Exam 2: The Meaning of Life

According to Nietzsche in "The Thought of 'Eternal Recurrence,'" what question would gain possession of you after you were visited by the demon?

Calvin Coolidge apparently embraced the view that life is an investment when he said

When Nietzsche writes that Socrates and other Western philosophers have turned "reason into a tyrant," he

According to Camus, the only serious philosophical question is:

Someone who views life as a disease presupposes some conception of health.

One of the main tenets of Buddhism says that ​

The belief that the meaning of your life is a "calling" is one expression of the idea of "Life as a Mission."

Solomon and Higgins say that some answers to the question "What is the meaning of life?" really assume that our lives have meaning only because they refer to someone or something outside ourselves.    Write an essay explaining this way of answering the question, and then develop three detailed concepts of meaning that illustrate it. What are the shortcomings of this way of answering the question?

The thinker who argued that the clarity of self-knowledge may be an illusion because most of our ideas are the product of the unconscious was

"Life as tragedy" and "Life as comedy" both share the assumption that

Religious believers like Saint Augustine and Martin Luther asked questions about the meaning of life less persistently than atheists.

Solomon says that some answers to the question of the meaning of life "only postpone the answer" by raising new questions. Suppose a friend were to tell you, "The meaning of my life is God." Give one example of a new question that this answer raises that you could ask your friend.

Social scientists tell us that people tend to be happiest when they have meaningful relationships in which they are actively engaged. This confirms the "Life as Relationships" viewpoint.   Aristotle writes that "friendship seems to be one of the features of the good life."   Explain what Aristotle means by this, and then describe your own experience of friendship. Be specific: focus on one or two examples. What makes them important to your life? How have friendships contributed to your sense of meaning?

Write a dialogue in which two characters discuss their competing images of the meaning of life. One of the characters can represent your preferences, and the other can represent a viewpoint on meaning that you do not prefer.   Your dialogue should bring out and explain each image in some detail; it should discuss the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. Finally, it should provide a reasoned argument or explanation why, given their strengths and weaknesses, the images are compelling to the characters.   Be creative in writing your dialogue, and have fun, but stay focused on the issues. You might also stage this dialogue as an oral presentation in front of your class, or make a video of it.

When Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, "Live your life as a work of art," what did he mean?

Camus expresses the view that life is a tragedy when one of his characters declares ,

Someone who devotes her life to rock climbing probably has a vision of life centered on

Your vision of the meaning of life

Nihilism is the belief that life has no meaning.

The word nirvana is a Sanskrit word for "suffering."