expressible in these ways, the Problem of Life no longer confounds us. Our will to live changes and we become happy with life, whatever is the case in it. 4. See Norman Malcolm, Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View? 1.


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chapter 15 What Cannot Be Put into Words but Makes Itself Manifest

his declarations regarding the standing of ethics, Wittgenstein also declares that “6.421 Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.” His reference to aesthetics in this framework helps explain the difficulty in talking about the meaning of life, which according to him is a difficulty of talking about what “makes itself manifest,” even though it “cannot be put into words.” The declaration casts further light on how he wants to overcome the Problem of Life. However, it is cryptic and requires much elucidation before the point of it comes out.

IN CONJUNCTION WITH

From Meaning to Meaningfulness Ostensibly, one might think that in equating ethics with aesthetics all Wittgenstein is saying is that the same considerations about sense and value, which apply to ethics, apply to aesthetics as well. Ethics purports to formulate transcendental values for the good life. Aesthetics purports to formulate transcendental values for good art. Both are philosophical endeavors doomed to failure, because they try to say what cannot be said but can only be shown, but the comparison collapses right at the start. As Wittgenstein sees it, ethics is the attempt to say something transcendental about the meaning of life. What has such an attempt to do with assertions made about the aesthetic value of efforts invested in art? To shed light on this issue, I need to comment on what is sometimes referred to as “Wittgenstein’s doctrine of showing what cannot be said.” 152


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My first comment in this connection is that indeed Wittgenstein claims that there are things that show themselves, although they cannot be said: that is, they cannot be represented in propositions that picture states of affairs. This claim applies in Wittgenstein’s declarations on two particular subjects. The first is the logical form of propositions, which is manifested in language and states of affairs. The second is the sense of the world, which is the transcendental value or meaning of life. In my interpretation of the declaration about ethics and aesthetics in this connection, its point is to shift the effort to overcome the Problem of Life from searching after the (transcendental) meaning of life to experiencing life in a meaningful way that can fulfill the same purpose. For while it makes no sense to search for the meaning of life or to ascribe a meaning or lack of meaning to life, nonetheless life may be experienced in a meaningful way or in a nonmeaningful way. The conceptual distinction between ascribing meaning to life and experiencing life in a meaningful way, which I am focusing on, is of the sort that in a different context of discussion Wittgenstein described many years later as “A whole cloud of philosophy condensed into a drop of grammar.”1 It can be brought out by means of an analogy. Consider the difference between ascribing joy or sadness to a particular event or fact in our life, and experiencing it joyfully or sadly. Although we speak of sad and joyful events or facts, the events and facts themselves are neither sad nor joyful. They are only sad or joyful for those who experience them as such. But while it is possible to express sadness or joy over the facts of life, it is not possible to ground this meaningful way of experiencing them in the facts themselves. Since there is nothing in the facts themselves that renders them sad or joyful, it is always possible for someone not to experience them in such a (sad or joyful) meaningful way. Indeed, the same facts could be meaningful in different ways to different people, none of which are represented in assertions that express the way in which their meaningfulness is experienced. The same consideration also holds for life itself, which could be experienced in different meaningful ways by different people, such as by those who are happy and those who are unhappy. The meaningful way of experiencing life that is required for overcoming the Problem of Life that confronts Wittgenstein is one that can perform the same task that religious and philosophical worldviews sought, but failed, to achieve. In my interpretation of Wittgenstein’s insight on this matter, the meaningful way of experiencing life that he needs to achieve this purpose is one that enables him to experience life as though it were created by God. When he is able to experience life in such a wonderfully meaningful way, he experiences it as a divine creation. In doing so he is able to overcome the 1. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Part II, 222.


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Problem of Life that afflicts him by sublimating his need for determining that life has some hidden divine or transcendental meaning into a wonderfully meaningful way of experiencing life as a work of art. All this despite the fact that he cannot say what this wonderful meaning is, nor can he ground it in the facts of life that make up the world, which may be represented only by propositions that make sense.

Seeing the World as a Wonderful Work of Art The shift from wanting to discover the meaning of life toward experiencing life in a particular meaningful way that Wittgenstein is promoting follows to some extent in the wake of views put forward by Karl Krause, the famed Viennese cultural critic. Krause claimed that what is possible to express through art and religious ritual is not possible to state in a meaningful way through philosophy and theology. In this way a work of art emerges as an expression that shows something that cannot be asserted and justified by means of worldviews. In Wittgenstein’s understanding of this idea, artistic expressions manifest the minds and attitudes to life of the artists who give birth to them. They show what cannot be represented in propositions: the manner in which artists perceive the world and experience its sense, testifying thereby to the artists’ attitudes to life and thus also to the way the artists experience the meaningfulness of life. In doing this artistic expressions can either entice us to what is manifested through them, revolt us, or leave us unaffected. Religious and metaphysical worldviews strive to turn these ways of experiencing the meaningfulness of life into propositions about the meaning of life. They thus try to put into words what cannot be said. Following my use here of the concept of attitude to elucidate Wittgenstein’s declarations on ethics and aesthetics, it may be said that works of art manifest artists’ basic attitudes toward their world and life, the way in which they experience what is important and valuable to them about life: in short, whatever makes their lives meaningful to them. There are people with a mundane practical attitude toward their lives and world. They are apt to measure the value or meaning of events in their lives by their contribution to, or detraction from, their pleasures and social and economic successes. Such events render their lives valuable and meaningful or not to them. For other people, fear of what the future may bring is what is meaningful to them in their lives. And there are those for whom experiencing life and what happens in it as something wondrous is the most meaningful thing. In Wittgenstein’s insight, the mystical experience of wonder at the logical form of the world is also manifested in the aesthetic experience of perceiving the world as if it were a divine work of art. In such an experience


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the world is grasped as something wondrous that was created by an eternal and sublime artificer. In his notebook, Wittgenstein expressed this idea in the following way: The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis; and the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connection between art and ethics. The usual way of looking at things sees objects as it were from the midst of them, the view sub specie aeternitatis from outside. In such a way that they have the whole world as background. . . . The thing seen sub specie aeternitatis is the thing seen together with the whole logical space.2

According to this line of thought, a work of art rests upon a different experience from that through which what is the case is grasped, described, and explained in an everyday and scientific manner by means of propositions that represent states of affairs. An aesthetic experience makes it possible to grasp what is the case in the world, the facts, as a wondrous work of art produced by something eternal—as God’s self-expression. Such an aesthetic experience manifests the same kind of attitude toward life as the mystical experience, in which the world’s existence is experienced as a wondrous event. In a remark written later in his notebook from 1930, Wittgenstein attempted to clarify what in his book was left unexplained: how human life could be grasped through an aesthetic experience as a wondrous work of art created by God, and thus belonging to something eternal: Nothing could be more remarkable than seeing a man who thinks he is unobserved performing some quite simple everyday activity. Let us imagine a theater; the curtain goes up and we see a man alone in a room, walking up and down, lighting a cigarette, sitting down, etc. so that suddenly we are observing a human being from outside in a way that ordinarily we can never observe ourselves; it would be like watching a chapter of biography with our own eyes,— surely this would be uncanny and wonderful at the same time. We should be observing something more wonderful than anything a playwright could arrange to be acted or spoken on the stage: life itself.—But then we do see this every day without its making the slightest impression on us! True enough, but we do not see it from that point of view. . . . But only an artist can so represent an individual thing as to make it appear to us like a work of art. . . . A work of art forces us—as one might say—to see it in the right perspective. . . . But it seems to me too that there is a way of capturing the world sub specie aeterni other than through the work of the artist. Thought has such a way— 2. Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914-1916, 83.


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so I believe—it is as though it flies above the world and leaves it as it is— observing it from above, in flight.3

According to this insight, art enables us to grasp everyday phenomena, which we ordinarily regard as unremarkable, as something remarkable. It thus enables us to experience whatever is the case, the facts of life, as a wondrous work of art produced by a divine creator, namely God. In doing this, art manifests what is the case in life from an inspiring viewpoint: as God’s wondrous creation. Herein lies the greatness of art, that it practically forces us to observe factual scraps of life in this way. The problem, for someone who would like to experience life as God’s creation, is that it is not always possible to observe and grasp the facts of life as if they were a work of art, as not everyone is capable of seeing life from an artistic viewpoint, and not everyone is capable of giving artistic expression to his or her experience. Artists cannot only experience what is the case in the world in a wondrous fashion, but they can also give an aesthetic expression to this experience, which is capable of enticing others to see and grasp the world in such a way. An aesthetic experience of a given matter transforms our attitude to it, enabling us to regard it in an entirely different way. It can thus redeem ordinary events and things by rendering them into something wonderful. The transformation of the world into something of wonder, which metaphysics fails to accomplish for all its rational explanations, is achieved by showing it to be such through art. In the second paragraph of the above quotation, Wittgenstein claims that philosophical thought can also express an experience of this sort, as long as it does not attempt to explain the world but merely describes its essence from such an attitude of sublime wonder.4 In my reading of this suggestion, traditional metaphysics sought to explain the world though the eternal ideas that give it a foundation. In contrast with this rational but speculative method of seeking metaphysical knowledge, Wittgenstein wants to engage in an effort to express the eternal in as clear and perspicuous a way as possible. Thus his declarations in the book concerning logic, life, and world should be seen as philosophical insights that cannot be represented or explained in a sensible way. They can only be expressed in a more or less clear and perspicuous fashion, in the same way as a work of art. By turning philosophy 3. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 4. 4. In light of Wittgenstein’s clarification, it is possible to see the connection between the purpose of philosophy he posited in his later studies and his earlier inquiries, summarized in the book discussed here. In both cases, philosophy is supposed to grant us a second opportunity to wonder at what we do not ordinarily notice as wondrous—such as the fact that we have language and, with it, a world. In both, it is the philosopher’s duty to formulate the wondrous so as to make it prominent, not to explain the things through which it is manifested, which negates the experience of wonder at life.


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into an effort that seeks to express what is remarkable and wondrous about life, Wittgenstein affiliates it with both religious practices and artistic expressions. In both, rather than try to explain the meaning of life, the point comes out from what is thus expressed and experienced by people through them. The elucidations I offer here of Wittgenstein’s insights about what cannot be explained but can only be shown have direct import for the Problem of Life, for the conclusion that follows from them is that those of us who are afflicted by the Problem of Life because the wondrous meaning of life cannot be represented or explained in sensible worldview need to adopt an attitude toward life which will enable us to experience our lives as manifesting a wondrous work of art, and thereby overcome our problem.

Against the Current Given my elucidation of Wittgenstein’s attempt to overcome the Problem of Life, his Tractatus can now be linked with the romantic-mystical school of thought, which developed in Europe beside—and in opposition to—the rational worldview of the Enlightenment. Underlying the Enlightenment was a prevalent faith in science and the ability of human beings to use their intellect to discover the nature of reality, thereby succeeding in controlling it and contributing to historical progress. In this context, Galileo heralded the age of science when he claimed in his Il Saggiatore that the book of nature lies open before us and need only be read. However, he claimed, God has written it in an abstract language—mathematics. As he saw it, the new science would go about deciphering the book of nature written by God, which is revealed to us only through abstract ways of thinking. In contrast to this enlightened and rational approach, Johann Georg Hamann, a philosopher and contemporary of Kant from the city of Konigsberg, who was called “the sorcerer of the north,” laid the foundation for a mystical conception of reality in which the artistic experience and the sublime in nature occupy a central position.5 In Hamann’s view, God’s book of nature is not written in an abstract theoretical manner, and it should not be read in a scientific manner. It should be read through our appreciation of the grandeur of nature, our amazement at the sunset or at the blossoming of a flower, and the way in which the various arts, such as painting, music, and literature, stir our hearts. When we appreciate nature as we might a work of art, we become aware of the existence of the artist who created it. Hamann claimed that nature is “a book, fable or letter” written by God in the language given to us through our 5. See Isaiah Berlin, The Magus of the North, and Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas.


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immediate aesthetic experience of it through the senses. The Bible, he claimed, provides a key to this fable, and art is another way in which it is revealed. Art, like the Bible, reveals a way of grasping God’s message and disclosing truth through a medium that provides insight and knowledge of reality itself. In Hamann’s view, which became the initiating ideological stance for German Romanticism, God reveals himself through the human senses and passions through which nature is apprehended as a divine creation. Thus an artistic activity acquires metaphysical significance, as it manifests ultimate insight into reality itself. Everyday language, being a language of the senses, attitudes, and emotions, and one in which poetry and literature are written, is an affiliate of this enterprise. It provides a powerful and immediate human expression for the glory of God’s creation, and it stands apart from the language formulated by means of human intellect in the guise of a scientific discourse that aims to explain things. By rendering logic into a transcendental and sublime work of art, Wittgenstein manages to conjoin Hamann’s insights to those of Galileo. They come together through our ability to grasp the very existence of the world and whatever is the case as fixed within the logical and epistemic limits of our life as something wondrous. To grasp the world from an attitude of wonderment at its very existence is to grasp it through a mystical-aesthetic experience that metaphysical and scientific worldviews fail to explain or render sensible. In light of these elucidations, we can also understand Wittgenstein’s mysterious declaration regarding what cannot be said: “6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.” What “cannot be put into words” is what cannot be represented through propositions that describe states of affairs. The way in which the world or life is experienced as a wondrous miracle cannot be represented in these ways; it can only be expressed in art and religious ritual. As may now be seen, in the attitude toward life that Wittgenstein seeks to adopt in order to overcome the Problem of Life, all that is left of the religious experience of life, as a miraculous event, created and determined by God, is wonder at the existence of the world with its logical scaffold: an experience that may be instantiated by whatever is the case. As regards himself, when he succeeds in adopting this attitude, he completely changes the way in which he experiences and values his life. It follows, then, that in order to overcome the Problem of Life one must adopt such an attitude of mystical wonderment at one’s very life. It may now also be seen that had he not followed Frege’s formulations by limiting his discussion of the concept of meaning to the sense of propositions and the way in which words refer to things, he could have brought it back to its source in everyday, nonphilosophical discourse, to the way in which we talk also about the meaning of actions, events, and experiences. In


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accordance with this usage, he could then have formulated the conclusions of his inquiry as follows: “The meaning of life is manifested through our attitude towards our lives, an attitude that pervades and determines the way in which we experience life in a meaningful fashion, as either a mundane set of natural events or as something miraculous and wonderful.” Since Wittgenstein is finding it difficult to continue living due to his struggle with the Problem of Life, the meaning of life—which he needs to experience in order to overcome his problem—is the same as the meaning experienced by religious believers, a meaning which on his clarification cannot be put into words representing states of affairs, but which is capable of rendering his life into something wonderful. All of which leads to the book’s final conclusion, which is about what philosophy sought to explain about the experience of life that renders it absolutely meaningful: “7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” This last rung in the ladder constructed by Wittgenstein to deal with the question about the meaning of life culminates his inquiry. It was then followed by the realization that he ought to abandon philosophy, for the purpose on account of which he had turned to philosophy—namely, discovering the meaning of life—had ended in philosophy’s failure to explain the meaning of life, since we cannot speak about it in a sensible way. However, the inquiry had not been wasted. It had shown that the only way to overcome the Problem of Life he experienced was to bring about a change in his attitude to life. In conjunction with Tolstoy’s suggestions, he now decided to turn away from philosophy and to turn instead to pursuing a way of life that would allow him to experience life in a way that would, in turn, enable him to overcome the Problem of Life that afflicted him.


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the bold declaration in the introduction to his book that he had found “on all essential points, the final solution of the problems,” Wittgenstein abandoned his philosophical inquiries and turned to pursue a way of life by means of which he hoped to overcome the Problem of Life: how to experience life through a will to live that manifests an ethicalreligious-mystical-aesthetic attitude to life as something wondrous, when what metaphysical and religious worldviews have to say about life in this vein is nonsensical. He had already renounced all his possessions and wealth, so as not to be dependent on them to achieve happiness. (The money was transferred to a fund on behalf of poets.) Now he began training to become an elementary school teacher. At the conclusion of his training, he began to teach in a rural school in upper Austria, adopting the simple life of a country schoolteacher aimed at benefiting others. By doing so, he in practice adopted Tolstoy’s recommendation to intellectuals to renounce their pursuit of egotistical goals of pleasure and social success and to turn from their careers to a way of life devoted to helping others. In this way, they could experience the religious meaning of life as doing God’s will.

IN ACCORDANCE WITH

An Attitude toward Life Wittgenstein’s last two steps—bringing to a closure his philosophical reflections about the meaning of life by turning his back on philosophy and choosing a way of life that would make it possible to overcome the Problem 160


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of Life—can be interpreted as two complementary pairs of expression for the same matter: one in a theoretical and the other in a practical context. The first is the concluding philosophical response to the philosophical urge to grasp the meaning of life in an intellectual manner. The second is the concluding ethical response to the desire to live according to such meaning. The philosophical step dismisses answers that are furnished to the question about the meaning of life as nonsensical, placing logic above life and language—as an ultimate barrier, which does not allow us to peek past the screen. What is left for us is only to be enthralled by the wonder of life’s very existence, and by the way in which it is absolutely locked in the grip of logical form, which precludes any possibility of speculating about what life in its entirety means. This absolute surrender before what logical necessity allows us to think and ask and what it does not, accepting its absolute authority without trying to explain the foundation that underlies it, is what makes it possible to experience life as something absolutely wondrous. In parallel with the theoretical move that brings a philosophical inquiry to its closure by noting that it has reached an impasse and must now be stopped emerges the practical move of overcoming the Problem of Life. This is managed by changing one’s way of life. We have to relinquish the desire for personal social and economic success and instead work for the benefit of others, so as to experience our lives as if we are being guided by a will greater than our own—God’s will—of which it is nonsensical to speak. A parallel can now be seen between the theoretical step, which pursues philosophical reflections about the meaning of life to their ultimate end, and the practical solution to the Problem of Life that Wittgenstein adopted, which calls for changing one’s way of life. Just as the philosophical perplexity about the meaning of life ceases after one bows one’s head before the absolute and unexplainable validity of logic that does not enable us to pose the question, so too the solution to the Problem of Life is achieved by willingly accepting what is put before us in life. In both cases, renunciation is meant to vouchsafe us the experience of life as having a greater meaning than what we could give it ourselves. These last remarks cast new light on Wittgenstein’s encounter with Tolstoy’s ideas about the meaning of life, which I discussed in the first part of this book. Despite his philosophical repudiation of Tolstoy’s philosophical remarks on the solution to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” it can be seen that Wittgenstein’s basic attitude toward his life corresponds with the attitude toward life that Tolstoy sought to adopt and which he recommended to his readers. For Tolstoy, the solution lay in adopting an attitude toward life such as that of a servant bowing his head before his master’s will, though he may not understand it or even try to understand it, or that of a child trustfully clutching the hand of his father, who is guiding the child


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on his way according to his own will, which is beyond the child’s understanding. Wittgenstein wants to arrive at a similar outcome, but without relying for this purpose on Tolstoy’s parables, which are still anchored in the religious discourse. He would like to adopt an attitude toward his life that is manifested through bowing one’s head before what can only be wondered at, but never explained in a philosophical manner: the wondrous standing of logic that encases in it thought and world. However, unlike Tolstoy, he does not subscribe to the philosophical delusion that a sensible solution to the question about the meaning of life can be formulated. Nevertheless, the attitude toward his life that he tries to adopt is similar to the one Tolstoy recommends that we try to adopt. It is basically a trusting but passive attitude that enables those who adopt it to accept whatever is put before them without fear. Such a trusting but passive attitude toward life is suited for someone who would gratefully accept the world as he or she found it, not for someone trying to construct a world according to a plan of his or her own vision. From such an attitude toward life, the sought-for meaning of life is grasped not as something that we create, but as something that is bestowed on our lives from outside. In analogy to language, you could say that such a passive attitude toward the meaning of life is analogous to the attitude toward language of someone who only wants to understand what others are saying, not someone who wants to use language in order to say something. It expresses a desire to hear the divine voice spoken, not a desire to find one’s own voice.

Four Objections Having tracked Wittgenstein’s philosophical footsteps in his attempt to deal with the question about the meaning of life, the critical reader may raise various objections regarding what Wittgenstein claims and assumes about language, life, meaning, showing, and saying. However, I want here to limit my consideration of such possible objections to only four that relate to his formulation of the Problem of Life as well as the way he would have us try to overcome it. First, what makes life meaningful to us, even only to the extent that we would want to continue living, depends on each and every one of us. There is no reason to accept Wittgenstein’s supposition that only on the condition that the world is experienced in a mystical manner as something wondrous would we experience life as meaningful to the extent that we would want to continue living no matter what. This perhaps may have been his own attitude to life, but why project it in general upon the whole of the human race? Many people want to live even though they never succumb to the intoxicating allure of the mystical and experience life as something wondrous.


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Moreover, there is no reason we should accept Wittgenstein’s assertion that only a mystical attitude toward the world makes it possible to experience life as something wondrous. Life can be experienced as wondrous not just through mystical experience; it can also be experienced as such through great love felt for a particular person, or because one has a sense of achievement regarding great ideals, or because of one’s satisfaction with creative endeavor, etc. There is nothing special about the mystical experience that grants it an exclusive monopoly over the experience that life is wondrous. In reply, it might be said that the need for acquiring such an attitude toward life is not depicted as a universal need, but only as a way to overcome the Problem of Life. Those of us who do not seek an attitude toward life that gives it a meaning of absolute validity are not bothered by the Problem of Life, and are therefore not in need of the proposed solution in order to overcome it. A second objection might be that Wittgenstein reduces the Problem of Life to the desire to experience life as having some transcendental or divine meaning, although the experience cannot be described and justified rationally. However, it is not only such a meaningful experience of life that cannot be described and justified in any rational discourse. What makes our lives personally meaningful to us, though not as having any divine or transcendental meaning, also cannot be described and justified in any rational and objective discourse. Ostensibly, people seem to do this all the time. They tell how meaningful their lives are for them. In everyday discourse such assertions are clear and understandable, and we ask no rational and objective justification for them. When people tell us that their families give a wonderful meaning to their lives, we usually refrain from asking them to justify this claim and the attitude expressed thereby toward their lives by asking, “What is it about your family that provides your life with such wonderful meaning? Do you really think that such an attitude to your life is justified?” Asking for justification for such a claim challenges people’s right to find their lives wonderfully meaningful in their own personal ways, even without having any proper justification for their attitudes. Indeed, it is unclear how to justify in a rational and objective manner any meaning that people find in their lives. To the same extent they might find them meaningless, despite the same circumstances and the same events taking place in them. A third objection might be that, by limiting the Problem of Life only to those who want to experience their lives as having absolute value, Wittgenstein is limiting the problem of ascribing meaning to life to a religious and philosophical context without justification. Some people do not find meaning in their lives, but not because their lives do not have absolute value for them. For people like Tolstoy and Wittgenstein, perhaps, their inability to find refuge in religion and their need for something absolute make it a


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problem to continue living without ascribing such meaning to life. But many fail to find sufficient meaning in their lives, not because they are incapable of experiencing the wonder of life, but because of the awful suffering and tribulations they experience. The problem of life that besets them is how to diminish their suffering and pain, not how to experience their life as wonderful. It follows that what is called “the Problem of Life” may vary from one person to the next. In reply to this objection, Wittgenstein might have said that the Problem of Life that confronts him is how to want to live because life is wonderfully meaningful. Those who want “a different life” for themselves in order to want to continue living do not want to experience life as absolutely meaningful, and to this extent they are not approaching life in the same way and are not confronted with the same existential problem of life. His solution is aimed only at those who can no longer believe in what religious and metaphysical worldviews proclaim, but nonetheless have an existential need to experience life as wonderfully meaningful. A fourth objection might be that what renders talk about the meaning of life into nonsensical talk applies to any kind of meaning ascribed to life, not only that of wonder. In this insight the Problem of Life stems from wanting to ascribe meaning to life itself, as apposed to ascribing meaning to what takes place in life. While the first want is confused and senseless, the second is sound. Instead of seeking to render life itself meaningful in a single stroke, we need to make different components of our lives meaningful to us, so that our life becomes thereby meaningful to us. In rebuttal Wittgenstein might say that to ascribe meaning to life itself is to claim that life has a meaning that is not dependent on us and on our attitudes to what takes place in life: it is to render the meaning of life into an “objective datum” that is worthy of wonder. He might add that this is precisely the existential Problem of Life that besets those who, like himself, can no longer believe in what religious and metaphysical worldviews present us, but nevertheless have an existential need for the kind of attitude toward life from which these senseless views emerge.

The Final Manifestation of Wittgenstein’s Attitude to Life For several years after turning his back on philosophy, Wittgenstein devoted himself to his new profession as an elementary schoolteacher in a rural community, eventually leaving it in frustration and disappointment. Eleven years after writing in the introduction to his Tractatus that he had found the final solutions to the problems of philosophy, he took them up again and returned to Cambridge University. As he confronted the problems once more, he became aware that there were what he now described as


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“grave mistakes” in his first book.1 It became clear to him that everything that could be put into words does not have a single logical form, that propositions are not in the nature of pictures, that the sense of a proposition is not exhausted by its representation of a state of affairs. It became clear to him that it is not logic that underlies language and world, but vice versa—that logical necessity is a function of natural, human, linguistic, and cultural forms of life, that language manifests many different hues of common human forms of life, and that language is not exhausted by one single feature that is essential to it. It became clear to him that the wondrous does not belong only to the mystical experience of life being affiliated with something eternal, but that the wonders of nature could reveal themselves through aesthetic experience, allowing us to be enthralled by nature without affiliating it with anything eternal. It became clear to him that the ability to overcome a philosophical problem is also the ability to drop the need to put life on some sort of foundation. However, as regards the problem that had stood at the center of his earlier studies—namely, how to overcome the Problem of Life without recourse to an illusory religious or metaphysical worldview— there appears to have been no essential change in his approach. In accordance with Tolstoy’s conception of this problem, which was that in order to overcome it one has to take action to change one’s way of life and with it one’s attitude toward life, Wittgenstein time and again tried to make such a change in his life, despite his frustrating experience as a rural schoolteacher. (At one time he even attempted to settle in the remote Russian countryside and become a peasant, verily in the spirit of Tolstoy’s recommendations.) He finally left the university and moved by himself into a solitary cottage on one of Ireland’s coasts. There he continued his life’s work, thinking and writing about philosophical topics. In his last years Wittgenstein fell sick with cancer, and he returned to Cambridge for the last few weeks of his life, residing in the home of his physician, Dr. Bevan. Norman Malcolm, Wittgenstein’s student and friend, wrote an enlightening and moving memoir about their acquaintance and friendship, describing in it also the last days of Wittgenstein’s life, during which he was not at his side. In those last few weeks, writes Malcolm, Wittgenstein felt better suddenly and wrote with vigor on philosophical topics. But then came the inevitable conclusion: On Friday, April 27th, he took a walk in the afternoon. That night he fell violently ill. He remained conscious and when informed by the doctor that he could live only a few days, he exclaimed “Good!” Before losing consciousness he said to Mrs. Bevan (who was with him throughout the night), “Tell them 1. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, x.


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I’ve had a wonderful life!” By “them” he undoubtedly meant his close friends. When I think of his profound pessimism, the intensity of his mental and moral suffering, the relentless way in which he drove his intellect, his need for love together with the harshness that repelled love, I am inclined to believe that his life was fiercely unhappy. Yet at the end he himself exclaimed that it had been “wonderful”! To me this seems a mysterious and strangely moving utterance.2

Years after writing the above, Malcolm had second thoughts about his evaluation of Wittgenstein’s life as “fiercely unhappy.” He was now reminded that Wittgenstein had had many friends: “people who not only admired him but loved him. And he was their true friend, always concerned for their health and well-being. These friendships were surely a source of richness in his life.” Furthermore, writes Malcolm, at the center of his life stood his philosophical work, through which he expressed many thoughts of great power and beauty. “I find it impossible to believe that this activity of creation and discovery gave him no delight.”3 Wittgenstein himself was less unequivocal regarding this last matter. He appears to have associated happiness with the adoption of an attitude towards life that would enable him to overcome the Problem of Life. Philosophy gave him an opportunity to pursue two goals, which he found to be instrumental for this purpose. The first was to dismantle metaphysical castles built in the air, namely illusory worldviews, in order to express, preserve, and strengthen the ability to wonder at and be enthralled by life, and by the way in which it is expressed through art and manifested by the greatest of human enterprises, which is language. The second was to express in philosophical thought the wonder of language and through it of human life. Consequently, he also reflected about what his philosophical work had given him and how to describe it in relation to his life: “The delight I take in my thoughts is delight in my own strange life. Is this joy of living?”4 I find the ability of those of us nearing the end of their lives to overcome the fear of death estimable, just as I find their efforts to express their final attitude toward their lives at the end of them moving. The last of these efforts seems to me to express a concluding desire to say something enlightening about the way they experienced their lives, including a desire to say something enlightening about the way in which their lives were meaningful to them—or, at least, the way in which, toward the end, they experience their rapidly dwindling lives as having been meaningful. In light of what Wittgenstein declared in his book, this is an attempt to say what cannot be put into words, but it shows itself, at least to themselves, as something that can only 2. Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, 81. 3. Ibid., 84 n. 4. 4. Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 22.


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be expressed. As at the end of a long journey, when we are inclined to enthusiastically declare, “It was wonderful,” his final declaration appears to manifest his desire to express great enthusiasm for the journey of his life, which was rapidly drawing to a close, and for the way in which it was meaningful to him. The declaration itself may not be unusual under such circumstances. What is special about it in Wittgenstein’s case is that the common expression he used to declare his enthusiasm for his life at the end of it is not alien to his philosophical thought. “Wonderful” is closely related to “wondrous” and to what is “full of wonder.” According to the philosophical declarations in his writing, the wondrous dimension of life manifests itself through a stirring experience of wonder at the very existence of our life—which is also the world. This is the experience underlying the attitude toward life that Wittgenstein tried to adopt all his life, in order by this means to overcome the Problem of Life: how to experience life as having wondrous meaning, even though what the experience manifests in regard to the meaning of life cannot be substantiated philosophically, and even though he was unable to believe in what religion says in this spirit about the meaning of life.


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PART I I I

INVENTING A

MEANING TO L I FE


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chapter 17 Sartre Takes the Train to Dijon

J E A N - PA U L S A R T R E ’ S father died when Sartre was only a small child. In his autobiographical book, titled The Words, the noted French writer tells about his childhood during the first decade of the twentieth century, describing how he experienced his early years due to his father’s death, and how, as a result, he became conscious of himself, his freedom, and the state of human existence in general.1 His account is based on a method of investigation that aims to reveal the way in which, in his opinion, we attribute meaning to our lives by choosing our personal self-identities in the context of formative life experiences. It is a method of investigation that he supported in his philosophical essays and implemented in his biographies of famous French novelists and fictional stories, a method that he named “existential psychoanalysis.”2

Self-Analysis through Existential Psychoanalysis Formative experiences are meaningful experiences that give shape to the way in which we later experience the meaning of our lives and what they enclose. According to Sartre, they are experiences from within which we choose or adopt our self-conceptions manifested as personal self-identities. He takes these to embody our particular sensibilities, dispositions, social 1. Sartre, The Words. 2. Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 557-75.

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affiliations, and worldviews, encompassing our central beliefs and values. He contends that such formative experiences usually take place at an early age in social circumstances composed of parents, family, friends, or school and against the background of being mired in a world having natural and cultural facets of one kind or another. Accordingly, in light of his existential psychoanalytic reconstruction of the way he experienced the meaning of his childhood circumstances, he asserts that his father’s death was “the great event” of his life. This was not because it had been a traumatic experience for him. Sartre was too young to know and remember his father, and so he felt no guilt over his death, he explains. It was the great event of his life, he goes on to explain, because it chained his mother to her family, to whom she returned with the young Sartre after the death of the father, while for himself, his father’s death “gave me my freedom,” as he puts it. His freedom stemmed from the situation in which he was immersed and which he perceived as characterizing his unique existential state: the absence of a father from his life. “The rule is that there are no good fathers,” he declares in the book. “It is not the men who are at fault but the paternal bond which is rotten. . . . If he had lived, my father would have lain down on me and crushed me,” he explains. “I am happy to subscribe to the judgment of an eminent psychoanalyst: I have no Super-Ego,” he claims with impudence, attributing to himself what according to the same eminent psychoanalyst is typical of a psychopathological personality.3 The eminent psychoanalyst to whom Sartre refers is, of course, none other than Sigmund Freud, the inventor of psychoanalysis. Sartre’s recourse to Freud, for the purpose of substantiating the freedom that was given to him as a child, is a gesture of esteem. It is also ironic—deliberately so, it seems—veiling Sartre’s rejection of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, among other things, because it is a deterministic psychology that does not, in his opinion, acknowledge the freedom that we, human beings, have to choose or invent ourselves by choosing or inventing our personal self-identities. Freud claimed that psychological processes, through which human beings experience their lives at an early age, shape human personalities. In this context, familial and child-parent relationships in particular were held by him to be of special importance. As Freud explained it, over the years these primal experiences are repressed from consciousness into what he called “the unconscious,” but their influence on human lives continues, insofar as they are the basis for the development of personality and the emergence of what he calls the “ego.” The repression of prohibited desires and thoughts from consciousness is also accompanied by the formation of what Freud called the “super-ego,” which encompasses cultural values, social ideals, and moral 3. Sartre, The Words, 15.


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imperatives, all of which are internalized by the ego into the human personality. Freud claimed that the super-ego manifests our attitude toward our father. Admiration for the father, likewise fear of him, leads to the internalization of certain values and ideals and to their transformation into our super-ego. By this agency, we are provided with a supervisory authority that monitors our behavior, desires, and wishes from inside our souls. The supervision is performed by means of feelings of guilt and shame, which the super-ego induces when its owner deviates from the ideals of appropriate behavior and permitted desires, as well as by means of feelings of contentment, satisfaction, and pride, which arise when we grasp ourselves as having implemented these same ideals and values in our lives. Sartre held that Freud’s division of the human soul into a conscious and an unconscious part was mistaken and illogical. He denied Freud’s claim that human consciousness is not the master of its own house—the ego. Sartre’s proposed existential psychoanalysis was supposed to serve as a replacement for that of Freud and his theory, according to which a large part of our mental life takes place in an arena that is not directly accessible to us. According to Sartre’s view, mental life is a conscious life that embodies also self-consciousness. Being conscious of what takes place in our lives and how we experience and grasp them, we ascribe meaning to the life situations in which we find ourselves through feelings that we experience, such as fear or shame, or through reflective thought, which assesses them positively or negatively. We do not unconsciously attribute meaning to what happens in our lives, just as we do not unconsciously attribute value to things. There is no unconscious mental life. At most, not all conscious life is reflective life. Thus we delude ourselves that the meaning of the life situations in which we find ourselves is contained within them, rather than its being a function of the way in which we have chosen to regard them as being meaningful in one way or another. Sartre disagrees with Freud not only about the ways in which the “ego” or “self” is formed, but also in regard to its ontological status. In his view, we delude ourselves that our “self” embodies our singular human essence developed according to laws of psychological necessity.4 It is difficult for us to accept that it is no more than a self-constructed self-conception, made up of various self-defining descriptions, such as “a Parisian,” “a waiter,” “a married person,” “a person fond of chocolate,” “an avid listener to classical music,” “a patriot,” “a moral person,” and so forth, all of which we have adopted by choice in order to have a personal self-identity that will guide us through life and give it meaning. We therefore conveniently embrace Freud’s idea that we have an organic “ego” or “self,” 4. For shifts in Sartre’s view on the philosophical concept of self, see Leo Fretz, “Individuality in Sartre’s Philosophy,” 67-99.


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which developed according to psychological processes, embodying in it our personal self-identity. In this way we are able to evade responsibility for the personal self-identity we have freely chosen, which defines us by establishing what is meaningful to us in our lives. In existential psychoanalysis, the emphasis is placed on reconstructing the pivotal life-choices we have made and through which we have chosen or adopted our self-conceptions that manifest our personal self-identities, rather than on hidden psychological processes and primary events long ago submerged in our unconscious that shaped our ego and personalities. What Freud describes as stages of development in the formation of the human personality, through which the ego is formed, Sartre describes as crucial moments in life in which we choose or adopt a certain self-conception that gives us a personal self-identity and which Sartre refers to as a “Self.” He argues that we tend to adopt it in accordance with what our social surroundings make us think of ourselves, as it usually manifests our acknowledgment of other peoples’ judgment of us and their values, especially the judgment and values of our fathers. We merely delude ourselves that it manifests our unique nature. Sartre contends that it is always possible to either accept or reject the judgment of others, inventing other personal self-identities, thereby giving ourselves a different “Self.” We have the freedom. This is because human beings lack any essence that determines their nature. We have no soul, ego, true self, organic self, metaphysical self, or transcendental ego. Thus we are able to invent our personal self-identities as we choose. In actual fact, however, our father’s power and influence over us are so strong that most of us are unable to withstand the pressures and influence to which we are subjected. We assimilate our father’s own viewpoint in regard to ourselves, together with its inherent conception of values, as a self-image that gives us the illusion that we have a singular self that manifests our inherent and natural personal self-identity. As regards himself, Sartre’s primary claim is that his own existential predicament, on account of never having known his father, was different from that of most human beings. His father had had no influence on him, so that he did not have to contend with an authoritative father figure, suppressing his own free will by positing a model for a desirable personal selfidentity. Sartre was therefore left to his own devices, free to invent a personal self-identity as he saw fit. He also remained fully conscious of the freedom given to him to invent his personal self-identity. (It’s not that other people do not have the freedom or are not conscious of it; they only fail to reflect on it and acknowledge it, preferring to surrender to the pressures and influences to which their fathers subject them by adopting a personal self-identity that gives in to them. They then delude themselves that it manifests their inherent nature.) Instead of being influenced by a father-figure that cast a


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shadow on his life by influencing him to adopt a certain personal self-identity, at an early age he discovered that his inventive behavior and cleverness won the approval and attention of the grown-ups in his mother’s family. He felt that he was swamped with love and devoid of obligations: as though he were an actor on a stage, every facial expression winning an attentive response from an admiring family audience. He had the feeling that he was living on display, according to what it seemed to him the family wanted to see in him. “I never stopped creating myself,” he writes.5 After a while, the pleasant and amusing feeling that he was an actor on a stage began to be overshadowed by a feeling that something was missing. Once he overheard another child, the son of a restaurant owner, say to the employee at the till, “When my father’s not here, I’m the master.” To their owners, possessions reflect who they are, explains Sartre in reference to this incident, and through it to the way in which, so he claims, the bourgeoisies attribute meaning to their lives in general. Ownership provides an experience of a clear-cut personal self-identity, tangibly making us into who we are. In contrast to the child of the incident whose father owned the restaurant, Sartre himself felt as if he had never been inside his own house; that there was nothing in the world that embodied his personal self-identity, reflecting what he was in a tangible fashion to him. He felt that he had no personal self-identity. “I remained an abstraction,” he eventually summarized what he experienced at the time as the lack of a center of gravity in his life, due to the absence of an authoritative father-figure that would influence his choice of a personal self-identity. “In short, I had no soul,” he declares, in a gesture of defiance toward religious believers.6

The Passenger without a Ticket Sartre relates that while yet a child he had conjured an image of himself as being devoid of a personal self-identity, an image that continued, he claims, to accompany him throughout his life. In his image, he is a hidden passenger on the train to Dijon.7 During the journey, he falls asleep in his seat. The ticket-inspector rudely shakes him by the shoulders, awakens him, and asks to see his ticket. He has none. Nor does he have any money to buy a ticket. The ticket-inspector asks to see some identification. He has no identification either. It occurs to him that he must convince the ticket-inspector 5. Sartre, The Words, 24. 6. Ibid., 61. 7. Stuart Zane Charme, Vulgarity and Authenticity: Dimensions of Otherness in the World of Jean-Paul Sartre, chapt. 4.


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that he is traveling on an important mission, and that he must be allowed to continue on his journey. He begins to talk, spouting words in an inexhaustible flow, as if it were in their power to cast a spell on the man. He attempts to assume a fictional identity; as long as he continues to speak, the ticketinspector appears to be listening, the train continues rolling down the track, and he continues riding it. Sartre named his autobiographical book The Words, due to the momentous role that the reading and writing of words played in his life. Accordingly, he divides the book into two parts, the first called “Reading,” the second “Writing.” The first part describes the factual world into which he was born and the way he experienced it: his mother’s family; the absence of a father; the middle-class French culture in which he grew up; the environment’s influences upon him; the appearance of his small, ugly body; and how he slowly became conscious of his unique existential predicament— being devoid of a personal self-identity. The second part describes what Sartre regards as the growth of his self-consciousness of being free, following the discovery that he lacked any personal self-identity of his own. This is the initiating stance for his becoming aware of the existential human predicament in general. At this point, he begins no longer only to “read” the words “written” about him by members of his family and the circumstances of his life—which have joined forces to try to give him a personal self-identity of one kind or another, but unsuccessfully—and starts “writing” words of his own. At first, these are words by means of which he creates various fictional identities for himself, according to what he identifies as the expectations those around him have of him; afterward, words that allow him to change his approach toward himself and his surroundings and to affirm his feeling that he has no personal self-identity of his own, which manifests his consciousness of being free. This part of the book records the way in which the perceived disadvantage is turned to advantage. It allows Sartre to acknowledge that he is endowed with what everyone dearly wants but fails to affirm: freedom. He is able to create himself as he sees fit. In light of this self-consciousness, he affirms his lack of a personal self-identity and is liberated. Toward the end of his autobiography, Sartre declares, “I have changed,” hinting that he is no longer troubled by his lack of a personal self-identity. But the change is not so far-reaching as to dislodge his earlier experience of being a hidden passenger on the train of his life, with no ticket or identification. This experience, which manifests his initial realization that he lacks any personal self-identity, and that any attempt to assume a personal identity of one kind or another is to fake it, still accompanies him. Despite the years that have passed, he occasionally still returns to the image of “the hidden passenger” on the train to Dijon as an image that poignantly and authentically expresses the way he experiences his existence in the world. “I have


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become once again the traveler without a ticket that I was at seven,” he writes. Even now, he claims, after growing up and becoming a noted writer and philosopher, he can still see the ticket-inspector coming into his booth to demand to see his ticket. The ticket-inspector only gazes at him now, less sternly than in the past. “In fact,” writes Sartre in self-irony, tinged with a measure of understanding for his philosophical critics, “all he wants is to go away, and let me complete the journey in peace; as long as I give him a valid excuse of some kind, he will be satisfied. Unfortunately I cannot find one and, besides, do not even want to look for one: we shall go on talking together, ill at ease, as far as Dijon where I know quite well that no one is waiting for me.”8

8. Sartre, The Words, 172.


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chapter 18 Life Journeys and Personal Self-Identity

was prodigious, including short stories, novels, plays, philosophical essays and books, critical articles on literature and politics, biographies of French writers, and the aforementioned autobiography. Strange as it may seem, in all of his extensive writing it is hard to find an explicit discussion of the question about the meaning of life—under this terminology. Nevertheless, he has been understood, and rightfully so, to be not only discussing the question about the meaning of life but as proposing a solution of his own to the question. The solution was put forward by means of an elaborated philosophical worldview regarding the meaning of human existence, which Sartre developed and substantiated in his philosophical writings and expressed in his fictional writings, and which was presented to the public under the eye-catching title of “existentialism.” I am treating it here because it provides philosophical expression to an important change that took place during the first half of the twentieth century in Western culture in the way people approached and grasped the question about the meaning of life, a change that Sartre was in part responsible for initiating and implementing. In this part of the book I want to examine the way in which Sartre’s existentialism expresses this change and seeks to substantiate it, along with what is insightful and what is problematic about it.

S A RT R E ’ S L I T E R A R Y O U T P U T

The Personal Turn in the Question about the Meaning of Life At the start of its philosophical life, Kierkegaard and Tolstoy laid this perplexing and enigmatic question at the door of secular Western intellectuals, 178


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hoping to tempt them to take it inside their homes. There it was supposed to undermine the artificial order imposed by the house’s occupants and disturb their false complacency inside it, encouraging a dormant need in them to find a satisfying answer to the question in spite of their secular worldview. The question was supposed to seep down slowly into the house’s foundations, which were cast in the form of ultimate values put on freedom and rationality, and undermine them. This is not what happened. Secular people did indeed adopt the question, making it a part of their discourse regarding life and its value, but instead of transforming their worldview, a transformation took place in their understanding of the question. It began to be grasped as giving every person the authority to provide a personal answer to it, expressing what makes life meaningful to that person in a personal and singular way. The realization that the question had to be answered in a personal way, and that it could not be answered in a general way, made it possible to integrate it into a humanistic worldview aimed at lending support to the values of freedom and rationality and to the modern view of human existence as manifesting self-consciousness. These were now grasped as fundamental elements underlying human existence, by dint of which all human beings were now deemed to be completely qualified to answer this question in the context of their own particular lives, determining thereby what makes their lives meaningful to them. To use familiar philosophical slogans, the change brought about in how the question was understood took it from an objective to a subjective context of discourse. This took the religious sting out of the question, which had led in the direction of thinking about the meaning of life as determined from outside human existence. The question was assimilated now into the humanistic, secular discourse as manifesting the values that underlie and give it philosophical support. I do not believe a single individual was responsible for causing this change in the way in which the question about the meaning of life came to be understood. It appears to have been a cooperative effort, in which numerous cultural forces joined together, and which was conducted across various philosophical and literary battlefields. However, Sartre’s philosophical and literary writing, through which he presented his existentialist worldview, both expressed what took place in the understanding of the question and contributed to its introduction and propagation in the secular discourse. The change in how the question about the meaning of life was understood detached the question from its initial religious underpinnings and transformed it into a personal question, pertaining to the meaning of each person’s life, and allowing for the possibility that different persons bestow on life a different meaning. Sartre’s important contribution to this understanding of the question was expressed in the idea that we bestow meaning on our lives in a completely free manner by means of the personal self-identities we


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invent or adopt. He regards them as modes of self-consciousness, manifesting the meaning that each of us gives to his or her life and through it to life in general. I have therefore chosen to focus attention on the image of “the hidden passenger on the train to Dijon” in the framework of this examination of Sartre’s ideas about the meaning of life. The image embodies his view of the way in which different conceptions of the meaning of life are manifested through the different personal self-identities we invent, choose, or adopt for ourselves in order to conduct the journey of our lives. Ostensibly, the idea of life being a journey manifests the way in which people in the past, as in the present, often speak and think of their lives as a journey that begins at birth and ends in death, during the course of which their human identities are formed, tested, and fortified. Thus, the imaginary journey on the train to Dijon joins previous life journeys in Western literature, with Sartre placing himself beside some famous heroes whose human identities were formed, tested, and fortified through their travels. But there is a crucial difference between his journey and those of earlier heroes, particularly in the way in which the concept of human identity, after being transformed into that of personal self-identity based on self-consciousness, plays in it. It is insightful, therefore, to note how different Sartre’s image of his life’s journey is from the life journeys previously told about in the West, as it manifests his conception of the meaning of life as fixed by personal self-identity, which he takes to be something that every person invents or adopts on his or her own. To clarify this idea, it is instructive to compare Sartre’s imaginary journey as “the hidden passenger on the train to Dijon” with two of the most famous life journeys in Western literature that deal with people’s identities and serve as background to Sartre’s journey.

Ancient Journeys in Search of Human Identity The first of these journeys is Odysseus’s arduous return to his home in Ithaca after fighting for ten years in the war against Troy. As related by Homer in the Odyssey, at the end of the war Odysseus is dragged against his will into a long journey, which lasts another ten years, in the course of which he has many adventures and manages to overcome all the obstacles and perils that crop up in his path, as well as all those who seek to do him harm or to seduce him to cease his attempt to return home. Odysseus’s success in overcoming the difficulties in his path and returning home safely is testimony to his personality, to his virtuous traits of character that enable him to overcome all the difficulties that confront him, and to his superiority over everybody who opposes him during his journey. He is gifted with a social aptitude for cooperating with his comrades, as opposed to the gigantic Cyclops, with


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whom he comes into conflict, who is a creature of the wild and lives alone, unable to make any social contacts. He is a man of action seeking adventure, not someone who prefers staying home inactively, like the Lotus-eaters whom he meets. As opposed to the barbarians, who are limited in their contacts only to those of their own culture, he can walk about among foreigners and even make friends with them. He is gifted with technical abilities that allow him to build a new ship when the old one founders on the rocks. He is resolute in his decisions and never wavers from his purpose of returning home. He cannot be bought or tempted. He is daring and courageous, clever, sly, and dissimulating when necessary. He avoids the extremes that drown others in the straits of Scylla and Charybdis. Though possessed of an adventurous spirit, he also has a strong emotional bond with his home, family, and estate. These are the virtuous qualities of character that shape Odysseus’s identity as a person; due to them he is able to overcome all the difficulties and temptations in his path, persevere in his journey, and return home. From this perspective on human character, the ancient Greek epic about Odysseus’s adventuresome journey can be read as Homer’s paean to the Greek character. The qualities of character that shape Odysseus’s personality manifest the Greek ideal regarding the nature of a good civilized person, possessing the desired traits of character known as “virtues” that render human beings into esteemed cultural beings. By successfully negotiating all the obstacles in his path, Odysseus proves the superiority of the Greek character as a cultural type, which is the product of generations of cultivation and maturation, as opposed to the character of types produced by other cultures. According to this interpretation of the epic, Odysseus’s personal identity, by dint of which his journey reaches a successful conclusion, manifests Greek culture in general, including abilities, dispositions, worldview, and basic values that it bestows upon those who belong to it. Although the “declared” objective of Odysseus’s journey is to return home, on a broader view the purpose of his journey, which is also the purpose of his life, is to exhaust life to the limit through daring and good sense out of curiosity and fidelity to everything that is deservedly dear to man—his honor, house, land, and family—and in this way, through a worthy virtuous human endeavor, to overcome the vicissitudes of life and derive happiness from it. In the Bible, the Hebrew parallel to Odysseus’s journey by sea is divided into two stories about journeys by land. The first is the story of Abram’s departure from Ur of the Chaldees, his country and birthplace, and his journey to the land promised to him by God, Canaan, there to establish his new home. In contrast to Odysseus, who was dragged into his journey against his will because of Poseidon’s anger against him, Abram sets out on his journey in response to God’s command. Also in contrast to Odysseus’s journey, which is meant to test a cultural identity that he already possesses, Abram’s


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journey is aimed at acquiring a new cultural identity, which is also supposed to be preferable to all other cultural identities: a religious identity based on a unique covenant with God. Abram is therefore required to sever all connections with the sources of his previous culture, to leave behind family and homeland, and to undergo a long period of spiritual apprenticeship during the course of his travels to the land of Canaan and initial residence therein. Indeed, at the start of his journey Abram is still faithful to his old character and previous human identity. Like Odysseus, he dissimulates and pretends to be someone he really is not. In fear of his life, he passes himself off as his wife’s brother, benefiting from the masquerade. However, at the end of the journey he is able to put his trust completely in God. His prize is a new religious identity, and his character changes accordingly. God strikes a covenant with him and promises to give him a homeland and make of his progeny a nation. To express this change, he is obliged to change both his name and his wife’s, from Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah, as though they had been born again. His new name expresses the deep bond that would henceforth tie him and God together. Even though it preserves the root of his former name, he is no longer the Abram who pretended to be his wife’s brother, fearful of harm to himself; he has become a different person, who is afraid of nothing and puts utter faith in God. To test whether Abraham has indeed internalized his new religious identity, God puts him to the trial, commanding him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. By his willingness to obey, Abraham proves that he has been transformed spiritually. He now has complete trust in God and is absolutely faithful to him. The second biblical story about a life journey aimed at acquiring a new cultural identity is the story of the children of Israel’s exodus from the land of Egypt and their wanderings in the desert for forty years on their way to the land of Canaan. As in Abraham’s case, the journey through the desert is meant to sever their connection with their birthplace and strip them of their old cultural identity, so that they will be able to acquire their new cultural one. Here too the new cultural identity is a religious one manifested by a covenant with God, which is struck this time in the course of the revelation at Mount Sinai. As in Abraham’s case, this identity too is supposed to be preferable to all other cultural identities. The important difference between Odysseus’s vexatious journey at sea and the children of Israel’s wanderings in the desert is not that one pertains to an individual and the other to an entire community, but that the children of Israel’s journey, like Abraham’s journey and in contrast to Odysseus’s journey, was meant to strip them of their former cultural identity and prepare them to don a new cultural-religious identity, based on a unique relationship with God, and to settle in their new homeland. The stories about these ancient journeys express the importance attributed to a person’s cultural identity. They manifest an aspiration to establish


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and augment the standing of a particular cultural identity, but in different ways. In the Greek myth, the hero’s cultural identity is depicted as preferable for the purpose of contending with life’s vicissitudes. In the Hebrew myth, the hero’s cultural identity is depicted as preferable for the purpose of transcending the limits of human existence by pursuing a life that is based on a unique covenant with God. Thus both in the Greek and Hebrew stories we are presented with human beings who represent ideal cultural types. In both a cultural identity is embodied in a person’s character, manifesting a person’s nature. As such, the cultural identities that Odysseus and Abraham acquire are not a product of their self-consciousness, and as such are not an expression for personal self-identity. They are a product of what such cultured human beings have become: in one case by living up to a cultural ideal developed and refined by proper upbringing in which many can share, in the other case by living up to a religious ideal of having a covenant with God in which many can share. In both cases these are not individuating features that single out one person from all others in a unique fashion, nor are they based on self-reflection and self-consciousness as much as on acquiring an idealized character that embodies the best attitude that can be taken toward life. It can be seen, then, that the idea behind Sartre’s conception of his life journey through the image of himself as a hidden passenger on the train to Dijon differs from the ideas underlying the ancient stories about Odysseus’s, Abraham’s, and the children of Israel’s journeys. The difference manifests the modern conception of human identity as a personal self-identity, together with Sartre’s existentialist dispute with various philosophical conceptions seeking to substantiate it. One prominent difference is that Sartre’s journey, unlike those of his predecessors, is aimed at neither getting him back home nor at finding him a new home. Although the Dijon of his image may parallel Ithaca and the land of Canaan, the destinations of the heroes of those earlier journeys, it is not his home, nor will it ever be his home. It turns out that he too, like Abraham and Odysseus in the ancient myths, must have recourse to trickery and deceit to continue on the journey of his life. Like them, he too adopts a false identity in the course of his journey. But here the resemblance ends. In contrast to Odysseus, he has no real identity of his own, neither cultural nor personal, and in contrast to Abraham, he is not about to acquire one. The journey of life forces him to invent a fictional identity for himself—through which the personal meaning that he attributes to life in general and to his own life in particular will be manifested—so this is what he does. Otherwise he will not be allowed to continue on his journey, but he does not have any illusions about his identity. He is aware that it is only a fabricated image that is intended to mislead others so that he can continue on his journey. Of itself, it is completely unreal to him. However, it seems that the most profound and important difference between Sartre’s


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image and the earlier stories of life journeys has to do with the fact that his life journey is played out wholly on a personal and private level. The same can be said about all the other passengers on the train, too, for unlike the two ancient life journeys described above, Sartre’s train ride is a modern life journey, which is a personal and private life journey. The passengers on the train to Dijon are those who have not only fashioned themselves a cultural, religious, or national identity, but also a singular personal self-identity, of which they are conscious, and which manifests the personal way in which they attribute meaning to life, including in it what makes their own lives meaningful to them in a personal way. This is a conception of personal identity that is based on self-consciousness and that in modern philosophical discourse is often referred to also as “self-identity.” It is what I refer to here as a “personal self-identity.”

Personal Self-Identity as a Modern Concept Just as the concept of human individual identity does not only encompass cultural identity—such as one’s being French, Arab, or Jewish—the concept of personal self-identity does not only encompass individual human identity. An ID card gives its bearer official confirmation of one’s individual identity in the context of biological features, social markings, and civilian affiliations, and sometimes religious or national affiliation as well. The identifying description inscribed within may include the card bearer’s name, sex, address, place and date of birth, and sometimes the names of the parents and Social Security number. Sometimes a photo of the card’s bearer is attached to it and stamped with some unique serial number. In contrast to such identifying descriptions that enable others to identify us in a crowd, personal selfidentity is supposed to be the identity we fashion for ourselves, embodying our self-conception. This identity is not exhausted by what is inscribed inside an ID card or by a description that might identify us in some social context. Others may identify me according to a general description as “an Israeli,” “a married man,” or according to some definite description, such as “the odd professor who rides his bicycle to Beer-Sheva,” and so forth. The question whether such descriptions tally with my personal self-identity can only be answered according to my self-conception. However, as who and what do I identify myself? As opposed to others, I do not need any identifying descriptions to identify myself in the sense of picking myself out in a crowd. However, I may wonder as to which of various features of my life that I am conscious of embody my personal self-identity. Sartre assumes the philosophical view that such personal self-identity is incarnated in what he calls a “Self.” If my blood type


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is not a personally meaningful item to my self-conception, then it is not a defining feature of my personal self-identity. If my sex is a personally meaningful item to my self-conception, then it is a defining feature of my personal self-identity. According to Sartre’s view, the function of personal self-identity is to give personal meaning to our lives. He grasps personal self-identity— and this is what is special about his view—as a sort of self-defining self-conception, composed of defining descriptions that we give to ourselves regarding our personal natures. Having done so, we use the defining description to develop various meaningful attitudes toward what happens in our lives. This is the existential foundation for what we value in life and through which we experience our life as personally meaningful to us. Our need of it expresses an existential need we have to give meaning to our lives and what they enclose. By choosing or inventing a self-conception that gives us a particular personal self-identity in the form of a “Self,” we manage to do so. I want to return now to Sartre’s image of himself as a hidden passenger on the train to Dijon. This image manifests his ambivalent attitude toward the concept of self and with it the very idea of personal self-identity: the fact that we need it to give meaning to our lives, even though it is illusory, arbitrary, and invalid, as it is not based on anything. In his image, what makes him a hidden passenger is that he has no ticket allowing him to ride on the train, nor any ID or money by means of which he could purchase a ticket. These are all literary symbols, which can now be interpreted in the context of the idea that human beings have an existential need to adopt or create a personal self-identity so as to bestow meaning on their lives. The personal self-identity of each passenger determines the aim of the journey, which may differ from one passenger to another, although all of them are ultimately traveling to Dijon. To ride on the train of human life, one must have a ticket. The ticket confirms that its bearer has acquired a personal self-identity, which manifests the meaning that person attributes to his or her life and in light of which that person undertakes the journey to Dijon. As each passenger has a different personal self-identity, each attributes a different meaning to the journey. Moreover, according to Sartre’s image, only those who have adopted a personal self-identity are allowed to ride the train of life to Dijon. The train ticket confirms it. Personal self-identity is what sets human beings apart from all other living things, granting them the opportunity to give unique personal meaning to their lives. Therefore only human beings are permitted to ride the train—but only on condition that they have a personal self-identity. As opposed to all the other passengers, then, the hidden passenger on the train to Dijon has no personal self-identity on the basis of which to experience life as meaningful to him. Therefore he, as opposed to all the other passengers, decides to pretend that he has a personal self-identity, so as to experience his life as meaningful.


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Romantic Journeys The philosophical concept of personal self-identity manifests the emergence of self-consciousness as a central feature in the modern discourse about both personal identity and human mental life. Putting aside for the moment the question of whether Sartre’s conception of the “Self” as manifesting a personal self-identity is valid, it should be noted that as a conception of human identity, which is under the sole jurisdiction of the owner of that identity, personal self-identity is a modern philosophical conception. In depicting himself as devoid of a genuine “Self,” giving him a particular, genuine personal self-identity, and as someone who is able to invent one, Sartre is attempting to repudiate various conceptions that have cropped up in the modern era about personal self-identity—in particular conceptions that, in his opinion, disregard the freedom we have to invent our selves as we choose. A central character in his image of himself as a hidden passenger on the train to Dijon is the ticket-inspector, who first asks him for his train ticket and then demands to see his ID. In the demand he puts to Sartre he represents the prevailing view concerning the nature of personal self-identity, how it is formed and how it needs to be formed. He seems to be a distant French relation of the “Button-Moulder” in Henrik Ibsen’s play, Peer Gynt, where he is depicted as supervising the way in which people live up to what lies at the basis of their personal self-identities. My reason for mentioning him here is that to a large degree he is the character whom Sartre is trying to fool in his imagined journey. In Ibsen’s play, after a fruitless life journey in search of his personal selfidentity in foreign quarters, Peer Gynt returns to his home an exhausted, old, and disappointed man. His journey has come to naught. Upon its conclusion he meets the Button-Moulder, who informs Peer Gynt that he is about to cast his soul into a shining button, which will be fixed “on the vest of the world.” The souls of sinners, he explains, go down to Hell, whereas the souls of those who have made “rubbish” of them are melted down into buttons. It seems that the majority of humanity falls into the second category. Most people are not faithful to the great promise contained in their souls and do not live according to their own unique nature. Herein lies Peer Gynt’s sin: what was unique in him did not constitute the basis for consolidating a personal self-identity of his own. He never even acknowledged the unique element within himself, never allowed it to nurture a personal selfidentity from within himself, according to which his way of life would be determined. Although he set out on his life’s journey to search for his personal self-identity, instead of getting to know his unique nature, he was seduced by what the world had to offer. He devoted his life to adventure and dissipation, which revealed nothing to him about his personal self-identity.


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In justification of himself, Peer Gynt contends that every time he tried to ascertain his identity through self-consciousness, he discovered that he was like an onion, made up of multiple layers with no solid core. “Yourself you never have been at all,” the Button-Moulder accuses him. In his indictment of Peer Gynt, he contends that “He has set at defiance his life’s design; clap him into the ladle with other spoilt goods.”1 Peer Gynt asks for a reprieve, and the Button-Moulder obliges. Like the ticket-inspector demanding to see Sartre’s ID, he demands that Peer Gynt produce a voucher attesting that he has obeyed the decree of fate—to be himself. Peer Gynt, of course, has no such document. “Fate,” wrote Herman Hesse, who in this matter tapped into a line of thinking in Greek philosophy, “is just another name for character.” Character is a unique, singular human nature. Like personality, ego, and personal identity, character is also one of the concepts that has been taken over from everyday discourse in order to explain what lies at the basis of each person’s unique and singular nature and sets him or her apart from all others. Like the concept of ego, over whose development in psychoanalytical theory Freud labored, the concept of character was intended to provide a replacement for what in previous generations had been spoken of as the “soul.” To be true to one’s character is to be true to one’s singular nature and through it to one’s personal destiny: to what is enshrouded in the bottom of each person’s soul and shapes his or her singular human nature. In this way, Ibsen gives dramatic expression in his play to one of the central motifs in Romantic philosophical thought. The philosophy of the Enlightenment espoused the universal value of rational thought to direct our lives. In response, Romanticism contended that all this was too abstract, general, and meager. Those of a Romantic worldview contended that the rational ideal of Enlightenment thinkers does not express what is unique to every human being. Rational thought manifests what is common to all human beings; if we were to try to base our lives upon it only, then our lives would be identical, and the value that we find in them would have the same value. But this is not the case. According to those of a Romantic worldview, human beings are different from each other by nature, character, and personality, even though they may all adopt rational ways of thinking. The ideal of living in a rational manner is too abstract and too general to serve as a means for the emergence of personal self-identity, which expresses what is unique and singular to each person. According to this view, each of us ought to shape his or her personal self-identity on the basis of his or her singular character. Character is what belongs to nature: it is manifested through feelings, dispositions, and will through which we meaningfully experience our lives. Personal self-identity 1. Ibsen, The Works of Henrik Ibsen, 586.


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is supposed to be formed in the course of giving appropriate expression to the feelings, dispositions, and will at the basis of each person’s singular human nature or character. The end of Ibsen’s play does not hold out much hope for Peer Gynt. Ibsen does not allow his hero to be truly redeemed, for he has wasted his life in a vain search for his personal self-identity. As a final gesture, he will only give him some comfort through his beloved, Solweig, whom he abandoned years ago. She has grown old and can barely see, but she immediately recognizes him. She also testifies that she has been faithful to him all the while he was engaged in his wanderings. When Peer Gynt wonders how he has wasted his life vainly in search of himself, she replies that he was never away: You were here “in my faith, in my hope, and in my love,” she declares. Her great love for him testifies to the fact that he has a clear and unique, singular identity, which she perceives. But beyond this, it also testifies to his inefficacy, for while she sees someone unique and singular in him, whom she loves for his uniqueness and singularity, he himself does not perceive what she sees and loves in him. From the Romantic viewpoint, Peer Gynt’s sin lies in not having ascertained his nature and fashioned his personal self-identity out of it. Instead, he went wandering around the world in search of it, allowing the world around him to influence him, instead of fashioning his personal selfidentity out of fidelity to his own unique, singular nature. One of the most profound proponents of the Romantic worldview was Friedrich Nietzsche. He contended that the modern era made it no longer possible to base life on what was once grasped as “God’s will,” coining the slogan “God is dead!” In his view the problem is that most people find it difficult to acknowledge God’s disappearance from our lives. Some of them simply refuse to accept it and continue to patter on about God’s will, trying through the antiquated religious worldview to determine ways of life for everyone. Others turn to faulty replacements, such as a metaphysical worldview, in which an attempt is made to establish the existence of universal and objective values in the light of which human beings should pursue their lives. Nietzsche contended that this attempt is doomed in advance to failure. He was of the opinion that fully acknowledging its failure is to acknowledge the need to base what is of value to us in life solely on ourselves and our will to live, without relying on illusions about the existence of universal, objective values. He rejected the demand that reason be the basis for the derivation of values. He saw the human ideal posited by philosophy to live according to universal values as merely an insufficient replacement for the concept of God’s will. In its stead, he put forward the idea of the will for power as a natural force that is manifested in life, a force that human civilization attempts to tame and refine through the idea of obligatory values. However, as these are only illusions, we must be able to determine for our-


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selves what is good and of value through our own particular will, without deluding ourselves in regard to values mandated by God’s will or a rational will. One of the ways in which those of a Romantic worldview sought to express their ethical demand to live life according to one’s unique, singular nature was by positing an analogy between personal self-identity and a work of art. According to this approach, every person is in the nature of an artist. Life is the great gallery in which we fashion our personal work of art, which is our unique personal self-identity. Whosoever is negligent in this labor, whether by copying the life works of others or by arranging their lives in accordance with what others would have them do, is betraying the original creative enterprise that has been entrusted to them as creative artists. The ethics of the Romantic worldview was expressed by the slogan, “Be true to yourself!”—in analogy to the demand for artists to produce original work. According to the Romantic view, personal liberation begins by realizing that behind the demand to live according to accepted values of one kind or another lies only an effort to exterminate natural will in order to dictate how others should live. To become fully free, we must have the courage to fashion our personal self-identity as an expression of what lies at the basis of our unique natures—this being our unique work of art. Someone who ignores what is unique and singular to them is like an artist who paints pictures in someone else’s style.

Sartre Contests Romanticism To judge by what Sartre says about himself, the Romantic assumption about the problem with which Ibsen confronts Peer Gynt is misleading from start to finish. Like Peer Gynt, Sartre too is unable to discover his true self. The many identities he assumes in response to the adoring gazes of his family are counterfeit identities that do not reflect who and what he really is. By their means he deludes his family, but not himself. To the contrary, he is conscious of inventing himself in accordance with their desires. He knows he has no soul, nor even a Romantic substitute for a soul: a nature of his own, endowing him with singular character, from which he can mold his personal self-identity. Instead, he feels himself as something abstract. This existential predicament leaves him “free” to invent himself as he chooses. As I read it, there is a sarcastic element in Sartre’s description of himself as a hidden passenger on the train to Dijon. The sarcasm extends beyond the fact that nothing awaits him in Dijon except death, since Dijon is a provincial town with nothing to offer for a Parisian intellectual like Sartre. The ride to Dijon represents a philosophical and psychological illusion,


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according to which each of us human beings is endowed with a particular character embodying our unique, singular human nature, out of which our personal self-identities should be fashioned. Dijon symbolizes this illusion because of the town’s renown in the annals of Romantic philosophical ideas due to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the academy of Dijon sponsored an essay-writing competition on the question of whether the sciences and arts advanced humanity, contributing thereby to cultural progress. Rousseau relates that while on his way to Dijon, as he walked and pondered this question, he had a philosophical revelation. He formulated the idea that struck him in the form of an essay and submitted it to the competition. The essay won him first prize and great acclaim. In opposition to proponents of the Enlightenment, he contended in his essay that the answer to the question was “no,” justifying it by shaping the main principles of his worldview: that each human being should acknowledge his or her singular nature. Rousseau was of the opinion that most people fail to do so. Most live in social frameworks that do not encourage them to express their unique individuality. Most human beings are never really themselves, Rousseau contends in his Confessions.2 According to Sartre’s image of his own journey to Dijon, the very idea of human nature, along with the idea of a person having a singular nature in the form of character, is philosophically flawed. There is no such thing as a person’s singular nature. Only inhuman things have a nature, things such as trees and rocks, hedgehogs and frogs, and in this case it is not personal or singular. Different olive trees have the same vegetative nature, by which they are differentiated from orange trees, which have a different vegetative nature. But no olive tree has a personal and singular olive nature, despite the varying appearance they may have. However, human beings are not trees. Despite the biological nature shared by all human beings, they are able to freely adopt and choose a personal self-identity, through which they grasp and experience their lives in different ways and give them different personal meanings. In imagining himself as a hidden passenger on the train to Dijon, Sartre pretends to follow the illusion fostered by Rousseau and other Romantics in his wake that all of us are possessed of a singular human nature out of which our personal self-identities may be constructed. However, he knows that neither he nor anyone else has such a nature. Thus he knows that it makes no sense to try to shape and base his personal selfidentity in this way. Instead, he is endowed with the ability to invent various self-identities for himself from within which the meaning of his life can be derived. The identity he thus ascribes to himself deludes others that he has what is required of human beings: a personal self-identity. But as opposed to 2. Rousseau, The Confessions, book 11.


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the majority of human beings, he does not delude himself. The personal self-identity he thus ascribes to himself is not what he really is. He freely invents it, without its expressing anything about his nature. He has no nature that can determine his personal self-identity.


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chapter 19 Attributing Personal Meaning to Life

transpired in Western culture during the first half of the twentieth century in how the question about the meaning of life was understood and confronted placed conceptions of personal self-identity at the heart of the question. In this chapter I want to describe, first, how the connection between the meaning of life and personal self-identity was expressed in one insightful and influential way prior to Sartre’s attempt to explain it and, second, what conclusions Sartre himself came to about the connection between the meaning of life and personal self-identity.

T H E C H A N G E T H AT

Kafka on Personal Self-Identity and the Meaning of Life Sartre was not the first to draw attention to an internal connection between our personal self-identities and the meaning we ascribe to our lives. He was preceded in this matter by Franz Kafka, a Czech Jew who was born in Prague in the late nineteenth century, wrote stories in German, and supported himself through legal work in an insurance company. Although his view on this matter was expressed in an oblique fashion through literature, it was highly influential on readers like Sartre in setting up the conceptual background for their thinking on the question about the meaning of life. In his stories, Kafka acknowledged our existential need for personal self-identities that embody what is personally meaningful to us in our lives, without succumbing to social constraints or illusory religious ideas. At first, his voice was drowned out by the shrill sound generated by various ideologies of the era 192


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that sought to provide a universal answer to the question. Of this kind was the traditional religious worldview, which spoke of the divine meaning of life stemming from God’s will. Of this kind too was the bourgeois ideology that called on people to find the meaning of life by striving to achieve personal goals in the framework of a morally decent and enlightened cultural life. Of this kind were the new totalitarian ideologies that electrified Europe at the time, which called on people to find meaning in devoting their lives to a social—nationalist or class—enterprise. According to the line of thought in Kafka’s stories, our personal self-identity embodies the meaning that each one of us attributes to his or her life. It therefore needs to be fashioned out of what is personally meaningful to us, not out of what the social environment may have instilled in us as desirable values, or out of what we ascribe to God. In regard to what makes life personally meaningful to us, each of us is the most qualified judge. No authority is better qualified than we are to pass judgment on this matter. As it emerges from Kafka’s stories, the primary existential sin concerning the meaning of life is our willingness to allow others to determine the meaning of our lives for us. We commit this sin by allowing others to determine how our personal self-identities should be constituted. By giving others the right to do so, we dispose our lives of their personal meaning. In his story The Metamorphosis, which seeks to demonstrate this thesis, a man named Gregor Samsa wakes up in bed one morning and discovers that he has turned into a gigantic insect. He gazes at his insect body, jutting out from beneath the blanket that does not quite cover it, and is impressed by the physical change in himself. But other than that, he does not feel any change. His ways of thinking and feeling about things are the same as ever. He is reminded that he has to report to work at his despised job, by means of which he supports his parents and sister, but he does not feel like leaving his room. Despite the enormous physical change in him, he is still the same Gregor Samsa that he was before. It is only his family that is disturbed by his metamorphosis. He ceases to be of benefit to them. He is disgusting and embarrassing to them. Eventually, it turns out that his family can get along without him. They do not need his financial support, as it had seemed to him earlier, and they sigh in relief when he dies. Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis into an insect manifests the way in which he lived his life. He allowed his family and his employer to trample anything that might have been meaningful to him in his life. As I read the story, Kafka assigns him the blame for having lived according to the meaning attributed to his life by others, rather than according to what was meaningful to him. He let his sense of obligation toward his family determine his way of life, instead of determining it for himself on the basis of what was meaningful to him. Furthermore, he never even knew what was meaningful to him, because


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he never allowed himself to express it and pursue it. The story, then, is an indictment of a life lived according to what is meaningful to others; as if a person’s life were not his own. It may be said that Gregor Samsa made himself an abject slave of his family and the values they instilled in him. He lived his life like an insect residing in his family’s house and feeding on their leftovers instead of establishing a personally meaningful life for himself. According to this interpretation of the story, the bourgeois ethos—that one must carry one’s load and be faithful to social obligations—is set up at the expense of making life personally meaningful. In terms of personal self-identity, it might be said that the physical change in Gregor Samsa corresponds with what he has already inflicted upon his personal self-identity by renouncing the need to give personal meaning to his life. The other sin committed by human beings, as it emerges from Kafka’s stories, is our desire to transfer the authority for determining the meaning of our lives from ourselves to a supreme authority that determines it for everyone. In a famous parable told by Kafka in The Trial, which I interpret as being concerned with the meaning of life, someone who seeks to discover the meaning of life in accordance with a universal human meaning given to life by a supreme being that exists outside it is likened to a man who seeks admittance to the Law. Before the door stands a doorkeeper who will not allow him to enter. The man spends the remainder of his life in anticipation, employing pathetic stratagems to dispose the doorkeeper to let him enter, but it never happens. On the verge of death, he turns to the doorkeeper and asks: “Everyone strives to reach the Law . . . how does it happen, then, that in all these years no one but me has requested admittance?” The doorkeeper replies: “No one else could gain admittance here, because this entrance was meant solely for you. I’m going to go and shut it now.”1 As I understand the parable, to expect to receive permission to enter the door of Law from a qualified authority is to want to discover the meaning of life—for all. However, there is no single meaning to life. The meaning of each person’s life is personal, and he or she is the only one qualified to determine it. It is not something that someone else, not even God, is more qualified than we are to define. It follows that we have to determine the meaning of life for ourselves, without relying on anyone else. In The Castle, Kafka takes up this idea again through the character of his tormented alter-ego, K., whom he now banishes to a remote village. On the outskirts of the village there is supposed to be a large castle, in which the lord of the village resides. One evening, K. appears in the village and introduces himself to the villagers as a surveyor who has been invited by the lord of the castle. However, the village has no need of a surveyor, and he has no 1. Kafka, The Trial, 217.


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documentation to prove that he really has been invited by the lord of the castle to survey the villagers’ land. He spends his days in vain attempts to receive confirmation from the lord of the castle that he is indeed who he says he is, and that he has been invited to the village to do his work—in other words, that his existence has a purpose, from which his personal self-identity arises. As in The Trial, where K. meets all sorts of bureaucrats who are supposed to belong to the court that will pass judgment on his fate, but fails to come face to face with the judge himself—so too with the lord of the castle. The inhabitants of the village talk a lot about the castle and its owner, and there are many officials who supposedly are employed there and serve the lord of the castle, but K. himself is never able to get there and make contact with the owner. He is unable even to locate any figure of authority to whom he can submit his request and have it addressed. To put it in a religious context, you could say that the religious experience, upon which belief in God was based in the past and the meaning of life was determined, is beyond the reach of K., Kafka’s tormented hero. Despite this, he continues to pursue it and to crave after what those who have had this experience talked about in the past. He is unable to quell his longing for the meaning that religious faith once gave to life. Perhaps this is the reason why K. is constantly discovering clues to the existence of a supreme authority qualified to determine the meaning of life. Officials and judges labor devotedly in the service of this authority all the time, but he himself is unable to make contact with it. As I read Kafka, our desire to discover a general meaning of life in order to guide our lives in light of it is like the desire to receive confirmation of our personal self-identities and of what is personally meaningful to us from someone in supreme authority. Such a desire manifests a twofold error in thinking: in regard to personal self-identity, and in regard to the meaning of life. As regards the meaning of life, the first mistake is trying to discover a single meaning that lies at the basis of all people’s lives. There is no single meaning to the lives of all human beings, so it is futile to search for it. The meaning of each person’s life is manifested by that person’s self-identity, which ought to be determined on the basis of what is meaningful to that person. The second mistake is trying to discover the meaning of life. The meaning of life is not like the continent of America, which can be searched for and even discovered. Nor is it like the meaning of a word, which can be learned from someone else, and which speakers of the same language hold in common. No one is capable of determining the meaning of someone else’s life for that person, just as no one is able to experience the meaning that someone else’s life has for that person. According to this understanding of the issues, just as things do not have value in themselves, so too events do not have meaning in themselves, not even such events as comprise the lives of human beings. Life has meaning


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only to those of us who render their lives meaningful to them. This understanding also calls for a conclusion in regard to personal self-identity. Someone’s identity may indeed be determined according to family pedigree or national and cultural belonging, but if it is not meaningful to that person, then it is not an intrinsic feature of that person’s self-identity. To assume an identity that does not embody what is personally meaningful to us is like putting on someone else’s ill-fitting, soiled clothes. The first existential demand, then, which arises out of what might be termed “the ethics of personal selfidentity,” is that we not surrender to social dictates and not accept cultural values that are not meaningful to us, even if they are supported by the highest authorities. The second demand is that we must fashion our personal self-identities only on the basis of what is personally meaningful to us. By transgressing against these demands we search in vain for a meaning to life and in the process fail to acknowledge what is personally meaningful for us about our life.

Sartre’s Problem of Life I have described the way in which ideas about the meaning of life and personal self-identity are expressed in Kafka’s stories, both because they were part of the cultural trend that changed the way in which the question about the meaning of life came to be understood and because Sartre was an avid and very perceptive reader of his stories. The stories also seem to have profoundly influenced his way of thinking about the need to transform the search for the meaning of life into a personal enterprise. Sartre interprets the dead-end, which Kafka’s heroes invariably run into, as an inability to let go entirely of the illusion that there is some transcendent meaning to life, fashioned by God’s will or objective values, according to which our personal self-identities should be oriented. In contrast to Kafka, who documented his doubts and worries in regard to the cultural and social identity that he felt was imposed upon him, and in contrast also to K., the tormented hero of Kafka’s stories, who keeps seeking confirmation of his personal self-identity from a qualified authority, Sartre testifies that he himself never had any illusions about his personal self-identity. On the contrary, he always felt the absence of such an identity. He always felt that he lacked what others delude themselves about having, a genuine personal self-identity out of which they supposedly derive the meaning they attribute to their lives. It can now be seen how Sartre took the existential problem, with which Kafka confronted his heroes, to its extreme. Gregor Samsa allowed his sense of obligation toward those around him to determine his personal self-identity, instead of doing so on the basis of what was meaningful to him. According


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to Sartre, to allow others to influence you by means of feelings of guilt or shame is to delude yourself about values and God. Feelings of guilt or shame are forms of self-consciousness in accordance with the way others are taken to judge us. In Sartre’s example, when we feel shame at peeping through a neighbor’s keyhole, we accept the derogatory value judgment of others, whether we are seen or not. Through the feeling of shame that is aroused in us, we attribute meaning to our behavior that manifests the meaning we imagine that others would attribute to it in accordance with their value judgments. Like Kafka, Sartre rejects such illocutionary responses to the question about the meaning of life, since he rejects the concepts of God’s will and moral values. According to Sartre’s philosophical analysis, both concepts— God’s will and moral values—are incoherent. To say that the meaning of life is personal is to say that neither God nor moral values can determine it for us. It is to say that we must determine it on our own. Sartre’s unique contribution to the discourse about the meaning of life and its connection to personal self-identity can now be predicated on two principal ideas. The first is that we all need a personal self-identity to give personal meaning to our lives, even though this identity is in fact nothing but a form of self-delusion. In fact, we are completely free to invent or adopt all sorts of personal self-identities under the guise of different “selves” so as to give all sorts of meanings to our lives. The second idea is that we give meaning to our lives. Meaning is not something given, waiting out there for us to discover it or to be bestowed on life. There are many ways of giving meaning to our lives, but all of them are subsumed under the personal self-identity that we either freely adopt or invent for ourselves in original fashion. A comparison between Sartre’s view of personal self-identity supposedly incarnated in the self and the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume’s view of the self may clarify Sartre’s conception of the matter. Hume contended that the concept of the self, which modern philosophy introduced as a replacement for the concept of the soul in religion, is empty, as it does not refer to anything. He claimed that he was unable to acquaint himself with his self, the “owner,” as it were, of the contents of his consciousness. Whenever he attempted to perceive it, he was always conscious only of images, thoughts, feelings, and memories that inundated him like a flowing stream of consciousness. He concluded that there is no self. The difference between Hume and Sartre in this respect is that Sartre does not contend that we have no selves. On the contrary, he contends that we choose or invent our selves by choosing or inventing our personal self-identity. Without it, we cannot attribute meaning to life, and without attributing meaning to life human self-conscious existence is not possible. We adopt these identities by virtue of the different existential choices we make over the course of our lives, and we do so in order to give meaning to our lives through them. However, they are


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all contingent identities, since they can be replaced by others. As such they are not genuine identities, but only self-illusions that we use to give meaning to our lives. It is against this background that Sartre’s Problem of Life arises, which can be described as follows. We need to experience our lives as having a meaning. Personal self-identity in the guise of a “self” gives meaning to our lives, coloring everything that happens in them with a meaningful aura, but we have nothing on which to base our choice of a particular personal selfidentity. Most of us are unwilling to admit it, because then what is meaningful to us in our lives loses the foundation we have given it. Nevertheless, this is the universal existential predicament of human beings. The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that when we recognize the existential predicament of human existence for what it is, we ought to acknowledge that the meaning we attribute to our life and what happens in it is illusory, for it is based on an arbitrary personal self-identity that we have adopted or invented: an identity which could have been other than it is and which can always be replaced by another. Sartre’s problem of life is that he is unable to renounce the need for personal self-identity, because he needs to experience his life in a personally meaningful way and cannot see any other way of doing so; but at the same time he knows that it is only an illusory invention, to which any attempt at lending support is in the nature of self-delusion. The solution he offers is to invent a personal self-identity without any self-delusion, in the clear knowledge that the entire matter is only a fiction. We must invent our “selves” on the basis of our rational and unhindered creative ability to invent a personal conception for ourselves, and in this way freely invent a personal meaning to our lives. Kafka believed that we have to base our personal selfidentities on what is meaningful to us in our lives. Sartre turns the tables on him. If we want a meaningful life, which is not based on an illusion, we have to invent a personal self-identity for ourselves, knowing that the whole enterprise is a fiction, and in this way invest our lives with personal meaning in a completely free manner. However, since personal self-identity is not determined by dint of what is meaningful to us in our lives, but vice versa, it determines what will become meaningful to us in our lives—we always have the option of replacing our personal self-identity with another and determining a different meaning for what our lives contain. It is always possible to replace one conception of ourselves with another, and thus adopt a different personal self-identity, which will give different personal meaning to our lives. The philosophical idea of the “self,” as a form of personal self-identity emerging out of self-consciousness, underlies Sartre’s discussion of how we bestow meaning on our lives. Therefore the question whether personal selfidentity is determined on the basis of what is meaningful to us in our lives or whether it determines what is meaningful to us in our lives is crucial as


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regards the validity of Sartre’s existentialist worldview, which puts freedom at the center of our lives. As Sartre grasps the issue, if our personal self-identities are determined on the basis of what is meaningful to us, then we are not expressing our freedom. On the other hand, if we freely determine our personal self-identities, only afterward allowing them to determine what is meaningful to us in our lives, then we are expressing ourselves as absolutely free beings. From this point of view, it is not what is meaningful to us in our lives that determines our personal self-identities, but exactly the other way around. By inventing a personal self-identity, we give personal meaning to our lives in a free manner.

Personal Self-Identity as Literary Fiction One result of Sartre’s view about the existential predicament of human beings is that we need not take the personal self-identities that we adopt or invent too seriously, as we are always free to disengage from them and choose others. In this way we can free ourselves from the existential burden they place on our lives, while still experiencing life as having a meaning that we give to it in a free manner. Thus, in his image of himself as the hidden passenger on the train to Dijon, he invents a fictional identity for himself. The main thing is to continue on his journey, regardless of the pretext. He does not delude himself in regard to the meaning he attributes to his life in consequence of the fictional identity he has invented and adopted. Others might make this mistake, but not he. He can always attribute another meaning to his life by inventing another identity for himself. At this point a new difficulty arises: why go on living at all, if any meaning that is attributed to life is an arbitrary and unreal invention? It turns out that what the illusion provides to others, it does not provide to Sartre. In his image of his life as a train ride, the problem is that he, in contrast to all the other passengers, has no purpose in going to Dijon. He is merely pretending that his journey has an aim, as he is merely pretending that life has personal meaning to him. Others experience their lives as having a meaning, because they delude themselves that they have personal self-identities that enable them to find personal meaning in their life journeys. Since this is only an illusion, Sartre judges those who take it seriously and believe in it to have acquired “bad faith.” Of all the passengers on the train, he is the only one who does not suffer from it. He knows he has no real personal self-identity, and he is conscious of the fact that any meaning he might attribute to his life by way of inventing such an identity is only a fiction. In spite of it, like everyone else, he wants to continue riding the train of his life; he still wants to live. Since he believes that human existence cannot be pursued without a


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personal self-identity, he invents counterfeit identities for himself, convincing others that he attributes personal meaning to his life in light of them. However, in contrast to others, who do not acknowledge that it is all only an invention, he does. He does not delude himself in regard to the meaning he attributes to his life. Therefore, he does not experience the meaning of life as they do. Thus his life is rendered problematic because he does not delude himself about the existential need we all have for the meaning of life that can only be satisfied by some self-induced illusion. The ironic aspect of Sartre’s confession to being devoid of a genuine, inherent, personal self-identity is that he, perhaps more than any other philosopher of his period, exemplified the stereotypical image of the Parisian French intellectual in his thinking, lifestyle, and philosophical, literary, and political work. To say that he has no inherent personal self-identity is to say that the way he is recognized in public as a French intellectual reveals only the identity he assumed—before us, the ticket inspectors. This identity is not what he really is. What is he really? He is like everyone else, an instance of human existence, possessed of self-consciousness but devoid of a genuine, inherent personal self-identity. As such he must invent or adopt an illusory personal self-identity to bestow meaning on his life. The Problem of Life that Tolstoy posed was why go on living when the personal meaning that we attribute to our lives is absurd in the context of eternity and objective reality. The Problem of Life posed by Sartre is that the personal meaning we attribute to our lives is based on an illusory personal self-identity. His solution to the problem is to adopt our personal self-identities in the clear knowledge that the entire matter is only a fiction. But this solution creates a new difficulty of which he is also aware. As Sartre sees it, the major difficulty in his existential solution to the Problem of Life is that a fictional personal self-identity, which is acknowledged to be such, does not give its owner what an identity does that is grasped as genuine and real. In contrast to a personal self-identity that is acquired through self-delusion, which fools us with the meaning we attribute to our life by means of it, a fabricated personal self-identity only fools others. However, such an illusion does not have the same power that self-delusion imparts to life. The personal self-identity that Sartre invents for himself does not galvanize his life and give it intense, veracious personal meaning in the same way that illusory personal self-identities galvanize the lives of others and give them personal meaning. Indeed, Sartre would like to continue on the journey of his life, perhaps with the same desire as others who are living in an illusion, but he does not know why he should want to, because he knows that everything to which he attributes personal meaning in his life is merely the product of an arbitrary invention on his part.


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The idea posited by Sartre—that the meaning we attribute to our lives rests upon the personal self-identities we adopt, choose, or invent—manifests a philosophical conception regarding the meaning of life that has become rooted in Western culture. It is a philosophical conception that seeks to replace an avowed existential need for belief in the existence of some religious-transcendent-natural meaning of life with a personal meaning that each one of us attributes to his or her life. Given this goal, we can now also see how Sartre managed to transform the formative frustrating experience of his childhood of not having a genuine personal self-identity into the constitutive experience of human existence in general and of his philosophical worldview in regard to the personal self-identities that other people have. The idea that we adopt, choose, or invent our personal selfidentities as illusory conceptions and images to bestow meaning on our lives enabled Sartre to accept himself as he was, without what he formerly thought he was missing: a genuine personal self-identity that would give meaning to his life, like anyone else. By means of his philosophical thinking and literary writing, he attempted to establish the idea and convince others that the formative experience he had in childhood of being abstract, devoid of soul, and lacking a genuine personal self-identity put him in contact with what lies at the basis of the meaning of human existence in general: the complete freedom we have to invent ourselves. It might be said that in the wake of this personal revelation, he was able to propose himself as a paragon of the existential human condition in general. Everyone lacks a soul and is missing a singular nature, on the basis of which a personal self-identity may be constructed, but not everyone is willing to acknowledge it like himself. All of us employ an imaginary personal self-identity to give personal meaning to our lives; the difference is that Sartre acknowledges it and does not delude himself. Thus he turned what he first felt to be a personal existential predicament, which set him apart from others and formerly was grasped as a deficiency—namely, his being devoid of a soul and lacking a natural center of gravity for the consolidation of a personal self-identity—into the existential predicament of every person. Instead of aspiring to be like all other human beings, he attributed his existential predicament to all human beings. Furthermore, his proposal was presented, through the existentialist worldview that he developed by means of his philosophy, as an offer that cannot be refused, because it manifests the freedom to which everyone aspires: the freedom to personally determine the meaning of life.


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chapter 20 A Phenomenological Ontology

H U M A N B E I N G S A R E creatures inclined to reflect about life and death by means of worldviews that they both create and adopt. From within such views they seek to explain and engage the events and facts of life that confront them, and those among us who wonder about the meaning of life are apt to partake in this creative effort even more so than others. A comprehensive worldview will include two conceptual elements. One determines things about the nature of the world given to us through our lives, explaining what it is, what is in it, what are its fundamental constituents, and how it works. (When the worldview is formulated in a blatantly philosophical manner, this element is sometimes referred to as “metaphysics,” purporting to explain the foundations of all possible existence, and sometimes as “ontology,” purporting in some views to explain the foundations of actual existence and in others of meaningful existence. In the philosophical tradition within which Sartre affiliates himself, ontology describes the foundations of our existence that embody the meaning of things for us human beings.) The other conceptual element in worldviews determines what is good and bad in the world and, in consequence, what attitude is called for toward life and death and how one should or ought to live. This element has normative implications and is expressed by means of what is sometimes called “ethics,” according to ancient terminology, and sometimes “ideology,” according to modern terminology. The cultural history of the human race is littered with worldviews under whose umbrellas human beings have sought shelter. Sartre too joins his efforts to this endeavor by grounding his formative experience of being devoid of a genuine personal self-identity in the framework of a philosophical

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worldview that he developed and disseminated in public under the title of “existentialism.” According to it, human beings have absolute freedom to invent their personal self-identities, through which they give personal meaning to their lives and to life in general. He presented the first element of this worldview in the subtitle of his book Being and Nothingness: “An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology.” In Sartre’s view, ontology is not metaphysics, which he considers a traditional philosophical endeavor seeking to explain the origins of existence or reality, which he sometimes refers to as “Being.” Accordingly, in his book ontology is described in the context of human experience: from the way in which human beings experience and grasp the meaning of things and are conscious of the meaning they attribute to their existence—or life. Phenomenology undertakes to describe the fundamental elements of meaningful experience, embodying all forms of consciousness and through which we become acquainted with the meaning of things. In such an inquiry the metaphysical question of what really does and does not exist in the world is put aside. Instead, the focus of the inquiry is on the world as it is perceived and experienced by us in a meaningful way. The phenomenological description of the ontology of human existence that Sartre presents rests upon the ideas of four eminent philosophers. In this chapter, I want to briefly summarize what Sartre has taken from each of them and how he uses and transforms their ideas to formulate his existentialist worldview, which in essence is our having the freedom and need to invent personal meaning for our lives, since life itself has no natural, religious, or transcendent meaning.1

Four Philosophical Influences The first philosopher I want to mention in this context is René Descartes, the seventeenth-century French philosopher and mathematician. His thinking shaped the modern philosophical discourse on the foundations of knowledge, the connection between consciousness and self-consciousness, and the relation between body and soul—or mind. As such, certain aspects of his thinking, particularly the way human consciousness is accompanied by self-consciousness, lie at the basis of Sartre’s existentialist worldview. Descartes claims in his Meditations on First Philosophy that his philosophical reflections arise in order to ascertain whether he has any certain knowledge. To answer this question he undertakes to investigate whether he holds any beliefs that he cannot doubt. While searching for an item of certain knowledge such that he cannot doubt, he discovers the curious finding that 1. See Ralph Schroeder, The Self and the Other: Sartre and His Predecessors.


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he is unable to cast doubt on his own existence. In speculating that he may perhaps not exist, he is by the very thought confirming his existence. He cannot doubt his own existence, since in trying to do so he is made aware of his existence. He formulated this finding in his famous saying, “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito, ergo sum). Formulating the discovery in the context of consciousness, it can be said that his thinking is a form of consciousness that is accompanied by self-consciousness through which he becomes aware of his existence, which he is unable to doubt. Descartes explains that there are various aspects to his self-consciousness. He is conscious of himself as thinking when he thinks something, and he is conscious of himself as sensing and feeling when he has sensations and feelings of thirst, pain, hope, fear, etc., which he experiences. As long as he limits his claims to knowledge to his self-consciousness, he cannot go wrong. The distinction between beings that are endowed with self-consciousness and beings that are not so endowed is rooted at the heart of everything that Sartre contends in the framework of his existentialist worldview. As in Descartes’s case, his focus is on beings that are endowed with self-consciousness, which in his view are human beings. Like Descartes, he assumes that he has direct access to his mental life by virtue of his self-consciousness, which gives him firm knowledge about it. However, he differs from Descartes in that he thinks that not all forms of consciousness are reflective forms of thinking. Like Descartes, Sartre also holds to a dualistic division of what there is, although he does not formulate it as a difference between mind and body. He predicates it on the difference between two basic modes of existence: a human mode of existence, which embodies self-consciousness and is devoid of an essence that gives it an inherent nature, and a nonhuman mode of existence, which embodies some particular essence in the form of a particular nature but lacks self-consciousness. This mode of existence includes inanimate objects and creatures that do not have self-consciousness. Accordingly, in his novel Nausea, Sartre describes a French intellectual named Racontin, who is sojourning in the French provinces for the purpose of writing a historical study. Racontin undergoes a powerful experience, through which human existence embodying self-consciousness is revealed to him as radically different from the kind of existence that embodies things that lack self-consciousness. Material things, such as a stone he holds in his hand or a tree trunk he happens to gaze upon, make him nauseous, as if their mode of existence was completely alien to everything he is. The nausea that he feels in the face of things that lack self-consciousness tangibly demonstrates to him the distinction between the two modes of existence. It manifests in an immediate fashion a fundamental distinction that Descartes arrived at through intellectual discourse: that there are two radically different modes of existence.


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For his ontological division between beings embodying two radically different modes of existence, Sartre borrows his terminology from the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Hegel. Hegel sought to explain how self-consciousness as a mode of existence emerges and develops into what he took to be its highest spiritual manifestation: Western culture in the modern age. He referred to his explanation as “the Phenomenology of Spirit,” claiming that the first inkling of consciousness is the ability to distinguish between something and nothing. Subsequently he distinguished between a mode of existence that embodies self-consciousness and one that does not, which he referred to as being-for-itself and being-in-itself. A central place is reserved in the explanation for the growth of social norms as a conceptual foundation for values, according to which those who have self-consciousness regard themselves in the context of others. Social identities are explained as constituted out of dialectical interaction between two possessors of will and consciousness, providing both with different personal self-identities, such as master and servant. It is from within the social context of such dialectical interaction that the self-consciousness underlying social roles, norms, and ethical values that embody human cultures comes into existence. Sartre borrows the Hegelian terminology for the purpose of describing his own ontology, distinguishing between a self-conscious mode of existence that exists for itself and a mode of existence that is devoid of self-consciousness and exists in itself. He does not aim to explain the development of a cultural human mode of existence manifested through human history. He instead aims to explain the ontological foundation for self-consciousness as it emerges from the experience of objects, time, and others. He argues that the ontological foundation for such a mode of existence is what he calls “nothingness.” It develops into a particular self-conscious, human mode of existence by acquiring a personal self-identity in the guise of a “self.” In Being and Nothingness, Sartre explained how this happens in a universal human context, which he refers to as “phenomenological ontology.” In his stories and biographical works, he describes it in some particular personal context through existentialist psychoanalysis—which corresponds to Hegel’s explanation of the development of the human spirit in general. Thus, Sartre uses Hegel’s explanation of the emergence of self-consciousness from the dialectical conflict between the wills and perceptions of human beings to explain the adoption of some personal self-identity, as this is explained by the way in which we become conscious of the way others judge us. Sartre’s phenomenological explanation of human consciousness is based on the methodology of Edmund Husserl, a German philosopher of Jewish origin, whose thinking and method of phenomenological inquiry had a large influence on the thinking of European philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. Husserl himself arrived at his method due to the


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impact of what he called “the crisis of the sciences,” manifested—in his opinion—by science’s inability to discover objective truths of absolute validity. In light of this, he called on philosophical inquiry to focus on the subjective domain: human consciousness. He coined the slogan “putting the world in brackets” to describe his method of inquiry, which was supposed to renounce metaphysical and epistemological speculations about the objective nature of the world, focusing instead on experience and the subjective way in which we become acquainted with things. Following his Viennese teacher, Franz Brentano, Husserl claimed that consciousness is a mental activity characterized by internationality. It is always directed toward a certain object, which may or may not have objective standing. Hunger is a desire for food, fear is the apprehension of injury, a belief is the thought that a certain fact is true, and so forth. Phenomenological inquiry aims to reveal the constituents of the experiences that lie at the basis of our conceptions of things. It suggests that the experience that emerges through human consciousness is a meaningful experience. Although our experience manifests infinite variations of phenomena, they are perceived through conceptual distinctions as certain kinds of objects, such as rocks or trees. Concepts, then, manifest the essence of the things that are perceived by the senses or experienced through feelings, although what is immediately accessible to us is always only a certain aspect of the infinite possible variations on the meaning of the things to us. Husserl argued that all this is rendered possible from the existence of what Kant referred to as a “transcendental self,” which accompanies our experiences and lends us self-consciousness. Sartre was impressed by Husserl’s phenomenological method of inquiry and made extensive use of it in his philosophical and literary writing. In keeping with Husserl’s and Brentano’s assumption about the nature of internationality as constituting the essence of mental life, he thought that consciousness is always directed at some intentional object. However, he dissents from Husserl in claiming that we do not possess a transcendental self that accompanies all our conscious states. The idea that such a self exists, he thinks, is a philosophical illusion. Whatever self-consciousness may reveal to us about ourselves, this is not what lies at the basis of our conscious existence, renders it possible, and constitutes what we are. He concludes that what makes consciousness and with it self-consciousness possible is “nothingness,” which is manifested by many different modes of self-conscious existence, but which in itself it is nothing: a nothingness that fills itself with conscious content. Self-consciousness does not reveal a transcendental self or some other genuine self, but only a personal self-identity that we have chosen, adopted, or invented. The last philosopher who influenced Sartre’s thinking is Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher who lived during the twentieth century.


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His influence on Sartre was the most profound. Heidegger set himself the goal of disengaging his philosophical inquiry from the approach that had taken hold in Western philosophy following Descartes, which Husserl had reaffirmed, according to which the world is grasped as phenomena that are given to consciousness in the form of intentional objects, and human beings are subjects that come to know these phenomena, including also themselves. To disengage from this tradition, he directed the inquiry toward our ways of understanding the meaning of things, which he claimed was a hermeneutical enterprise, not an epistemological one. This move was extended into focusing the inquiry toward answering an ontological question regarding the meaning of what some call “reality,” others “existence,” and which he termed “Being.” He claimed that the question about “the meaning of ‘Being’” arose in ancient Greek philosophy but was later forgotten in Western culture by directing the inquiry to the foundations of knowledge. This depiction of philosophical inquiry brought him close to the question posed by Kierkegaard and Tolstoy, “What is the meaning of life?,” which he restated by posing it in the context of both the meaning of existence as such and human existence in particular. According to Heidegger, our lives are a mode of existence of beings that pose the question about the meaning of existence. They are also a mode of existence that enable us to disclose the meaning of our existence in several ways. He distinguishes between a philosophical inquiry about the meaning of our existence and speculation about the meaning of existence in general, where we ask, “What does it mean, to be?” or “Why is there something rather than nothing?” The latter two questions cannot be answered, in his opinion, because existence or reality is inaccessible to disclosure in the context of meaning. We can only be amazed at it. By contrast, a question concerned with the meaning of human existence can be investigated and answered. Heidegger answers it by means of an investigation directed toward revealing the “basic structure” of human existence, which he defines, using a terminology all his own, that is aimed both at freeing us from any commonplace, scientific, religious, or traditional philosophical terminology and as giving authentic expression to our fundamental ways of experiencing the meaning of our existence. In this way an authentic disclosure of the meaning of human existence turns into a central project in the ontological analysis he proposes. One important way in which he employs the concept of authenticity refers to an understanding of meaning that is acquired in immediate fashion, without the mediation of intellectual worldviews and technological means that distance us from the authentic meaning of things. He describes such an understanding in reference to three basic human modes of existence, all of which disclose the meaning of our existence in an authentic way as a mode of what he calls “being-in-the-world.”


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The first is our mode of embodied existence as the performers of actions in the world that is manifested in physical space and made up of material objects that can be manipulated. The instrumental meaning of material objects is revealed to us authentically through the physical actions that we are able to perform by their means. When we grip a hammer in our hands in a way that allows us to strike objects with it, we disclose the possibilities latent in it as a tool in immediate fashion. (When the hammer is broken, or when we are missing a hammer to perform the job, we experience its meaning as a tool with even greater intensity, since we are now unable to perform this action.) In a similar way, the world is disclosed to us through our senses always in a meaningful way. We do not perceive some raw sense data which we then interpret to be a tree, a rock, or a person. We see in a meaningful way trees, rocks, and people. In the same way we do not hear meaningless sounds, but voices, music, or cars. A second authentic mode in which the meaning of human existence as being-in-the-world is revealed to us is through our meaningful experiences of interacting with others and our social affiliations. Other human beings constitute the “they” who infiltrate our human existence. Our human personal self-identity is shaped against the background of our experience of our attitudes toward them. In this way we experience ourselves as belonging to a particular human group, which is our “we.” Our cultural identities and unique individual identities are also shaped against the background of this experience of belonging. A third authentic way in which we discover what it means to be human is when we grasp our existence in the world out of concern, by caring about what happens and what might happen and particularly about our own existence. Care is described as a fundamental experience that manifests a mode of being-in-the-world, through which authentic meaning is given to the concept of time. By means of it we experience things, including our own lives, as such that may come to harm or disappear. Care is a basic experience of time looking toward the future, through which our lives and what happens in them are revealed to us as contingent. In his phenomenological analysis of the experience of caring, Heidegger discovers that it entails an existential anxiety in the face of our own death, which is the manifestation of nothingness. Heidegger contends that this anxiety reveals the meaning of our existence to us as progressing toward annihilation in death. Death is the nothingness that consumes our existence, which is thus disclosed as a mode of being-in-the-world on borrowed time, which will eventually end. The anxiety we experience at the prospect of our own demise is an existential anxiety in the face of nothingness, which is the absolute opposite of any existence and its mode of realization as life. It enables us to experience the meaning of our human existence, regardless of the contents of our personal, cultural, and


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historical lives, through opposition to nothingness: as being-in-the world, and as such as existence that might also not have been, as existence that is constantly threatened by nothingness, which will eventually consume it. This is the universal meaning of human life as a mode of being-in-the-world, as it is authentically revealed to us, and our ability to comprehend that this is what our existence means is what makes us what we are: beings conscious of the meaning of their contingent existence in the world whom death will eventually consume.2 Heidegger’s analysis of human existence as a contingent mode of beingin-the-world constitutes a renunciation of the Christian worldview and its claims about the affiliation of the human soul with the eternal and the divine. To be human is to be contingent, and it is experienced authentically as a mode of existence embodied in physical space, meaningful human relationships, and finite time. The concept of authenticity is used thereby to describe a fundamental, primary, original way of experiencing the contingent meaning of existence, which is then contrasted with inauthentic meaning ascribed to existence through science and metaphysics that acquires a pejorative connotation. In his view, the difficulty in giving authentic meaning to our personal existence stems from the fact that we live in a particular cultural world, which has been created by others and is ready-made when we arrive at it. We do not give original meaning to our existence, since we are part of a larger cultural tapestry in which things have meaning that has already been given to them by others. When we become civilized, we allow others to determine the meaning of our existence for us. Someone with an aptitude for music, for instance, will learn to play an instrument and become the member of an orchestra, acting in accordance with the cultural context that prevails. Only those among us who are able to rise above the customary norms and practices and to blaze new cultural paths for themselves and others by virtue of their originality succeed in giving authentic meaning to their lives. Such people are akin to cultural heroes—the ones who would have been termed “geniuses” in the Romantic worldview. Philosophers who have been influenced by Heidegger’s thinking sometimes draw far-reaching conclusions with regard to how we might bestow authentic meaning on our lives while acknowledging the contingency of our existence. Some would have us engage in authentic actions and deeds, others in authentic human relations, still others in authentic self-creation. Sartre, too, was influenced in this connection. Heidegger’s influence on him is already evident in the name Sartre chose for his philosophical existentialist opus in which he presented the principles of his ontological view—Being 2. See Ernest Tugendhat, “Über den Tod,” for a discussion of this claim.


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and Nothingness. The book in which Heidegger first set out his own ontology was named Being and Time. Heidegger’s influence is also evident in Sartre’s attention to the modes of human existence in the world, through which he explains the fundamental features of human existence, and in his emphasis on the experience of anxiety, through which the meaning of this existence is authentically revealed to us. Where Sartre parts paths with Heidegger is in setting forth a worldview in which all human beings bestow personal meaning on their existence through their adopted or invented personal self-identities. Hence, his discussion of the human mode of existence is devoted to the way in which human beings give personal meaning to their lives, on the basis of human ontology in general. In this framework, he places freedom at the core of human existence, as what enables us to determine the meaning of our existence in such a personal way. Therefore the way in which he also diverges from Heidegger is worth noting.

Anxiety Caused by Freedom Rather than Death In the early 1930s, Sartre went to Germany for two years to study Husserl’s phenomenological method. He first stayed in Berlin, than at the University of Freiburg, where he attended Martin Heidegger’s lectures. As a result he adopted several of his concepts and ideas, albeit with certain modifications. Like Heidegger and unlike Descartes, Sartre does not distinguish between body and mind. He contends that we experience our lives as being-in-theworld, which means that we grasp and experience ourselves as having physical extension and as being located in physical place. In the matter of authentic acquaintance of our mode of existence through anxiety over our own death, he went along with Heidegger only part of the way. Several years after returning to France, he expressed this theme in a chilling story, set during the Spanish civil war, about a group of prisoners who pass the night knowing that they are going to be executed at dawn. The story describes in detail how this knowledge sows terror in them and pulverizes everything which formerly shaped their personal self-identities and gave meaning to their lives: commitment to values, struggle on behalf of social causes, friendship, love for a woman. Everything becomes meaningless through their anxiety in the face of their death. However, in the course of time, when he commenced to formulate his existentialist worldview, Sartre predicated the meaning of human existence as a mode of being-in-the-world, not on the anxiety experienced in face of our own death but on the anxiety experienced by the freedom we have to determine our personal self-identities. He explained it as arising out of self-consciousness, which discloses that there is no solid foundation for the meaning that we attribute to our lives and to


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what happens in them on the basis of the personal self-identities we have adopted. The freedom we have to determine our personal self-identities enables each of us to give personal meaning to his or her life. This meaning is not common to all, nor is it a meaning that we find or discover as something given to us. It is something that we attribute to our lives when we adopt a certain personal self-identity for ourselves on the basis of the freedom we have to do so. Nothing can force us to choose one personal self-identity rather than another; we are completely free to make our own choice. Furthermore, we cannot live in a meaningful way without attributing meaning to our lives, and that means that we cannot live without choosing a certain personal self-identity for ourselves. The slogan coined by Sartre—that we are “condemned to freedom”—suggests that we are forced to give personal meaning to our lives by choosing a personal self-identity. The ethical element in Sartre’s existentialist worldview is focused on the issue of how to acquire a personal self-identity in an authentic manner. He takes this to be a way of doing so without bowing to the dictates and influence of others and which expresses our complete self-awareness of being free to choose our own personal self-identity. The freedom we have in this manner is experienced in an authentic manner through the anxiety that accompanies our lives, which is connected with our being conscious that we are free to determine our personal self-identities and, through them, the meaning that we attribute to our very lives, without having anything to rely on in this matter. We need a personal self-identity in order to attribute meaning to our lives and what happens in them, but there is nothing we can cling to in order to do so, so we are left to create it on the basis of what our culture offers us or on the basis of our powers of invention. Either way, it is a fictional personal self-identity whose meaning to us depends only on ourselves. It follows that the meaning we attribute to our lives is nothing but a fiction, invented by us or by others. Indeed, Sartre contends that we live in constant anxiety that what is meaningful to us about our lives will cease to be meaningful. We would like the meaning of our lives to rest upon a different foundation. We want this meaning to depend on ourselves, but we also want it to be as formidable and self-supporting as a rock jutting above the waves, and we don’t want to have to worry about it all the time. But no such thing exists, nor could it. The meaning that is attributed to life has no other basis than that which we are able to extract from the personal self-identities we have adopted, chosen, or invented in a completely free manner.


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chapter 21 Freedom as a Problematic Human Mode of Existence

worldview received great public acclaim. The change it wrought in the philosophical discourse on the subject of the meaning of life can be predicated on four claims that are grounded in it. First, the meaning of life arises out of our self-conceptions, manifesting our personal self-identities. Since each of us has a different personal self-identity, each of us attributes a different meaning to his or her life and, through it, to life in general. Second, our personal self-identities are not determined by our nature or by what is meaningful to us about our life, but vice versa: we provide a meaning to our lives and to what happens in them when we choose, adopt, or invent a personal identity for ourselves. Third, we cannot avoid the need to bestow meaning on our lives by choosing, adopting, or inventing a certain personal self-identity, nor can we be completely satisfied with the meaning we thus bestow on our lives. Fourth, the ability and need to bestow meaning on our lives in this way stems from the existential predicament of human life, which is a mode of existence of beings possessed with self-consciousness, rationality, and absolute freedom. Thus the meaning of human existence is the freedom we have to choose, adopt, or invent a personal meaning to life by embodying it in a personal self-identity.

S A RT R E ’ S E X I S T E N T I A L I S T

The Precedence of Existence to Essence The idea I placed at the center of Sartre’s existentialist worldview—that the meaning of human existence is the absolute freedom each human being 212


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has to invent a meaning to his or her life and, through it, to life in general— turned out to be a particularly enticing one. Sartre presented it under a peculiar slogan, contending that in the case of human beings, “existence precedes essence.” The priority is supposed to indicate that freedom is our fundamental human mode of existence, enabling us to invent, choose, or adopt different personal self-identities through which we bestow meaning on our lives. These identities are then viewed by many of us as constituting our particular human essence. However, this perceived essence is in fact determined in a free fashion by each one of us differently. The slogan used for presenting this idea is somewhat peculiar, because the concept of meaning succeeded the concept of essence in philosophical discourse. A philosophical desire to ascertain the essence of things, and with them also the essence of human beings, so as to determine the natural or divine purpose of human life, lay at the basis of philosophical discourse until its transformation in the twentieth century into a discourse focused on meaning. In Sartre’s worldview, however, human beings have no natural or divine essence and, therefore, they also have no natural or divine purpose to their lives. According to Sartre’s explanation of the slogan, human existence is unlike that of cultural artifacts, such as a pen or shoe, which are created according to an idea in the minds of their creators, the value of which can be tested according to how they fulfill the purpose they were meant to accomplish. A pen that cannot be used for writing fails to accomplish its purpose, and is therefore a bad pen. In contrast to cultural artifacts, human beings have not been made according to some idea in order to fulfill any particular purpose. Their existence does not manifest their purpose or essence. To render this claim into a claim regarding meaning, it might be said that there is no transcendent meaning to human lives arising out of our very existence. The evaluation of human beings as good or bad human beings depends on the ethical element in one’s worldview concerning the way human beings ought to live. All such views may be disputed, as they may be accepted or rejected by us. Their acceptance depends on the personal self-identity chosen, adopted, or invented by each of us. A human mode of existence is also unlike that of natural things, such as trees and rocks or birds and animals, all of which can be defined according to their essential features that determine what they are. The existence of these things is founded upon natural processes that determine their mode of existence and what they are. A raven is by nature a bird that flies through the air, and a tree is by nature a plant that grows in the soil and strikes roots in it. A raven that cannot fly is a crippled raven, and a tree that does not take root will wither and die. As such they are bad instances of their kind. A human mode of existence is different. Although human beings have physical bodies and various biological systems that determine what we need in order to survive, this biological


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mode of existence does not determine the meaning that we attribute to our life. Human beings are beings that can belong to different cultures, providing them with different cherished ways of life, different ways of subsisting, and different value systems from within which to create or adopt their personal self-identities. Nothing that belongs to the biological nature of human beings determines their cultural mode of existence or their personal self-identities. None of these natural features are enough to determine how we ought to live our lives or what meaning we ought to attempt to derive from them.

Endowing Life with Meaning through Personal Self-Identity Sartre does not discuss the formation of shared cultural practices that shape human existence. His discussion aims to expose the personal, subjective dimension of the meaning of human existence by focusing on the way in which human beings give meaning to their lives by participating in cultural practices, engaging in relationships with others, adopting worldviews— all of which are manifested through the personal self-identities that we invent or choose for ourselves. A large part of Sartre’s phenomenological effort is directed toward showing that the need to give meaning to life in this way lies at the very heart of a human mode of existence; it arises out of the very structure of human self-consciousness. The important existential question for him is how this is accomplished. Are we deluding ourselves with regard to dictates from an external source, such as God, transcendental values, social norms, parents, or nature, or are we acknowledging our freedom to choose or invent our personal self-identity and thereby bestow meaning on our lives by ourselves? An example Sartre is fond of is the café waiter, who by his actions manifests a mode of existence that embodies a social-cultural-normative dimension, giving him his personal self-identity. Waiters are supposed to serve customers, and to do so in a certain manner, according to which they can be judged as good or bad waiters. Such a mode of existence is not the product of personal invention, nor is the personal self-identity acquired by means of it a product of personal invention. It is a function of waiterly endeavor and of finding meaning in waiterly endeavor. A person can derive meaning from his employment as a waiter by trying to act the role and regarding himself as good waiter. At the same time a person might also not find personal meaning in it. A person can perform the job of a waiter with pride in his profession, or in resentment and anger at being forced to serve the customers, when all he wants is to get rich so that he can stop being a waiter. In Sartre’s view, we cannot avoid giving personal meaning to our human mode of existence by choosing or inventing a personal self-identity that


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manifests the meaning we give to our life. Many of us delude ourselves that it is possible to transfer authority for determining the meaning of our lives to some other, external element. Some of us try to find meaning in our lives according to what religion says about life, or according to what is dictated by social norms, or according to what we deem to be the nature of life—but the decision to do so or not is always in our own hands. Even when we turn over the authority for determining the meaning of our lives to a foreign element, it is only possible because we have chosen to do so. It follows that even when we bow to the circumstances, we are only affirming our freedom and choosing the meaning that we attribute to our lives under the illusion that the matter is not in our hands. In regard to the meaning that is attributed to life, our freedom is absolute. Despite several assertions that may mislead, Sartre does not contend that human beings are free to determine absolutely their factual mode of existence in the world. If you are short, you will not be able to change the fact merely by deciding to be tall. Free choice does apply, however, to the meaning you attribute to the fact, which is expressed in the personal self-identity you choose or invent for yourself. You may spend your entire life regretting not being able to be a professional basketball player, trying to become a professional basketball player anyway, or turning your interest to something else. In his discussion of this idea, Sartre resorts to the idea of “existential situation” to bring the point out. We experience our lives through the lifesituations that confront us. These are shaped by facts and by the meaning we attribute to facts by virtue of the personal self-identities we choose or invent. We all have certain physical features, belong to a particular nationality, live in a given historical period, have several skills, etc. These are all in the nature of “facts of life” for which we are not responsible and which are not under our control, through which our human existence is manifested. The freedom we have allows us to attribute meaning to the facts as we choose, rendering them into meaningful or not meaningful situations for us and in this way determine the meaning of what takes place in our lives. Sartre claims that the ability to do so is absolute. What we are unable to do is repudiate it, for this freedom lies at the foundation of our human existence. It is our mode of being-in-the-world. Just as we have the freedom to determine the meaning of the facts that shape our lives, so too we have the freedom to determine the meaning of our lives in general. This meaning arises out of our personal self-identities, which we are able to invent freely as we choose. Nothing in the facts of life themselves can force us to adopt a certain personal self-identity. We can choose our personal self-identities as one chooses a mask for a costume party. Of course, more than mere decision is required to adopt, choose, or invent a personal self-identity. It may also take a prolonged investment of


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effort and action. The café waiter, going about his business, is playing the role of a waiter by means of actions that are meaningful to him and to others and through which his life situation is manifested. By seeking to act in one way rather than another, he provides himself with the personal self-identity of a waiter, through which he then experiences his life. In a similar way, a citizen who obeys the law is playing the role of a good citizen, which he values, and in this way he takes on the personal self-identity of a good citizen. The meaning of our lives is thus revealed to us through the personal selfidentities we adopt, choose, or invent. The difference for us between our own lives and other people’s lives is that we can try—and sometimes even succeed—to ignore others and their lives, but not our own lives. When I ignore others, I do not attribute any meaning to their lives and do not acknowledge the facts of life that concern them as meaningful to me in any way. It is a different matter as regards myself. I cannot live without attributing meaning of one kind or another to what happens in my life, and in this way also to my life in general, and consequently to life in general. To do so is to adopt a certain personal self-identity in regard to our lives. Only death sets us free from the need to do so. Sartre expressed this point in a picturesque way, claiming that we are “condemned” to ascribe meaning to our lives and what takes place in them on our own, which we do by adopting or choosing a certain personal self-identity. In a lecture delivered after the end of World War II that he published later under the title Existentialism and Humanism, Sartre told a story that was supposed to demonstrate this idea. He said that during the war, a young man came to consult him regarding a dilemma that was causing him great anguish. On one hand, he felt an obligation to contribute to the struggle against the Nazis and was thinking of joining the Free French forces. But on the other hand, he felt an obligation to support his ailing mother, who would not survive the war if he left. A dilemma is a situation in which we feel a moral obligation toward two conflicting actions. Any solution of the dilemma, one way or another, gives different meaning to the situation at hand: both as regards what is more meaningful to us, and as regards the meaning of the facts. In the case of the young man, what he had to decide is what is more meaningful to him: to help fight in the war against fascism or to help support his mother in a difficult time. Either way, someone facing such a decision has to consider the meaning he attributes to the facts within the situation as it is perceived. Sartre contends that the meaning given to the facts depends on the person confronting them. No conception of values is valid to us without taking what is meaningful to us into consideration first— and we are the ones who determine what is meaningful to us by choosing or adopting a certain personal self-identity.


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Self-Delusion as “Bad Faith” Sartre contends that it is difficult for us to acknowledge the fact that the meaning of what happens in life does not lie in the facts of life, but in how we choose to regard or interpret them. We would like to place the responsibility for the meaning we attribute to the facts of life with something else, external to us, rather than with ourselves. We would like to think that they have meaning in themselves. This kind of approach leads to alienation from our freedom to ascribe whatever meaning we choose to the facts. Alienation from freedom can assume different forms of what Sartre calls “bad faith,” which is a kind of self-delusion. By means of it we delude ourselves that it is not we who determine the meaning of our lives and what happens in them. We delude ourselves that it is given from the circumstances themselves or from our natures—all to avoid acknowledging that it depends on the way in which we have chosen to live, and to shirk responsibility for the way in which we have thus chosen to attribute meaning to them. The concept of alienation was used in nineteenth-century Enlightenment philosophy to describe a human mode of existence that becomes estranged from freedom as an essential feature of human existence. It was developed from a Christian idea, according to which human beings who do not believe in God become alienated from the divine, spiritual spark that is implemented in their soul, turning themselves into a natural object in the world only. In its secular usage, the idea was transformed and employed by Karl Marx to describe the way in which human beings—in a class society founded on capitalist relations of production—become alienated from themselves, others, humanity, and their world by failing in their way of life to express the fact that they are free beings, who create their own mode of existence, and with it their world as well, in a historical manner. Sartre takes this line of thought in an ontological direction. The human alienation from freedom, of which he speaks, does not stem from certain relations of production, but from human existence itself. He focuses predominantly on self-alienation and lists three causes for our self-alienation from freedom, all of which are forms of consciousness providing us with self-delusion. The first cause is our need to believe in the existence of objective or transcendental values, which determine the meaning of the life-situations in which we find ourselves. Sartre contends that the concept of value is a concept of meaning having objective validity. Value is the meaning that God attributes to a fact. In his opinion, this concept suffers from an inherent selfcontradiction. We would like there to be values of objective and transcendental validity so that we will not have to decide things solely on the basis of our freedom to choose what is meaningful to us. But there are no such values, nor could there be.


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A second cause of our alienation from our own freedom is the existence of social practices and cultural norms of behavior that manifest the values of socially desired conduct. In every society there are customary and obligatory patterns of behavior that accompany various social roles, such as those that determine what constitutes a waiter, student, man, teacher, public official, good citizen, and so forth. We tend to behave in accordance with the accepted practices and norms of society for such roles, disregarding the fact that it is our decision whether or not to do so. Society provides us with a series of practices and norms of behavior according to which we should constitute our lives, but the only thing behind these customs is the judgment of others as to what is valuable and required and our choice to behave according to the judgment of others. However, the decision whether or not to participate in a certain practice and to abide by a given norm of behavior, turning it thus into something meaningful to us, depends entirely on ourselves and on the way in which we choose to regard it and ourselves. Hence Sartre attributes such importance to our self-consciousness of the way in which others grasp us as behaving properly or not. When I feel shame at peeking into my neighbor’s apartment through the keyhole, I am grasping myself as someone else might observe me, concluding that I have faulty norms. Feeling shame, I form a self-judgment in submission to the way in which I experience someone else’s judgment of myself. But whether or not I bow to this judgment depends only on me. A third cause of alienation from freedom is our mistaken view regarding human nature. We tend to deceive ourselves and assume that we have a certain nature, from which stems the meaning of the state of affairs in which we are, rather than accept that this so-called “nature” is a mode of existence through which we have chosen to attribute meaning to our life. We deceive ourselves into thinking that the fear we feel stems from the nature of the situation at hand or from our own natures. Sartre dismisses both possibilities. Fear is merely an experience stemming from an attitude we have chosen in order to attribute frightening meaning to a situation in which we may find ourselves. We deceive ourselves that nature determines the meaning of the situation for us. In actual fact, to regard the situation in one way or another is entirely our own choice. In any event, one can always either try to overcome fear or be subdued by it. A major ethical problem that arises for human beings is how to live without being alienated from the freedom we have to determine the meaning of life. Since we are inclined to self-deception with regard to this freedom, a series of liberating actions is required, in order that we may live as beings who acknowledge their freedom: liberation from belief in God and belief in the existence of objective or transcendental values, liberation from the burden of social norms that embody the judgment of others, liberation from


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feelings that afflict us in the face of threatening life situations, etc. This liberation does not depend on any other kind of endeavor, except only on the consolidation of an attitude, according to which we are free to give meaning to the facts as we see fit. It is liberation from the self-delusion that the meaning of things does not depend on our attitude toward them. It is liberation from everything that prevents us from explicitly recognizing our freedom to invent the meaning of our lives. A question that might arise at this point is why do we tend to repudiate our freedom through self-delusion. Sartre’s answer is that there is something problematic about human freedom. Attitudes toward life, which aim at repudiating freedom, stem from a basic anxiety that accompanies our existence. This anxiety arises specifically from our awareness of the complete freedom we have to determine the meaning of our lives. Because of it we are also conscious of being responsible for the meaning we attribute to our lives. In this matter we have nothing and no one to rely on except ourselves. We stand in the same relation toward the meaning we attribute to our lives as in religious belief God stands toward the created world. However, in contrast to God’s divine creation, the meaning we invent for our lives does not have absolute validity, as we can have second thoughts about it or lose interest in what was once meaningful to us. We would like the meaning we ascribe to our lives and to what happens in them to have absolute validity. We would like to stand in the same relation toward our lives as God is supposed to stand in relation to the world, according to which what is meaningful to God has absolute validity, so that it needs to be valued by all. This desire, Sartre claims, is also manifested by secular talk about universal human values of objective or absolute validity. In both cases it is illogical, and belief in such an idea is a form of “bad-faith.” Both the concepts of God’s will and objective or transcendental value are concepts that pertain to a meaning that is freely invented but exists on its own with no connection to its inventor, like a natural process. The aim of such beliefs is to deter the existential anxiety that accompanies our lives, which stems from our awareness that the meaning we attribute to our lives and to the life situations in which we find ourselves depends only on ourselves. We know that we have nothing and no one to rely on in this matter except ourselves, and that consequently we alone bear the responsibility for the meaning we attribute to our lives and to what happens in them. At the same time we also know that our entire attitude toward our lives, which gives them their meaning, is liable to change at any moment; that the meaning we attribute to our lives hangs by a thread, with no basis or justification, so that everything may yet be overturned. Tomorrow we may decide we were mistaken; the next day, what is now meaningful to us might cease to be meaningful. The existential anxiety we experience discloses that the meaning of life is the absolute freedom we have to determine its meaning.


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According to Sartre, the absolute freedom we have to determine the meaning of life is also what renders human life inherently problematic. The responsibility for determining the meaning of life, which stems from the absolute freedom we have in this regard, arouses in us an existential anxiety and a desire to be free of what is also an existential burden. Therefore, at the very core of our existence burns a desire to justify and substantiate the meaning we attribute to our lives by recourse to something transcendental, which lies beyond them. As a result, between our awareness of the fact that we cannot predicate the meaning we attribute to our lives and to what happens in them on anything but our own choice, and our burning desire to see that choice as something justified, whose validity depends not only on ourselves—human existence is doomed to frustration. We know that what is meaningful to us depends only on our own choices and ourselves, yet we would also like it to be meaningful in itself. Thus an illogical desire lies at the core of human existence, which is the source of the basic anxiety and continuing frustration that accompany our lives. It manifests our awareness that the meaning of our lives is a matter of our choice, our desire to be like God, our knowledge that we are not like God, and our awareness that our choices can never suffice in giving our lives the meaning we want them to have.


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chapter 22 An Existentialist Ethics

the purpose of which is to describe the basic existential elements from which our life and what it encloses is experienced in a meaningful way, a comprehensive philosophical worldview will also encompass ethics, the purpose of which is to establish how we ought to live and regard our lives in a meaningful way. For someone who, like Sartre, posits an internal connection between the meaning of life and the freedom we have to invent the meaning of our lives, ethics is grasped as being concerned with two matters. The first of these is how we ought to invest life with meaning by choosing a personal self-identity, as well as the desirable attitude toward our personal self-identity. The second matter is how we should act in regard to what then becomes meaningful to us. At the end of Being and Nothingness, Sartre wrote of the need to develop an existentialist ethics and promised that this would be his next task. The task was never completed. What the public got instead was a popular lecture entitled Existentialism and Humanism. In it Sartre contended that his existentialist worldview is not individualistic, because it is in full accord with a humanistic worldview. The lecture initiated a philosophical debate in France about humanism in which Heidegger also took part from afar. (At the time he was still curtailed in his academic activities for joining the Nazi party and implementing its policy at the university.)

B E S I D E S O N T O L O G Y,

The Humanistic Context “Humanism” is a title accorded to worldviews, ethical conceptions, artistic trends, and educational approaches. Within the cultural history of the West, 221


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different ideas have been put forward regarding what it denotes and what lies at its basis. Some exponents of humanism contend that it is a worldview that places human beings at the center of the world. Some even proclaim in this context the Sophists’ contention that human beings are the measure of all things. One way of redeeming such slogans is to consider them in opposition to what humanism is posited. Initially, the term was used in context of the cultural trends that shaped the Renaissance. Humanism was thus exemplified in the paintings and sculptures of Renaissance artists who glorified the human figure and body, in contrast to the diminution of the human figure and body in Christian art. It was expressed in reorienting education on classical literature, arts, and science, in contrast to education based mainly on learning religious texts. In line with these trends, a worldview was developed that placed human life at its center but without basing it on the prevailing religious beliefs and practices. One way in which humanism came to be expressed in philosophy was by developing worldviews that place rationality at the foundation of human existence and enable human beings to make the transition from a natural state of existence to a cultural state of existence, without the intervention of God. Another way was by developing a universal ethics without relying on the idea of God’s will, and which posits freedom as a universal human ethical value of highest importance. Both these ideas found their place in Kant’s attempt to present in a philosophical secular terminology religious conceptions of the human soul as endowing human beings with free will and the ability to understand moral demands. Kant contended that the supreme moral imperative that applies to all beings possessed of free will and the ability to reason in a rational way is to try to act like a supreme lawgiver. To do so one ought to determine one’s actions on the basis of universal principles that apply to all rational beings. As this prerequisite places all human beings on equal ethical and rational grounds, it is customary to view the ethical principles formulated by Kant as basic principles of what is sometimes called “a humanistic ethics.” Sartre contended that by basing human existence on the freedom that all human beings have to determine the meaning of life through the meaning they attribute to their own lives by means of their personal self-identities, existentialism accords with the humanistic principle put forward by Kant during the Enlightenment. In wanting my own freedom, he explained, I am affirming and desiring the freedom of everyone else. Does existentialism instantiate a humanistic worldview, as Sartre contended? I will divide my discussion of this question by considering the answer to it in respect to the two conceptual features that shape worldviews—ontology and ethics. Considering it first with regard to the ontological features of existentialism, it might be thought that existentialism is indeed a humanistic worldview, since in it the meaning of human life is


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explained in the context of the human predicament in general, as stemming from our adoption of a personal self-identity. It does not stem from an external source that is above human life or from a natural source underlying life, neither of which is in our control. It is a type of humanism, furthermore, as was posited by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, granting all human beings the ability to live freely by the use of rational thought. It is a type of humanism, finally, in that the meaning of life emerges through it from the way in which human beings are free to give meaning to their lives through rational choice. Sartre’s unique contribution to this humanistic worldview is the idea that every person engages in this project, as meaning is bestowed on life in a personal and completely free manner, through the personal self-identity each of us chooses. Nonetheless there is a difficulty in affiliating existentialism with a humanistic ontology. In most worldviews familiar to us as humanistic, other human experiences and perspectives on things are deemed to be of equal standing as our own, while in existentialism a preference is given to our personal experiences and perspectives. In particular, a preference is awarded to our own personal self-identity when it is chosen without regard for how others experience and perceive the meaning of things. In Sartre’s existentialist worldview, the other embodies the center of a world that threatens the way in which I am at the center of my world and give it its meaning. It is as if the other would like to oust me from being the center of my world. Others judge me with their critical gazes and seek to impose on me the meaning they attribute to the world. Through the shame that I experience, the other’s point of view regarding the world penetrates my own existence and influences me. According to this approach, other people are in conflict with me over the meaning of things, imposing a constant threat to the meaning I attribute to life. The slogan Sartre coined in one of his plays—“Hell is other people”—expresses this view. If I defer to the way in which someone else sees things, I am repudiating my freedom and the meaning I give to my life. Thus even when I experience solidarity with others, described as “being-withothers,” the experience leads to the dissolution of my personal self-identity inside the crowd, and no personal expression is given to my freedom to determine the meaning of life on my own. It is even more difficult to classify existentialism as a humanistic worldview when we turn to discussing its ethical components. Sartre claimed in this respect that existentialism is not an “individualistic ethics,” and it is therefore quite compatible with humanism. It is not clear what he meant thereby. One possibility is that the reference is to an ethics whose norms and values are binding only for the person who advocates it. But it is hard to understand how such an idea could be formulated as “ethics.” We might contend that we are entitled to steal because of our exceptional circumstances; perhaps


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because we need certain things badly and are unable to earn enough money to buy them. Whatever the justification may be, it rests upon ethical norms only if we believe that anyone else in the same situation is also entitled to steal. If the claim is so “individualistic” that as a matter of principle we will not allow it to apply to anyone else, then it does not appear to express any ethical norm, and therefore does not seem to instantiate any ethics. Another possibility is that what Sartre is referring to by “individualistic ethics” is an ethics that mandates egoistical behavior, such as that expressed by the commonplace sentiment that every person should first of all look out for number one, namely him- or herself. An ethics of this sort is individualistic only insofar as it requires everyone to always prefer themselves. At the same time it is also universalistic, since everyone is supposed to act according to it. Furthermore, it is an ethics that sets up an objective moral value, namely concern for oneself! All of this is opposed to existentialist ontology, according to which we are free to determine the meaning of our life and with it the values by which we choose to live, because there is no objective and universal value to life. A third possibility is that the term “individualistic ethics” refers to an ethics which proclaims that every person is free to espouse the values he or she deems proper—a view that is sometimes referred to as “moral relativity.” To the extent that this is indeed the case, the idea is either unclear or incoherent. Let us suppose I believe that killing is morally wrong. At the same time I also believe that people ought to be allowed to live by their own norms and ethical values. In this case I believe that someone other than myself has a right to kill, as long as he or she believes that he or she is allowed to do so. But at the same time I also still believe that killing is wrong and therefore should be forbidden. Such an ethics, then, contains an internal contradiction, and Sartre is correct in trying to distance himself from it. However, he does not explain how he wants to do that, as existentialism has often been understood as sanctioning some form of moral relativism. A fourth possibility is that the term refers not to ethics but to nihilism: the idea that there are no moral values and therefore there is no valid ethics, so that “everything is permitted,” as Dostoyevsky expressed it in one of his novels. But the idea that everything is permitted is not free of difficulties either. For if indeed there are no values, then according to what are allowances to be made, and what does it mean then that everything is “allowed?” Whichever is the case, Sartre hints that existentialism is committed to a certain ethical view—namely, that of humanism. However, it is not clear how existentialism can be reconciled with any ethical view. According to Sartre, there are no objective and universal values. The freedom we have is also the freedom to personally determine values for life. Indeed, according to Sartre’s view, when we choose our personal self-identity we also choose the values of


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life that will guide us. Any attempt to lay a foundation for universal values of objective validity is an attempt to determine the meaning of life in some transcendental and universal fashion, according to which our personal selfidentity should be fashioned. But in his view all this is just a form of self-delusion. There are no universal, transcendental and objective values that determine the meaning of life. We are thus free to attribute different meanings to life, since it arises from the fictional personal self-identity that each of us adopts or invents. It is therefore unclear how Sartre can associate his existentialist view with any ethical view. Sartre’s lecture was accorded with criticism. It seemed a ploy meant to distance existentialism from sanctioning the Fascist ideology that had devastated Europe. Sartre criticized Fascism for being based on the ideological delusion that we have a national character or nature from which arise national values, according to which we ought to shape our personal selfidentities. However, in a similar way it can be said that humanism is the ideological delusion regarding a common human nature from which arise universal values, according to which we ought to shape our personal selfidentities. According to existentialism, once we free ourselves from such deceptions, we can acknowledge our freedom to invent our personal selfidentity as we choose, and with it the values of life that shall guide us. From an existentialist point of view, the validity of any ethical view turns not on the values inherent in it, but on the manner in which it is chosen: whether by acknowledging our inherent freedom or not.

Responsibility and Authenticity To Sartre’s credit, it must be said that he remained uncomfortable with the way in which he tried to link his existentialist worldview with humanistic ethics, and from time to time he tried to deal again with the ethical implications arising from it.1 To lay the foundation for an existentialist ethical worldview anew, he now employed two concepts that in the ensuing philosophical discourse in Europe took on imposing dimensions: responsibility and authenticity. In Sartre’s view, the responsibility for the meaning we attribute to life when choosing our personal self-identity falls squarely on our own shoulders. Since this identity includes in it our values, we are also responsible for the values we choose. He contends that this is also the reason for the 1. Some commentators distinguish between two different ethics in Sartre’s thinking, one that belongs to his existentialist writings, and the other arising from his later writings, in which he expressed a Marxist worldview. See C. Thomas Anderson, Sartre’s Two Ethics: From Authenticity to Integral Humanity.


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constant anxiety that accompanies our lives. The young man who had deliberated whether to go to England to help in the war against Fascism or remain in France to support his aged mother had to decide by himself which was more valuable to him. Just as his dilemma expressed the meaning he gave to the facts underlying his existential situation in context of what was valuable to him, his decision determined which was more valuable and, hence, also more meaningful to him. Whatever his decision, he alone bears the responsibility for it—according to Sartre—just as he bears the responsibility for the way he grasped the world as reflected in the dilemma in which he found himself, and just as he bears the responsibility for any other interpretation he might put to the facts that shape his world. Sartre sometimes formulates this idea in a misleading fashion, saying that we bear the responsibility for (what happens in) the world. I presume that he means that we are responsible for the way we grasp the meaning of events that are enclosed in our life, which constitutes our world. My first remark on this topic is that the talk about taking responsibility for the meaning given to life (or world), just like the talk about taking responsibility for our personal self-identities, replaces the talk about moral duties in the traditional ethical discourse. In the traditional ethical discourse, when we fail to perform our moral duties we become immoral. In Sartre’s existentialist ethics, when we fail to acknowledge our responsibility for our personal self-identity, we are living by “bad faith,” seeking to repudiate our freedom. Whereas in the traditional ethical discourse we are commanded to be moral, in the existentialist ethical discourse we are commanded to be true to our freedom and, through it, to take full responsibility for the moral implications arising from the meaning we attribute to our lives and what they enclose. Thus, now we are not only held responsible for our actions, failures to act, and intentions, but even for how we grasp life and understand what happens in it. This is a conception of responsibility that is much more severe than that which is formulated in traditional ethical discourse. It is important to note that Sartre is not saying that we are responsible only for what is meaningful to us. If the young man who came to Sartre is responsible for his moral dilemma, then other French citizens, who had no dilemma about pursuing their private lives in the midst of the war, are equally responsible for not posing it to themselves. Drivers who fail to heed road signs and cause accidents cannot evade moral responsibility by claiming not to care about such matters, as road accidents are not meaningful to them. We do not place moral responsibility with people solely in the context of what is meaningful to them, but also in regard to what we think should have been meaningful to them. However, this approach seems to assume objective values. Sartre’s conception of responsibility becomes clearer if we note that the idea of being responsible for the meaning assigned to life has


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a modal feature. We cannot be certain that in the future our assessment of the situation will not change, so that what is now not meaningful to us will be judged to be meaningful in the future. Subsequently, we shall recognize our present insensitivity as moral failure on our part. The freedom we have to change our values by choosing different personal self-identities is thus the cause for constant concern over the way in which we evaluate our life situations and the way in which we may come to evaluate them. The claim that we bear responsibility for the meaning we attribute to what is enclosed in our life is conjoined to the claim that we need to take authentic responsibility for what is meaningful to us. If we are truly saddened by hunger in the world, then such human suffering is meaningful to us. As such, we ought to do something to try to change the situation. If we do nothing, merely expressing dissatisfaction with the situation without trying to change it, then we are not taking personal responsibility for what is meaningful to us. Failure to act alienates us from what is meaningful to us. Sartre thinks that what is required is that we maintain an authentic response toward what is meaningful to us, which in this case means doing something to change the situation. A problem with this moralistic stance is that anyone with a modicum of moral sensitivity is saddled with an enormous responsibility, without any indication of what is enough. The fact that there are hungry people in the world saddens me. How much of my life should I invest to help overcome it? Should I give all of my money to the hungry people, or only a large part of it? What is an authentic assumption of moral responsibility, and what is trying to be an authentic saint? To say that the answer depends on each of us leaves us with being condemned to either feeling guilty or being complacent. It can now be seen that the ethics Sartre seeks to develop by means of the concepts of responsibility and authenticity is an ethics aimed at bridging the gap between our sustained values and our pursued actions. For Sartre, this means to invest what is meaningful to us with authentic meaning, which he takes to entail action. As mentioned above, Heidegger used the concept of “authentic disclosure” of meaning to distinguish between a way of understanding the meaning of things through direct action (partaking in a human relationship and experience that enables us to disclose the meaning of things in a personal and unmediated manner as part of our fundamental existential mode of being-in-the-world) and a way of understanding the meaning of things in an abstract, impersonal, and rational way that does not express or disclose our fundamental existential mode of being-in-the-world (a type of understanding that distances us from the fundamental meaning of things). In Sartre’s ethical view, the authentic attribution of meaning to human life in our social world leads to actual political involvement in what happens in it. If hunger in the world’s poorer countries has negative meaning


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for me, then it is incumbent upon me to act so as to transform the bad situation. I must translate my rational dissatisfaction of the situation into action that allows me to authentically express my dissatisfaction. If I merely sit at home, read about the suffering of others in the newspapers, nod my head and click my tongue, then I am not maintaining an authentic attitude toward what is meaningful to me in the situation. The supreme existentialist ethical imperative appears to be a demand that we have an authentic attitude toward whatever is meaningful to us. In this way the concept of authenticity turns into a fundamental concept in the formulation of an ethical worldview regarding the way we ought to give meaning to things. It enables proponents of existentialism to sanction, extol, or denounce our behavior as an appropriate or inappropriate way of lending expression to what is meaningful to us.

Authentic Personal Self-Identity According to Sartre, we also bear full responsibility for our personal selfidentities, from which arise the personal meaning we give to our lives and what happens in them. Therefore, our attitudes toward our personal selfidentities can also be assessed as authentic or inauthentic. In Sartre’s view, our personal self-identity is either chosen or adopted ready made or is invented ex nihilo. Those who invent their personal self-identity are doing so authentically; they are acting like artists who create original works without imitating the works and style of others. The source of this idea is anchored in the Romantic worldview that took hold in Europe in the mid-eighteenth century. There a distinction was drawn between original artists, who are able to create unique works of art that captivate others and influence them, and artists who create only in accordance with principles of style that others have determined for them. The former were held to be geniuses, the latter to be merely talented. Geniuses, asserted Kant, do not follow rules, and they are therefore a law unto themselves.2 He consequently was of the opinion that there are no geniuses in science, where we must be faithful to the laws of reason, which are of a general and universal character. A genius, contended those of a Romantic worldview, creates by expressing his or her unique nature. Although he repudiates Romanticism, in a somewhat analogous fashion Sartre distinguishes between those who invent their personal selfidentities and those who adopt the ready-made—which, in his opinion, comprise the great majority. In his view, most of us are influenced by our surroundings and settle for picking up the leftovers from the cultural table 2. Kant, Critique of Judgment, sections 45-50.


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to create our personal self-identities, through which we attribute meaning to life. His difficulty in this matter is that he does not accept the Romantic slogan “Be true to your own nature!” because in his view human beings do not have a nature, general or singular. According to what, then, can we invent ourselves in an authentic manner? Sartre’s answer to this question is frustrating, to himself and to us, it seems. On one hand, the only authentic inventor of oneself would appear to be someone who discards the entire cultural legacy and social framework and invents a personal self-identity ex nihilo. Sartre’s great interest in people with deviant and unconventional lifestyles, such as criminals, terrorists, and the insane, just like his refusal to play according to the customary bourgeouis rules in his personal life, testifies to his admiration of those who are not influenced by others, the temper of their times, and customary norms. On the other hand, he also acknowledged that the effort is doomed to failure, in that once a personal self-identity emerges, a desire arises in us to validate the meaning given through it to life, justifying it by means of a theory of values or as manifesting our true nature. Sartre judged the desire to rely on one theory of values or another as expressing an attitude toward life that he called, following Nietzsche, “a spirit of seriousness.” A serious attitude entails taking life with the utmost gravity, as if the issues at stake are weighty in their own right, without recognizing that they are merely a function of the personal self-identities we have invented or chosen for ourselves. As opposed to this kind of ponderous and inauthentic attitude toward our freedom, Sartre, in the spirit of Nietzsche, called on us to set ourselves free of this weightiness and adopt a lighter attitude toward life. With this kind of attitude, our anxiety in the face of freedom would be replaced by a desire to amuse ourselves with the meaning we are able to bestow on life, in a way that only freedom makes possible, playing the creative game of inventing multiple identities, through which we are able to attribute different and even contrary meanings to our lives. Such a game acknowledges that our lives are finite and lack any meaning in themselves. Every person’s personal self-identity is in the nature of a stage character, a role one performs. Those of us with an authentic attitude toward our freedom, then, are like actors in the theater of our life. We acknowledge our ability to create different roles for ourselves and play different characters as we choose. An authentic attitude toward life manifests itself in recognition of the fact that the meaning of life is a fiction expressed in the personal self-identity we have invented for ourselves. Those who take life seriously are making a mistake about their personal self-identity and engaging in self-deception. What emerges from this is that the authentic person is an intellectual, someone who can rise above the cultural, social, emotional, and ideological constraints and create his or her own personal self-identity by acknowledging both the freedom and the


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responsibility it entails, but doing so as an amusing intellectual game that requires personal commitment through action.3 All of these philosophical ploys raise severe difficulties. A first difficulty stems from Sartre’s recommendation in regard to an authentic attitude toward life, together with his desire to preserve free ontological living space, in which we would be able to determine the meaning of our life without taking it too seriously through some form of self-deception. First, it is difficult to contrive an attitude toward the meaning of our lives that embodies responsibility and at the same time acknowledge it to be merely an intellectual invention. A deep sense of responsibility toward what happens in our lives casts its long and dark shadow over them. It is unclear how we can maintain the sense of responsibility that we are supposed to take upon ourselves together with a trifling attitude toward our personal self-identities, from which this responsibility arises. By regarding our personal self-identities as an amusing intellectual invention that can always be replaced by another, we are indeed maintaining a free and light attitude toward them, but it is not clear how we can at the same time commit ourselves seriously to what arises from them. I am not saying this is impossible. But I do believe that such a schizophrenic existence requires us to make sport of the very seriousness with which we take things, as if one were to frankly declare one’s love for someone, knowing full well at that moment that tomorrow one might change one’s attitude without warning. Second, the concept of authenticity has a clear meaning when used with regard to works of art or lifestyle. In these contexts, we distinguish between an authentic painting by Rembrandt and one that is an imitation of Rembrandt’s style of painting; between an authentic way of life which springs from a culture with historical roots that embodies a given tradition, such as that still seen in secluded nonmodern societies, and an artificial and eclectic way of life that mixes elements from different cultures, as evidenced by modern urban life. It is harder to understand the use made of the concept of authenticity when talking about personal self-identity, especially when it is divorced from a person’s nature and character. The Romantic worldview made it possible to see a similarity between creating a work of art and creating a personal self-identity. Both were deemed authentic when they managed to express their creators’ singular nature or character. But Sartre dismisses the notion that we have a nature or a character of any kind. In his view, an authentic personal self-identity is one that is invented, knowing that it does not express our singular nature or any transcendental value. Typically 3. On Sartre’s ambivalence toward the life of the intellectual, see Stuart Zane Charmé, Vulgarity and Authenticity: Dimensions of Otherness in the World of Jean-Paul Sartre, and Yotam Lurie, “Vulgarity and Authenticity in Sartre: Review of S. Charmé,” in Canadian Philosophical Reviews, October 1994.


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we invent gadgets, fictional stories, and theoretical stratagems to solve various difficulties in science. Edison’s light bulb manifests his original ways of thinking and exceptional skill at technological invention. But we do not distinguish between authentic and inauthentic inventions, only between inventions and imitations. This is not to say that all inventions are authentic, but that the concept of authenticity does not apply here. Sartre’s idea makes more sense if we remember that in his view life has no meaning until we choose, adopt, or invent a personal self-identity. Thus an authentic personal self-identity is one that is invented by acknowledging this existential predicament. In this way Sartre can be understood as recommending that we regard ourselves as the literary authors of the characters we invent for ourselves through our personal self-identities. An authentic act of inventing a personal self-identity is one that is pursued as the invention of something fictional. According to this idea, like a writer writing stories, we can invent for ourselves fictional personal self-identities, giving through them different meanings to our life. Since they are all merely fictional identities, we need not remain “stuck” with only one. Nor need we delude ourselves that any truly represents us. A writer who is writing a story in this spirit may try to get under the skins of his heroes, imagining their lives and the meaning they attribute to their lives, yet such a writer is also able to remain detached from them, to rise from the desk and go back to his or her life at the end of the day. Sartre’s problem is that he has nowhere to go back to from his desk at the end of the day. In regarding his life as if it were the life of the heroes of his stories, he is able both to experience its unique meaning from out of his heroes’ personal self-identities, as well as to maintain a distance that allows him not to be caught up in anxieties due to what happens and what might happen in it. The difficulty in all this is that he experiences his life as imbued with only fictional, and thus not real, meaning. It seems that this is Sartre’s Problem of Life. Although he may convince the ticket-inspector that there is true meaning to his life, since he grasps his personal self-identity as a fiction he has invented, the meaning that he attributes to his life is experienced as faked. In light of this, his appeal that we ought to take full responsibility for the meaning of life we thus invent for ourselves appears to be an empty slogan that fails to render life truly meaningful to us.


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chapter 23 An Existentialist Conception of Meaning

T H E E X I S T E N T I A L I S T worldview that Sartre put forward provides a comprehensive philosophical grounding for the idea that we can determine in a free and rational manner the meaning of our life and bear the responsibility for it. As such, it provides a radical philosophical expression to the values assigned to freedom and rationality in Western culture in modern times. In this chapter, I want to discuss some of the difficulties involved with the conception of meaning that underlies this view. I shall focus on two issues: the way we are held to bestow meaning on events and experiences in our life that manifest our life situations, and the way we are held to bestow meaning on our lives themselves.

Interpretation of Facts According to Sartre our life situations embody our modes of existence that are meaningful to us. What renders them within our control is the fact that we are rational beings who are free to attribute meaning to events and facts—as we choose. As such, life situations are saturated with the meaning we give to the facts and events of our lives. In light of this, the distinction between facts, on one hand, and the meaning attributed to them, on the other, becomes a central plank in Sartre’s existentialist platform: the facts are given, but we are free to invent their meaning. Some critics of the existentialist worldview, sometimes referred to as “postmodernists,” contend that this distinction between facts and their meaning is not free of flawed 232


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philosophical dogma. To their mind, it is still tainted with what is sometimes referred to as “Positivism,” which assumes that there is factual evidence devoid of interpretation upon which the objective and scientific explanation of the world supposedly relies. According to this criticism, there is no such evidence. Any description of facts has meaning of one kind or another, they assert. There is no factual description unblemished by the attribution of meaning of one kind or another to “facts,” to “the world,” or to “life.” The idea behind this critique can be clarified using an example from the political sphere. How should we “objectively” describe the “fact” of the Jews’ coming to the region that is now called “the state of Israel” during the last three centuries? Should we say that it was “the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland,” “a gathering of exiles in the land of Israel,” “the migration of Jews to Palestine,” or “a colonial ascent of Zionists in Palestine?” The way we describe the facts is already saturated with the meaning given to them. It is therefore unclear where we should draw the line between facts and the meaning we attribute to them. Thus far, it seems that the criticism is justified. However, the critics’ conclusion is less convincing. They contend that to understand the meaning of things is to interpret them, and as regards interpretation the field is always open. Thus we are free to understand the world as we like. It seems to me that Sartre should feel comfortable with this critique. If we are free to determine the facts by means of interpretation, then we are free to determine the meaning of what happens in our lives, including the meaning of our lives in general. In fact, there are similarities between Sartre’s view and that of his critics: both he and they assume that to attribute meaning to things is to interpret them. However, there are difficulties with their shared view regarding meaning as a feature of only interpretation. While we sometimes make use of interpretation to understand the meaning of a text or even to enrich its meaning, interpretation is not the only way in which we come to understand the meaning of things. Furthermore, it often presupposes a way of understanding the meaning of things that is not itself an interpretation. To clarify the idea, let us take an example of which philosophers are fond: the presence of a desk in their study. Presumably, Sartre would say that the desk’s presence in the room is a fact. The attitude and behavior we assume toward this fact—whether we sit at the desk to write, ignore it, sell it, chop it up into firewood, etc.—belongs to the meaning we choose to attribute to the given fact. According to the explanation, the meaning of this fact is a matter of choice and depends only on us. Those who criticize this view claim that to grasp that there is a desk in the room is already to interpret the facts in a certain way. So how then should we regard the fact that there is a desk in our room with regard to interpretation, and how should we regard our noticing that there is a desk in the room with regard to interpretation? To take notice


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of something as a desk is to note that it has meaning as an item of furniture designed to facilitate writing. My noting the fact that there is a desk in my room manifests a conceptual distinction that expresses the meaning given to things in a culture of which I partake. The presence of a desk in my study is not a fact devoid of any meaning, and its meaning to me is the meaning it has in my culture. A monkey who should come into the room and sit on the desk is not able to regard it and respond to it according to its cultural purpose. It might be said that the monkey and I are aware of different facts in my study: I notice there is a desk in the room, while the monkey notices there is an object on which it can climb and sit. In any event, my taking notice of the fact that there is a desk in the room is not the result of any act of contemplation and an effort of interpretation that results in a decision or choice on my part at its end. Nor is it such in the case of the monkey’s responding to the desk merely as an object on which to climb. I decide whether or not to sit at the desk; I do not decide whether or not to take notice of it as a desk. Even if I should try to discard my cultural trappings, chop up the desk into firewood, or sit on it, I am unable to shed the culturally meaningful way in which I grasp it. Sartre is wrong to think that a sharp line can be drawn between facts and the meaning attributed to them, but his postmodernist critics are equally mistaken in thinking that the meaning of things is grasped only through interpretation. We are free to interpret (the meaning of) things in any way we see fit. This does not mean that we are dealing with interpretation whenever we understand the meaning of things. The concept of interpretation should be reserved for use where it naturally belongs, in the context of an intellectual attempt to reveal the meaning of things or to give meaning to things. In order to establish the freedom we have to determine the meaning of our lives, Sartre dismisses the influence upon us of natural factors and gives extreme sanction to our intellectual ability to invent the meaning of things in any way we like. However, although we are creatures endowed with intellect, we are also creatures endowed with will, sense perception, feeling, emotion, and imagination, all of which embody the way in which we experience the meaning of things without recourse to any interpretation. We hear music and cars, see desks and flowers, smell coffee and perfume, feel pain and pleasure, are glad and angry. To experience the meaning of things in such meaningful ways is to grasp their meaning without any interpretation. Sartre would like to grant the power of intellect over the way we experience the meaning of our lives and what they enclose, but this aim should not lead us to accepting the misleading philosophical view that to experience the meaning of things is always to interpret them. Indeed, sometimes we can change our attitude toward certain things by appropriate thought and action,


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enhancing or changing their meaning for us. But sometimes, despite how much we try to do so, we do not succeed.

The Role of Personal Self-Identity in Experiencing the Meaning of Things A central feature in Sartre’s conception of meaning is the role given to a personal self-identity in rendering our lives and the facts enclosed in them as meaningful to us. The question he seeks to answer here can be put by asking, for example, “What makes waiting-on-tables a meaningful way of life to waiters: is it the meaning they put on their profession, or the meaning they experience in waiting on someone?” Sartre’s view is that the meaning waiters experience from their profession depends on their personal self-identity. If they conceive of themselves as waiters, then they will find their profession and what it encloses meaningful to them. But as Kafka has demonstrated in his story “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor Samas’s problem is that the personal identity forced on him is not meaningful to him. Sartre’s view vacillates between two alternatives open to someone in such a bind. One is artistic, which will have him invent a new personal self-identity that will give new meaning to his life without changing it. Another is revolutionary, which will have him pursue a new life for himself, and in this way adopt also a new personal self-identity that can render his life meaningful to him. In the movement between these two alternatives to giving personal meaning to our lives, Sartre sometimes depicts the way in which we can attribute personal meaning to our lives as artists, choosing or inventing our personal self-identities, and sometimes as revolutionaries, investing our beliefs in actions. The difficulty in all this is not merely the difficulty of conjoining thought and action with experience; the difficulty is that we do not stand toward our lives and what happens in them in the same relation as a writer trying to create an imaginary character in a fictitious story or as a revolutionary pursuing a new course of action, nor even in a relationship that combines these two together. When creating a character in a story, we determine what will be meaningful to that character in accordance with our literary objectives, which are personally meaningful to us. When undertaking to pursue a revolutionary course of action, we are guided by our goals, which are personally meaningful to us. Hence, to engage in either of these ways of bestowing meaning on our lives and what they enclose, we must experience what emerges out of them in a personally meaningful way. Sartre has begged the question of how we are enabled to give meaning to our lives and not answered it. My critique of Sartre’s view in this matter comes down to the following claim: sometimes our self-conception determines what is meaningful to us in


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our lives, but sometimes vice versa: we acquire our self-conception in respect to how we experience our lives as meaningful or not. The argument is over the question whether personal self-identity is determined on the basis of what is meaningful to us, or whether it determines what is meaningful to us. Since he wants to control the meaning he attributes to his life, Sartre holds that personal self-identity can be freely invented or substituted by appropriate action. But we are not dealing here with an arbitrary characterization that identifies us, but one that determines how we bestow meaning on our lives. While sometimes we may enhance or change the meaning we get out of life by dwelling on who we are, describing ourselves in some self-satisfying manner or by breaking out of an unsatisfying mold of life and acquiring a new identity, sometimes the opposite is the case. I do not find pleasure in jogging because I characterize myself as “a jogger.” The opposite is the case: I characterize myself as “a jogger” because I practice this sport and find it meaningful. Likewise, I do not love the members of my family because I want to think of myself as “a family man.” I think of myself under that heading because I love the members of family, thereby rendering my family meaningful to me. Nor have I become a jogger and a family man because I wanted to think of myself under these headings. Put in terms familiar from another discourse, it might be said that Sartre wants to fix the meaning of life for us from top down, whereas it often emerges from bottom up: from the way in which we experience what is enclosed in our life. If this way of experiencing the meaning of things is to succumb to self-deception, it has yet to be shown that the intellectual and revolutionary way of inventing a personal self-identity can replace it. The last issue discussed takes us back to the question as to what extent are we able to determine what is meaningful to us in our lives through intellectual invention or revolutionary action aimed to provide us with a new personal self-identity. One way of thinking about the problem involved in revolutionary actions that aim to provide us with a new personal self-identity is to consider what is involved in finding meaning in life by seeking what may be referred to as “another life,” such as emmigrating to a foreign country, learning a new language, changing profession, abandoning family and friends, and establishing others. Clearly a change of this kind is not an intellectual invention conjoined to action; it depends on our ability to assimilate new practices, forge meaningful relations with new acquaintances, etc. Whether this can be accomplished is not a philosophical question, as Sartre would have us believe. It depends on the person and on the circumstances. This means that it is a practical question. What generations of immigrants have learned the hard way is that it is possible to migrate to a foreign country, become settled in it, and find meaning in life in the new culture, but it is more difficult for the old than it is for the young. Human beings are a


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cultural species. To many, the cultural practices acquired early tend to be both ingrained and meaningful. It is difficult for older people to discard their meaningful cultural practices, as it is difficult for them to adopt new ones and to find them meaningful. It might seem that those of us who are reluctant to engage in such revolutionary actions must make do with inventing meaningful self-descriptions about our lives. However, even here we may be restricted. When confronted with the hard lives of many people, the claim that they can always invent a different personal self-identity so as to find meaning in their lives seems completely disconnected from the reality of their lives. Most people are not philosophers, reflecting on their personal self-identities, but people trying to support themselves and their families, some of whom are living in conditions of poverty, war, crime, discrimination, hard labor, disablement, and dependency. Many find the circumstances of their lives oppressive and are unable to break out of them. The assertion that they can invent a different personal self-identity, by telling a new and more meaningful story to themselves about their lives, appears worlds away. This brings me now to the question deferred earlier, regarding the ontological standing of what Sartre refers to as “Self” and which I have termed “personal self-identity.” Sartre believes that our personal self-identities manifest the meaning we attribute to our lives. He also believes that since these self-conceptions are not natural entities, they can be invented, chosen, and replaced, together with the meaning we attribute through them to our lives. Thus underlying this view on how we ascribe personal meaning to life is a philosophical idea about the existence of a personal self-identity that saturates our lives with its particular meaning. It is as though a personal self-identity is a kind of self-image through which we come to experience the meaning of our lives and what they enclose. While it is true that for most us there are features to our lives that are personally meaningful, the idea that we accompany our lives with personally meaningful self-defining descriptions, thereby giving us a “self” or a personal self-identity, is extremely misleading. This is not to say that these concepts are useless. Rather, we must distinguish between their problematic philosophical employment and their nonproblematic use in the everyday stream of life. To redeem the concept of personal self-identity from its misuse in philosophical worldviews, we need to note that talking about a personal self-identity makes sense only in a concrete context of life. Personal self-identity is not in the nature of an image we have of ourselves or a set of meaningful definitions we give to ourselves, which accompanies us in our lives like our shadows as we walk in the sun. The question “What is my personal self-identity?” is concerned with the meaningful way in which I grasp myself, but it can only be answered in some concrete contexts of life. Furthermore, different


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contexts may elicit different answers. For instance, the question whether I grasp myself as an Israeli arises for me in concrete contexts of life: when choosing which passport control queue to stand at upon returning from a trip abroad, or when I must choose between holding Israeli citizenship or some other country’s, or when I wonder whether I am proud or ashamed of what is happening in the State of Israel today, or when I feel that I am threatened due to war in the region because of my national affiliation, etc. I do not have a self-image that accompanies my life and constantly reflects who I am to me, nor a titled-view of my entrenched commitments by which I define myself. I do not deny that there are people who have such titled-views of themselves. As for myself, before I would define myself in this way, I would want to know what I am committing myself to by dint of the definition, and to what extent it is supposed to exhaust me and everything that is meaningful to me in my life. As a rule, I find it difficult to answer such a question in isolation from any specific context of life. This is because when I try to ascertain my personal self-identity irrespective of some context of use that directs my reflection, I find that I am called upon to define my essential, meaningful personal constituents, and I do not know how to do so.

Intellectualizing the Meaning of Our Lives The desire to predicate the meaning of life on our ability to freely invent our personal self-identities expresses a desire to control the meaning of life. Existentialism is a worldview that caters to this desire. It provides us with a sense of power in this connection, in contrast to religious worldviews that predicate the meaning of life on God’s will. When we regard the meaning of our lives and what takes place in them as dependent on the personal selfidentities we are free to invent, we may feel that we are in control of our lives and our life situations. It is not what happens in life that is important, but the way in which its meaning is grasped that is important. And here, in regard to the meaning of our lives, we now are assured of always having the last word, as we are the authors of the meaning of our life and what it encloses. As a rule, it is difficult for us to be in complete control of what happens in life. Concern over the future and the suffering that accompanies life may blight our lives and the meaning we find in them. But if we always have the last word in regard to the meaning of life, despite what is happening and may yet happen, then the control is still in our hands. I have argued that such a view about the meaning of life expresses a humanistic worldview, manifesting in extreme version the value attributed to freedom and rationality for human life. The question that I want to consider now is, What is the cost of applying this idea to our lives? A central difficulty


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I see arises already from Sartre’s image of his life journey as a hidden passenger on the train to Dijon. Although he is in control of the different meanings he invents to his life in the course of his journey, this is only because he regards them as a fiction: the product of an intellectual game that should not be taken too seriously. One repercussion of this attitude toward life is that his personal self-identity is shaken to the extent that his commitment to what is deeply meaningful to him in his life—be it people, values, or art—is dislodged from its moorings. They may now shift and change as he sees fit. The result is that he no longer experiences a deep commitment to what is meaningful to him in his life, which is to say that he no longer experiences deep meaning in what is enclosed in his life. Another repercussion is that he misses the immediate meaning that can be experienced in what happens in life through emotions, feelings, sense perceptions, and physical actions, which put us in immediate contact with our lives and force us to take them on their own terms with the particular meanings experienced in them. One way or the other, by predicating the meaning of his life on his personal self-identity while maintaining a detached, cursory attitude toward it, Sartre dilutes the meaning he experiences out of his life journey. To formulate this claim using a concept of which Sartre himself is fond, it may be said that he finds it difficult to give authentic meaning to his life and what it encloses by means of a fictional personal self-identity that he has invented, even if it is followed by appropriate action. Both difficulties stem from the same matter: the subversion of attitudes toward life and what it encloses that embody emotions, feelings, sense perception, and physical action by adopting a viewpoint that emerges from an intellectual innovation. Sartre would like to be in complete control of the meaning he ascribes to his life, and at the same time to experience life in a meaningful way. But it is unclear how our life and what it encloses can be really meaningful to us if it is to be viewed merely as a medium for inventing fictional personal self-identities. Thus it is unclear how to maintain both a bemused, uncommitted intellectual viewpoint toward the meaning we ascribe to our lives through our invented personal self-identities while at the same time experiencing them as truly meaningful. In light of this difficulty, we can better understand the nature of the anxiety about freedom that Sartre recorded and on which he placed the meaning of all human existence. It turns out that the meaning we attribute to our lives is an illusion that cannot be relied on, for either it is the outcome of alienation from reason and freedom, or it is an invented intellectual fiction that is not truly meaningful to us. Thus the anxiety Sartre recorded embodies his misgiving that despite all his freedom, he is unable to make life truly meaningful to himself. Having dismissed belief in God, values, and natural feelings, Sartre is left to rely only on his intellectual powers of invention,


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through which he invents all sorts of meanings to life, none of which are really meaningful to him. This last remark casts new light on the subjective turn in the question about the meaning of life, for it can now be seen that in claiming that we are free to determine the meaning of our lives, Sartre places each and every one of us in relation to the meaning of his or her life in the place reserved for God in religious tradition. Being “omnipotent” as regards the invention of personal meaning to our lives, our standing is equivalent to that of the omnipotent creator of the world. Christianity taught that salvation could be had while yet alive by experiencing the Grace of God; Sartre seeks to show that we are able to bring about the same results on our own. Instead of having to depend on divine grace for bestowing meaning on life, we can grace our lives with meaning by ourselves. The Problem of Life that emerges out of existentialism is that we are not like God. As told in Genesis, after God created the world, He beheld it and saw that it was good.1 The human predicament is that we may not be satisfied with the meaning we give to our lives. Sartre believes that all this leaves us, in contrast to God, in a problematic attitude toward our lives. It embodies the need we have to provide a meaning to our lives, our knowledge that we have no one to rely upon but ourselves, our apprehension lest we fail in the task, and our awareness that the entire matter is nothing but an invention resting on a baseless fiction or on selfdelusion. Although we have inherited the role of God and are free to determine the meaning of our lives, the freedom we have in this regard is also troubling, as it fails to satisfy us with regard to the meaning of life. Thus, despite the value put on freedom and rationality in existentialism, they are also recognized to be insufficient replacements for what religious faith used to provide, as the intellectual is a poor substitute for God and nature.

1. On the philosophical view embodied in the biblical stories of creation, see Yuval Lurie, Cultural Beings: Reading the Philosophers of Genesis.


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chapter 24 Affirmation through Criticism

LIKE FREUD’S PSYCHOANAL YSIS, which Sartre criticized, and like Marxism, parts of which he adopted, existentialism stirred a great debate. And like these two earlier worldviews, despite the criticism hurled at it by many professional philosophers, many of Sartre’s readers embraced it. Indeed, upon closer scrutiny, it may be seen that even some of Sartre’s severe critics subscribed to his view of the meaning of life, in that human beings determine the meaning of life for themselves in a personal way. To note this point, I want to consider three such criticisms.

Telling a Personal Life-Story The first philosopher I want to mention in this context is Alasdair MacIntyre, who attests to being put off by Sartre’s ontology.1 As it turns out, he also is not thrilled by the idea that we are capable of inventing a personal self-identity, out of which to derive the meaning of our life. Like Sartre, however, he too believes that it is no longer possible in the modern era to predicate the meaning of life on two ideas in which people had found a solution in the past: God’s will, which is above humanity and determines the meaning of our lives; and a teleological ethics, according to which there is a natural purpose to human life, which can be fulfilled by developing esteemed qualities of character, through which we are enabled to achieve happiness. 1. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 204-5.

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All this, he explains, is already behind us, and we cannot go back to it. In the modern era there is therefore a tendency, he claims, to predicate the meaning of life on personal self-identity, as it is manifested by what occupies the major portion of our lives, like a job or profession. MacIntyre contends that attempts to predicate the meaning of our lives on an occupation of some kind—lawyer, manager, etc.—are ridiculous. The meaning they give to life is superficial, while by this means everything that is unique to us in our lives is lost. In doing so we allow jobs and professional roles to shape the meaning of our lives; we ourselves do not determine their meaning. He also disapproves of the uncritical psychological discourse that seeks to predicate the meaning of our lives on a concept of personal self-identity. In his opinion, the way to give meaning to our lives in a personal way is to weave what happens in them into a complete personal story. In line with his nostalgic sentiment for ancient Greek ethics, he suggests that in order to find meaning in life we must go back to the ancient cultural ploy of contemplating our life like a story—the hero of which is its author as well. The meaning of our lives is supposed to come out through the story we tell about ourselves, to ourselves. He contends that the confusion in the lives of modern humans stems from the fact that many contemplate their lives but are unable to understand their meaning. They cannot assemble their lives into a story that makes sense. Therefore, the emphasis should be on trying to turn our lives into a story through which their sense can be discerned. MacIntyre is aware of the difficulty that others might also contemplate our lives like a story, whereas we not only contemplate them but live them as well. Despite this, he thinks we can and should regard our lives in this way, and that such a course can make them meaningful to us. Before I comment on MacIntyre’s proposal, I want to remark that storytelling is a basic, nontheoretical, artistic form of expression, through which we make meaningful sense of what happens. Storytelling is the way in which we transform a series of events into a plot that provides them with a meaningful design, enabling us to grasp their particular meaning through their contribution to the plot. It is a basic discourse through which we give meaning to a series of events, prior to that of providing a comprehensive explanation in the form of a worldview. With this remark in mind, it can be seen that MacIntyre’s proposal expresses his disappointment with all attempts to create a worldview that will allow us to determine the meaning of life in a personal way. A worldview has something of a general aspect. By contrast, someone’s life story allows us to project a unifying, explanatory meaning in a unique and original way on a series of events and actions, without a commitment to any worldview. The ability to find meaning in what happens through a story does not require great knowledge or logical prowess. A story enables us to find narrative logic in what takes place, and in this way to


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discover what gives different events a single meaning. It also enriches and deepens the meaning of the isolated events described in it, as they are illuminated and enlarged by their contribution to the story. When we contemplate the isolated events that make up our lives as episodes in a story, their meaning changes and is enriched; it is as if they now have an added new dimension, of which formerly we were not aware. Treating our lives as a story imparts narrative suspense to them, for—as in any story—it is difficult to know during their course how things are going to turn out in the end. Such an attitude also demands constant literary vigilance, for the work of storytelling ends only when our lives come to an end. MacIntyre’s suggestion on to how to make our lives meaningful may express the way in which he makes his own life meaningful. It is problematic as a universal principle for rendering people’s lives meaningful to them, as it may not satisfy all of us. However, my aim here is not to criticize this suggestion. Rather, it is to note that it aims to achieve the very aims that Sartre sought to achieve through his existentialism: namely, to give us control over the meaning of our lives, and to express what is singular to us in it. Whereas Sartre thought that inventing our personal self-identities can do this, Macintyre thinks that telling ourselves an unfolding story about our life can do so. Thus, despite his criticism of Sartre’s way of achieving these results through his ontology and philosophical view of personal self-identity, he too accepts that the question about the meaning of life has been rendered into a personal question that needs to be answered in a way that aims only to satisfy us in a personal way. He too believes that it should be done by inventing the meaning of our life.

Authoring a Private Text in the Discourse Another philosopher I want to mention in this context is Michel Foucault, who sometimes describes himself not as a philosopher but as a historian. Like Wittgenstein and Heidegger before him, he criticizes the philosophical concept of the “subject,” through which Enlightenment thinkers sought to ascertain the metaphysical nature of human beings. He is also not thrilled by Sartre’s attempt to invent an alternative ontology for the description of human beings. He prefers to describe our human cultural mode of existence by means of the philosophical concept of “discourse.” He then goes on to describe the human soul as a “private text” within the public “discourse,” wondering as to who is the author of all these texts. He views Sartre’s desire to establish an authentic ethics for life as the continuation of the prominent effort in Western culture to suppress the freedom of human beings by subjugating us to values and norms that operate on us from the inside. The


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metaphor Foucault coined to describe the various manifestations of this kind of effort in the West is “technology of the self,” which he describes as a practice designed to bring about self-supervision, self-torment, and selfimposition. The goal of such a practice, he claims, is to transform us into beings endowed with attitudes and ways of life in accordance with external norms and values.2 Two distinctive examples of such technologies, in Foucault’s view, are the Roman Catholic confessional and psychoanalytic treatment. Instead of partaking in Sartre’s concept of authenticity, he would have us free ourselves of such coercive devices, which are inherent to the culture even when they take the form of “technologies of the self,” so that we will be able to create ourselves without any imposition. He proposes an ethics of self-creation, toward the fulfillment of which we must free ourselves of the oppressive devices of culture that operate upon us, enabling us to become what he sometimes describes as the independent and original authors of our lives and private texts.3 I mention all this to demonstrate that Foucault, despite his critique of both the ethics and ontology developed and presented by Sartre, is no different from him insofar as he refrains from going back to the question about the meaning of life in general and would rather clear a cultural space for the possibility of determining the meaning of our lives all by ourselves by creating ourselves in a free, independent, and original manner.

The Naturally Self-Created Self The last philosopher I want to mention here is Richard Rorty, who also criticizes Sartre’s ontology, especially his conception of consciousness as the nothingness that lies coiled at the heart of being. Like MacIntyre before him, he too is discontented with the conception of personal self-identity, incarnate in the idea of a “Self,” which Sartre puts forward and uses to give meaning to life. At the same time, he disagrees with MacIntyre’s proposed method of giving personal meaning to life.4 He does not want to go back to the ancient worldview, in which the meaning of life was manifested through a story, not even a personal story. All this seems to him far removed from us today. In contrast to MacIntyre, Rorty is not horrified that people give meaning to their lives in the framework of their professions or jobs, as long as it is not the sole matter on which they predicate the meaning of their lives. As he grasps the issue, we live in a scientific age, and the way in which people 2. Foucault, “On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress.” 3. Foucault, “An Aesthetics of Existence,” 281-301. 4. Rorty, “Freud and Moral Reflection,” 143-63.


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contemplate their lives has to be integrated with a scientific approach. He therefore prefers Freud’s view regarding the nature of the ego as embodying our personal self-identities. Freud described the ego as constituted out of various systems. This kind of scientific jargon is right up Rorty’s alley. He suggests that we human beings are complex systems that write the programs of our lives for ourselves, often unconsciously. He recommends that we view ourselves as we would a computer program, which we ourselves are writing. When we try to overcome our irrational behavior, we are trying to eliminate all the bugs in the system. At the same time, he also recommends that we view these different systems that make up our ego as embodying different persons, which together shape our personal self-identities even as they struggle among themselves to get their different voices heard. Rorty contends that Freud enabled us to contemplate the life’s project of any human being, his or her ego, as an original, authentic, personally meaningful creation. According to this approach, the meaning of life is manifested in every person’s ego, as an enterprise in which every human being engages both consciously and unconsciously. On the other hand, Rorty himself is sometimes weary that, in our life’s project of self-creation, we might not produce something really original, but merely scrape together items from a huge, inherited cultural menu and assemble them into our ego. Like Sartre, who would rather invent his personal self-identity than choose it from a menu prepared in advance, Rorty is bothered by the fact that the entire creative enterprise of his life might not express anything original that is entirely his. He would like to stand facing his life as someone who has created at least some part of himself in a completely original manner: like a poet coining a new metaphor. At the same time, however, he acknowledges the fact that as someone belonging to a certain culture and era, he is condemned to using the same worn metaphors in order to create himself. As can be seen, although Rorty criticizes Sartre, he too embraces the idea that the meaning of life is manifested in a personal way, through our singular, self-created personalities. His use of Freud and scientific conceptions to advocate this view, as well as his use of Romantic ideas regarding originality, do not alter this fact. He too sees the meaning of life as something we create in a very personal way in the framework of creating our personal selfidentity, although not always in a conscious way. He too sees it as a personal enterprise in which each of us engages, whether we want or not.

Conclusion I have mentioned these philosophical criticisms of Sartre’s existentialism and the views put forward through them regarding the way in which we can


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and should give meaning to life, because despite their rejection of Sartre’s existentialist ontology and their disregard for his ethics, they also subscribe to the fundamental claim that he sought to establish: namely, that we give meaning to our lives and to life in general, and that we do so in a very personal way, rather than gleaning it out of the meaning of human life in general. This is the assumption held by MacIntyre, who recommends that we contemplate our lives like a story that we ourselves are writing; thus assumes Foucault, who would enable us to break free of an oppressive culture in order to create ourselves in a free manner; and so too assumes Rorty, who sees it as a personal project in which we all engage by creating our ego. I want to end this discussion of the answer given to the question about the meaning of life through existentialism and the critics who turn out to support its basic assumption about the meaning of life by returning to one of Kafka’s parables. It seems that in the matter of the question about the meaning of our lives, we stand before a court that we ourselves create and in which we play the roles of defending counsel, prosecutor, judge, and defendant. From this viewpoint, what Sartre has bequeathed to those of us who wonder about the meaning of life are two important insights: first, as regards the meaning of life, we can rely on nobody but ourselves and the meaning that we manage to give to our lives; second, relying only on ourselves in everything concerned with the meaning of life turns out to be reliance on a very rickety support.


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PART I V

LOSS OF

Meaning FROM LIFE


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chapter 25 Camus Tells the Stories of Meursault and Sisyphus

Meursault as the Outsider AT T H E H E I G H T O F W O R L D WA R I I , a novel of small dimensions titled The Outsider (L’Etranger) was published in France. Its author was Albert Camus, a French writer who grew up in the city of Algiers, without a father and with a mother who was an uneducated woman, whom in his last book he described as a deaf-mute. At the time of the book’s publication the author was thirty years old. The novel paid no notice to the war raging in Europe at the time. It was, in its entirety, an imaginary monologue that Camus placed in the mouth of a young Algerian of French origin, like himself, named Meursault. Meursault tells the reader about his life: what happens in it and his reactions and reflections toward what happens in it—from the day he is informed by telegram of his mother’s death. “Mother died today,” declares Camus’s Meursault right at the outset, and then hesitates: “Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure. The telegram from the Home says: Your mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Deep sympathy. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.”1 It turns out that for the past three years Meursault’s mother has been staying at a Home for Aged Persons some distance from Algiers, where Camus’s hero lives and works. He requests two days’ leave from his employer to attend his mother’s

1. Camus, The Outsider, 13. Hereafter cited parenthetically in the text. Stuart Gilbert’s translation was published ini 1946 as The Stranger. I have chosen to use the later (1962) edition of Gilbert’s translation, published under the title The Outsider.

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funeral. The latter is annoyed by his request, so it seems to Meursault, and he apologizes for the inconvenience, saying that it is not his fault. Afterward it occurs to him that he should not have apologized, that it had been up to his employer to express his sympathy. The drive by bus takes a couple of hours. It is hot, and Meursault drowses on the way. When the bus arrives at the village, he walks on foot to the Home, where the Warden receives him. At the start of their conversation, he wants to apologize for placing his mother in the Home and for not visiting her more frequently, but the Warden stops him and expresses understanding. The Warden tells him that his mother had been happy at the Home with people her own age, and he directs him to the mortuary, where he can spend the night beside her body. The porter offers to remove the lid of the coffin, so that Meursault might look upon his mother for a last time, but he rejects the offer. On second thought, it occurs to him that he should not have rejected it. He and the porter begin talking. As night falls, they are joined in the mortuary by several of the Home’s inmates who had known his mother, and all of them sit around her coffin. One of the women constantly weeps. He is told she was a friend of his mother’s. The night slowly goes by. Meursault gazes at the old men and women sitting around him; he tries to ease a pain that has settled in his waist, and he drifts into sleep. Coffee is served in the morning. Meursault drinks, is impressed by its fine quality, steps outside, gazes at the landscape, is impressed by the clarity of the morning, by the awakening of the inhabitants. Then it starts getting hot. A priest arrives and the funeral is held. An old man who has hobbled laboriously behind the coffin faints beside the grave. It is said that he was a special friend of Meursault’s mother. It gets even hotter. The sun is glaring, and Meursault too is in a daze. Finally, he returns home to Algiers in the evening. The next day is a Saturday. Meursault decides to go to the beach. There he meets Marie, whom he has seen and lusted after in his office. They swim together, play, and fondle each other. When they get dressed, she stares at his black tie and asks if he is in mourning. Meursault explains that his mother died the day before. Marie appears to shrink away a little. He would like to explain that it is not his fault but, remembering that he already said so to his employer, checks himself: “somehow one can’t help feeling a bit guilty, I suppose, about things like that,” he reflects. In the evening they go out to see a comic movie, and Marie spends the night with him in his room. The next morning is Sunday, and Marie has gone to visit her aunt. Meursault tells her that he does not like Sundays. He stays all day in his apartment, which used to be his mother’s, smoking cigarettes and looking out at the main street through the apartment window. At the beginning of the week Meursault returns to the office and his daily routine. His employer is pleased with his work and broaches the possibility


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of sending him to work in the company’s Parisian branch. Meursault evinces no interest in the proposal. Since dropping his studies, he explains, in one of the scanty bits of information he provides about his past, he has no ambitions. The habits of his life are fixed and banal. After the day’s work, he customarily dines at a cheap restaurant. On weekends he often goes to the beach. Now Marie too becomes a part of the routine of his life. He continues to meet her and spend time with her. On one occasion she asks him if he loves her. He replies honestly that he supposes he does not, but adds that the question has no meaning and declares his willingness to marry her all the same. In his apartment building, he on occasion meets two of his neighbors and listens to what they tell him about their lives. One of them is a lonely man whose sick dog has gone missing, who bemoans his fate. The other is a brutal pimp who involves Meursault in a crude and humiliating scheme of revenge against a woman whom he defines as “my girl,” who has cheated him, so he claims. Though Meursault does not seem to like the man especially, he assists in the sordid plot and later testifies in the man’s favor before the police. One Saturday, while strolling along the beach in the company of his brutal neighbor, they meet several Arab youths. One of them is the brother of the woman whom Meursault’s neighbor plotted to humiliate. He and Meursault’s neighbor have unfinished business between them, and a fight ensues. The neighbor is wounded in the arm and mouth, stabbed by a knife. Later Meursault takes his neighbor’s revolver, puts it in his pocket, and goes back to the beach by himself. There he sees the woman’s brother, lying on his back. Seeing Meursault approach, the youth straightens up. It is hot; Meursault notes the glaring sun. As he takes another step toward the youth, the latter draws his knife from his pocket. Meursault draws the revolver, shoots and kills the youth, firing several more shots into his inert body. Meursault is arrested and interrogated. He is held in prison for a while, and then a trial is held. The prosecutor describes him as an intelligent and educated man who murdered another man in cold blood and has shown no remorse. He accuses Meursault of hard-heartedness toward his mother for having placed her in an institution and for having, on the day after her death, gone to the beach, watched a comic movie in the evening, and spent the night making love to his girl. The jury pronounces him guilty of murder and the judge sentences him to death. Meursault is now taken to prison to await his execution. As time goes by, he remembers Marie and the beach, thinks about his life, and reflects on his impending demise. The prison chaplain would like to visit him, but Meursault refuses to see him. The chaplain comes to see him in his cell anyway. At their meeting, Meursault loses his temper. He accuses the chaplain of only wanting to extract from him a declaration of belief in God and the everlastingness of the soul. He contends


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that this kind of belief is an illusion fostered by human society to ease the journey of life for people. He himself, however, does not believe in God’s existence and has no need of any such illusion. In his fury, he yells that everyone dies in the end, that there is no real difference between people’s lives, that nothing is of any importance. Death, which awaits us all, is the great equalizer, exposing the absurd nature of all our lives. After the chaplain leaves his cell, a great tranquility descends on Meursault. He feels that his life and his worldview regarding life are in harmony: “For the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe,” he says. “To feel it so like myself, indeed so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still” (120). It occurs to him that he would be willing to live his life again exactly as it was—despite his understanding that life is absurd. “For all to be accomplished,” he reflects at the end, “for me to feel less lonely, all that remained was to hope that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration” (120).

Sisyphus as Hero About a year after the publication of The Outsider, Camus published a philosophical work, The Myth of Sisyphus, in which he formulated and explained his philosophical worldview regarding the absurd nature of life. I am mentioning it here, although I do not intend to focus on it, because Camus ties it together with The Outsider with respect to the central topic I want to discuss in part four of the book: the experience of life as devoid of meaning. At the start of his essay, Camus declares: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”2 He contends that a philosopher is someone who assumes the responsibility for answering, in a personal and authentic manner, the fundamental question of philosophy, which he defines later as “What is the meaning of life?” The essay concludes that life has no meaning. The acknowledgment of its meaninglessness is manifested by what Camus describes as the experience of absurdity—which is reinforced by the (absurd) choice to go on living, despite our awareness of the fact that life is meaningless and therefore absurd. Throughout the essay, Camus takes pains to explain the experience of the absurd in life. His explanation is not always clear, and by means of it he puts forward several different ideas, which hint at the ideas of various writers and philosophers. He says that the experience of absurdity in life stems from our 2. Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, 3.


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awareness of the fact that we are finite beings within an infinite universe; he says that this experience is connected with our metaphysical need for a transcendental justification of our existence, which only belief in God or the worship of values of absolute validity can provide, and with our knowledge that what is required to supply that need does not exist. Someone living under a religious illusion (regarding the existence of God’s will) or under a metaphysical illusion (regarding the existence of objective values) believes that life has meaning and therefore does not grasp and experience life as absurd. A philosopher is someone who has no such illusions and therefore understands that life is absurd. In light of this, such a person must decide whether he or she has any interest in life without ignoring its absurdity. A philosopher who chooses to live must accept life despite being aware that it is meaningless, without being misled by any hopes or religious or metaphysical illusions. He claims that choosing life in this context is an absurd choice, but it manifests a brave decision when acknowledging the absurdity of human life. The essay ends with a chapter in which Camus presents his readers with the type of person whom he considers to represent a “hero of the absurd”— a person who chooses life, despite being aware of its meaninglessness. For this purpose Camus retells the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus, interpreting it in the spirit of his own philosophical ideas about the esteemed traits of character of the hero of the absurd. According to the Greek myth, the gods condemned Sisyphus to roll a heavy boulder up to the top of a mountain. Every time he reached the summit, the boulder would roll back down to the bottom of the slope, and Sisyphus would have to go back down to retrieve it and roll it up to the top again. His punishment was hard labor, devoid of any purpose or hope. Camus mentions a few mythological stories concerning Sisyphus’s sin, for which the gods condemned him to this hard and purposeless labor. In one of them, he is said to have preferred pure water to the grace of the gods. In another, he is said to have refused to return to the world of the dead after tasting of life a second time, and in still a third story, to have imprisoned death itself, until the gods were forced to release it. Camus does not interpret the stories he mentions regarding the reason for Sisyphus’s terrible punishment at the hands of the gods. In the spirit of his essay, it might be said that the first story expresses Sisyphus’s preference for nature (represented by pure water) over the worship of divine beings that have ascendancy over nature, such as the gods, who can grant human beings divine grace while yet they are alive. In the other two stories, Sisyphus reveals himself as a person who manages to vanquish death. Death is the fate that awaits every natural being. Only the gods, who are not natural beings, are endowed with the ability to triumph over death. By imprisoning death and by refusing to return to the world of the dead, Sisyphus is adopting a


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mode of existence such as that of the immortal gods. His sin lies not only in making himself equal to the gods, but in doing so by his own powers alone. His sin can be interpreted as a person’s success in overcoming the fear of death without relying on religious belief in gods. In all three stories, Sisyphus reveals himself as a person who spurns the spiritual support provided by religious belief, which is aimed at easing the burden of life and the anxiety we feel, knowing that as natural beings we are condemned to die. He appears to be someone who has managed to adopt an attitude toward his life such as that of most creatures in nature, who are not terrified by the thought of death which awaits them in the future and therefore require no spiritual support. In doing so, Sisyphus is affirming natural life in itself, rather than the succor of the gods, and placing himself, in his attitude toward death, on an equal footing with the immortal gods, who are not afraid of death. As a result, he sets himself free of the human need to worship gods instead of sufficing with what natural life provides. For preferring natural life and being able to suffice with it without any succor from the gods, Sisyphus is punished by them and condemned to hard labor devoid of any purpose. Work is purposeful activity that lies at the foundation of different ways of life pursued by human beings. Labor is hard and unpleasant work that is not purposeful to those who engage in it. In Camus’s opinion, it would seem, Sisyphus’s punishment lies in the tangible demonstration of the purposelessness of life accorded to him by the gods. Since he refuses to believe in the gods, by adopting a religious worldview and trying to win the grace of the gods, he is punished by the gods, who force him to experience life as something bad by its very essence, as life devoid of purpose—what Camus himself describes, under the influence of modern philosophical discourse, as a life that lacks meaning. The religious lesson to be drawn from the myth, then, is that it is preferable to be misled by religious illusions than to experience life in a completely natural way as devoid of meaning. The conclusion Camus draws from the myth is quite contrary to the religious lesson embedded in it, and he presents it as the basis for a secular, ethical attitude to life that is acknowledged to be devoid of meaning. Camus describes Sisyphus, tormented by the punishment meted out to him by the gods, as if he were a philosopher who knows that life does not have meaning and, therefore, as someone condemned to an absurd existence: a life that is not experienced as meaningful. In response to this predicament, he has Sisyphus accept his fate, as though by choice. He describes him as having chosen to continue rolling the boulder up to the top of the mountain, despite knowing that his activity, which embodies his life itself, has no meaning. The absurd element in his existence, which is life in general, is thus further validated by what Camus describes as Sisyphus’s absurd “choice” of an existence, the absurdity of which he is well aware. In this way, due to his


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refusal to prefer a religious or philosophical illusion that gives meaning to life in general and to his life in particular, and due also to his acceptance of the absurdity of life that has no meaning as though by choice and without any hope, he succeeds in rising above his existential predicament and destiny. By this choice, Sisyphus manifests himself, in Camus’s opinion, as someone whom he calls an “absurd hero”: a person worthy of admiration for having chosen life that has no meaning instead of the other two possibilities—to be misled by illusions, or to renounce life altogether and choose death. “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart,” Camus writes toward the end of his essay. And therefore, he concludes, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”3 In willingly accepting the absurdity in life, and in his ability to find happiness in such a life, Sisyphus becomes conjoined to the hero of Camus’s previous book, Meursault. Both men experience their lives as devoid of any meaning and, therefore, as absurd. Despite this, they both affirm their lives as such and find happiness in them: one through a struggle that has no meaning, the other by his willingness to live his life again, in spite of its absurdity. In The Outsider, as well as in the last chapter of his philosophical essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus demonstrates a remarkable literary ability to breathe potent life into his philosophical ideas about the meaning of life. I want to make use of the literary incarnations of his ideas in order to clarify, by means of them, the way in which we may experience our lives as meaningful to ourselves or not. I want especially to delve into what I call “the phenomenon of the loss of meaning from life,” which Camus associates with what he calls the “absurd” in life and with what he describes as life devoid of meaning, in order to clarify what lies at the basis of our need, ability, and desire to give meaning to our lives and what they enclose, so that we may experience them as meaningful to ourselves. (I will therefore devote little, if any, discussion to Camus’s attempt to develop an ethics for life we experience as meaningless.) For the purpose of this clarification, I will first discuss the responses of three philosophers to Camus’s ideas regarding the meaninglessness of life, to each of which I devote a separate chapter. They help focus attention on several issues that I want to clarify, among them the difference between understanding the meaning of something and finding it personally meaningful, the difference between searching for the meaning of life and searching for meaning in life, as well as what the phenomenon of loss of meaning from life reveals about our ability to breathe meaning into our lives.

3. Ibid., 123.


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chapter 26 Sartre Disputes Camus

The Outsider created a great stir in France’s intellectual community. Over the years the novel was translated into several languages and interest in it grew, extending far beyond France. Although the concept of the absurd was scarcely mentioned in it and was discussed only afterward in Camus’s philosophical treatise, The Myth of Sisyphus, the two books were swiftly linked together in the public eye by means of the concept of the absurd, which in the ensuing years served as a conceptual medium for stories and plays by writers who sought to give artistic expression to the absurd predicament of human existence. One of the first critics to link Camus’s two works together, in a trenchant and insightful critique, was the French writer, playwright, critic, and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.1 Sartre begins his critique by describing Camus’s conception of the absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus and positing The Outsider as an attempt to give literary expression to the experience of the absurd in life: O N I T S P U B L I C AT I O N ,

In The Myth of Sisyphus . . . M. Camus provides us with a precise commentary upon his work. His hero was neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral. These categories do not apply to him. He belongs to a very particular species for which the author reserves the word “absurd.” But in M. Camus’ work this word takes on two very different meanings. The absurd is both a state of fact and the lucid awareness which certain people acquire of this state of fact. The “absurd” man is the man who does not hesitate to draw the inevitable conclusions from a fundamental absurdity. (26-27) 1. Sartre, “Camus’ The Outsider,” 26-44. Hereafter cited parenthetically in the text.

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After linking the two works together as a literary and philosophical conception of the absurd, Sartre clarifies the difference between them by distinguishing between the conception of the absurd in life and the feeling of the absurd in life—what I would call the difference between a worldview regarding the absurd in life and the experience of the absurd in life. The conception (or worldview) arises out of a philosophical-intellectual formulation of the human existential predicament. The feeling (or experience) arises out of immediate contact with existence or reality. “The Myth of Sisyphus might be said to aim at giving us this idea, and The Outsider at giving us the feeling. . . . The Outsider, the first to appear, plunges us without comment into the ‘climate’ of the absurd; the essay then comes and illumines the landscape” (35). According to Sartre’s explanation regarding the connection between the two works, the way in which Meursault in The Outsider experiences his life as devoid of meaning is reinforced by the way in which Camus explains life as absurd in the second work. Sartre contends that an absurd description of life is one that deliberately misses the meaning of things. He clarifies this with an example: “If in describing a rugby match, I write, ‘I saw adults in shorts fighting and throwing themselves on the ground in order to send a leather ball between a pair of wooden posts,’ I have summed up what I have seen, but I have intentionally missed its meaning” (40). Sartre claims that a description, through which the meaning of what happens is lost, is the same as David Hume’s philosophical assertion “that he could find nothing in experience but isolated impressions” (40). Hume argued that experience does not reveal causal factors behind what happens in the world or a self that is at the basis of our personal identity; it reveals only that certain events always follow other events and a flow of impressions. Sartre explains that Camus, in The Outsider, has managed to tangibly express such a view of reality by means of his unique writing style, which empties the experience of reality that he is describing of all meaning. A nineteenth-century writer, he says, would have written, “A bridge spanned the river,” whereas Camus writes, “Over the river was a bridge.” In this way, Sartre claims, Camus “loses the meaning” of what is perceived and describes it in an absurd manner. The description is absurd because it is contrary to the way in which we grasp and experience what happens in our lives in a meaningful way. To reinforce this assertion, Sartre adds a phenomenological disclaimer, contending that “Contemporary philosophy has . . . established the fact that meanings are also part of the immediate data” (40). Despite acknowledging The Outsider as a literary achievement, Sartre believes that Camus is mistaken in his philosophical view and misleading in his literary work for describing life as devoid of meaning, and this for two reasons. First, Sartre contends, it is not true that we experience and grasp reality as devoid of meaning. To use his own example, it may be said that we


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do not grasp a game of rugby as an absurd activity devoid of any meaning. We understand what a game is and what the game of rugby is. We consequently grasp the activity taking place on the field as a rugby game and, as such, as a meaningful and purposeful competitive sporting activity conducted according to rules. Similarly, contrary to Hume’s contention regarding causality, we do grasp what happens in the world as the effect of one cause or another, and not only as events that routinely follow one another. In the same way, we do not merely grasp that there is a bridge over the river. Understanding the purpose of bridges and making use of them, we grasp that the bridge spans the river. Second, Sartre contends that the justification provided by Camus in his philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus for the absurd description of reality in his novel The Outsider does not stand up to the test of criticism. Unlike Kafka, Sartre explains, Camus does not notice even a hint of the transcendence in life. He therefore chooses to describe life in an absurd manner as devoid of any meaning. What is supposed to give transcendent meaning to life is the existence of objective values or God’s will. As Sartre makes clear in his works, these two concepts are cast in the same incoherent mold. Camus knows that the pronouncements of those who idolized these concepts in the past are incoherent. He therefore concludes that life is absurd and describes it as devoid of all meaning. In Sartre’s view, this is not a valid inference. It does not follow from the fact that there is no sense to talking about the existence of objective values or about God’s will that events enclosed in our lives are devoid of any meaning and that our lives are absurd. The meaning of events in our lives, like the meaning of our lives themselves, stems from the way in which we understand them and undertake to engage them. The only thing that stems from the absence of objective values or God’s will is the fact that life is devoid of any transcendent meaning. Since life and the things that happen in it are saturated with the meanings we attribute to them, and since we invest in what happens in life by dint of our understanding and freedom, it is not absurd.

The Meaning of Life and the Meaning of Events in Life I want to focus first on Sartre’s second criticism, according to which it does not follow from the fact that life is devoid of transcendent meaning that life and what it encloses are devoid of any meaning. It seems to me that at least in regard to what is enclosed in life as opposed to life itself, Sartre is certainly correct. Our ability to grasp what happens in our life as having meaning of one kind or another is not dependent on religious faith or belief in moral values. We are able to grasp the meaning of events taking place on the field as constituting a rugby game, the meaning of a stone hurled at a window


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as the cause for shattering the glass, the meaning of a bridge as a structure spanning a river’s banks, and so forth. Furthermore, what we grasp in this way, as having a certain meaning, may also be especially meaningful to us. The game may be meaningful to us because we are fans of one of the teams. The shattering of the window may be meaningful to us because it is the window of our home, and its repair entails trouble and cost. The bridge may be meaningful to us because it enables us to cross the river without difficulty. These are all different ways in which we experience and grasp what happens in our lives in a meaningful way, and they do not rest on religious faith or a belief that life has transcendent meaning. Camus’s contention—that what happens in life has no meaning in the absence of any transcendent meaning to life—is unfounded. Sartre’s criticism is based on the difference between ascribing meaning to our lives themselves and ascribing meaning to what happens in our lives. However, this distinction also undermines Sartre’s claim that life itself, as contrasted with what happens in it, cannot be experienced as having no meaning. According to Sartre’s existentialist worldview, we give personal meaning to our lives and what they enclose by means of the personal selfidentities we adopt or invent that provide us with a “self.” In my reading of Camus, he would not necessarily deny this. However, he might contend that the meaning we give to our lives, through the personal self-identities we have adopted or invented, is not sufficient to make life truly meaningful to us, since it leaves us still longing for the missing transcendent element. Since Sartre too believes that our personal self-identity does not suffice to establish the meaning we attribute to our lives on firm ground, and that therefore a constant anxiety accompanies our lives—what exactly is the disagreement all about? The difference between them is like the difference between two immigrants who have distanced themselves from what formerly was their homeland, settling down in another country. One of them (Sartre) adjusts to his new surroundings and forgets his old ties, but from time to time feels unsatisfied with his new home. The other one (Camus) feels like a refugee despite having settled down in his new surroundings, remembering still the past homeland that he gave up. The discrepancy between the two stems from their different attitudes toward the common secular worldview they have adopted, namely that life does not have a religious-transcendent meaning. Thus, both share a common metaphysical view about the meaning of life. It is that that the meaning of life is derived from a single, centralizing focal point that renders our life meaningful to us. According to Sartre, religious belief is a misleading and inconsistent way of deriving such a focal point to life, as it is derived from our personal self-identities. According to Camus, only belief in a transcendent-religious meaning to life can furnish such a meaningful focal point, as our personal self-identities may not be


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sufficient for rendering our lives meaningful to us. When such a belief becomes no longer accessible, the realization of this existential predicament renders our life no longer meaningful to us. Camus’s Meursault, like Camus himself, does not find, in the meaning that people ascribe to their lives through their personal self-identities, a sufficient replacement for what has been lost. It might be said that Meursault is someone who is free of both the religious and metaphysical illusions regarding the transcendent meaning of life, as well as the existentialist illusion, according to which it is possible to suffice with the meaning that arises out of our personal self-identities. Meursault possesses a personal self-identity that provides him with considerable information about himself. He knows he is a French citizen born in Algiers, whose mother recently passed away at a Home for Aged Persons; that he earns his living at a certain office; that two of the lodgers in his building see him as their friend; that a young woman named Marie is in love with him; that he murdered a man on the beach without sufficient reason, etc. The odd and slightly chilling thing about him is that his personal self-identity contains only information about himself. He has no personal attitude toward this information, and therefore these are not personally meaningful facts of life to him. All this information is therefore not enough to make his life, including his personal self-identity, personally meaningful to him. According to Sartre, personal self-identity is an existential mode that bestows personal meaning on our lives. To the extent that such an identity depends on knowledge we have about ourselves, Meursault has such an identity, but it does not give meaning to his life and does not suffice to make what happens in it meaningful to him. To the extent that personal self-identity depends on making certain facts personally meaningful to us, Meursault has none. But then, by his very existence and will to live, he proves that it is not necessary for human life. Either way, through Meursault’s monologue, Camus has managed to provide a chilling, somewhat uncanny description of life that is experienced by its possessor as meaningless—what Camus refers to as a “life devoid of meaning.” The validity of the experience he described does not depend on the force of the philosophical argument regarding the absurd nature of life, which he provided in The Myth of Sisyphus. Even if we put aside Camus’s philosophical justification for the experience he described in The Outsider, there remains the experience he demonstrated by means of Meursault. Meursault is someone who experiences his life and what happens in it as meaningless to himself and, as emerges from Sartre’s own explanation, as someone who experiences his life in an absurd way. The validity of worldviews may be challenged, as they require justification and support. The validity of experiences such as pleasure, suffering, distress, or happiness, however, is not measured by the justifications offered for them. When we are


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depressed, our spirits are not elevated by friends who make encouraging remarks about how fine life is. A state of depression is not an opinion or a belief regarding life. It manifests an attitude toward life and toward what happens in life that may not rest on any reason and therefore is immune from the need to base it on any justification. It is hard to imagine that Sartre’s contention—that Camus has no good explanation for being unable to find meaning in his life—would change the way in which he experiences it.

Intelligibility and Meaningfulness I want now to go back to Sartre’s first criticism, according to which Camus describes life through the agency of Meursault in an absurd manner, because he describes it as devoid of meaning, whereas we always grasp and experience life and what happens in it as having meaning. It seems to me that here Sartre is misleading his readers in the claims he makes about meaning. To see this point, note first that the concept of meaning is a context dependent concept. Things do not just have meaning, as much as they have a certain kind of meaning. We speak about linguistic meanings of words, practical meanings of artifacts and utensils, social meanings of rituals and conventions, economic meanings of governmental decrees and regulations, scientific meanings of new discoveries, and so forth. We speak of secret, explicit, humorous, serious, sad, and happy meanings, as well as absurd and ridiculous meanings. We also speak of things having a rich and deep meaning, as well as having a personal meaning or being personally meaningful to someone. Second, our use of the concept of meaningfulness, like our use of the concept of significance, often pertains both to the significance, value, or importance of whatever is referred to and its intelligibility. A scientifically meaningful explanation, such as is formulated in some physical theory, is one that is both scientifically intelligible and scientifically important or valuable. A socially meaningful event, such as a wedding or a war, is one that is both socially intelligible and one that affects those who are involved in it in ways that are significant, important, and valuable to them. The distinction between things that have personal meaning to us and things having all kinds of other meanings manifests our attitudes and cares. As such it is of particular importance to this discussion; it clarifies the nature of the somewhat uncanny experience, which Camus conveys to us in The Outsider through Mearsault’s monologue, of a life that is experienced as devoid of meaning. The experience described in the book helps us to note the (conceptual) gap between these two different contexts in which we talk about the meaning of things—a gap that Sartre attempts to cover up in his critique. The success of Camus’s uncanny description rests on his ability to


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depict Meursault as someone who understands the rational, social, practical, and even moral meaning of actions and events that occur in his life, even though they are not grasped or experienced by him in a personally meaningful way. The distinction I am noting in regard to the concept of meaning between experiencing and grasping the meaning of things in some personally meaningful way and understanding the meaning of things in some practical and intellectual way is crucial to any discussion of claims made about the meaning of things, as well as the meaning of our lives themselves. It enables me to suggest that Meursault appears to understand the meaning of what is enclosed and happens in his life, although what is enclosed and happens in his life is not meaningful to him—or does not have personal meaning to him. This is so because his life itself is personally not meaningful to him, due to his realization that it has no religious or metaphysical meaning. But Sartre will not allow this. In his critique, he refuses to acknowledge the possibility of a life that is not experienced by the person possessing it as personally meaningful. He therefore ignores the difference between something having a linguistic, practical, social, economic, and moral meaning, which we understand but do not value or appreciate, and its being personally meaningful to us, which entails that it is appreciated and valued by us. Consequently, he regards the experience of life devoid of personal meaning, which Camus describes by means of Meursault, as an absurd description of life, since it does not accord with the way in which life is always experienced and grasped, in Sartre’s opinion, as having meaning of one kind or another. But even if true, it does not follow that it is also experienced as personally meaningful. Camus’s Meursault is the literary embodiment of the possibility of human existence in which life and what happens in it are not experienced in a personally meaningful way. Meursault, one might say, is beyond the fringe of human existence, which Sartre assumes and substantiates in his philosophical writings and out of which his literary heroes operate. Meursault represents someone to whom what happens in his life is not personally meaningful, even though he may understand its social, political, and moral meanings. He therefore does not care about it. Furthermore, he has no aspiration that the things that take place in his life should become personally meaningful to him. As opposed to someone who is depressed, Meursault is beyond the human hopes that accompany the suffering from depressive states. He does not aspire to any change in his beliefs and understanding that will allow him to experience his life as personally meaningful. He prefers the lucid contemplation of life, without the illusions that everyone else applies to it. The tranquility with which he experiences his life is also tranquility in regard to what happens in his life. There is a correspondence between the way in which Meursault does not experience his life itself as personally meaningful to him, and the way in which what happens in it is also


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not experienced as personally meaningful to him. Camus’s ability to tangibly convey to us this kind of experience of life is manifested by the slightly chilling and uncanny experience we have upon reading it.

An Uncanny Experience of Life One way to obscure or conceal the meaning of things is to describe them in distorted fashion. A ridiculous description of an activity such as a game is one that does not express the way in which games are grasped and experienced by those who find games personally meaningful. The meaning of a game as a competitive activity conducted according to rules, an activity that has sporting value for those who participate in it and for those who watch it, cannot be extrapolated from a description of the game as the rushing about of men in shorts, pushing each other and falling on the grass. To describe the meaning of this activity as a game, we must use concepts that describe meaningful activity as a game, as opposed to meaningless rushing about and falling on the grass. We have to talk about a sporting competition, winners and losers, and how the game is won or lost. We have to talk about it using the concepts according to which it is conducted and through which the players who participate in it and the spectators who watch it take an interest in what is happening. Otherwise, the game would indeed be described in an absurd and ridiculous fashion. The easiest way to ridicule something that is meaningful to someone else is to describe it in terms depicting it in a ridiculous way, which is foreign to the way in which that person experiences it as personally meaningful. But there is nothing ridiculous about Camus’s description of Meursault’s life. It is somewhat uncanny since it records a human life upon which, it seems, a magical spell has been cast, whereupon that life is experienced as being devoid of personal meaning, something that Camus calls “absurd.” The description of what happens in Meursault’s life corresponds to the uncanny way in which he experiences it. The description attests that Meursault understands the meaning of what is going on and that, unlike Sartre, he has no intention of presenting it as if it were ridiculous. We, the readers, grasp the description as an expression of a somewhat uncanny experience, as though a spell had been cast over the speaker, since it manifests the discrepancy in Meursault’s life between what he understands and what is personally meaningful to him. Our understanding of everything that happens in his life is not based on any deep interpretation we put to what he tells us and describes; it is based entirely on what Meursault himself tells us and understands. The description of the events that occur in his life does not resemble the distorted description of a rugby game by someone who does not understand


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what it is, or by someone who deliberately wants to depict it in a ridiculous manner. Even the description, devoid of feeling, of the way in which Meursault experiences his mother’s funeral or his killing of the youth on the beach manifest an understanding of the meaning of what is going on that is no different than our own. The somewhat uncanny experience conveyed by the description of these events stems from the absence of any attitude on Meursault’s part toward what he understands. In fables and fairy tales, we are sometimes told about evil magicians who can cast a spell on people that freezes them on the spot and turns them into living statues. In Meursault’s case, the spell works the other way around: what is frozen is his ability to experience life in a personally meaningful way, whereas he is still able to understand the meaning of the events that it encloses. To live without experiencing life and what happens in it as personally meaningful is akin to falling under a spell that renders our experience of life into something uncanny. The uncanny manner in which Meursault experiences his life is manifested in two ways that seem to complement each other: first, in that he does not experience the meaning of the events that occur in his life in an immediate fashion, but only grasps it after having interpreted the events to himself by means of his intellect and thus ascertained their meaning in society—which is their meaning to others; second, in that he experiences his life as devoid of personal meaning to himself—as though it does not concern him. To go back to Sartre’s example of the rugby game, Camus describes Meursault like someone who is watching a rugby game knowing it is a game and with an understanding of its rules and purpose, but without caring about it. The uncanny and slightly chilling aspect of the matter is that this does not concern a rugby game, in which many of us may not find any interest; it concerns the way Meursault experiences his life and what happens in it. It concerns what is supposed to be the very heart of the matter for every one of us; only in this case the concerned party is not concerned by it. The uncanny aspect of Camus’s story, then, is the way Meursault understands the meaning of what is happening in his life, although it, as well as his life itself, is not personally meaningful to him. Had he not understood it, there would be nothing uncanny about it to us. He would have been no different in his attitude toward the events of his life than the mentally retarded who may not take interest in government policy that affects their life, because they do not understand it. He would have been no different than an anthropologist who happens to visit an alien culture and describes its rituals in an absurd fashion. However, Meursault is neither mentally retarded nor does he possess an alien form of life. He is one of us, possessing a human form of life. At the same time, however, he grasps the behavior of his fellow human beings as if it were the rituals of an alien culture. He then uses his


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intellect to interpret the meaning of their behavior, so that he might understand it and know how to act in response to it. As regards his capacity for intellectual understanding, he is no different than most of us. The difference between him and most of us lies in his not being able to grasp in immediate fashion what most of us experience immediately. Thus he first apologizes for the need to miss work due to his mother’s funeral, but when he thinks about it again he realizes that he need not have apologized: the personal meaning attributed to one’s mother, which is deemed a duty demanded of all in society, obligates him to attend her funeral and miss work, just as it obligates his employer to grant him leave and express his condolences. His intellectual understanding is no different than that of anyone else. So too in regard to other matters. He can distinguish between love for a woman and lusting after her, and he does not confuse the two. He understands that his neighbor is planning revenge against a certain woman. He knows he has murdered another human being and can expect to be executed. Does he realize his neighbor’s revenge is cruel, that murder is immoral? Perhaps he does not. Perhaps he knows that they are so considered in society, but he does not experience their meaning as such in any personally meaningful way. Thus he differs from other people in that he does not experience what he understands in a way that makes it personally meaningful to him. As a result he also experiences his life in general as meaningless. The (conceptual) gap between understanding the meaning of things in an intellectual manner and experiencing them thus as personally meaningful enables us to distinguish between someone who is fascinated by a story and someone who understands it but finds it boring; between a traveler who is moved by the landscape and one who gazes upon it indifferently; between someone to whom food is tasty or repugnant and someone who eats without paying any attention to the taste, and so forth. To be thrilled, enthusiastic, curious, moved, concerned, sad, remorseful, ashamed, just as to have expectations, intentions, hopes, dreams, longings, etc.—these are all different ways in which we render things meaningful in a personal way. These meaningful experiences manifest an immediate, personal way of grasping the meaning of things. They enable us not only to intellectually understand the meaning of what is happening but to experience it meaningfully as well. Camus’s Meursault represents someone who is like everyone else insofar as his ability to understand things in an intellectual fashion is concerned. He differs from everyone else in that he does not experience the meaning of what he understands in such a manner as personally meaningful. There is something absurd about the behavior of someone who chooses to watch rugby games, although they are not meaningful to him. There is something both uncanny and absurd about someone whose life is not meaningful to him, but who chooses to live his life the same way again anyway.


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chapter 27 Hare Disputes Camus

who felt a need to respond to Camus’s The Outsider was R. M. Hare, an analytic philosopher who lectured and wrote on the philosophy of morals at Oxford University in England during the second half of the twentieth century.1 As an explanation for his philosophical response to Camus’s novel, Hare cited an unusual incident that he had witnessed concerning a Swiss youth who lived for a time at his home in Oxford. In his home, Hare relates, there were only a few books in French, one of them being The Outsider. The youth picked up the book, read it with marked disturbance, and disappeared on the day he finished reading it. All evening long, Hare and his wife waited for the youth with growing concern. He finally returned home late at night. It turned out that he had been wandering beside the river, sunk in troubled thought under the book’s influence. Hare and his wife questioned him about what he had found so troubling about the book. He told them it was Meursault’s declaration, while awaiting execution, that “Nothing, nothing had the least importance,” which Hare renders into the expression, “Nothing matters.” The youth had become convinced that this was true, and he was profoundly disturbed by it. Hare comments that he never, in all his years in Oxford University, saw a student affected in such a powerful way—presumably by ideas contained in a book. Since his expertise lay in the field of the philosophy of morals, he thought it only proper to question the youth further. Since he believed that moral philosophy is primarily the study of the concepts and language that we use when

ANOTHER PHILOSOPHER

1. Hare, “Nothing Matters.”

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we deal with moral questions, Hare began his discussion by inquiring about the meaning of the word “matters” and what it is to be important, striving in this way to help the youth out of his misery. Like Sartre in his response to Camus’s assertions concerning the lack of meaning in life, Hare thought that Camus did not provide sufficient justification for the declaration he put in the mouth of his novel’s hero. He thought that the powerful impression it made on the youth and the despondent state into which he fell as a result stemmed from philosophical naïveté, which he now set about rectifying as a teacher of philosophy. Hare made it clear to the boy that when we say something is important, we are expressing our concern in it. Meursault’s assertion that “nothing had the least importance” merely expressed the fact that nothing was important to him. Importance, like mattering, Hare explained, does not lie in things themselves, but in our concerns toward them: in how they are important and how they matter to us. It follows that the assertion that nothing has the least importance should not strike terror in our hearts; it is only frightening from a stance of philosophical naïveté. Camus, Hare explained to the youth, had merely revealed to his naive reader the fact that nothing matters on its own, which is to say that nothing is important in itself. But it is unclear how anything could matter on its own or be important in itself. Furthermore, from a psychological consideration, Hare continued his explanation, many things matter and are important to human beings, so that many things concern us. It is incorrect to say that nothing matters to us or that nothing has the least importance to us. In light of this remark, he next turned to discussing values and what he called “their sources.” Hare explained to the youth that our values stem from two sources. One source is our wants, which determine what is important to us. A second source is what others tell us we should want, so that it should become important to us. Like Sartre before him, Hare associated Camus’s view with nihilism. “Nihilism” is the name of a metaphysical conception that contends there is no objective validity to the moral values people uphold. It suggests that the concept of value denotes an objective good, but there is no such thing. Hence, there are no values. Hare explained to the youth that the nihilistic conception of values fails both theoretically and practically. It fails theoretically because values are not supposed to have objective validity. They arise from what concerns us and what we want and value as important. It fails practically because we cannot dismiss the validity of all our values, since we cannot live having dismissed everything of importance to us and everything that matters to us. In order to live, some things must matter to us; we have to want and care about some things. Hare concludes that Camus failed to show that nothing matters even to the hero of his story. He only showed that nothing matters very “deeply” to him.


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Bearing in mind that Mearsault’s remark expresses his experience and grasp of life as devoid of meaning, in Hare’s explanation the meaning of life is rendered into the importance or value attributed to it. Thus the meaning of life and what it encloses is predicated upon the importance attributed to things in life and to life, and the importance attributed to them is predicated upon what matters to us and, thereby, on what we want and value with regard to life and what it encloses. In this chapter I want to examine these relationships as Hare explained them with the aim of noting what is and what is not valid in Camus’s description of the experience of the loss of meaning from life.

The Conceptual Links between Meaning, Importance, and Wanting Hare’s comments shed light on some dim aspects of the question about the meaning of life. They disclose the intricate relationship between several concepts used in talking about the meaning of things, such as between the meaning of things for us and what is important to us, between what is important to us and what we value, between what we value and what we want. His comments on the concept of importance and his critique of the mental confusion sown by Camus to some extent resemble Sartre’s critique, according to which it is impossible to experience life without grasping and attributing a meaning of one kind or another to what happens in it. However, as opposed to Sartre, who writes about the way in which we experience the meaning of things if this was only a form of understanding, Hare explains the way in which we grasp the meaning of things by means of the concepts of importance, wanting, and valuing. He claims that to attribute importance to things is to be concerned about them as mattering to us, which is managed by grasping and experiencing them as desirable or undesirable. In this way the concept of meaning, through which the question about the meaning of life is posed, is first predicated on the concept of importance, and the concept of importance on what matters to us or concerns us, which embodies our wants. Thereupon the connection between the meaning of life and wanting, manifested through our concerns, becomes a conceptual link manifested by the meaning of the words denoting the relevant phenomena. To talk about what concerns us or matters to us or is important to us is to talk about what is personally meaningful to us. This can be noted from the fact that about what is not personally meaningful to us we are apt to say that it is not important to us or that it does not matter to us, and vice versa. Thus, one immediate outcome of Hare’s clarification is that to talk about the meaning of life is to talk about what is personally meaningful about life to someone. For life to have meaning there must be someone to whom life


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is desirable, and therefore personally meaningful. The importance of the concept of wanting to the philosophical discussion of the meaning of life can also be gauged by the way in which Hare associates wanting with life— not just its meaning. This association is supposed to exemplify an empirical connection, rather than a conceptual one. Hare contends that it is impossible (apparently from an empirical point of view) to live without wanting something, and therefore it is impossible to live without valuing certain things as important. One difficulty with Hare’s clarifications is that there is a difference between talking about the meaning of things and talking about their importance, let alone their value. If I am asked what importance I attribute to implementing peace between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East, I tend to say such things as “high importance,” explaining that peace is “very important.” If I am asked what I mean by “peace,” I tend to talk about the end of belligerent conflicts and the growth of civil relationships. I may also talk about the way in which peace will affect the lives of people in the region: how it will be benefit their daily lives, enabling them to prosper and live well. In the first case, that of talking about the importance of peace, I tend to talk about the degree of value that peace has in my eyes; in the second, that of talking about its meaning, I talk about what peace entails and the latent social and economic features that give it value. So, first, talking about the meaning of things does not always reduce to talking about their importance, though this is sometimes the point. Second, to talk about what things mean to us is often to talk about their importance and value for us, which is also to talk about them in the context of what we want. Thus Hare’s placing the concept of importance at the center of the discussion about the meaning of life and what it encloses appears to be philosophically illuminating. It directs us to note that we are not talking only of the social or economic or historical meaning of things but about the way in which we value them, rendering them thereby personally meaningful to us. All the same, the importance of things is not always dependent on what others or we want, value, and find personally meaningful. What is important for sustaining our lives is not always what we value as personally meaningful and important to us, if only because we are not always aware of what is important to sustain our lives. Vitamins and oxygen are important for sustaining human life. Without vitamins our health suffers, and without oxygen we are unable to breathe and are apt to die. Not all human beings know this, nor do all of them appreciate it. But in saying that vitamins and oxygen are important to human life, we do not mean to say that everyone ought to take notice of them and appreciate them; we only mean to say that they are necessary for life. Furthermore, even those among us who have a acquired a smattering of scientific knowledge and are aware of the importance of vitamins


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to our health and of oxygen to the existence of human life would not include vitamins and oxygen in the framework of things that give meaning to our lives. If we were to include everything important to the existence of life in the framework of discussing the meaning of life, we should have to integrate the science of medicine inside it as well. Furthermore, we would not have to ask people what meaning they attribute to their lives or what they value in them. At the most it might be said that there is a conceptual link between what is personally meaningful to us and what matters to us and concerns us. This link exposes the connection between the personal meaning we attribute to things, including our lives, and wanting and valuing. What we want and value, just as what we detest and fear, are things that matter to us and we are not indifferent to them. Does the validity of what is personally meaningful to us, then, depend only on our desires or will? Hare, at least, seems to think so. The logic of this position emerges from the previous example, regarding vitamins. The importance of vitamins for our health does not depend on our wanting them. However, knowing that they are important to health and desirous of being healthy, we may want them. If we were not desirous of health, vitamins would be of no importance to us. Nevertheless, I do not say that vitamins are meaningful to me, certainly not in a personal way. Furthermore, if there were other means available, whereby I could retain my health, I perhaps might not be interested in them. It might seem from the last example that what is personally meaningful to us is what we value for itself, as contrasted with things that we value as a means. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates and his two conferees divide the things we want into three types: things we want for themselves, things we want as a means for obtaining other things we want for themselves, and things we want because they are both a means and an end in themselves. They contend that happiness is desirable in our eyes as an end in itself. Money is desirable in our eyes only as a means. Virtuous qualities of character, justice, and knowledge are desirable as both a means and an end. In accordance with the distinction between what we want as a means and what we want as an end in itself, it might be contended that what is personally meaningful to us is not simply what is important to us and valued as a means, but what is important to us and valued in itself, as an end of which we are desirous. Likewise, there may be things that we detest and dread in themselves, such as pain, boredom, and our own death, evaluating them accordingly as bad in themselves. In light of this ancient distinction, we might now look upon the attempt to contemplate what is personally meaningful to us about our lives and in our lives as an attempt to ascertain which things we want for themselves, as they constitute the “ends of life” for us. However, there are things that are highly meaningful to me, although I am reluctant to classify them as constituting


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the “ends of life” for me. The pleasure I derive from both jogging and reading is highly meaningful to me, but I do not see either of these activities and the pleasures derived from them as “the ends of my life.” To say that the pleasure itself is an end of life is insufficient for clarifying what renders our lives personally meaningful to us. First, because the pleasure gotten from a certain activity such as reading may not suffice for making life itself meaningful. Second, because as Camus has shown through Meaursault, some of us can take pleasure in various activities without finding them very meaningful. In light of these difficulties, it might seem that what is personally meaningful to us is simply something whose importance and value we acknowledge through our wants or fears, by desiring or dreading it. However, not only is it difficult sometimes to note what this claim entails, acknowledgment is not always pertinent for something being personally meaningful to us. The grief felt over the loss of someone that I loved reveals to me how personally meaningful and important that person had been to me before, though I had not been aware to what an extent, and therefore before I failed to acknowledge in thought or action the importance, value, or meaning of that person to me. On the other hand, at times of war I may discover how important or meaningful peace is for me. I may then note that I failed to acknowledge its importance or value previously to me, as I was not concerned about maintaining it. Here I may conclude that previously peace was not very meaningful to me and only now it has become so.

The Sources of Values Hare’s second conceptual comment links the concepts of importance and wanting with the concept of values. This comment also sheds light on some dark compartments of our thinking about the meaning of life. The link between these concepts reveals that philosophical quandaries about the meaning of life and the ontological status of values are pursued in nearby territories. Note that life is not the province of human beings alone. We talk about various living things and attribute life to plants and animals as well. We also attribute will and desire not only to human beings. However, we do not equally attribute to them any conception of values, as this is usually limited to cultural beings such as human beings. To the extent that the meaning of things is dependent on the value placed on them, then to experience the meaning of things demands having a conception of values. It follows that quandaries about the meaning of life are limited to the life of only those beings who have wants that are manifested in a certain conception of values pertaining to things that ought to be desired, as they are valuable. According to Hare’s explanation, most of our values derive from two


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main sources: our wants, which determine what is important to us, and what others tell that we ought to want, which is what is important to them. It is not clear what this comment shows about the concept of value. The sources of a river are the fountains or streams from which it originates, yet we distinguish between them and the river itself. In similar fashion, social institutions, like schools and hospitals, as well as social customs and rituals, like shaking hands on being introduced to someone or raising the national flag on holidays, often have historical sources from which they have evolved. Such geological and historical sources are often causal factors for the emergence of certain phenomena, and so may be the case with regard to values. But then why should we care how values come into being, and why should their origin pertain to their validity? Another way of understanding Hare’s idea regarding the sources of values is in analogy to the way in which we talk about the basic elements of which something is composed, such as the nutritional ingredients that make up our food or the raw materials from which furniture is made. In psychological explanations, we sometimes talk about basic needs, desires, and fears as the sources out of which people’s characters are fashioned, and which are manifested by refined and sophisticated cultural customs. In this way we talk about fear of punishment, adoration of parents, guilt, and shame as basic emotions that underlie respect for the law. According to this way of understanding Hare’s claim, at the ontological source of values lie the things that people want on the basis of their human natures and cultural heritage and education. But once again, it is not clear what sort of bearing this has on the validity of values. It is helpful to note in this connection that the things that we value as important for us and at which our desires are aimed are not equated always with values. Knowing that vitamins are important for my health, I value them. But they are not values, nor do I consider them as such. The family car is important to me and I value it. But it too is not a value. At most, it is an asset that has value—to me, at least. My freedom is important to me, but it too is not a value. Freedom becomes a value only when I regard it in a more abstract and normative way, as a concept denoting something that ought to be desired, as it is good in itself. The difference between “important to me” and “ought to be important to everyone” is not just the difference between talking about myself and talking about others, but also the difference between a statement in a psychological discourse and a statement in an ethical discourse about values. What makes the first statement true is my attitude and desire. What makes the second statement true is the existence of such a value. In order to talk about leading a life that is based on a conception of values, we have to employ a normative discourse, using normative concepts, regarding what ought to be valued. Talking about what


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we and others want, value, and find important is completely different from talking about what we and others ought to value, want, and find important. The former has a psychological connotation, whereas the latter has a normative, ethical connotation. There is no contradiction in criticizing someone for valuing unimportant things that are of no true value. According to Hare, any such talk about “what is important” and of “true value” is simply misleading. It represents the thing that the critic values as though its value is not dependent on the critic, but on the thing itself. However, although this may be so, the value laden normative discourse is not reducible to the psychological one. The wish to clarify the relationship between values and the objects of desire, which is manifested in the difference between a psychological discourse and a normative, ethical discourse, has ancient philosophical roots. Plato noted it when discussing the relationship between “the good” and what is desired. However, already there the conceptual gap between the normative aspect of what is good and the psychological aspect of what is desired precluded identifying between them. Accordingly, the question was posed whether the good is good because it pleases the gods, or it pleases the gods because it is good.2 To suggest the second claim entails that values have an ontological standing irrespective of anyone that wants anything: they are what we ought to want, as they are worthy of wanting. To suggest the first claim is to render values dependent on divine will and concern as setting an ideal standard for what is worthy of desiring and valuing by all human beings. It is not clear to me, therefore, what Hare is trying to say. Does he mean that there are no values, but only wants and concrete things that we want? If so, this seems to be exactly what the nihilists contended. Or does he mean to say that the concept of value grows out of human wants, although it has a normative, ethical validity? But then it is unclear what this clarification adds to our understanding. A grown-up person develops from a child, but this has no bearing on the fact that a grown-up bears criminal responsibility for his or her actions whereas a child does not. In the same way, the emergence of a conception of values from human desires and social influences cannot serve as an excuse for dismissing their ethical standing as signifying what is good in itself, so that we ought to desire it. To consider someone’s social origin as a condition for appointment to public office is to turn his or her social origin into a factor that validates the appointment and to act in a discriminatory manner. To think that the psychological or cultural explanation of the source of our conception of values determines their validity is to discredit it because of its origin. It is also to err in regard to what ought to validate or negate a conception of values. 2. See Plato, “Euthyphro.”


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The inquiry into the validity of values and their standing also bears on the question whether Camus’s Meursault is indeed only a nihilist. Hare thinks he is. He also thinks this is a view that it is impossible to live by. In order to live we have to value certain things. In this exposition, a nihilist is not simply someone who believes there are no values, but someone who does not value anything. Indeed, Meursault appears not to value many social and moral norms. Even when he abides by them—as when he attends his mother’s funeral or offers assistance to his neighbor—we find it difficult to see, in the way he does these things, an expression of any value that he attributes to loving a parent or to friendship. He does what is required, but without attributing importance or value to his actions. Moreover, he does not appear to value people in his life very much. Perhaps Hare would reply that he values the beach and his life, but Camus’s story is aimed at questioning even this claim. The impression is that he is not capable of valuing his life and what it encloses—because, as Hare puts, he does not care very deeply about it, as it is not very important to him. I take it that the empirical question as to whether we can live without caring at all about our life is not the issue; the issue is whether a life that is not deeply meaningful to us is worth living. I also take it that this was precisely the issue that Camus sought to confront by telling the story of Mearsault and how he experiences it.

Our Deep Concerns and the Meaning of Life In light of Hare’s comments on the connection between what is of important value to us and what concerns us and what matters to us deeply, The Outsider can be read as a story about a person who does not value his life and what it encloses very much, as he does not have deep concerns about his life and what it encloses. The result is that he does not experience his life as personally meaningful to him. In a way this is precisely Camus’s point, for Meursault is someone for whom all talk about life being endowed with a religious or metaphysical meaning that endows it with transcendent value is already past him. He is neither enthusiastic about life nor disgusted by it. He simply accepts it, without experiencing much personal meaning by it or in what happens in it. By dint of this attitude toward his life, Meursault differs from most human beings in two respects. First, he does not experience the value or importance of what other human beings experience as personally meaningful to them: their mothers, their sexual partners, their friends, their careers, social norms, and moral imperatives. Second, he wants to go on living, despite experiencing his life as devoid of value and therefore as lacking personal meaning. According to Hare, not only is it impossible to live without wanting to live, but to want to live is to attribute value to life. But


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Meursault declares that he would choose to live his life again, even though there is nothing of any importance in it or about it, so that it has no value for him. To Hare such an assertion is self-contradictory. To Camus it expresses an absurd choice: to live a life devoid of any deep concerns and transcendent values and religious meanings, even if it is thus rendered also devoid of personal meaning. To the extent that this choice is absurd, but understandable, the conceptual link that Hare strove to point out has broken down. Meursault chooses a life that he experiences as devoid of any value to him, and therefore as not meaningful to him. If not, if Camus has merely confused the philosophically naive with this remark, it is difficult to explain why Meursault’s chilling experience of life as devoid of any value, and thus as also lacking any personal meaning, strikes us as an uncanny description, and not as a ludicrous philosophical joke. Mearsault, it seems, approaches life differently from how Hare would have us approach it by way of his remarks on its conceptual and empirical nature. To the extent that life itself has no religious meaning or objective value, he fails to find anything within it very meaningful to himself. Thus his attitude to life is such that he fails to attach deep meaning to what happens within it, unless it itself is first endowed with a transcendent-religious meaning. In this respect Mearsault and Camus’s Sisyphus experience life in the same way but respond to their experience in different ways. The first adjusts to the experience, relinquishing all hope for a change. The second tries to overcome this predicament from within life, by means of a defiant struggle that will give personal meaning to a life that has no transcendentreligious meaning.


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chapter 28 Nagel Disputes Camus

A N O T H E R P H I L O S O P H E R who responded to Camus’s claims with both interest and criticism was Thomas Nagel, who writes and lectures on philosophical matters in the United States. In his writings, Nagel treats both the experience of the absurd and the problem of the meaning of life. Unlike Sartre and Hare, he focuses on the experience of the absurd especially as described in Camus’s philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus rather than in his fictional story The Outsider.1 Again unlike his two predecessors, Nagel supports Camus’s central claim about life being absurd, suggesting that many of us do sometimes feel that our lives, and indeed human life in general, are somewhat of an absurdity. However, he disagrees with Camus regarding his analysis of the sources and components of the experience, as also in regard to the question whether one should try to overcome it, and if so, how. In Nagel’s view, the experience of the absurdity of life does not stem from a comparison between the infinite scope of the universe and our own finite existence; neither does it stem from realizing that there is no transcendent purpose that gives reason to our lives, nor from knowing that death will overtake us in the end. He notes that justifications by way of reasons given for actions emerge within life and end within life. Therefore, our grasp of life as absurd cannot be explained by suggesting that the reasons we have for living are incomplete. Nagel associates the experience of the absurdity of life with the meaning we attribute to our lives, which appears to us absurd when we look upon our lives and what happens in them from an objective point of

1. Nagel, “The Absurd.”

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view. This gap, he explains, between the meaning we attribute to our lives and to what happens in them versus our awareness of their meaninglessness from an objective viewpoint, is what makes us grasp our life and human life in general as something absurd. He explains that the way in which we experience the meaning of our lives gives us an internal view of them, manifesting a subjective, meaningful conception of our lives. The way in which we look upon our lives in an objective manner gives us an external view of them, in which what is meaningful to us in them is lost. Nagel thinks that the discrepancy between these two viewpoints is the source of the experience of absurdity that we feel regarding life. He contends that it is the same experience of discrepancy that emerges when, at an awards ceremony, the honored recipient suddenly loses his trousers, or when someone insists on presenting an argument in favor of a resolution that has already been passed, or when a notorious criminal is made president of a philanthropic foundation, or when we declare our love over the telephone to a recorded announcement. The difference is that in most other cases when we realize that we are in an absurd situation, we will try to change it. Not with regard to the meaning we attribute to our lives. Elsewhere, he clarifies the matter as follows: “In seeing ourselves from outside we find it difficult to take our lives seriously. This loss of conviction, and the attempt to regain it, is the problem of the meaning of life.”2 As Nagel grasps it, the problem is how to overcome the perception of absurdity that accompanies our lives and to convince ourselves of their meaning. The difficulty is that these two viewpoints cannot be reconciled: “To the subjective view, the conditions that determine whether life makes sense are simply given, as part of the package,” he explains: They are determined by the possibilities of good and evil, happiness and unhappiness, achievement and failure, love and isolation that come with being human, and more specifically with being the particular person you are in the particular social and historical setting in which you find yourself. From inside no justification can coherently be sought for trying to live a good and meaningful life by those standards; and if it were needed, it couldn’t be found.3

As I read Nagel, our desire for happiness and a meaningful life is so fundamental and so inseparable from the way in which we live and experience our lives, that it is unclear to us how and on the basis of what in life it could possibly be justified. It resembles neither the desire to visit a sunny vacation resort in the middle of winter, which some of us may have, nor the desire to 2. Nagel, The View from Nowhere, 214; see also Nagel, What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. 3. Ibid., 215.


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marry and raise a family, which many of us have. As regards these kinds of desires, we can ask the person why he or she wants that particular thing and expect to receive a logical reply, like, “It will make me happy!” But as regards the desire to be happy by finding satisfying meaning in life, it is not clear to us how we should reply to the question, “Why do you want these things?” It is therefore difficult for us to imagine someone who wants to live but does not want life to be personally meaningful. However, looked at from the outside, the entire matter seems incomprehensible and absurd. Nagel recognizes the fact that not everyone experiences life as absurd in this way, only those who take notice of the meaning they attribute to their life versus their conception of it from an objective viewpoint. He distinguishes in this respect between the philosophical experience of the absurdity of life and a nonphilosophical experience in which life might also be experienced as absurd. In a nonphilosophical context, our lives may appear absurd to us, he explains, when we realize that we chase after things that do not make us happy, suffer from unjustified disorders and anxieties, try to achieve conflicting desires at the same time, and so forth. Such a critical view of our lives reveals that there is something absurd about the way in which we allow events or our attitude toward them to determine our lives for us. It endows us with a self-consciousness that can help us to consider our attitude toward our lives and what they enclose in a more critical manner. However, such an experience, Nagel explains, has nothing to do with the philosophical experience of the absurdity of life. Those among us who feel that there is something absurd about the way we are living our lives, in the sense of being bothered by things that are not really important to us, are simply gazing upon ourselves sagaciously, but not in a way that has any philosophical implications. In contrast, the philosophical experience of the absurdity of life does not depend on one individual or another’s way of life; it is concerned in the same measure with all ways of life, whether someone experiences happiness in life or not. From an external and objective viewpoint, we are capable of detaching ourselves from the great interest we have in our lives and in their meaning to ourselves. It is then that the meaning we attribute to our lives, and toward which our will to live is directed, is grasped as absurd. Why does it matter at all whether we are successful in life or not, whether we experience love or not? The fact that we will be better off has no meaning from an objective viewpoint. The difference between the critical view of our lives, wherein the way in which we conduct our lives appears absurd to us, and the objective view of our lives, wherein they and our attitude toward them are revealed to be absurd, is that the latter is concerned in equal measure with the lives of all human beings and with all the ways in which they try to give meaning to their lives. From an objective viewpoint, the lives of all human


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beings are revealed to be absurd, regardless of what happens in them and of what people actually do in their lives. From such a viewpoint, no meaningful conception of human life emerges. Nagel’s distinction between the philosophical problem raised by the experience of absurdity in life and the nonphilosophical problem can be formulated in the following way. The nonphilosophical problem is “internal” to our life and part of the way in which we try to derive meaning from it. On the other hand, the philosophical problem lies in the encounter between whatever renders human lives meaningful and how they are perceived from the “outside”: through the objective gaze of someone outside any human context, who finds it hard to understand why we need to find anything meaningful to us in our lives. In the face of such a comprehensive, objective, dismissive external viewpoint, we feel there is something absurd in the subjective meaning we attribute to our lives. Nagel sees an analogy between the philosophical perception of the absurdity of life and other philosophical perceptions, like skepticism, which arise from our ability to transcend in thoughts the ordinary, everyday way in which we experience things. He explains that in viewing ourselves from such a perspective, we become spectators of our own lives. Though we cannot lead our lives from such a perspective, we can from time to time remind ourselves of it. He claims that this explains why the sense of the absurd finds its natural expression in bad arguments, like those put forward by Camus. “Reference to our small size and short lifespan and to the fact that all of mankind will eventually vanish without a trace are metaphors for the backward step which permits us to regard ourselves from without and to find the particular form of our lives curious and slightly surprising.”4 Nagel wonders what would be given up in order to avoid this perspective, and he concludes that it has to do with self-consciousness. The life of a mouse, he explains, is not absurd. This is because it lacks the capacities for self-consciousness in the form of self-transcendence that would enable it to see that it is only a mouse. Given that this perspective is natural to us human beings, he concludes that we cannot consciously avoid it. Having clarified his view of the true sources of the experience of the absurdity of life, Nagel goes on to criticize the solution for dealing with it proposed by Camus, which is to bravely accept the absurd situation, responding to it with defiance and scorn. He sees no point in such a romantic stance. The wounded fighter, whose retreating comrades have left him behind to bravely sustain a last stand against the enemy until he dies, does not give greater meaning to his life in death than it formerly had. The meaning of the courage that he demonstrates and his and his comrades’ valuation of it 4. Nagel, “The Absurd,” 159.


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appear absurd when the entire matter is looked at from an external and detached viewpoint. Nagel considers several alternatives for dealing successfully with the absurdity of life. One of them is to extend the range of what is meaningful to us beyond our lives themselves, for instance by joining a social enterprise that has historic meaning. Another is to adopt a mystical attitude toward life, seeking to dismiss the great meaning we attribute to our lives by finding meaning instead through our immersion in all of existence. To Nagel the first course appears to be an unsatisfactory illusion, since it does not cancel the experience of absurdity. We can look at any historic and social enterprise, just as we can look at our lives, from an external and detached viewpoint that reveals it as absurd. He also disapproves of any attempt to adopt a mystical attitude toward life, but for a different reason. In view of the meaning that he attributes to his life, he does not find in mysticism—which demands the renunciation of everything that is so personally meaningful to him about his life—a satisfactory solution. He is therefore left with the experience of the absurdity of the meaning he attributes to his life, which he is unable to overcome. Nagel wonders whether there is a problem here that he must try to overcome. He suggests that various worldviews regarding the meaning of life are in the nature of efforts to overcome what is grasped as a problem in this context. He admits to being aware of a conflict, but he is not convinced there is an existential problem that has to be overcome, or that it is possible to do so. We are beings who have the ability to look at things from both a subjective and an objective viewpoint, he believes. These viewpoints may be irreconcilable, but that is what we are. In response, Nagel proposes that we adopt an ironic attitude toward our absurd lives.

Objective and Subjective Viewpoints I find Nagel’s analysis of the philosophical experience of the absurdity of life insightful—although, as I intend to show, it is valid only in part. This analysis is based on positing the personal meaning we experience from our life, which he calls “subjective,” alongside a nonpersonal conception of it, which he calls “objective” and which he identifies with scientific and philosophical ways of thinking, noting that the objective conception invalidates the personal meaning we experience from our life. Now this is a very heavyhanded, philosophical notion of objectivity. Ordinarily, we say of people that they are objective in their judgment about a certain economic issue or about the guilt of someone standing trial when they do not allow their personal interests, likes, and dislikes to interfere with their judgment. When philosophers claim that they are able to doubt the existence of material objects and


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other people, we do not usually refer to them as being objective in their judgments about life, but as skeptical philosophers. Of course it may be argued that skeptical philosophers judge the nature of the world in an objective manner, because they overcome their attitudes and experiences, not allowing these to affect their rational judgments. This may also explain why Nagel supposes that science also presents us with an objective conception of life, for its discourse is not led astray by misleading ordinary ways of regarding events in life through the concepts of meaning, purpose, and reason. In Nagel’s clarification of the experience of the absurdity of life, it stems from our noting a discrepancy between a scientific and skeptical conception of life and how we experience life as meaningful to us. Supposedly the experience of the absurdity of life stems from our wanting to hold on to both the personal meaning we attribute to our life and the skeptical and scientific conception of it. If not, if we retain only one, or if we manage to hold on to both without noting the discrepancy between them, we shall not experience the absurdity of life. Now if this is so, the e*ffect should work in both directions. We should experience not only the absurdity of life but also the absurdity of science and skepticism when confronted with the personal meaning we experience from life. Indeed, some philosophers have felt so, staking their phenomenological discourse only on what is personally meaningful to human beings. However, it is clear that Nagel is not among them. He focuses only on one side of the absurd, that of the meaning of life, not on the personally meaningless conjectures of skepticism and science. The reason it seems so is that he takes a skeptical and scientific explanation of life to be true, whereas he takes a conception of life and what it encloses gained by experiencing it as personally meaningful to be false. The problem with this analysis of the philosophical experience of the absurdity of life is that it is not clear how an objective explanation of life can transform our attitudes toward what is personally meaningful to us about our lives. Of course if I am seriously bothered by the thought that something personally meaningful to me is only a form of self-delusion, this might be important to me. I may not be sure about the love of a particular person for me, and I may seek reassurance of it. This might require me to overcome my mistrust of other people, so as to transform my attitude toward that person to one of trust. However, such a requirement is within the range of our ordinary human attitudes to life, which embody the way in which we also experience the meaning of things in life. When philosophers require “objective” reassurance, they try to transcend both these attitudes and the ordinary ways in which we tend to satisfy them in the stream of human life. They wonder how they can be reassured that what they take to be a person who loves them is not in fact a robot, which is incapable of love. They may want proof of God’s existence before they transform their attitude toward life to one of


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religious faith. However, the concept of personal meaningfulness is unlike that of truth, as it embodies our attitudes rather than our opinions. Whatever the status of skepticism with regard to the true nature of reality, not everything that is personally meaningful to me can be validated or invalidated in this way. Our experience of pain or pleasure is personally meaningful to us. If in some scientific theory it is explained as merely the occurrence of some brain process or if in some philosophical theory it is explained that there are no pains or pleasures, this does not change our attitudes toward these experiences. Nor do skeptical arguments change our attitudes toward the material nature of reality that confronts us. Even skeptics who put these arguments forward take care not to bump into walls, demonstrating thereby that these arguments have no effect on their attitudes toward life and the meaningful way in which they experience what is enclosed in it. It would be absurd for me to try to validate my attitude to what I experience as personally meaningful to me through a scientific way of explaining the nature of things or by overcoming skeptical arguments, for the first discourse is not geared for expressing the personal meaning of things, and the second seeks to invalidate it by some supposition that has no practical effect on us. As absurd as this may be, this is precisely Nagel’s problem, for he claims both that the experience of the absurdity of life arises for him from a comparison between what is personally meaningful to him about life and what he is told about life in skeptical arguments and scientific explanations, even though he also confesses that this experience does not pose an existential problem for him. The physicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington once remarked that what science reveals to him about his desk puts him ill-at-ease. According to his everyday perception, the desk is a solid object. According to science, it is merely a collection of particles in motion, separated by empty space between them. Eddington’s intellectual discomfort is understandable, for he was wondering about the true nature of the world. He had no existential problem with desks. In a somewhat similar way, Nagel tells us that he is undisturbed, since he knows in advance that the personal meaning he attributes to his life cannot conform to what he is told about life in science. To expect that it would is to be irrational. Therefore, he has no existential problem about this matter. Indeed, what point is there to being frustrated by the fact that physics and cognitive psychology are not good tools for expressing meaningful experiences? It would be absurd to expect that they should enable us to do so. But if this is the case, where does the experience of the absurdity of life arise from? The entire matter is understandable only if we suppose that for Nagel it is an intellectual experience, one that arises from wanting to justify the meaning he experiences out of his life in the same way that opinions in the guise of “theoretical truths” are justified in science or skeptical claims are justified in philosophy.


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Nagel’s insightful clarification of the philosophical experience of the absurdity of life is based on noting a glaring discrepancy between our ordinary attitudes to our life and what it encloses, and what an intellectual discourse may tell us about the nature of life. Although he distinguishes a philosophical experience of the absurdity of life and an ordinary one, the ordinary experience can help us understand what is manifested in the philosophical experience, particularly when it relates to our inability to understand others and what motivates them in their lives. My neighbor is a stamp-collector, who invests all his money and spare time in his collection. He explains that the collection is very meaningful to him, since he began collecting stamps with his father when he was still a boy. I can understand his sentiment toward the collection on account of the memory of his father, but I still find his huge investment of time and money hard to understand: how can one find so much meaning in stamps, which are only little scraps of paper used to send letters? There seems to me something overblown and irrational about his attitude to his stamp collection. I tend to see it as an obsession, regarding the meaning he attributes to his stamp collection as something absurd. If he were to confess that the stamp collection gives meaning to his entire life, I might regard him as deranged, thinking that he is someone who renders his life meaningful in an absurd fashion. The lack of empathy, which I demonstrate toward what is so meaningful to my neighbor, makes it foreign to me. In doing so I am alienating myself from what is meaningful to my neighbor, refusing to acknowledge the validity of what is meaningful to him as something that is worthy of being so meaningful to him. I am thus imposing my values and my ways of experiencing the meaning of things on what is meaningful to him. The alienation that I demonstrate toward what is personally meaningful to my neighbor about his life reveals the philosophical nature of the socalled “objective” view that Nagel is talking about, which invalidates the personal meaning experienced by anyone from life. By means of the skeptical and scientific viewpoint, he looks upon his own life and what is meaningful therein for him as though it were alien to him, because the entire enterprise of seeking and finding personal meaning in life is absurd. It is as though skepticism and science constituted the highest court of appeal for what is worthy of being meaningful to us. As they fail to endorse what is personally meaningful to anyone, they invalidate anything that anyone might find to be personally meaningful. By giving these views the authority to validate or invalidate the very enterprise of seeking personal meaning from life, we become alienated not only from what is meaningful to us and to others, but from the very attempt by human beings to derive meaning from life. 2 2 2


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Different Experiences of Absurdity Although Nagel disputes Camus’s explanation for the absurdity of life, perception of life as absurd is not a single experience. This can be seen in that Nagel’s analysis of the absurdity of life does not capture the somewhat uncanny experience that Camus described through Meursault’s experience of his life as absurd. Not only does Meursault declare that nothing is of the least importance, he leaves us with the impression that nothing is important to him. If we substitute the term “meaning” for “importance,” then Meursault would appear to be contending not only that life and what it encloses have no objective meaning, but that they have no subjective or personal meaning to him either. Indeed, he does not seem to experience what happens in his life in a way that makes it personally meaningful to him. This is all contrary to the great personal meaning that Nagel experiences from his life. Nagel feels the absurdity of life only when he places the personal meaning he gets out of his life alongside a scientific or philosophical view of it. In this respect Meursault differs not only from Nagel but also from all those around him, who experience their lives as having personal meaning for them. For him, unlike them, the world devoid of personal meaning corresponds to the way in which he experiences his life and what it holds. It is this strange way of experiencing life that turns him into an outsider in his human surroundings, but not an outsider in the world. Meursault contends that the world resembles him, not the other human beings who make up human society and who are in this respect more like Nagel. The absurd manifests itself in Meursault’s life in two ways: first, in that he experiences his life as devoid of personal meaning for himself, whereas it might have been expected that he would experience his life in a personally meaningful way, like most people; second, in that despite the fact that he experiences nothing personally meaningful in his life, he chooses to live the same life again, rather than go astray after religious and philosophical illusions. The difference between Meursault’s perception of the absurdity of life and Nagel’s perception of it can be formulated as follows: Meursault experiences life as absurd, because he expected it to be personally meaningful to him, but he finds that it is not. Nagel asserts that life is absurd, because he experiences his life as meaningful to him, but he gazes upon it from time to time from a skeptical or a scientific perspective that leaves it devoid of any personal meaning. What Meursault experiences, Nagel grasps by adopting a skeptical and scientific conception. Another way of putting it is that Meursault experiences his life according to what Nagel contends arises from an objective gaze upon it, which dismisses its meaning, whereas Nagel experiences his life in the most meaningful way, contrary to what he learns about it through philosophical and scientific conceptions. Therefore, contrary to


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Meursault, who feels there is a perfect correspondence between his philosophical worldview regarding life and the way in which he experiences his life, Nagel feels there is an incompatibility between the personal meaning he attributes to his life and what he experiences in it, and what his rational, philosophical, and scientific conception tells him about the nonpersonal nature of his life. Although he does his best not to call the discrepancy he feels “a problem,” we are left with the impression that he is frustrated by the fact that science is unable to substantiate what is so meaningful to him. He realizes that such a demand is illogical, determining therefore that he has no existential problem in this matter. What he has is only an intellectual problem. His intellectual problem is that he wants to be objective and scientific in his worldview, and at the same time to retain the personal meaning he attributes to his life, irrespective of that view. Either way, the absurd in life is disclosed to Camus’s Meursault in a completely different way than to Nagel. The absurd in his life stems from the fact that he experiences life as devoid of both religious meaning and personal meaning, whereas it might have been expected that his life would be saturated at least with personal meaning, as it is for Nagel and for most everyone else. The source of his experience of absurdity lies in the incompatibility between what was formerly proclaimed by both religion and philosophy, and what he actually found: an incompatibility that also devastates everything that might have been personally meaningful to him in his life. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus presented this loss as an existential problem: as the need, which arises in people who experience life in this way, to decide whether to go on living or to put an end to life. By contrast, Nagel experiences the problem in a philosophical and theoretical manner only, not as an actual loss of personal meaning, but as an incompatibility between the personal meaning he experiences in his life and the fact that it appears to be devoid of meaning from a rational and objective viewpoint. Perhaps this is why he ultimately concludes that it is a negligible problem, not an existential one, for indeed for him it is only such.

Irony Finally, I want to say something about irony. It is unclear whether the ironic attitude toward life, which Nagel recommends, is with reference to the way in which our life is experienced as having meaning to ourselves, or to the way in which it is grasped as devoid of personal meaning from a scientific or skeptical point of view, or to the way in which we are capable of both experiencing our lives in a meaningful way and acquiring a skeptical and scientific view about it. Whichever is the case, Nagel portrays the discrepancy


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to which he points as if it were a function of two contrary worldviews regarding life: the scientific or philosophical and the personal. In actual fact, this is not the case. The scientific and philosophical conception of life is in the nature of an intellectual view, but the way in which I experience my life as meaningful to myself or not is not in the nature of some view I have regarding my life. At most I would say that I have certain views regarding life and my life in particular, which are liable to influence the meaning I experience from my life. So to what exactly are we supposed to develop an ironic attitude: to the fact that certain things in our life along with our life itself remain meaningful to us, despite how life and what is enclosed in it are explained in science, or the fact that we find interest in scientific and skeptical views, despite their irrelevance to the meaning we experience from our life? Irony is a benign, self-depreciating attitude. In being an attitude, rather than an opinion, it is like concern or seriousness, rather than a theory or a conception of things. What is special about it is the double standard it embodies. Contrary to the cynic, who does not value anything in life, an ironical person is capable of valuing life and at the same time regarding this attitude on his or her part with a certain amusement. Our ability to regard our lives in an ironic manner is the ability to take them seriously and at the same time to regard our own seriousness toward them in a slightly amused and nonserious manner: as if there are two different people dwelling in our souls, we ourselves and a neighbor who enjoys poking fun at us and at what is personally meaningful to us. Irony allows us to retain two different attitudes toward life, one serious and one bemused, without any conflict arising between them, mainly because for the most part they are sustained at different times. As Nagel is aware of his need for a meaningful life and his inability to justify this need within scientific and skeptical discourse, he opts for an attitude toward this need that acknowledges its value for him while allowing himself to be amused over his need for it and the meaning he derives from it. It is as if he possesses two different sets of cloths, one suitable only for use at home, another suitable only for going out to formal parties. He notes the discrepancy between them, how neither one is suitable for what the other is used for. He knows that he needs both and is therefore not frustrated. He is only somewhat amused by having such different needs. But Meursault is different. As he does not experience his life in a meaningful way, there is no such discrepancy of meaning in his life, and thus also no amusement or irony. What remains intact despite Nagel’s criticism of Camus is the existential Problem of Life, which is expressed through Meursault’s monologue as a loss of meaning from life. It is philosophically interesting for two reasons. First, because it brings us in contact with a way of experiencing life that reveals to us how flimsy the way in which our lives are experienced as meaningful to


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ourselves really is. Second, because it shows us to what extent we cannot suffice with merely understanding the meaning of things so as to experience both them and our lives as meaningful to us. To overcome the Problem of Life that Camus has described, we need to render our lives and what they enclose personally meaningful to us.


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chapter 29 Meaning Blindness and Alien Life-Forms

for tracking the meaning of life in this part of the book is the chilling, somewhat uncanny experience that Camus conveys through Meursault’s monologue, an experience that I characterized as “a loss of meaning from life.” As I see it, Meursault’s monologue is insightful for a philosophical exploration of the meaning of life not because of what he has to say about life and its meaning as a philosopher, but because of the way in which he experiences his life as devoid of personal meaning to himself. This somewhat uncanny experience can help to focus attention on what in the stream of life we take for granted: the various ways through which we experience our lives and what they enclose as meaningful to us. With this aim in mind, in this chapter I want to distinguish between two different ways of grasping the meaning of things, both of which pertain to how we may wish to attribute meaning to our life.

MY POINT OF REFERENCE

The Meaning of Things from Close at Hand and from Afar The first thing that should be noted in connection with the meaning of things is that we both grasp the meaning of things and give meaning to things, both in many different ways. The distinction between grasping the meaning of things and giving meaning to things, like the distinction between finding meaning in things and making them meaningful to us, or the distinction between contemplating, ascertaining, discovering, disclosing, revealing, and determining the meaning of things, as contrasted with stipulating, 288


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defining, and fixing the meaning of things, let alone with rendering them meaningful to us, rests on many factors, including both on the way we relate to the meaning of things and on how we choose to describe the situation. I am likely to say that I discovered the meaning of home in a personal way after having felt a powerful longing for home while staying abroad. But I could also say that, through the longing for home that I felt abroad, I bestowed personal meaning on the concept of home or rendered my home deeply meaningful to me. The question—whether a given situation should be described as ascertaining, discovering, grasping, and finding the meaning of things or attributing and giving meaning to things as a way of making them meaningful to us may be an interesting one, but it does not stand at the center of the matter I want to clarify here. Whether we are talking about giving meaning to things or grasping their meaning, we can distinguish between two ways of doing so, even though there is no absolute division between the two and there are intermediate shades. These two ways can be described as ascertaining the meaning of things in a personal way, “from close at hand,” as contrasted with ascertaining their meaning in a nonpersonal way, “from afar.” When we learn to dress ourselves as part of our childhood education, for instance, an aspect of the meaning of different articles of clothing is revealed to us close at hand, in a practical and personal manner, through the very action of managing to put them on correctly. When we become shameful of being seen naked, another aspect of the meaning of clothes is revealed to us in a personal, close-at-hand manner through the feelings of shame that engulf us. When we learn to select clothes that both fit and compliment us, as regards size, color, and style, we come to know in a personal, close-at-hand manner another aspect of the meaning of clothes. On the other hand, when through scientific and historic explanations we learn about the impact of technology on the production of clothes, or when we learn through anthropological explanations about the way in which they manifest cultural identity and historical era, we learn about their meaning from afar, in an intellectual, nonpersonal, and general way. In a similar way, food becomes meaningful to us in a very personal way when we are hungry and the problem of how to attain it or what to eat occupies us. It becomes meaningful to us as a scientific object of study when general problems relating to production and sale of food enlist our interest and their solution is explained in economic theories. (Thus Heidegger’s appeal for an authentic disclosure of meaning can be reduced to the banal remark that without rendering things personally meaningful to us, from close at hand, through action, experience, and human relationships, we are apt to distance ourselves from them.) Of course, things are more complicated than such neat dichotomies lead us to believe. Explanations may reveal the meaning of things or give new


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meaning to them in an abstract or a nonabstract manner. Sherlock Holmes explains how the mysterious murder was committed by re-creating the act in a story. The explanatory story gives new meaning to the murder, unraveling the mystery that formerly enshrouded it. Newton’s explanations for the motion of the heavenly bodies are formulated by means of laws that apply to every corporeal body and are formulated in an abstract manner. But they, too, give new meaning to familiar events, just as they dispel what was grasped as a mystery by those who were in need of it: for instance, why does a moving body not continue in a straight line without ever stopping? (Because a force opposite to its direction of motion is exerted upon it.) There are indeed types of meaning that are only revealed to us from afar, as they are embodied in theoretical, abstract explanations. In such cases we need to use our intellect so as to either understand the theoretical meaning of things or to bestow theoretical meaning on things that explain them. We need to do so when we wish to understand the theoretical meaning of physical events as they are explained in modern science, or when we wish to understand the meaning of the mechanical principles at the basis of modern computer technology, or when we wish to understand the meaning of interest rate calculations performed by the bank, or when we wish to understand the meaning of abstract, philosophical explanations of the principles underlying democratic or liberal social regimes. Beings that are unable to follow abstract explanations will not understand the meaning of the ideas that underlie them and through which the meaning of things is revealed. On the other hand, there are things whose meaning we are able to grasp without recourse to explanations, abstract or nonabstract. There are things whose meaning we are able to grasp in immediate fashion through bodily actions we are able to perform, through social practices in which we manage to partake, and through experiences that we have. Feelings of pain, cold, pleasure, hunger, thirst, and satiety are meaningful experiences to us by our very natures. Through these experiences the meaning of things we identify as the causes of these experiences is revealed to us close at hand, in a personal and immediate manner, without any interpretation or explanation. Sensual perceptions are experiences that, as such, embody personal modes of acquaintance with the meaning of things. They enable us to grasp the meaning of things close at hand without any explanation or interpretation. An example of this ability is the way in which most of us are able to perceive the figure below as a drawing of a human face: 0 0 !

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Indeed, most of us tend to see it not just as a drawing of a human face, but also as a smiling human face. Our perception of the drawing as such is not based on any inference or interpretation that we put to the lines and dots of which it is composed;1 it is immediate, forming a central aspect of our experience of it. If someone should wonder how it is drawn, we might explain that it is formed from a circle of dots, inside which lie, in descending order, two zeros, an exclamation mark positioned between them, and an upturned horizontal arc. However, to notice how the drawing is made requires special attention on our part. We have to ignore the meaningful way in which we see the drawing as a smiling face. We have to lose its meaning, as Sartre would have explained, in order to notice the graphic elements, meaningless on their own in this context, of which it is composed and which, taken together, we perceive meaningfully as a drawing of a smiling face. The perception of these graphic elements in this meaningful manner, as a drawing of a smiling face, is not based on any intellectual inference or interpretation that we apply to them. It is immediate. It is an expression of our wide-ranging ability to grasp the meaning of things from close at hand without any interpretation, explanation, or inference. In my case, this immediate perception of the meaning of the graphic elements before me expresses itself in my inclination to smile back at the face they form. Someone who does not see the drawing as a smiling face will not be inclined to smile back at it. Such a person may still know that the drawing is a drawing of a smiling face, although without seeing it as such. Such a person will see the drawing only according to my explanation of the way it was made as a series of graphic marks and infer, following an interpretative intellectual effort, that this is a drawing of a smiling face. Such a person may not be surprised on noticing how it is drawn, may not derive any pleasure from looking at it, may not want to learn how to draw it. Our capacity to grasp the meaning of things in immediate fashion through our experience was investigated by Ludwig Wittgenstein when he devoted himself anew to his philosophical inquiries. To enable us to appreciate this capacity, he imagined human beings who are different from us, as they are unable to experience the meaning of things. He referred to them as “meaning blind.” They would not be able to perceive the difference between a smiling face and a sad face, would not be able to see sadness in other people’s faces, would not perceive other people as living creatures. They would be human beings to whom, therefore, other people have no immediate meaning, as they do for us. It may be surmised that they would not feel any shame before the judgmental gaze of others, would not instinctively hesitate to harm other human beings who stand in their way, would not be repulsed 1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Part II, 195-229.


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from hunting them or from using them for medical experiments and for food, just as we feel no embarrassment at being naked before the gaze of a cat, do not hesitate to harm weeds that grow in the garden, and are capable of hunting wild animals for sport and of using animals as food. If they were to avoid doing so, it would not be because they are repelled or disgusted by it, but because they have arrived at the conclusion, in intellectual fashion, that such activities conflict with our rights, for which reason it is immoral to disregard our interests.

Interpreters of Ordinary Meaning as the Meaning Blind The instructive idea of “meaning blindness” can be used to illuminate other abilities we have. Alongside Wittgenstein’s imaginary persons who do not see a human face in the picture, we can imagine meaning blindness that afflicts other modes of perception. We may even actually meet such people, who are unable to derive meaning from what most of us experience meaningfully in an immediate way: for example, people who lack a “musical ear” and, therefore, do not appreciate music, or people who lack a sense of humor and, therefore, do not appreciate jokes. The example of “meaning blindness” displayed by humorless persons is helpful for noting the complicated relationship between understanding various aspects of meaning and finding them meaningful. Do people lacking a sense of humor actually understand jokes, although jokes do not make them laugh and they are therefore not amused by them, or do they fail to understand their funny meaning, for which reason the jokes are not meaningful to them? Freud wrote a book about jokes and humor, in which he told lots of jokes and also explained why they make us laugh. His superb writing style and keen sense of humor manifest themselves in the jokes he collected and told, the majority of which are indeed funny and amusing. His explanations, on the other hand, are not funny, nor were they meant to be funny. They also do not make the jokes themselves funny. Someone who was not amused and did not laugh at the funny way in which the jokes were told will not laugh or be amused by them, even after Freud’s interesting explanations about what it is in them that is funny for us and makes us laugh. A psychologist may know why a joke makes us laugh, finding it funny, just as we may know what makes a child afraid of the dark without being afraid of the dark ourselves. I once knew a man who did not have a sense of humor. Jokes were wasted on him, slipping over him like water over oil. When someone told him a joke, he would listen to it as though he was listening to a story, without grasping what was funny in it. He understood what was being told, but he was missing the viewpoint from which what was told is experienced in a


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funny way, not merely as a story but as a joke. Or perhaps he did understand what was funny to others in the joke, but what was funny to others was not funny to him. In short, he was not amused by jokes. To be amused by something is to experience it in a funny way. Without the ability to be amused by a joke, let alone to laugh and enjoy our own laughter, what makes it meaningful to us as a joke is lost. Indeed, we sometimes have no time for laughter or do not want to laugh. A joke forces us, in a manner of speaking, to be amused, and we do not always want this. Its power stems from the fact that we are creatures endowed with the ability to grasp things humorously in immediate fashion. If it were a matter that required following an explanation, drawing conclusions, or understanding a sophisticated interpretation, then jokes would not have the power to force us against our will to perceive their funny point of view. While many of us have a sense of humor, we may lack the ability to look upon what is happening in our own lives with a humorous outlook. An old joke tells about a person walking in the street, when someone walks up to him and slaps him in the face. “Are you serious or are you joking?” he asks. “Because this is not the kind of joke I like.” Like that man, who does not experience the action in immediate fashion as either an amusing joke or as a serious act of violence, Camus’s Meursault does not experience what happens in his life in immediate fashion as meaningful to himself in one particular way or another. He merely infers its social, ethical, or even personal meaning in an intellectual manner, by explaining or interpreting it to himself. The ability to experience what happens as amusing, sad, serious, severe, fascinating, ironic, or tragic, is the ability to grasp things meaningfully in immediate fashion without any interpretation. This ability is manifested by the way in which what happens in our lives is likely to excite, amaze, bore, sadden, frighten, or gladden us in immediate fashion, even before we have interpreted it and regardless of the way in which it is explained. To recognize a familiar face in a crowd of strangers, to meet someone we have not met in a while and notice how much he or she has aged, to be thrilled by movie, to be captivated by the desert landscape, to read the daily news in horror, to be repelled by a certain politician’s character—these are all ways in which we grasp the meaning of things and bestow meaning on things in immediate, personal fashion from close at hand, because of the personally meaningful experiences they arouse in us. Accordingly, it might be said that Meursault suffers from extreme “meaning blindness,” which prevents him from experiencing the meaning of things in a personal and immediate fashion. He therefore misses the rich and profound meaning that can be found in what happens in life when it is experienced close at hand, through which life is rendered personally meaningful to us. Instead, he suffices with understanding its meaning through reasoning and intellectual interpretation.


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Extreme “meaning blindness,” such as Meursault’s, which prevents us from experiencing things in a personally meaningful way, can make us apathetic toward what is happening around us. Someone who is color-blind has no interest in the magnificent shades of flowers, which cause those of us who do notice them to appreciate their beauty. It might be said that to such a person flowers are not (personally) meaningful. In the same way, sometimes the meaning of things is revealed to us only when we look at them from an exceptional viewpoint, which transcends the ordinary meaning of things. The damage caused by the rain to the freshly renovated house may be experienced as a mocking twist of fate, the opening bud as the wonders of nature, the change in the unruly child who has become a cultured person as a metamorphosis, the untimely death of a young person as tragedy. In this way, a house of prayer may arouse in us an experience of holiness, yet remorse over an unforgivable act makes it possible to experience it as a sin. All these different ways of experiencing the meaning of things are different ways through which we grasp their special meaning and give them special meaning. They are all functions of what we bring with us to our close and immediate encounter with the world. They are all different ways through which we become acquainted with the meaning of things close at hand and without interpretation or explanation. Through them, we are able to both grasp the meaning of things and make things meaningful in a rich, close-at-hand, tangible, and immediate manner, rendering them, thereby, personally meaningful to us.

Philosophers as Aliens The instructive but somewhat banal examples I am providing here, of the numerous and immediate ways in which we experience the meaning of things and render things personally meaningful to us without recourse to explanation and interpretation, are philosophically necessary. For in the ordinary course of life we tend to take them for granted, whereas in modern philosophical and scientific discourse we tend to forget them, preferring to explain our ability to grasp the meaning of things and render things meaningful as if it were an intellectual activity. To remind ourselves of this multifaceted ability, it helps to imagine intelligent beings who are unable to experience these meaningful, multifaceted aspects of things, as they are only able to ascertain the meaning of things through intellectual interpretation and explanation: always from afar, in a theoretical manner, without anything becoming personally meaningful to them. The ability to find meaning in a story, music, joke, ceremony, prayer, work, repast, game, painting, excursion, sport, landscape, friendship, raising children, etc., in immediate fashion and without any explanation or interpretation enables us to make them meaningful to


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ourselves in a rich and personal way. The ability to love another person, to grieve over those who have died, to appreciate health and physical activity, to suffer from loneliness, to worry about the future, to be afraid of dangers, to hope for better days is integral to our ability to find meaning and give meaning to our lives and what they enclose, just as the desire to achieve happiness and avoid suffering, sorrow, and pain is integral to our ability to render our lives and what they enclose personally meaningful to us. As opposed to intellectual understanding, experience involves us whether we like it or not in what happens in our lives. It forces the particular meaning of things manifested through it on us, whether we want to accept it or not. The drama of the movie grips us, even though we already want to go to bed. The joke makes us laugh, although we are not in the mood for amusement. Fear of heights overcomes us, although we know there is no danger of falling. Loneliness makes us appreciative of human relationships no matter what our view is of human beings. Love for another person transforms our appreciation of that person no matter what our judgment of that person’s nature is. Another way in which our ability to grasp the meaning of things without any intellectual interpretation manifests itself is in bodily actions. Belonging to a certain human culture, most of us are adept at different practices that enable us to make use of such things as clothes, household appliances, machinery, and furniture. We relate to clothes as to articles of apparel, in contrast to rags or bedsheets, and we do so without making use of any interpretation or explanations directed toward helping us grasp their meaning in connection with what others and we do with them. We relate to a hat differently than we would to a shirt or a shoe. We do not try to fit a hat on one of our feet, and if someone does so we might be perplexed by his or her behavior, finding it somewhat funny. A person sitting at a desk to write relates to it differently than an animal looking at it or sitting upon it as if it were a log. Such a person can be said to relate to the chair and the desk as pieces of furniture meant for sitting and writing. It is possible to imagine rational beings that do not look like human beings, who are unable to sit on a chair, or use a desk for writing. In order to relate to chairs as chairs and to desks as desks, they would need to interpret their meaning for us. Their understanding of what these objects mean to us would be a function of intellectual thought and not from their ability to partake in our practices through everyday, bodily action. They would resemble philosophers who contend that meaning is only a product of interpretation and explanation. Indeed, they would not be able to ascertain the meaning of things like ourselves, without making use of one or another interpretative theory. Such intellectual, interpretative beings would be very different from us. If we were to become like them, we would lose our ability to grasp the meaning of the things that embody our lives in a rich, personal, and immediate manner, without any explanation or interpretation.


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One of the important ways in which we both enrich and bring out the meaning of events is to incorporate them in a story. A story is an artistic device that casts a meaningful spell on a sequence of events. By this means a series of events may be given a purposeful artistic structure that ties them together and breathes the dramatic suspense of a plot into them. A story is a basic linguistic tool through which we instill meaning into what happens, in the unique manner of a story. It is a nonintellectual-theoretical way of enriching the meaning of what happens without recourse to explanation or interpretation for this purpose. We are creatures to whom stories are meaningful devices for relating to people, ideas, and events. Just as we are able to grasp, in immediate fashion, that a stone which struck the window caused the glass to shatter, we are capable of understanding the meaning of a chain of events through the unique way in which they unfold through a story—all this in immediate fashion, and without recourse to any interpretation or explanation. In this matter, too, it is possible to imagine intelligent beings who are not enchanted by stories and who therefore have no interest in listening to stories and no capability of telling stories either; beings who want to get to the point right away, without obscuring it with superfluous verbiage. In an important sense, such beings would be different from us, since they grasp the meaning of events in their lives and attribute meaning to them in an intellectual way only. In large measure, Camus’s Meursault exemplifies such a being. His attitude toward what happens in his life is devoid of any narrative aspect. Events simply happen, and actions are simply done. He does not find in them an unfolding of events that shape the story of his life. In the absence of a narrative aspect, events do not grip him, and what happens around him does not captivate his spirit and awaken his interest. Although he understands what is happening, his description reads like a laboratory report, not like someone’s life story. The loss of the storytelling aspect from the unfolding of the events that are enclosed in Meursault’s life is an important part of the loss of meaning from his life, rendering it not meaningful to him. By depicting the experience of a loss of meaning in this way, while preserving the understanding of things in an intellectual manner, Camus lets us see how inadequate intellectual explanation or interpretations of meaning are as a replacement for ways of grasping the meaning of things by experiencing their meaning close at hand, in immediate fashion. Camus’s Meursault is the intellectual philosopher, the indefatigable explainer of life: a person who is unable to experience the rich meaning of things, for which reason they cease to be meaningful to him. The distinction I am re-emphasizing here, between grasping the meaning of things in an intellectual manner and grasping the meaning of things in an immediate-action, experiential manner, underlies my own distinction between grasping the meaning of things “close at hand” and “from afar.”


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These different pairs of metaphors—“inside” and “outside,” “close” and “far”— denote two different ways in which we understand the meaning of things and bestow meaning on things. It manifests a difference in kind between ways of understanding and bestowing meaning on things; one kind that renders them meaningful in a concrete and very personal way, another kind that renders them meaningful in an intellectual and nonpersonal way through some form of explanation or interpretation. Drawing our attention to this distinction is one of Camus’s important philosophical contributions to the philosophical discourse about the meaning of life. Meursault is an intelligent human who understand and knows the meaning of many things for human beings. He knows what mothers, friends, sexual partners, jobs, and friends mean to human beings, and how according to what they mean we are supposed to relate to them and regard them. He knows that he is supposed to take care of his mother, mourn her death, help a friend in his hour of need, aspire for promotion at his workplace, love the girl whose company he enjoys and wed her, refrain from murdering another human being. He knows the ethical meanings of all these things, but because he does not experience their meaning as such, they cease to be personally meaningful to him. Meursault knows and understands the meaning of these things in the same way a sociologist or anthropologist knows and understands the social meaning of certain conventions and events in a strange society that he or she is studying, without experiencing them in a meaningful way. As such, Meursault is a theoretical observer of his own life. He observes the way in which events occur in it as he observes the street from the window of his apartment. To observe and understand the meaning of things from such a perspective is not yet to be moved by the meaning of things. It is as though the interpretive, intellectual stance that he acquires toward what is enclosed in his life precludes his ability to experience both it and what takes place in it in a personally meaningful way.

Human Affiliation in the Pursuit of Meaning One of the things we share as human beings is our ability to grasp the meaning of things and to bestow meaning on things in similar ways both from close at hand and afar. However, the basis for our cultural affiliations and differences lies in our ability to develop common attitudes to things that are personally meaningful to us, so as to both render them meaningful to us in the same way and to endow them with the same meaning. Our ability to fashion common attitudes toward certain social practices, a given geographical location, a particular language, historical stories, modes of aesthetic expression, and moral conceptions, both unites us and separates us into different groups


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of people. As these things become personally meaningful to others and us, they create a cultural bond between us, providing us with a common cultural identity. When our common attitude toward such things breaks down and they cease to be personally meaningful to us, the culture disintegrates. The concept of the “Other,” sometimes also discussed under the heading of “Otherness,” is used in modern philosophical discourse to refer mostly to a cultural being who differs from us in the kinds of things that are meaningful to that person. The “Other” may be a person of a different gender than ourselves, who experiences what is commonly meaningful to us in a somewhat different way. The “Other” may be person of a different culture than ourselves, to whom different values and customs are meaningful. I mention this because it is important to note that Meursault is not an example of the “Other” in this sense. He does not belong to a different culture, and he is not of an exceptional gender, either. He lacks an ability that human beings of whichever gender and in all cultures have, to experience the meaning of things, so that they are rendered personally meaningful to them in some special way or another. Therefore nothing is personally meaningful to him. Meursault is the “alien” who walks among us: an intelligent being who is an outsider to all of humanity, because he is unable to experience what is personally meaningful to most of us. The experience of absurdity, which Camus has thus expressed, involves the loss of an ability to experience the meaning of things while still retaining an intellectual ability to understand their meaning. As such it might be said that Meursault lives his life as if it belongs to someone else—a person in whose life he has no great interest. He therefore declares that nothing is of the least importance, as indeed nothing that he perceives and understands is experienced as personally meaningful. In view of this deficiency, Meursault’s partnership with other human beings is also void. Belonging to the human race, we are creatures who are apt to experience the meaning of things in similar ways and to find typical things meaningful to us: our mothers, our spouses, our work, our friendships, our careers, our life, and our death. Meursault’s alienation lies in not forming personal attitudes toward his life and what it holds that would enable him to experience them in a meaningful way. As someone who represents the ultimate outsider, an alien to humanity, Meursault’s alienation is manifested in three existential dimensions: he is an alien to the culture in which he lives, he is an alien to humanity, and he is an alien to his own life.


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chapter 30 The Soul of Life

journalistic maxim, an incident of a dog biting a person is not news; an incident of a person biting a dog is news. Just as not every incident is of interest to readers and therefore significant to journalists, so too not everything whose meaning we understand is also personally meaningful to us. Many events and facts whose meaning we understand leave us completely cold and indifferent. We know that people in faraway lands get up to work in the morning like ourselves, but there is nothing new or remarkable about it. If a newspaper were to report the fact, it would be providing empirically meaningful information, but not such that it is journalistically meaningful, as there is nothing significant about it. Under normal circumstances we would not have any interest in reading it. Even information that is new to us about the world may not always be sufficiently significant to us. We read and hear about natural disasters in remote areas of the world, comprehend their magnitude, understand that many people have consequently lost their lives and that others are hurt and suffering, are sorry for what has happened, and go on to the next item—without its leaving a noticeable trace in our souls. It may be said that these events are not personally meaningful to us, despite our knowing what they mean and how they affect others. This reminder—that there are things whose meaning we understand although they are not personally meaningful to us—may help us focus on what underlies our ability to not only understand the meaning of things, but also to experience them in a significant way, as personally meaningful to us. The connection between understanding the meaning of things and experiencing them in a personally meaningful way is a multifaceted

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bond, through which what is personally meaningful for us is manifested. In this chapter I want to use Camus’s insightful depiction of his hero’s way of experiencing his life and what it encloses as devoid of any personal meaning to describe some of the underpinnings of our ability to experience things as personally meaningful to us, as well as what might render our life itself personally meaningful to us.

The Things That Are Personally Meaningful to Us The point I have been stressing thus far is that intellectual ways of understanding the meaning of things and bestowing meaning on things—like those made possible through theoretical explanations of the nature of various events and sophisticated interpretations of them—enable us to note previously undisclosed meanings of such events in ways that broaden our perspective. However, as they tend to do so from afar, they are not geared for embodying the way in which we are able to grasp the meaning of things in a practical and immediate way through our bodily actions, immediate perceptions, experiences, and feelings. This is not to say that they are inherently personally insignificant to us. Often the opposite is the case, as is shown by the way in which scientific explanations, insightful ideas, and religious and philosophical worldviews are important for some of us. In such cases they also become personally meaningful to us. Many different things are personally meaningful to most human beings: our pleasures, pains, childhood memories, traumatic events from the past, severe illnesses, fear of death, love of dear ones, successes, travails, friends, economic welfare, health, work, ideas, adventures, works of art, social affiliations, intellectual ideals, moral obligations, etc. The best way to understand human beings in an individual way is to get to know them from close at hand: with regard to what is meaningful to them in a personal and deep way. In this way we get to know them from the inside—in relation to what is close to their hearts and touches their souls. The banal list I have compiled here of types of things that are personally meaningful to most human beings is not helpful in trying to understand individual human beings in an intimate and deep way. It may afford an extraterrestrial alien, who is about to land on earth, some slight understanding of the nature of human beings—in contrast, let us say, to the nature of hedgehogs—through mention of the types of things that are likely to be personally meaningful to them. But it does not take us human beings any farther in understanding each other or even in understanding ourselves. We already know what the list is likely to include, so it is unclear to what purpose these items need be mentioned. They are of too general a character.


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In order to understand individual human beings in any intimate and deep way, we need to know both what is personally meaningful to them and in what way it is personally meaningful to them. Even if every person’s mother is deeply meaningful to that person, she is deeply meaningful to that person in a personally singular way. Therefore, the banal assertion that every person’s mother is deeply meaningful to that person in a singular way does not reveal what is deeply meaningful to human beings in their mothers, and certainly not what is personally deeply meaningful to each and every one of us in our own mothers. This is not because each person has a different mother. Two siblings have the same mother, and she may be personally meaningful to both, but the personal meaning she has to each of them may be different. Therefore the attempt to get to know what is personally meaningful to people and in what way it is personally meaningful to them is an intimate endeavor, for it is aimed at becoming familiar with people from the inside, with respect to what lies close to their hearts and lies deep in their souls. All this on the basis of what they experience, feel, desire, hope, and fear, and what they will experience, feel, desire, hope, and fear if and when they are put to the test. The relationship between the concepts of personal meaning and deep meaning deserves noting. A story may have a deep meaning enclosed in the ideas that are embedded in it. However, neither it nor the ideas embedded in it may be personally meaningful to us. At the same time, not everything that is personally meaningful to us is also deeply meaningful to us. The tokens I preserved from the last trip abroad are personally meaningful to me, as they remind me of places I visited. However, they are merely mementos, akin to dates of meetings preserved in my diary from last year, and therefore not deeply meaningful to me. If they are broken or lost, I shall not be very saddened. Sometimes it is difficult to ascertain the deep, personal meaning of things because our attitude toward them is not crystallized. We may realize how deeply meaningful a certain person is to us only when the person falls ill or dies, or when our relationship is severed. The way in which a certain person’s illness concerns us or a certain person’s death saddens us enables us to experience how deeply meaningful that person is to us. The difficulty is that it is hard for us, in the everyday course of life, to ascertain what is personally meaningful to us, and the degree to which certain things are both deeply and personally meaningful to us, when life does not put us to the test. When we are not required to act on behalf of a friend, or when our loved ones live by our side, or when the ordinary stream of life is not disturbed by sickness and war, it is hard for us to ascertain their profound and intense meaning for us through thought alone. We may try to imagine how we would respond if we were required to act on behalf of a friend in a way that involves a major


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difficulty to ourselves, or how we would feel if our loved ones were to die, or how we would respond to a threatening disease, or how we would persevere if due to a war our life was completely disrupted. But our ability to do so is limited, and here too we find ourselves wholly in the realm of imagination. Nonetheless, we might want to distinguish between things that are experienced as meaningful only when they are missed, such as money and clear air, and things that are deeply meaningful to us in a very personal way, such as our children’s welfare, joy at some successful enterprise we have been striving to achieve for a long time, or fear in the face of what the future holds. Our deep attachments to things render these latter things deeply meaningful to us. They are often manifested in emotional ties and profound attitudes we develop toward them. However, we are not always fully aware of our deep attachments and attitudes toward the things that are deeply meaningful to us, for in the everyday course of life we often find ourselves preoccupied with things that are not deeply meaningful to us but impose themselves upon us and draw all of our attention and concern toward them. When we are seized with concern for a given matter, the meaning of what concerns us is experienced clearly and intensely, but we may be concerned about things we know that are not deeply meaningful to us. Moreover, there are things whose deep meaning to us is not accompanied by any unique emotional experience; they drift past us in the flow of everyday life, and it is only when we lose them that we discover how meaningful they were to us: things like getting up in the morning without feeling any pain, going out for a stroll in the neighborhood, or performing our jobs. In much the same way, there are things that are meaningful to us in our lives, although it is hard to say what exactly makes them meaningful to us. What, for example, is meaningful to me in my work as a university lecturer? Is it the salary I am paid, the possibility of thinking about ideas that arouse my curiosity, the opportunity to read and discuss topics of interest to me with eager students, the opportunity for engaging in social relationships pursued in a detached manner, the slight prestige attached to the position, or the freedom to determine my own schedule? It could very well be a combination of all the above. These things are not easy to ascertain.

The Role of Will and Desire in Rendering Life Personally Meaningful One way of clarifying the concept of meaning used to describe what is personally meaningful to us is to note that it refers to what concerns us. To be concerned about things is to relate to what they mean to us from close at hand, in a personal way that engages our feelings, will, desire, and hopes, rendering them thereby into matters of personal concern. Thus it is now


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possible to re-approach the somewhat uncanny way in which Meursault experiences and grasps his life. The events that are enclosed in his life, as well as his life itself, do not seem to be experienced as personally meaningful to him, because they do not become for him matters of personal concern. This is evident in that he has no particular attitude toward what happens in his life itself, or perhaps it may be said that his attitude toward whatever happens is always the same, no matter what it is: an attitude of not being personally concerned with it. What happens in his life does not arouse his will or affect his feelings, leaving him unaffected and unconcerned with it. This is not because he does not comprehend the meaning of what is happening, but because he does not seem to care. He seemingly lacks everything that belongs to desire, will, and emotion, through which much of what is meaningful to us is experienced in a rich and personal way. He has no intense desires that he overcomes only with effort, nor does he have any profound emotions of sorrow and love that might darken and light his life. Although he is an intelligent, sensual being who understands the meaning of things, he lacks something extra that makes us human. He does not experience an entire spectrum of feelings, desires, and aversions, through which we both give personal meaning to what happens in our lives and render what happens personally meaningful. Nor does he have any ambitions, wishes, or hopes. For this reason, even his sensual pleasures are not deeply meaningful to him. He does not eagerly anticipate them, and even when he recalls them, they do not arouse any longing, regret, or disappointment in him. Meursault, it seems, experiences the events of his life only through his senses, and then he ponders them with his intellect. His grasp of the meaning of the events that make up his life, and his life itself, is based on only these two components. Therefore, the situations in which he finds himself, like the people whose company he keeps, are not personally and deeply meaningful to him. It could be said that Meursault understands the empirical and social meaning of everything, but nothing of what he understands is personally and deeply meaningful to him. Therefore, even the declaration of his willingness to live his life again is somewhat hollow. It does not express an intense desire, a long-sought-after goal, or a weighty choice. It sounds more like an intellectual default option, in which no profound yearning has been invested. With the exception of sensual experiences, Meursault’s understanding of the meaning of things resembles the understanding we would attribute to a computer or robot. Even those among us who would like to ascribe to computers an understanding of the meaning of sentences and to robots an understanding of the meaning of certain things within their special location might acknowledge the difficulty regarding them as experiencing the meaning of things in a deep and personal way. Being machines and not living creatures, computers lack emotion and will. The advantage they


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have over living creatures, especially over those who are human beings, is the fact that they do not experience the meaning of things. As such they are also incapable of experiencing things in any personal and deep way. In various historical periods, philosophers have raised aloft the banner of rational thought with which human beings have been endowed, as allowing us, human beings, a different kind of understanding than that with which most creatures are endowed. According to this view, rationality makes it possible to understand things according to general principles. It makes it possible to ascertain the ramifications things may have; it also makes it possible to ascertain the meaning of things in a larger context and through a more enlightened viewpoint than that which emotions make possible. Meursault is indeed endowed with intelligence, and he allows it to guide him in life. He uses it to interpret what happens in life in order to understand the meaning of events in their empirical and social context. But what happens in his life is not personally meaningful to him, and human life itself is also not personally meaningful to him—neither his own nor that of others. It might be said that Meursault understands the meaning of what is happening in his life in the same way that we may use our intelligence to interpret a strange story for the ideas contained in it. But specifically in doing so, he misses endowing the events enclosed in his life, as well as his life itself, with any personal and deep meaning. Thus, in depicting the rational ideal of philosophy through the character of Meursault, Camus shows us that a life based only on rational understanding of the meaning of things is insufficient for rendering life and what it encloses personally and deeply meaningful. One of the important contributions by Camus’s story about Meursault to the philosophical discourse about the meaning of life is that it reminds us of the need to be concerned about our lives in order to experience our lives and what is enclosed in them as personally meaningful to us.

The Experience of Time in Rendering Life Personally Meaningful In contrast to computers and robots, many living creatures are endowed with the ability to feel and desire. In the case of human beings, we are also endowed with the ability to develop a wide range of feelings, desires, wants, emotions, regrets, wishes, and hopes, through which we experience the meaning of things that concern us and give them rich and deep personal meaning. It is helpful to recall in this connection our ability to develop feelings directed toward what lies in the past and the future. Our ability to want things that are not within our reach and to cultivate expectations, yearnings, hopes, and wishes in regard to them, like our ability to experience longings,


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grief, sorrow, regret, disappointment, or to be remorseful about them, just like our ability to feel a sense of accomplishment at what has been achieved, as well as our ability to be concerned over them because of what might happen to them, is the ability to develop deep personal attitudes toward things that embody a rich conception of time. This ability enriches the meaning we experience from our lives and what they enclose, as well as the personal and deep meaning we are able to give our lives and what they enclose. Not all creatures are endowed with this ability. When we observe the behavior of various animals—squirrels gathering acorns for the winter, birds migrating and nesting—we tend to describe it as we would describe human behavior: as preparations for the future. We also tend to describe the behavior of various animals, such as a fear that emerges in connection with a traumatic incident or an ability to find their way back home, as evidence of their remembering the past. The question whether the future or the past is meaningful to other living creatures turns on the question to which extent they are able to relate to it through such attitudes as hopes, expectations, worries, and wishes, as well as misgivings, remorse, and longings. Indeed, sometimes, when the correct approach to life is being discussed, much is made of the way in which other living creatures are not worried about the future the way we are, and are not overburdened by their memories of the past. However, living creatures that are unable to experience their lives in ways that embody attitudes that manifest such a rich conception of time are more limited in the meaning they are able to experience in their lives, as well as in the meaning they are able to bestow on it. Without forming deep, personal attitudes toward the past, they would have no regrets, longings, and sorrows, but they would also have no satisfying personal stories, meaningful autobiographies, or cherished memories. Without any yearnings, expectations, or hopes for the future, they would have no worries and would not be exposed to worries, disappointment or frustration, but they would also not aspire to achieve and experience anything deeply meaningful either. Meursault exemplifies our need to embody our conception of time in personal attitudes toward our life and what it encloses. Such attitudes render past and future meaningful to us in a very personal manner, enabling us in this way to experience a rich and deep meaning in what our lives enclose. By not forming any such attitude, Meursault fails to experience his life and what it encloses as personally meaningful. Until the very end of the novel, where he expresses a wish that a great crowd should witness his execution, he does not express any expectations or hopes, just as he has no longings or regrets. Since he lacks any personal attitude toward his past or his future, he does not await the weekend, with its promise of going to the beach and meeting Marie, with any anticipation, nor does he hope to succeed at his work and


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be promoted. He does not hope for anything in the future, and he evinces apathy toward the past as well. He does not yearn for things that are past and gone, nor does he feel regret for anything that has happened. Although he reveals during his stay in prison that he has been thinking about his life and about Marie, these thoughts and memories are not embedded in any personal attitude toward whatever he had been thinking about. The memory we have of the past enriches and deepens the meaning we experience from our lives only when it is embedded in personal attitudes that we form as to what is remembered. These attitudes are an important part of the way in which we give meaning to our lives. Our personal attitudes toward what has happened in the past and toward what may happen in the future make these things personally meaningful, thereby enriching the meaning we bestow on our lives and what they enclose. But Meursault is a man of intellect, not attitude. Just as he does not feel love or grief, so too he has no hopes or yearnings. To have such profound attitudes toward things requires that we experience the meaning of things to ourselves as they affect us in the context of our grasp of time. But just as Meursault is not troubled by the past, he is also not worried by what the future holds for him. Thus death is also not personally meaningful to him, neither his own nor that of others. The prospect of his own death does not terrify him, and the death of others does not sadden him. Therefore, he also has no personal attitude toward killing. He lives in the present. But without developing deep, personal attitudes toward what the past and future enclose, the present becomes shallow. For this reason, even the events whose meaning he understands are not rendered thereby personally meaningful to him in any profound way. Generations of philosophers have preached a stoic attitude toward the future, holding that it is better to erase what the future holds and what worries and threatens us from consciousness, in order to live in a tranquil present. Meursault demonstrates that the personal meaning experienced in life, thereby, becomes shallow and poor. A rich conception of time, which is embedded in attitudes that enable us to care about the future, may overshadow the present and cause us worry and anxiety. So too a rich conception of time, which is embedded in attitudes that enable us to care about the past, may also overshadow the present, causing us to experience regrets and grief and making us sink into the past. Those of us who are troubled by harsh memories of the past, like those of us who long for what they once had and no longer have, may undermine what is meaningful to them in the present. Intense feelings of remorse, guilt, sorrow, grief, and disappointment overburden our lives and bestow a negative meaning on them. On the other hand, attitudes of satisfaction and pride bestow a positive meaning on them. However, even longing and grief enrich the personal meaning of our lives, as they enable us to cherish past events


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and people who are no longer with us and to give them profound meaning to ourselves in the present as well. To many of us, our childhood homes and our parents have profound meaning, even though they belong to the distant past and may no longer exist. We may still have an emotional relationship with them, which often undergoes ups and downs. Longing for what has been, sorrow over what has been lost, and grief over persons who have died are deep personal attitudes embodying recollection of the past, through which the meaning of things that were once dear to us is enriched and preserved. When we lose our memory of our past life, we lose a very important component of our personal self-identity. Should we regain the memory that was lost, without regaining the same attitudes formerly we had toward the past, then something deep inside us will have changed. We may then find ourselves regarding our past life as a historian might regard the life of someone else. The memory of the past that is meaningful to us is an important part of our personal self-identities. When we are unable to find our way to what has been meaningful to us in the past, we are unable to find our way to who we once were. This means that we have changed profoundly.

Destructive Intellectual Interpretation Our ability to care about our life by developing enriching, deep personal attitudes toward our lives and what they hold enriches their meaning to us in a deep and personal way. Meursault’s inability to relate to his life and what it holds in any such personally meaningful way is summarized by his remark that nothing is of the least importance. However it is also exemplified by what I have termed “Meursault’s monologue.” The strange thing about it is that it is not at all typical of what we usually identify as a literary monologue. It is nothing like a personal diary, in which we express our hidden feelings and desires, which we do not dare to voice in public. Nor is it a revealing personal life story, in which we tell others of personally meaningful events, disclosing in public how we experienced them as meaningful to us. It is a monologue that expresses no personal attitude toward the events described in it. The difference between talking about ourselves and talking about others does not lie only in the identity of the person we are talking about. When I say of someone else that he or she wants to drink a cup of coffee or to go to a movie I am ascribing certain wants to that person. When I say the same things about myself, I am not only ascribing certain wants to myself, I am expressing them as well. One of the strange things in human discourse is to listen to people talking about themselves in the third-person voice. Some politicians and public figures are inclined to do so; they talk about themselves as if they were reporters, conveying a faithful


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description of themselves to the reading public. The prime minister, for example, is thus liable to say: “Your prime minister is concerned for the welfare of all the citizens.” Even if what the prime minister says at that moment is correct, one thing the prime minister has not done thereby is to express concern for the welfare of the citizens. Meursault talks about himself in the first person, but in doing so he does not express any personal attitude toward his life and what it encloses. In this neutral stance toward his life, he is like a learned commentator remarking on the meaning of events taking place in a foreign land, and not like a native, for whom this is homeland, someone who experiences the events in a personally meaningful way. In adopting such a rational, objective perspective on his life and what it encloses, Meursault appears to be responding to the discovery that life does not have a transcendent (religious or metaphysical) meaning. It is as though this philosophical discovery has left him spiritually damaged and mentally dazed, draining all personal meaning from his life and what it encloses. In this reading of the story, Camus’s Meursault is the philosopher who has adopted a rational viewpoint toward life and what it encloses. He not only interprets the behavior of others around him in such a rational, alienated way, he also experiences his own life in accordance with such a rational interpretation. He also willingly accepts the cold, uncaring, and rational world that is manifested to him through this experience of his life. However, what Meursault discovers is that in doing so his life has lost its meaningfulness to him. Another way of saying this would be to say that he experiences life and what is enclosed in it as having been drained of its soul, leaving only its outer casing intact. By depicting the way Meursault experiences his life in this manner, as a life from which the soul of life has disappeared, Camus reminds us that the meaning of things that make up our lives is what provides for the soul of our life. In doing so he tangibly conveys to us the cost of adopting an intellectual viewpoint toward our life and what it encloses as a substitute for forming personally meaningful attitudes toward it. He demonstrates that the adoption of such a viewpoint cannot substitute for the need we have to form personal attitudes toward our life and what is enclosed in it that would render it personally meaningful to us. He shows us that we must take care to preserve the soul of life; otherwise, we are certain to lose the meaning of everything that might be personally meaningful to us in it, rendering our lives themselves meaningless.


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chapter 31 The Moral of Camus’s Story

withering and dying are a part of the life cycle in nature. The withered flower was at the start a fresh and tender bud. The old person of shriveled body and wrinkled face, whose memory fails and whose awareness is fading, was once a small, alert, mischievous child, energetic and imaginative, brimming with vitality and promise. The life cycle of growth and decay is often also the natural basis for the way in which life is experienced as personally meaningful. The tribulations of life, vicissitudes of time, and biological changes tend to influence the way we experience what happens in our lives and the way in which we experience our lives as meaningful. Recognizing this fact, at the beginning of his Republic, Plato confronts Socrates with a wealthy, good-natured old man, whom he calls “Cephalus,” suggesting perhaps that the possession of a head is all that is left from his human mode of existence. Upon being questioned by Socrates, the old man relates that while many elders of his generation lament the lost joys of youth, recalling the pleasures of wine, women, and feasts, and complaining that these things have now been taken from their lives, he feels freed of the mad beast of nature that formerly was his master and ruled him. He concludes that it is not old age that is the culprit, but the character of the persons involved. Indeed, not everyone is so placidly temperate in accepting of old age. Ecclesiastes seems to echo the complaints of Cephalus’s elderly compatriots, describing it as the coming of “evil days . . . The years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them” (12:1). In the terminology I have been using here, it might be said that Ecclesiastes expresses what I have called “the loss of meaning from life.”

LIKE GROWTH AND BLOSSOMING,

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The loss of meaning from life can be looked upon as a form of withering and decay, in which our interest in life and what it encloses diminishes and our will to live fades, turning us into the living dead, so to speak. Such an experience is also typical of moments in our lives plagued by boredom. A prisoner released after many years of incarceration will tell you that in the morning he prayed that it would be evening already, and in the evening that it would be morning. As in times of mental or physical suffering, what helps us endure periods of boredom is the belief that the boredom will eventually pass and meaning will return to our lives. In this chapter, I want to draw a moral from Camus’s story by placing it in the context of such experiences.

The Will to Live Compared to the Meaning of Life We not only speak about “finding meaning in life” or “losing the meaning of life” but also about “a will to live” and “a desire for life.” Accordingly, we also speak of having lost “the will to live” or “the desire for life” or “the taste for life” or “an interest in life” or “a passion for life.” The phenomena that are manifested through these expressions are like the members of a large family, who despite having being scattered across the earth and living now in different places and performing different tasks are related to each other, sharing a common bond. However, they also differ from one another in certain important aspects. It is insightful to note some of the ways they differ, particularly in regard to the relationship between the will to live and the meaning of life. Sometimes we distinguish between people who have a strong will to live and people whose will to live has weakened. In high-pressure situations, such as imprisonment in jail or a concentration camp or suffering from grief, disease, and pain, those with a strong will to live are sometimes said to have a greater chance of survival than those with a weaker will to live. Against this background, we can see there is a certain affinity between the concepts of the loss of meaning from life and the loss of the will to live, manifested as a desire to live. Those of us who experience our lives as meaningful often want to live. Those of us who experience our lives as not meaningful may not care too much if we live or die and may even not want to live. An elderly woman once said to me in conversation, “Enough, I am done with living.” I asked her if something had happened. “Yes,” she said. “I have concluded my life.” She did not find any interest, reason, taste, value, purpose, or meaning in its continuation, and she therefore did not want her life any longer. A short while later she fell ill and willingly accepted the approach of death. I mention her to note that the loss of the will to live, the taste of life, the meaning


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of life does not always stem from great suffering, sorrow, or dejection, and that it is apt to dispel the fear of death. We may presume that if our lives were to extend far longer than they are meaningful to us, this would be the cause of suffering. We might then desire death rather than a continuation of such a life. Of course, even if we no longer find meaning in our lives, we may still be terrified of death. However, to experience the meaning of life merely as fear of death is akin to suffering from amnesia, while still retaining the use of the expression “I” to refer to oneself. Such a use does not provide us with any personal self-identity. Although we often talk about desire and will in the context of propositions, such as a desire that a state of peace will prevail, or a hope that the boring meeting scheduled for Wednesday will be canceled, this is not what we mean when we talk about “the will to live” or “the desire for life.” When we ascribe to people a strong will or desire to live, we do not merely mean to say that they very much want their life to continue. The will or desire to live is like a passion, which may be intense or feeble. However, it is unlike many passions, insofar as it is not directed toward a particular object. To this extent it is not very different from many cravings we have, such as a desire for food or sex, which may tend to overshadow our lives at a given moment. It differs from them in that it is a passion that is not diminished by attaining whatever it is directed at, perhaps because it is not directed at anything in particular. At this point in the discourse some would claim that a passion for life is directed at happiness. Note, however, that some people may have a passion for life despite claiming to be happy already. Despite the resemblance between all these concepts, it should also be noted that talking about “the will to live” differs from talking about “the meaning of life” in that it does not always lead into talking about either “the value of life” or “the purpose of life.” It therefore does not always lead into constructing worldviews about the meaning of life, which aim to explain and enrich life’s meaning for us from some universal, transcendent point of view. All these concepts—the taste of life, the will to live, the passion for life, the meaning of life—came into existence through innovative metaphors that have become worn over time into commonplace expressions. Like new clothes, which fill us with enthusiasm at first and then turn threadbare, so are they. And like different kinds of clothes meant for different purposes— shirts, coats, hats, shoes—so too each of these expressions has its own meaning, even as they share in a common bond of describing attitudes to life that underlie our experience of it. Indeed, each in its own unique way expresses an aspect of what underlies our ability to fashion an attitude toward our lives. 2 2 2


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Experiencing a Loss of Meaning from Life The experience of a loss of meaning, like the experience of other losses, embodies traces of what was lost. To return to a childhood scene after many years and to find that it no longer captivates us is to experience a loss of meaning. To meet a person who looks familiar but to fail to recall who the person is and what were the circumstances of our acquaintance is to experience a loss of meaning. To note that because of our depression jokes have ceased to be funny for us is to experience a loss of humorous meaning from jokes. To recall that once we took our life and what it encloses with less seriousness and concern is to experience a loss of joy and playfulness from life. The attempt to recapture a meaning previously experienced from life that has been lost, like the attempt to breath new life into a love that has worn itself out, may succeed or fail. Nothing is guaranteed in such ventures. What is striking then about Meursault, in contrast with Camus himself, is his disinclination to try to recapture the meaning that has been lost from his life. In my philosophical reading of the story, the reason has to do with the hero’s response to the question about the meaning of life. So far I have been discussing the experience of a loss of meaning as it pertains to the meaning of certain things that may be enclosed in our life. However, what is particularly edifying for a philosophical journey that aims to track the meaning of life is the way in which Camus manages to represent through Meursault’s monologue an experience of the loss of the meaning of life itself, a loss that then afflicts everything that may be enclosed in our life. It is a point that deserves elaboration. In my philosophical reading of this story, Camus’s hero discovers that various worldviews concerning the religious or metaphysical meaning of life that he formerly believed in are only theoretical explanations and interpretations of life that cannot be supported by experience. As a result he experiences a loss of meaning from his life, which then infects the way in which he experiences everything that is enclosed in it. In this matter he is not alone; he exemplifies the way in which secular human beings in the modern period may experience existential shock when confronted with the question about the meaning of life, as it dislodges them from their complacent attitudes to their lives, forcing them to note that a religious worldview that once made it possible to answer the question by bestowing a transcendent and divine meaning on their lives is no longer accessible to them. When Tolstoy came to such a realization, he sought a way of overcoming this spiritual predicament by managing to experience life as having a religious meaning without relying on any religious or metaphysical worldviews that undertake to explain or interpret life’s meaning in some reassuring way. He thought that adopting a peasant way of life and relinquishing all personal ambitions could bring it about. Wittgenstein, too, seems to have experienced the loss


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of transcendent meaning from life when he realized that religious and metaphysical views concerning the meaning of life do not make sense. He therefore sought to replace it by experiencing wonder at the logical scaffold of the world. Sartre also appears to have wanted to replace the meaning that he felt had been lost from life when he realized that a religious explanation of the meaning of life makes no sense. He did so by positing the meaning of life on the way in which what is enclosed in his life is experienced through a personal self-identity that he invents. But Camus’s Meursault does not partake in such healing efforts. His loss of the transcendent meaning of life, religious or metaphysical, is experienced as an irretrievable loss, which cannot be remedied and which drains the meaning out of everything that is enclosed in life, rendering it all meaningless. It is as though his inability to experience life itself as having religious or metaphysical meaning in an immediate and close-at-hand way transforms all that is enclosed in his life into something that is grasped only from far off, through some form of theoretical explanation that reveals its social and ethical meaning, but which cannot render it thereby profoundly meaningful to him.

Reclaiming the Meaning of Life Having given us Meursault, with his somewhat uncanny way of experiencing his life as drained of its soul and, as such, as devoid of any deep personal meaning, Camus has performed an important philosophical service for us. He has enabled us to contemplate what we take for granted, seeing it as hanging by a thread: the fact that we find meaning in our lives because we experience what happens in them in a way that is personally meaningful to us. Camus has thus drawn our attention to what lies at the foundation of human life, to which we do not pay attention in the ongoing, everyday flow of life: our ability and need to live our lives in a way that makes them meaningful to us. His predication of the experience of a loss of meaning from life on the philosophical realization that life is devoid of any transcendent meaning is, as I interpret the text, a warning against the philosophical attempts to redeem what has been lost by means of alluring worldviews and ethical proposals that would instruct us on how to do so. Neither indulging in self-creation and self-expression, commitment to a social cause, the pursuit of justice and morality, investing in love and opening our hearts to others, accumulating power and having fun while it lasts, to mention just some of the routes suggested and taken, is assured of redeeming a meaning that has been lost or of bestowing a satisfying meaning on life. To realize this is both to recognize our need to make our lives meaningful to ourselves, as well as that nothing in this matter is guaranteed in advance.


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It is easier now to understand Camus’s declaration that a philosopher is someone who reflects on the meaning of life by considering whether to go on living or commit suicide. In this view, a philosopher is someone who not only knows the truth about the meaning of life—namely, that what is meaningful or not to us about our lives cannot be justified through philosophy— but also experiences what he or she knows as a personal, existential problem, involving the absence of transcendent meaning from life. According to this reading of The Outsider, Meursault is the philosopher who has been freed of religious, metaphysical, and social illusions regarding the meaning of life, in the course of which he has lost the ability to instill meaning into his life by his own efforts. He is someone to whom the ordinary, everyday things that shape life have ceased to be meaningful, each in its own way, because he is unable to gather them together in a religious or metaphysical package that can hold them and give them meaning, regardless of his various attitudes toward them. He is therefore unable to form any enriching and deep attitude toward any of the things his life holds. He thus experiences his life as though it has been drained of its soul, rendering it no longer meaningful to him. Aristotle described the philosophical urge, which prompts us to create metaphysical worldviews, as stemming from wonder at existence. By means of Meursault, the philosopher who no longer wonders at anything, Camus reminds us of those who are enticed by philosophical thinking to both wonder and marvel at our ability to give meaning to our lives in nonphilosophical ways by making the ordinary, everyday, and banal things that shape them meaningful to us.1 According to this reading of the story, the loss of meaning from life Meursault experienced manifests his inability to return from philosophical reflections about the meaning of life to his everyday, ordinary life, so as to make it meaningful to himself—by nonphilosophical means. For the philosopher wondering about the meaning of life, there is an important lesson here in regard to what is required, at the end of the day, in order to overcome the Problem of Life, when it is experienced as a loss of meaning from life: namely, to reclaim the ability to render life personally meaningful without giving up on what is learned through philosophical reflection about it.

1. On the ordinary, the failed philosophical attempt to rise above it, and the need to return to it, see Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, part 4, and Cavell, Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome, chap. 3.


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epilogue Poor Man’s Wisdom

The Wisdom of Hindsight P H I L O S O P H I C A L J O U R N E Y S A R E conducted far from home, in alien and untamed reflective regions. The philosophical journey on the trail of the meaning of life, which I joined in the previous four parts of the book, has been conducted in such a region by four writers who set out to seek an answer to the question about the meaning of life: Tolstoy, Wittgenstein, Sartre, and Camus. Like pathfinders who set out at dawn ahead of the rest of the camp to plot a course to their destination, the four of them left their homes and familiar surroundings to discover a philosophical road leading to the meaning of life, returning later to tell about the travails, anxieties, hopes, successes, and disappointments that they experienced, and which await anyone who follows in their footsteps. For their daring and resourcefulness, they both deserve and have my admiration, just as they both deserve and have my gratitude for their help in confronting my own quandaries about the meaning of life. All the same, the wisdom of philosophy is not exhausted by the ability to blaze a winding path to some sought-after goal through alien and untamed reflective territory. Sometimes philosophical wisdom consists in understanding why we are unable to reach our destination through the untamed reflective regions of philosophy. The wisdom of philosophy is also a poor man’s wisdom, which is the wisdom of hindsight. This is a wisdom achieved through self-reflection and self-criticism that often destroy our previous complacent faith in the enticing answers compiled for us, but which in

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doing so harbors also edifying insight. In this case, it is the wisdom reserved to those who manage, after a long philosophical journey, to acquire the edifying insight that enables them to find their way back home. Many set out on a philosophical journey with other expectations. Still others are not tempted even to depart upon it. I am reminded in this connection of an occasion when I gave a course at the university on the philosophical discourse about the meaning of life. At the start of the course, I asked those attending it about their expectations of such a course. A young man said he expected to be presented in it with convincing proof that life has meaning, and to be shown how it could be fulfilled. (In response, I asked him whether he was prepared to rely on philosophy in such an important matter—the meaning he was supposed to attribute to his life.) A young woman confessed that although she had come to learn what philosophy has to say in this matter, she already knew what the meaning of life is—namely, love. (I replied that I was glad to hear she knew what made her life meaningful to herself.) Those of us who leave our homes to go on a philosophical journey to find out about the meaning of life must want more than what we already know and are familiar with at home. Nonetheless, at the end of the journey we too must learn to find our way back to what we already know and are familiar with. To return home from the philosophical journey on the trail of the meaning of life pursued in this book, it may be useful to recall how it distanced us from the meaning we sought to find and give to our lives. It seems that it all began innocently enough when we set out, engaging in philosophical reflection (prompted by Tolstoy) about the meaning of life as it appears from a rational perspective that purports to take an objective view of life. The rational and objective perspective on life in general, and upon our own lives in particular, invalidated everything that was meaningful to us in our lives by demonstrating the absurdity of the meaning we attribute to our lives and to what they hold. Reference to the cultural context in which this contemplation began clarified that it stemmed from the search for a substitute for religious and philosophical worldviews in regard to the nature and purpose of life, which lost their validity to secular people in the modern era. In light of this understanding, the journey continued along a route (established by Wittgenstein) in the course of which it became clear that the question about the meaning of life already harbors an implicit assumption that life has a transcendental sense, from which its transcendental value can be extrapolated. However, it turned out that this twofold assumption is nonsensical, and therefore it is not possible to talk sensibly about the meaning of life. From this understanding it became clear that our wish to discover the meaning of life only concealed a yearning to experience our lives in a transcendentally meaningful way as something wondrous. The journey took a distinctive


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personal twist when we followed the existentialist path of thought (marked out by Sartre) from which it emerged that the meaning of life lies in the absolute freedom we have to give personal meaning to our lives, and thus to life in general, which we do through the invention or adoption of a personal self-identity. It also became apparent thereby that in acknowledging this existential predicament we assume responsibility for the meaning we attribute to our lives and to what they enclose, which is the source for the existential anxiety accompanying our life. Finally, then, the journey took us to the philosophical lookout (set up by Camus) from which we could once again view the arid and absurd landscape of life in general, and of our own lives in particular, which have been thus emptied of all that was previously meaningful to us, providing us with an experience of a loss of meaning from life. Thus we have come back full circle to the experience of the absence of meaning from life, which we confronted at the beginning of the journey, when we left our familiar, everyday homes—with the diverse meanings we experienced and attributed to our lives and to what they enclose—and began to reflect philosophically about the meaning of life and about the attitude we ought to strike toward life. For as so often in philosophy, the end harks back to the beginning. As regards concerns, yearnings, and reflections about the meaning of life, at their end, just like at their beginning, is our attitude toward the life that is ours, which manifests the way in which we experience and wish to experience our lives as meaningful to us. It is with our attitude to life that we still have to contend at the end of the philosophical journey we joined. This is the elusive determinant underlying the entire matter, and it is to it that—with a poor man’s wisdom, wishing to return home from this philosophical journey, in order to experience life as meaningful— I wish to draw philosophical attention once again.

Different Attitudes to Life’s Meaning We can change many things in our lives, and we can decide whether to end or continue them. What we are unable to do is set ourselves apart from them. To turn our back on what was meaningful to us in our lives in the past, to seek “another life”—to wed, to divorce, to leave a homeland, to change a personal self-identity, to lose or regain religious faith—all this is to change what is meaningful to us in our lives and the meaning we give to our lives, but not to set ourselves apart from them. To give up the entire affair and decide to commit suicide is to refuse to accept what our lives may still hold for us, but it is not to set ourselves apart from them. Our lives are a mode of existence, the loss or disappearance of which we are unable to experience. It is a mode of existence that only we can experience, rendering it as such


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singular and exclusive to ourselves; a mode of existence that only through which we are able to experience the meaning of things or to attribute meaning or lack of meaning to things; a mode of existence that disappears when we die. Since we are not set apart from our lives, and therefore we are neither inside them nor outside them, our attitudes toward our lives are also a part of them. They manifest what is meaningful or not to us in that singular and exclusive mode of existence that is entirely ours, namely our lives. Therefore, any attempt to ascertain what our attitude toward our lives may hold is an attempt to arrive at some sort of self-awareness—in regard to what is required for our singular and exclusive mode of existence to be meaningful to ourselves. In the same way, any attempt to reform an attitude toward our lives, which should make them meaningful to us in some particular way, is an attempt to take control of our lives from the inside—by determining their meaning to us by ourselves. It is useful to recall in this connection how different and diverse are the attitudes that we are liable to form toward our lives. We might want them, be proud of them, be thrilled by them, love them, hate them, find interest in them, be bored by them, be disappointed with them, be fed-up with them, despair of them, etc. We may relate to our lives from an attitude of wonder, happiness, gratitude, contentment, stoic calm, joie de vivre, frustration, bitterness, constant worry over what tomorrow may bring, a willingness to accept the good with the bad, optimistic trust, faith and hope for the future, pessimistic apprehension and concern for what still lies in the future, a lingering dread in the face of our impending death, satisfaction with our life, a desire to go on living, just as a desire to end it all, etc. Our attitudes toward our lives may be shaped by a desire to find deep and lasting love in them, to do great things in them, to free ourselves from influences and pressures, to enrich their meaning to ourselves, to create things of value in them, to create our lives themselves in an original manner, to undergo thrilling adventures, to enjoy the pleasures of life, to be of assistance to others, to be independent, to find love and friendship, to experience the grace of God, to raise a family, to understand things in depth, to be successful, to be appreciated, to leave a mark behind us, to change the world in some degree, to make it better, to better ourselves, to meet challenges, to demonstrate courage, to prolong our lives as much as possible, or to get through them without suffering, etc. We may regard our lives as something wondrous, as a sacred gift to be respected, as the stage for unlimited freedom given us to determine the meaning of our lives as we see fit, as an opportunity to gain and give love, as a long and difficult test, as a journey that entails overcoming hardships, as a detestable burden, as a via dolorosa, as an arena of battle, as an unexplained mystery, as a purposeless natural event, as a one-time occasion to be exploited to the fullest, as something that has exhausted its


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interest for us, as what we would like to experience again countless times, etc. We are liable to form an attitude toward our lives as if toward an unfolding personal life story of which we are the authors, a story that we would like to replace with another, a part of a human story that is greater than the sum of all the events and characters in it and in which we play only a marginal role, a story created especially for us by a divine author, etc. We may form an attitude to our lives in the framework of various worldviews—religious, philosophical, historical, social, or scientific—that disclose the meaning of our lives within a greater and broader context, through which the meaning to ourselves of events that happen in our lives is experienced, enriched, and interpreted. And we may relate to our lives only by dint of our different and specified attitudes toward each and every thing they hold, without forming a comprehensive attitude toward them themselves. It is possible to distinguish between two different ways of endowing life with meaning. One is by means of actions, experiences, ideas, and human relationships that enrich our lives, each in its own way, and render them thereby meaningful to us. The second is by endowing our lives in general with a dimension that consolidates what they encompass, for instance by adopting a worldview that supports our way of life or personal self-identity in a metaphysical, ethical, religious, historical, or social discourse, or by means of an inspiring personal life story. The difference between these two ways of endowing our lives with meaning can be described as the difference between forming a complex series of varying attitudes toward what our lives enclose and trying to form a single, comprehensive attitude toward our lives themselves. It can also be described as the difference between giving meaning to life “from the inside” and giving meaning to life “from the outside.” The complex-internal approach is focused on the concrete, ordinary manifestations of our existence, seeking to enrich and deepen the meaning of our lives through them. The comprehensive-external one seeks to magnify the ordinary meaning of things in some profound way through what they manifest over and above their ordinary meaning in the stream of life. (It is tempting to classify these different ways of rendering life meaningful to us as “gender approaches.”) However, human beings both resemble and differ from one another, and that in varying degrees. Some of us have a need for worldviews about the nature of human life and how it ought to be lived, or a need for mystical experiences of wonder, or a need for creating personal life-stories, so as to bestow meaning on our lives. Some of us have a need for satisfying actions, experiences, human relationships, and ideas that enrich the meaning of our lives. Most of us have a need for some measure of both approaches. However, it is important to remember that sometimes even all of these approaches combined may still not suffice for rendering our lives meaningful to us.


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The way in which we make use of these different ways of endowing life with meaning often embody our characters. They also manifest the different attitudes with which we may approach life, comprising in them our beliefs about life, hopes, wishes, and deep fears. Nonetheless, atheist and religious believers may also approach life with similar attitudes, some being able to accept the good with the bad and some not, some daring to strike a path on their own and some not, some being able to find meaning in their lives and some not. At the same time, people with different attitudes to life may nonetheless share the same worldview, just as they may have certain attitudes to life that are not accompanied by any worldview. Moreover, there is nothing strange about a person having different attitudes to life at different junctures of life.

Five Banal Remarks about Attitudes toward Life The banal assertion that what is meaningful to us about our lives manifests our attitudes toward them prompts a philosophical urge to examine what constitutes an attitude toward life and how it can be regulated: what kind of phenomenon is it, how many of them do we have, in what way can we bring our attitudes to our life under our control, and what should we strive for in this context? Before beginning to discuss this matter, it helps noting that attitudes toward things that are meaningful to us are often rich and very complex, with numerous and diverse ramifications upon our life, and they are manifested in a variety of ways. Attitudes to life and what it encloses are not merely experiences, such as pain and pleasure or feelings of boredom and apprehension, although they may be manifested through them. They are also not merely ongoing moods or emotional states, such as depression or elation, although they may be manifested through them. My attitude toward the members of my family, for instance, is manifested by my concern for them when they are ill, the joy I feel when I meet them, my hope that they should be happy with their lives, and the sorrow I experience when things go wrong in their lives—but it is not exhausted by all of these. To say that it is an attitude of love is to say, among other things, that it is more comprehensive than a feeling of one kind or another, as it is not exhausted by the experience of the moment. The ability to maintain an attitude of love, despite anger, disappointment, and criticism, is what distinguishes attitudes from fleeting experiences, desires, and emotional states. Our attitudes toward the meaningful focal points of our lives are also not exhausted by the opinions we formulate in regard to them. My opinion of the members of my family does not express the love I feel for them. Someone else may form the same opinion, but without loving them.


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It is helpful to note that our attitude toward anything—family members, a desk in the room, or our lives themselves—is embedded in a concrete, personal situation that is its meaningful context. To sit at the desk to write or to chop it up into firewood is to relate to the desk differently by demonstrating different attitudes toward it through different actions. Each of them manifests not only different understandings we may have in regard to the latent possibilities of the desk and our aims, but also to what is more personally meaningful to us in it—at least at that moment. In the everyday course of life we may relate to what is enclosed in our life without acknowledging our attitudes toward the things that are most meaningful to us, until something forces us to pay attention to them or to change them. The same holds also with respect to our attitudes to our lives themselves. Our attitudes toward our lives should not be confused with what is sometimes referred to as the “axis” or “center” of a person’s life. For some of us, life revolves around a central axis, for example, career or family; for others, life is of a more eclectic character. Either way, to the extent that attitudes to life embody what is meaningful to us about our life, they do not always determine the axis of our lives. Since my love of family or my concern over health is not put to the test in the everyday flow of things, I can afford to locate the axis of my life on issues and events relating to my work. The effort to obtain food and shelter turns into the axis of life of those who have lost their homes and livelihoods. This does not entail that the meaning they attribute to their lives is reduced in this case only to searching for food and shelter, even if the brunt of their attention is devoted to it. It may lie in the hope for better days, in their concerns for others, or in memories of times past. The effort we invest to obtain or achieve something does not always testify to the meaning we ascribe to our lives and therefore also not to our attitude toward them. Otherwise, it would not be possible to discover—upon looking back—that we missed out on what rendered our life meaningful to us. When we discover that we have chased, in our way of life, after things that are not really meaningful to us, it sparks in us a feeling of missed opportunity: that we have wasted our lives on trivial matters, that we have predicated the axis of our lives on things that are not the most meaningful to us, that we did not acknowledge what really renders our life meaningful to us. Although our attitudes toward our lives can be distinguished from various experiences and feelings we have that are directed at things enclosed in our lives, they may also be manifested in our emotional states and moods, such as feelings of joy; love for another person; hate for someone; a lingering state of apprehension; an unshakable state of depression; a lasting feeling of shame or guilt over a past incident; constant boredom; persistent dread over death; an unvarying desire to die; or enduring grief, sorrow, or shock. When a significant experience or mental state overwhelms us, it may also overwhelm


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our attitude toward our life and what it encloses. The point to note in this context is both the contingency of the experience or state, as well as its tendency to affect our attitude toward our life. In light of the difficulty of noting, listing, and cataloguing our attitudes toward our lives, as well as their susceptibility to be influenced by both moods and worldviews, it is tempting to attribute them to character. Indeed, some of us have an affinity for action and endeavor as a way of giving meaning to our lives; others are inclined toward ecstatic and meaningful experiences, still others to contemplating them within the framework of worldviews. There are people who accept their lives and what happens in them in good spirit and with satisfaction, and there are people who accept their lives out of bitterness and dissatisfaction, regardless of what happens in them. But this, too, is only part of the picture. First, to explain the origin of our attitudes toward our lives is not yet to describe them or to explain how they embody our lives with a specific meaning. Second, even if our attitudes toward our lives manifest our characters, they do so only from a particular aspect. Third, our characters fuel our attitudes toward our lives and toward what they hold, but they do not exhaust them. This may be noted in that our attitudes toward our lives may change with age, even if our character remains intact. The attitude of someone young looking upon life with expectation or hesitation is different from that of someone old looking back on life with satisfaction or disappointment, regardless of character. Moreover, the attitude toward life of someone who has experienced tragic loss may be different from that of someone fortunate enough not to have experienced tragic loss. The attitude toward life of someone whose head has been turned by success is different from that of someone who has only known failure. The attitude toward life of someone suffering from a grave illness may be different from that of a healthy person. Nonetheless, we might still want to speak about different basic and inherent attitudes that underlie people’s approaches to life, like optimism and pessimism, regardless of what their lives enclose. We speak in this connection about the kind of spirit with which they are vested and out of which they approach and regard their lives. This haphazard discussion of the concept of attitudes toward life can be summarized in five banal remarks: 1) the meaning of our lives for ourselves is embodied in our attitudes toward them. 2) Our attitudes toward our lives are manifested within a given context of life, which may change, bringing with it also a change in our attitude toward our life. 3) While some attitudes toward life are overwhelming at a given juncture of life, we may also have several different attitudes to our lives at the same time. 4) Our attitudes toward our lives manifest how we reconcile what we would like them to be with what we take them to be, what we believe and hope for regarding life and death with what deeply concerns, terrifies, and delights us about our life. 5) Our


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attitudes toward our lives manifest our characters and through them both the way we approach and regard our life, as well as how we view and experience what is enclosed in our life, constituting what may also be referred to as “the spirit” with which we endow our lives.

The Limitations of Philosophy Not all of us are inclined to reflect on our attitudes toward our lives, so as to note what we require to render them meaningful to us. Even those of us who are so inclined will still find it difficult to note what we require to render our lives meaningful to us. Ostensibly, the difficulty here is basically the same one that concerns trying to arrive at a self-knowledge regarding what is meaningful to us in the many and diverse aspects of everyday things that shape our lives, to which we do not pay attention in the ordinary course of life, until something happens to disrupt them and prompts us to note their considerable meaning to ourselves. Another difficulty is that what is meaningful to us is manifested through various perceptual, intellectual, artistic, ritualistic, practical, and emotional attitudes expressive of both understanding and will, through which we ascertain the meaning of things to ourselves and give them their meaning—in a particular context and from a particular aspect. Indeed, like our attitudes toward many different things that are meaningful to us in our lives, of which we are not always aware until they are put to the test, and therefore are not always aware of the extent to which they are meaningful to us, so too are our attitudes toward our lives themselves, for until death looms over our lives, or the suffering becomes unbearable, or what makes them meaningful to us is lost—we are often not fully aware of what is meaningful to us about them. Situations in life that force us to confront our impending death acquaint us with our desire or will to live. It might seem, therefore, that when we confront our impending death, we confront our attitude to our life itself. However, experiences of dread, despair, or resignation in the face of death, just like bravery or cowardice in the face of death, do not reveal what is meaningful to us about our lives. To the contrary, they are too overwhelming and often prevent us from noting at the moment the rich and profound context of meaning that renders our lives meaningful to us. They are useful, however, in retrospect, as contemplative focal points for noting what renders our lives meaningful to us, for a discrepancy is apt to arise between the way we conduct our lives and what is deeply meaningful to us in them. To become aware of it, we need an illuminating perspective or a focal context of affairs. At times of great joy, overwhelming enthusiasm, existential worries, grave tribulations, intense emotional states, and peril to our lives or to


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those that are dear to us, or to ideals, practices, institutions, and objects that are important to us, the perspective is provided out of the way we feel in the face of what is happening in our lives. When this perspective is lacking, we are apt to try to provide it to ourselves by paying attention to our sensibilities—the joys, enthusiasm, worry, anxiety, and hope aroused in us in various contexts of our lives—and thus ascertain our attitudes toward our lives. In either event, it seems difficult for us to ascertain our deep attitudes toward our lives, both because they are not restricted to any single, exclusive context, and because this demands a theoretical, emotional, and practical investigation of our lives and of our comprehensive and decisive existential attitudes toward them, toward what they hold, and toward what awaits them—an investigation which we may not want, and often do not know how, to conduct. Nonetheless, many of us have a need to note, express, and acknowledge some of the ways in which we experience our lives as meaningful to us. Artistic endeavors may succeed in doing so by embodying what is meaningful about life for the artist from a restricted but noteworthy perspective, which we may then share. Typically, many religious rituals and prayers cater to this need, supplying those of us who indulge in them with common practices of doing so. Saying a prayer before or after dinner, giving thanks to God upon awakening, partaking in a daily prayer of blessing, or even purposefully sitting at the end of the day without thinking about the things that concern us in our everyday lives—all of these are different, nonphilosophical ways in which we, as human beings, seek to transcend our everyday lives so as to take note of both their contingency and blessing, and in this way acknowledge their meaningfulness to us. It is a way of reminding ourselves of the meaningful aspects of life for us. Philosophical discourse often tries to join this effort in either of two ways. One is by attempting to construct a worldview regarding life and its meaning, which can then determine for us how to experience life in a meaningful way. The other is by providing edifying descriptions and clarification for some of the ways in which we do so. These may take on the form of insightful metaphors for ways in which we lend meaning to our lives or somewhat banal reminders and conceptual clarifications of how we do so. Thus to say, as I have been doing here, that the ways in which our lives are experienced and grasped as meaningful or not to ourselves embody our attitudes toward them is not to partake in the philosophical venture of explaining the meaning of life and how it should be approached, but merely to provide a banal conceptual reminder of a feature that embodies it. Just as to say that it is we who give meaning to our lives and to what they hold is to provide another banal reminder. Banal reminders take the form of conceptual remarks that help us focus our attention on what we already know. To make conscious use


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of them for the purpose of clarifying a philosophical puzzle, is to try to replace the yearning for a deep and fundamental explanation of our ability or inability to give meaning to our lives with insight that rests upon what we already know. The difference in these two philosophical approaches to the question about the meaning of life is like the difference between two kinds of journeys: one that takes us to a new, previously unknown territory, wherein we are supposed now to settle down, another that returns us back home, to our familiar and known surroundings. For in contrast to banal remarks and new metaphors on various aspects of human life through which we may render our lives meaningful to us, philosophical worldviews aim to both explain the meaning of life and instruct us on how to bestow satisfying meaning on our life. I have claimed here that such explanations are often given by formulating some fundamental ontology that posits human life and how it is experienced at its center, while the instructions are often rendered into ethical doctrines regarding how to endow our lives with a meaning that would satisfy us. The lesson from the philosophical journey on the trail of the meaning of life undertaken here is that there is no comprehensive, single, reliable answer of general validity to either the ontological question “What renders life meaningful?” or to the ethical question “How should life be made meaningful?” As the problem regarding the meaning of life is manifested differently in the life of each and every person, there is no single, definitive manifestation of the problem. Despite all of us being human, all too human, with regard to the meaning of our lives, we are not all of a kind. Hence, the Problem of Life is not a single problem. Put differently, it might be said that despite our human similarities and the truth of the banal contention that human beings need to experience their lives as meaningful to them, what makes life meaningful or not to us may differ from one person to the next. To end with this banal conclusion is to acknowledge philosophy’s inability to bring the explanatory mission it has undertaken with regard to the meaning of life to completion. Since the Problem of Life has disintegrated into different personal problems of life, relating to how life is experienced meaningfully or not, the philosopher should not strive to propound overall explanations and ethical doctrines so as to help overcome such problems— at least, not as a philosopher. To the extent that the Problem of Life is manifested in a personal manner, it must be addressed in the same way. This means that those of us who come to philosophy to find an instructive answer on how to render our lives meaningful to us can only receive banal support from this discourse. It means also that the ability of philosophers to instruct in this domain is extremely limited. It is doubtful whether philosophers have the necessary skills to help people who are in distress in regard to the meaning they experience and attribute to their lives so as to overcome their


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personal Problem of Life. In our day and age, the philosopher is no longer a “sage,” who has the worldly wisdom and ability to guide people in their personal lives and help them choose the best way to make their lives meaningful to themselves, and it is doubtful that philosophers ever possessed this ability. As a rule, in everything concerned with the meaning of life, the philosopher’s wisdom is the poor man’s wisdom; this is the wisdom that makes it possible to understand how we have fallen into philosophical perplexity in regard to the meaning of life, as well as what are some of the parameters of human life that might render it problematic for human beings—but not necessarily the wisdom to know what each of us needs to do in order to overcome our personal Problem of Life.

Returning Home It can now be seen that a successful philosophical journey in search of the meaning of life is one that brings us safely back home at its conclusion, to our everyday lives that are, nonetheless, unique, in being singular to us only. Such a journey returns us to the way in which we experience and regard our lives as meaningful to us or not. Its success lies in enabling us to re-evaluate our attitudes toward our lives and what they enclose, after the adventures, difficulties, mirages, and insights we have experienced abroad. It brings those of us who are concerned about the meaning of life and have sought help from philosophy back to our own lives and the personal context from within which our concerns about the meaning of life arose. As our concerns manifest our attitudes, we need at this point to consider our attitudes toward our lives against the background of what this journey has disclosed about the need and ability of human beings to experience life in a personally meaningful way. A philosophical journey cannot teach us how to do this; it can only cast light on what underlies such experiences, as well as on the different ways this can be done. It can help remind us of what we should already have known: that the ability to derive meaning from our lives depends on ourselves and on the attitude we are able to develop and adopt toward them. Nothing is guaranteed in this matter, and in our philosophical moments we should acknowledge this too. Returning home from the philosophical journey on the trail of the meaning of life with neither a general answer to the question about the meaning of life nor an explanation as how to render our lives meaningful to ourselves does not cancel the importance of having embarked upon it. For even if what has been discovered in it are unsatisfactory answers and explanations or edifying banal reminders, for me the journey itself was neither unsatisfactory nor banal. A fruitful philosophical journey on the trail of the meaning


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of life should not be measured by the discovery of new truths about life, but of new insights for ourselves about the problem we sought to overcome with the help of philosophy. In my understanding of this problem, it concerns our attitudes toward our lives. Thus the importance of the journey for the philosopher in us lies in its enabling us to recognize anew the banal truth that the meaning of our lives cannot be greater, richer, or more profound than the meaning we ourselves give to them—as we have nothing more to rely on in this matter than does anyone else. With this banal statement about philosophy’s edifying but limited role of hindsight in the matter, my journey on the trail of the meaning of life ends by my returning home to the reality of my life. However, this does not constitute a return to the same philosophical reflective point of departure from which the journey began, neither for me, nor I hope for whoever has joined me in this philosophical venture. Indeed, it is not a return to any philosophical reflection, but rather to a very personal stance, in which we may confront and reflect on our attitude to our life anew. For in returning from a philosophical journey of reflection on the meaning of life to confront our attitudes to our lives anew, we confront them with greater and fresher understanding. Thus we can now note that it is they that induce us to leave our homes and embark on such a philosophical journey, just as the return from it now to the everyday, concrete, personal reality of our lives and our attitudes toward them enables us to see and regard them in a new light, against the background of this journey. For our attitudes toward our lives embody in them what we believe, wish, desire, fear, and hope for in regard to our lives, and they are also the place to which we must return upon its conclusion, in order to accept them or reshape them in light of the strange, sometimes misleading, but nonetheless edifying perspectives attained in a philosophical journey about the meaning of life.


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Foucault, Michael. “The Ethics of the Concern of the Self as a Practice of Freedom.” In Foucault’s Ethics, Subjectivity, and Truth, Vol. 1, edited by Paul Rainbow, 281-301. New York: The New Press, 1997. ———. “An Aesthetics of Existence.” In Interviews and Other Writings: 19771984, edited by L. D. Kritzman. London: Routledge, 1988. ———. “On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress.” In Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, 340-72. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Frankel, Victor. Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977. Fretz, Leo. “Individuality in Sartre’s Philosophy.” In The Cambridge Companion to Sartre, edited by by Christina Howells. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Hare, R. M. “Nothing Matters.” In The Meaning of Life, edited by E. D. Klemke, 241-47. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981. Ibsen, Henrik. The Works of Henrik Ibsen. Edited by Walter J. Black. New York, 1928. Kafka, Franz. The Trial. Translated by Breon Mitchell. New York: Schocken Books, 1988. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment, sections 45-50. ———. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals & What is Enlightenment? Translated by Lewis White Beck. New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1959. Kierkegaard, Søren. Stages on Life’s Way. Translated by Walter Lowrie. New York: Shocken Books, 1967. ———. The Sickness unto Death. Translated by Walter Lowrie. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. ———. Either/Or. Edited and translated by Howard V. and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. ———. Fear and Trembling: A Dialectical Lyric. Translated by Walter Lowrie. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941. Lurie, Yuval. “Wittgenstein as the Forlorn Caretaker of Language.” In The Story of Analytic Philosophy, edited by A. Biletzky and A. Matar, 209-25. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1998. ———. “Wittgenstein on Culture and Civilization.” Inquiry 32 (1989): 37597. ———. Cultural Beings: Reading the Philosophers of Genesis. Amsterdam and Atlanta, Ga.: Rodopi, 2000. MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. Malcolm, Norman. Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.


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———.Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View? Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: A Life: Young Ludwig, 1889-1921. London: Duckworth, 1988. Monk, Ray. Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude. London: Jonathan Cape, 1996. ———. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. New York: The Free Press, 1990. Moorhead, S. Hugh. The Meaning of Life. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1988. Nagel, Thomas. “The Absurd.” The Journal of Philosophy 63, no. 20 (1971): 716-27. Reprinted in The Meaning of Life, edited by E. D. Klemke, 15161. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. ———. The View from Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. ———. What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Nozick, Robert. Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981. Plato. Republic. Rorty, Richard. “Freud and Moral Reflection.” In Essays on Heidegger and Others, Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2, 143-63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Confessions. Manufactured by H. Wolff. The Modern Library, 1945. Russell, Bertrand. “Mysticism and Logic.” In Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1959. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Anti-Semite and Jew. Translated by George J. Becker. New York: Schocken Books, 1965. ———. Being and Nothingness. Translated by Hazel E. Barnes. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1957. In French, L’Etre et le Néant. Paris: Galimard, 1943. ———. “Camus’ The Outsider.” In Literary and Philosophical Essays, translated by A. Muchelson, 26-44. New York: Collier Books, 1962. ———. The Words. Translated by Irene Clephane. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1964. Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. Translated by E. F. J. Payne. New York: Dover Publications, 1958. Schroeder, Ralph. The Self and the Other: Sartre and His Predecessors. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984. Thompson, Caleb. “Wittgenstein and the Meaning of Life.” Philosophical Investigations 20, no. 2 (April 1997): 97-115. Tolstoy, Leo N. The Death of Ivan Ilych. Translated by Alymer Maude. New


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York: The New American Library, 1960. ———. “The Four Gospels.” In The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy, Vol. 15, translated by Leo Wiener. New York: Colonial Press Co., 1904. ———. “The Meaning of Life.” In The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy, Vol. 16, translated by Leo Wiener. New York: Colonial Press Co., 1904. ———. “My Confession: Introduction to the Critique of Dogmatic Theology and Investigation of the Christian Teaching.” In The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy, Vol. 13, translated by Leo Wiener. New York: Colonial Press Co., 1904. Tugendhat, Ernst. “Über den Tod.” In Aufsätze 1992-2000. Suhrkamp, 2005. Weiner, David Avraham. Genius and Talent: Schopenhauer’s Influence on Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy. London: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1994. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. “A Lecture on Ethics.” In Philosophical Occasions, 1912-1951, edited by A. Nordmann and J. Klagge. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co., 1993. ———. Blue and Brown Books. New York: Harper and Row, 1958. ———. Culture and Value. Edited by G. H. von Wright, translated by Peter Winch. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. ———. Notebooks, 1914-1916. Edited by G. H. von Wright, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1961. ———. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1953. ———. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. London & New Jersey: Routledge Humanities Press, 1961. Zane, Stuart Charme. Vulgarity and Authenticity: Dimensions of Otherness in the World of Jean-Paul Sartre. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts, 1991. Zemach, Eddy. “Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of the Mystical.” In Essays on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, edited by I. M. Copy and R. W. Beard, 359-76. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1966.

Collections of Essays on The Meaning of Life Hanfling, Oswald, ed. Life and Meaning: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987. Klemke, E. D., ed. The Meaning of Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Moorhead, Hugh S., ed. The Meaning of Life. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1988. Westphal, Jonathan, and Carl Levenson, eds. Life and Death. Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993.


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index

Absurd: choice, 253, 275; absurdity, 6, 7, 24, 37-39, 52, 76, 252-56, 276-85, 298, 316; and meaning of life, 6, 3840, 48, 253-56, 259, 278, 281, 283, 285, 318, 319 Aesthetics, 61, 93, 116, 152-56, 158, 160, 165, 297 Algiers, Algeria, 249, 250, 260 Alien, 36, 39, 77, 93, 95, 167, 204, 264, 283, 288, 294, 298, 300, 315 Alienation, 37, 39, 93, 217, 218, 227, 239, 283, 298, 308 Analytic Philosophy, 3, 5, 125, 129, 266 Ancient, 3, 12, 43-60 passim, 64, 71, 74, 81, 130, 180, 181, 183, 184, 202, 207, 233, 242, 244, 253, 270, 273 Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 81 Anxiety: for the future, 147; in the face of death, 18, 75. See also Existential anxiety Aristotle, 47, 50, 51, 314 Attitude: authentic, 228-30; and happiness, 50, 51, 150, 151, 167, 319; mystical, 163, 280; propositional, 108, 119; religious, 61, 62, 131, 143, 148; toward life, 19, 38, 39, 41, 47, 50, 62, 63, 76, 82, 131, 136, 141-43, 146, 14851, 155, 157, 158, 160-65, 167, 229, 230, 239, 261, 280, 281, 285, 320, 322; toward our life, 84, 322 Austin, John, 23, 128 Authentic: authenticity, 207, 209, 225, 227, 228, 230, 231, 244; expression, 16, 207; meaning, 207-9, 227, 239, understanding, 207, 227

Being and Time (Heidegger), 210 Bible, 35, 43, 47, 52, 54, 61, 104, 158, 181 Brothers Karamazov, The (Dostoevsky), 59 Camus, Albert, 5, 6, 34, 35, 58-60, 249, 252-68, 271, 274-76, 279, 284-88, 296, 298, 304, 308, 312-15, 317 Castle, The (Kafka), 194-195 Cause: mechanical, 56, 129, 290; natural, 57, 72; teleological, 47, 48, 51, 56 Childhood, 15, 44, 171, 172, 201, 289, 300, 307, 312 Christian, 55, 209 Christianity, 11, 17, 40, 47, 51, 55, 84, 90, 130, 217, 222, 240 Cognition, 105-11, 110, 118, 112, 115, 124, 282 Computer, 245, 290, 303, 304 Creation: and life, 30, 153, 155; and world, 13, 44, 53, 59, 98, 138, 158, 209, 217, 219, 240 Creatures: human, 22, 24, 68, 71, 72, 113, 298, 304; living, 22, 24, 33, 91, 291, 303-5 Culture: and human life, 52, 71; and nature 7, 52, 54 Death, our own, 111, 138, 208, 210, 270 Descartes, René, 40, 41, 203, 204, 207, 210 Desire: to experience, 163; to find, 130, 149, 162, 318; to live, 17, 140, 143, 161, 310, 311; and will, 71, 119, 120,

333


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145, 270, 271, 302, 310, 318, 323. See also Value and desire Despair, 1, 12, 15-19, 26, 33, 38, 39, 42, 147, 318, 323 Dijon, 171, 175-77, 180, 183-86, 189, 190, 199, 239 Divine Comedy (Dante), 35 Earthly, 47 Ecclesiastes, 12, 52-54, 309 Emotions, 50, 142, 147, 158, 181, 229, 234, 239, 272, 302-4, 307, 320, 321, 323, 324 Enlightenment, 7, 59, 60, 71-74, 91, 96, 136, 157, 187, 190, 217, 222, 223, 243 Epicureans, 51, 54 Epistemology, 105, 107, 115, 158, 206, 207 Equanimity, 50, 150 Eternal: existence, 14, 60; life, 20, 76, 111-14, 130, 131, 133, 139, 140, 143, 165 Eternity, 17, 24, 25, 36, 67-69, 75, 76, 95, 111, 200 Ethics: ethical propositions, 116, 118, 124, 128; ethical virtues, 50; ethical way of life, 50, 122; and meaning, 122, 124, 127, 128, 134, 136, 140, 221, 227, 228, 254, 255, 297, 313, 325; and value, 54, 116-24 passim, 131, 132, 134, 145, 152, 205, 223, 272 Existence: of God, 13, 14, 57, 98, 134, 135, 253; our own, 138, 139, 208; possible, 98, 101, 108, 202; of the world, 104, 106, 132, 138, 139, 141, 158; of values, 271-74 Existential: anxiety, 208, 219, 220, 317; attitude, 62, 63, 324; concern, 34; need, 27, 28, 35, 63, 76, 145, 164, 185, 192, 200, 201; predicament, 29, 39, 145, 174, 189, 198, 199, 201, 212, 231, 255, 257, 260, 317; problem, 76, 144, 145, 151, 164, 196, 280, 282, 285, 286, 314; psychoanalysis, 171, 173, 174; purpose, 48, 51; situation, 226 Existentialism, 7, 178, 216, 221-25, 228, 238, 240, 241, 243, 245, 246 Existentialism and Humanism (Sartre), 216, 221 Exodus, 182 Explanation: causal, 56; everyday, 56;

Index philosophical, 27, 205, 213, 261, 266, 284, 290; psychological, 109, 144, 272, 273, 292; religious, 313; scientific, 33, 40, 59, 110, 129, 139, 140, 233, 261, 281, 282, 289, 290, 300; theological, 63, 70. See also Interpretation and explanation Fact, 44, 65, 97-109 passim, 118-20, 122, 125, 126, 129-34, 137-42, 147-56 passim, 174, 202, 206, 215-17, 226, 23235, 260, 278, 299, 309 Fascism, 65, 216, 225, 226 Feeling: of absurdity, 76; of guilt, 141, 173, 197 Foucault, Michel, 243, 244, 246 Frankel, Victor, 27, 28 Freedom: to determine the meaning, 215, 218-20, 222-25, 233, 234, 240, 318; and rationality, 73, 179, 212, 222, 232, 238, 240; and responsibility, 215, 217, 219, 220, 226, 232 Freud, Sigmund, 28, 45, 136, 172-74, 187, 245, 292 Genesis, 43, 44, 51, 240 Genius, 90, 115, 228 God: Grace of, 17-19, 130, 240, 318; wants of, 13, 57, 60, 123, 124, 126, 131, 132, 134; will of, 13, 17, 31, 52, 54, 55, 62, 74, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83, 85, 120, 121, 123, 124, 129-34, 136, 14345, 148, 160, 161, 188, 189, 193, 196, 197, 219, 222, 238, 241, 253, 258 Gospel in Brief, The (Tolstoy), 89 Greece, 47-51 Guilt, 112, 122, 141, 148, 172, 173, 197, 227, 250, 251, 272, 280, 306, 321 Hamann, Georg, 157, 158 Hare, R. M., 266-70, 273-76 Heaven, 55, 132, 137 Hermeneutics, 207 Homer, 180, 181 Humanism, 7, 216, 221-25 Ibsen, Henrik, 186-89 Idealism, 106, 307, 311, 313, 317, 319 Ideology, 7, 36, 71-77 passim, 158, 192, 193, 225, 229 Importance: and meaningfulness, 26874, 298, 326; and significance, 66, 67,


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Index 126, 146, 147, 261; and value, 34, 66, 67, 126, 146, 147, 222, 261, 267-75 Individual, 22, 155, 179, 182, 184, 190, 208, 221, 224, 278, 300, 301 Intellectual: French, 200, 204; interpretation, 293-95, 307; problem, 285; view, 286; western, 58, 60, 125, 179 Intention, 8, 37, 117, 263 Internationality, 206 Interpretation: and explanation, 70, 233, 290, 291-97, 300, 312; of facts, 232, 233; of meaning, 296; of story, 68, 194, 296, 304 Intuition, 139 Invention, 198-200, 211, 214, 230, 231, 236, 239, 240, 317 Ironic, 31, 80, 177, 200, 280, 285, 286, 293 Kafka, Franz, 192-98, 235, 246, 258 Kant, Immanuel, 57, 59, 61, 72-75, 90, 91, 98, 105-8, 112, 116-24, 127, 131, 136, 157, 206, 222, 228 Kierkegaard, Søren, 16, 60-63, 113, 114, 125, 126, 178, 207 Liberty, 71-75, 77, 82 Logic, 15, 17, 37, 44, 46, 47, 79, 92-124 passim, 130, 132, 133, 137-40, 142, 153-58 passim, 161, 162, 165, 242, 270, 278, 313 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 241-44, 246 Malcolm, Norman, 165, 166 Marx, Karl, 46, 136, 217, 241 Meaning: blindness, 288, 292; of events, 17, 18, 23, 24, 68, 125, 154, 226, 258, 296, 304, 308; lack of, 135, 153, 267, 318; objective, 36, 38, 39, 41, 284; personal, 27, 28, 36-39, 6567, 70, 75, 82, 183, 185, 192-94, 197201, 203, 210-12, 214, 228, 235, 237, 240, 244, 259-65, 270, 274, 275, 28085, 288, 289, 293, 300, 301, 303, 304, 306, 308, 313, 317; political, 262; subjective, 279; of things, 2, 23, 36, 66, 202, 203, 207, 219, 223, 227, 233, 234, 236, 257, 262, 263, 265, 268, 269, 271, 281-83, 287-91, 293-301, 303, 304, 306-8, 318, 319, 323; of words, 23, 64, 65, 125, 126. See also Religious: meaning; Transcendent:

335

meaning; Transcendental: meaning; Value: and meaning Meaningful: existence, 202; experience, 83, 85, 163, 203, 206; life, 194, 198, 277, 286; meaningfulness, 66, 152-54, 261, 282, 308, 324; personally, 25, 28, 33, 36, 39, 66, 67, 70, 75, 76, 163, 185, 192-96, 198, 235, 237, 245, 255, 260-65, 268-71, 274, 278, 280-87, 289, 293-95, 297-309, 313, 314, 321, 326. See also Importance: and meaningfulness Meaningless, 12, 14, 19, 23, 36, 37, 64, 68, 75, 76, 163, 208, 210, 252, 253, 255, 260, 263, 265, 281, 291, 308, 313 Metamorphosis, The (Kafka), 235 Metaphysics: assertion, 94; view, 259, 313 Modern: culture, 230, 232; modernity, 62, 71, 74; view, 179 Monotheism, 7, 51, 138 Moore, George E., 94 Moorhead, S. Hugh, 26 Moral: duty, 2, 25; morality, 56, 73, 123, 313; obligation, 216; responsibility, 119, 226, 227; value, 120, 123, 224 Mysticism, 8, 59, 70, 72, 91, 95, 96, 13641, 151-65 passim, 280, 319 Nagel, Thomas, 276-86 Nature: human, 48, 50, 51, 56, 187, 188, 190, 218, 225; of human beings, 74, 214, 243; singular, 187-90, 201, 230; unique, 48, 174, 186, 187, 228 Nausea (Sartre), 204 Needs, 2, 3, 6, 19, 21, 28, 34, 44, 52, 55, 65, 76, 94, 102, 108, 136, 144, 145, 153, 159, 163, 165, 186, 188, 193, 194, 196, 198, 212, 214, 216, 219, 221, 240, 243, 261, 265, 272, 285, 286, 308, 326 New Testament, 51 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 50 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 188, 229 Nihilism, 7, 224, 267, 273 Objective, 21, 29, 35-39, 41, 42, 61, 64, 66, 76, 80, 105, 112, 113, 145, 163, 164, 179, 181, 188, 196, 200, 206, 217-19, 224-26, 233, 253, 258, 267, 275-81, 284, 285, 308, 316 Odyssey (Homer), 180


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Old age, 44, 45, 309 Old Testament, 51 Our own death. See Death, our own Passion, 50, 158, 310, 311 Peasant, 13, 20, 63, 74-84 passim, 165, 312 Peer Gynt (Ibsen), 186-89 Personal concern, 4, 28, 302, 303 Pessimism, 12, 45, 52, 53, 90, 91, 166, 318, 322 Phenomenological ontology, 202, 203 Physics (Aristotle), 47 Plato, 50, 59, 270, 273, 309 Positivism, 117, 233 Principles of Mathematics (Russell), 91 Problem of Life, 6, 18-20, 22, 31, 57, 62, 75-85 passim, 89, 95, 96, 144-54, 157-67, 196, 198, 200, 231, 240, 286, 287, 314, 325, 326 Problems of Philosophy, The (Russell), 107 Projection, 102 Propositional form, 92, 102, 128 Purpose of life, 51, 54, 55, 58, 63, 64, 126, 311, 316. See also Existential: purpose Rational, 13, 17-19, 24, 36-42 passim, 50, 57, 61, 67, 71-77, 82, 85, 92, 103, 113, 120, 136, 146, 147, 156, 157, 163, 179, 187, 189, 198, 212, 222, 223, 227, 228, 232, 240, 245, 262, 281-83, 285, 295, 304, 308, 316 Reading, 7, 14, 16, 19, 30, 50, 53, 62, 77, 85, 89, 90-94 passim, 115, 122, 133, 156, 157, 176, 181, 189, 193, 195, 228, 259, 263, 266, 271, 274, 277, 293, 299, 302, 308, 312, 314 Reality, 59, 60, 74, 77, 80, 83, 98, 101, 105, 110, 137, 157, 158, 200, 203, 207, 237, 257, 258, 282, 327 Reason, 2, 7, 72-75, 77, 82, 119, 136, 146, 147, 188, 222, 228, 239, 276, 281, 293, 310 Religious: belief, 13, 14, 19, 21, 59, 76, 79, 113, 136, 141, 144, 146, 151, 219, 222, 254, 259; faith, 19, 60, 62, 68, 74, 77, 140, 141, 195, 240, 258, 259, 282; illusion, 253, 254; meaning, 13, 30, 31, 47, 63, 67, 75-77, 80, 82, 83, 85, 89, 90, 160, 259, 275, 285, 312; social, 297, 303; worldview, 18, 30,

Index 47, 51-57 passim, 71, 77, 85, 89, 113, 114, 119, 121, 130, 132, 133, 136, 140, 151, 160, 188, 193, 238, 254, 312 Republic (Plato), 50, 270, 309 Riddle of life, 13, 43-48, 50, 51, 53-58, 60, 64, 95, 125, 126, 129-34, 143-45 Romanticism, 158, 187, 189, 228 Rorty, Richard, 244-46 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 73, 190 Russell, Bertrand, 91-95, 101, 104, 105, 107, 108, 138, 139 Salvation, 17, 55, 74, 96, 130, 133, 139, 240 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 5, 6, 171-78, 180, 185, 186, 189, 190, 192, 196-207, 209-11, 213-37, 239-41, 243-46, 256-63, 267, 268, 276, 291, 313, 315, 317 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 12, 37, 90, 91, 93, 95, 105 Science, 1, 2, 4, 21, 33, 40, 44, 47, 56-63 passim, 90-97 passim, 101, 109, 110, 127, 129-31, 136-40, 143, 155, 157, 158, 190, 206, 207, 209, 222, 228, 230, 233, 244, 245, 261, 269, 270, 280-86, 289, 290, 294, 300 Secular: person, 16, 147; worldview, 16, 57, 59, 179, 259 Secular Meaning of the Gospel, The (Van Buren), 26 Security, 75, 82, 141, 148, 184 Self-identity, 65, 173-76, 178, 180-216 passim, 221, 228-45 passim, 257, 259, 260 Sense: of the question, 125, 146; transcendental, 316; of the world, 6, 95, 125-27, 129, 131-35, 140, 142, 149, 153 Seriousness, 34, 42, 148, 229, 230, 286, 312 Shakespeare, William, 68, 137 Significance, 7, 33, 56, 65-67, 80, 113, 126, 141, 143, 146, 147, 158, 261, 299, 321. See also Importance: and significance Sin, 11, 16, 69, 148, 149, 186, 188, 193, 194, 253, 254, 294 Situation, 26, 37, 101, 102, 172, 173, 215-19, 224, 226-28, 232, 238, 277, 279, 289, 303, 310, 321, 323 Solipsism, 95, 106, 107, 110, 127 Soul of life, 299, 308


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Index Space, 21, 24, 36, 80, 90, 91, 99-101, 104, 105, 108, 112, 113, 131, 137, 155, 208, 209, 230, 244, 282 Speculation, 59, 82, 207, 206 Speculative, 62, 90, 91, 98, 106, 131, 156 Spinoza, Baruch De, 57, 72, 139 Stoic, 51, 306, 318 Subject, 107-11, 119, 243 Subjective, 103, 105, 145, 179, 206, 214, 240, 277, 279, 280, 284 Suicide, 12, 27, 34, 148, 149, 252, 314, 317 Taste of Life, 310, 311 Tautology, 101, 103, 150 Teleology, 7, 47, 48, 51, 56, 241 Theology, 13, 14, 18, 19, 31, 44, 51, 63, 70, 89, 104, 130, 131, 136, 141, 143, 146, 151, 154 Time: conception of, 305, 306; and death, 111, 113, 306 Tolstoy, Lev Nikolayevich, 5, 6, 11-26, 28, 29, 33, 35-41, 47, 51, 52, 55-70 passim, 74-77, 80-82, 85, 89, 125, 126, 135, 144, 145, 149, 151, 161-63, 178, 200, 207, 312, 315, 316 Torah, 47, 52 Transcendent: meaning, 19, 20, 61, 63, 69, 70, 81-83, 196, 203, 213, 258-60, 313, 314; value, 75, 274, 275 Transcendental: ethics, 118, 120, 121,

124, 126, 127, 134, 136, 140, 142, 143, 146, 149; meaning, 134, 144, 154, 163; value, 124, 131-34, 152, 153, 214, 217-19, 230, 316 Universal, 52, 56, 57, 61, 63, 72, 73, 75, 76, 81, 92, 116-18, 120, 121, 123, 163, 187, 188, 193, 194, 198, 205, 209, 219, 222, 224, 225, 228, 243, 311 Value: and desire, 71, 124, 126, 132, 143, 149, 219, 229, 272, 273; of life, 34, 67, 132; and meaning, 34, 61, 66, 67, 75, 122, 126, 127, 130-36 passim, 144, 146, 197, 217, 225, 258, 268-71, 274, 275. See also Importance: and value; Transcendental: value Van Buren, Paul, 26-28 Villagers, 194 Will: free, 71-73, 75, 77, 113, 119, 174, 222; rational, 72, 120, 189. See also God: God's will Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 5, 6, 23, 77, 79, 89-167 passim, 243, 291, 312, 315, 316 Wonder: of life, 140, 164; about the meaning of life, 1, 2, 6, 7, 24, 28, 32, 35, 135, 136, 202, 246 Work of art, 154-58, 189, 230 Youth, 15, 251, 264, 266, 267, 309


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