The Meaning Of Life: A Very Short Introduction Paperback – 24 July 2008
by Eagleton (Author)
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'Philosophers have an infuriating habit of analysing questions rather than answering them', writes Terry Eagleton, who, in these pages, asks the most important question any of us ever ask, and attempts to answer it. So what is the meaning of life? In this witty, spirited, and stimulating inquiry, Eagleton shows how centuries of thinkers - from Shakespeare and Schopenhauer to Marx, Sartre and Beckett - have tackled the question. Refusing to settle for the bland and boring, Eagleton reveals with a mixture of humour and intellectual rigour how the question has become particularly problematic in modern times. Instead of addressing it head-on, we take refuge from the feelings of 'meaninglessness' in our lives by filling them with a multitude of different things: from football and sex, to New Age religions and fundamentalism. 'Many of the readers of this book are likely to be as sceptical of the phrase "the meaning of life" as they are of Santa Claus', he writes. But Eagleton contends that in a world where we need to find common meanings, it is important that we set about answering the question of all questions; and, in conclusion, he suggests his own answer. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
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Review
`Review from previous edition The book's a little gem.' Suzanne Harrington, Irish Examiner (Cork) `Light hearted but never flippant.' The Guardian. `Wonders never cease. This is popular philosophy by an amateur in the best sense of the word, a man who clearly loves the stuff and writes plain English...[Eagleton] makes his case well and with a light touch.' The Guardian (Review) `It is a stimulating and often entertaining, if at times rather breathless, Cook's tour around the chief monuments of western philosophy and literature...The Meaning of Life is unusual and refreshing.' John Gray, The Independent `[Eagleton] makes his case well and with a light touch... I stand convinced.' Simon Jenkins, Guardian Book of the Week `A lively starting point for late-night debate.' John Cornwell, Sunday Times `Warm intellectual pleasure...meticulous treatment of the subject...It looks like Eagleton got it right.' Mario Pisani, The Financial Times `The name Terry Eagleton...assures us of stimulation, style, sparkling, sometimes acerbic, wit, and wide-ranging erudition. In other words he is eminently readable...[a] commendably pocket-sized book.' Gordon Parsons, Morning Star `With sparkling effrontery, panache, and deft footwork, Eagleton moves from ironic flippancy and caustic demolition to resolute affirmation.' Marina Warner
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Ahmad Sharabiani
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December 19, 2021
The Meaning of Life: َA Very Short Introductions (Very Short Introductions #186), Terry Eagleton
Terence Francis Eagleton is a British literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual. Eagleton has published over forty books, but remains best known for Literary Theory: An Introduction.
We have all wondered about The Meaning of Life. But is there an answer? And do we even really know what we're asking?
Terry Eagleton takes a stimulating and quirky look at this most compelling of questions: at the answers explored in philosophy and literature; at the crisis of meaning in modern times; and suggests his own solution to how we might rediscover meaning in our lives.
The meaning of life is that which we choose to give it.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دهم ماه مارس سال2010میلادی
Title: The meaning of life; Author: Terry Eagleton; Translator: Abbas Mokhbar; Tehran, Age Publishing, 2018, on 223 pages; ISBN 9789643291693; The topic of life from British writers - 20th century
Is it correct to propose a general question, such as "the meaning of life", in a time when general answers and great meta-narratives have disappeared? The question about the meaning of life is a question that was raised mostly in the modern era, because in pre-modern societies, people looked for the answer to this question mostly in religion, and thought that religious doctrine, "the meaning of life." "He answers the human being on the earth, with the legend of creation, and the idea of the end, and the destiny of the holy destiny;
In the "post-modern" era, it is not encouraging to propose general answers, because most of the post-modernists considered the general answers to be "transcendent", and they were and still are, that human knowledge is "partial", and therefore, General questions and answers, such as the question about the "meaning of life", do not lead anywhere; In the book "The Meaning of Life", "Terry Eagleton" has criticized the answers to this question in "Cultures", "Schools", and "Great Thinkers", and in response to this question, is the "Meaning of Life" the same? , which is made in the way of life and actions of people? They come close to this answer, that "if our lives have a meaning, that meaning is what we give to life"; In his book, "The Meaning of Life", "Eagleton" seeks people, more than anything else, in "love for man", and describes love as "creating space for other flourishing"; The book "The Meaning of Life" in four chapters with the titles: "Questions and answers", "Question of meaning", "Eclipse of meaning" and "Is life what you make it?" It has been arranged
Date of update: 10/12/1399 AH; 09/27/1400 AH; A. Sherbiani
20th-century british non-fiction
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Amen
274 reviews303 followers
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March 28, 2019
Eagleton bases his discussion on presenting three historical periods for the formation of meaning. In the pre-modern era, when the existence of God was considered self-evident, and basically the question of meaning did not arise much, and the question of meaning was actually a question of the level of faith. In the modern era, with the formation of secular mentality, man seeks to understand nature and history and universal aspects in life with a scientific method and enlightenment philosophy, which provide models for understanding meaning, but do not have metaphysical properties. And finally, the post-modern era, which criticizes modernity for considering universals such as science, nature, and history, putting them in the place of God, while the era of partial generalization is over and everyone makes their own meaning or gives meaning to their lives individually. Gives. Eagleton criticizes the intersection of such a postmodern approach and the results of progress in biological and evolutionary sciences; An approach that focuses on human beings and is the basis of a pluralist and liberal view in the post-industrial society
Therefore, by considering an Aristotelian approach to the problem of meaning, which mentions virtues and by accepting their non-individual properties, they go beyond the individual, he explores individualistic approaches in order to reach his desired conclusion. In this regard, the tragedy of meaning and nihilism of the modern era must be overcome, because that era has a historical memory of the past that assumed meaning and lost it all at once. The postmodern era is not the era of the decline of meaning, because it does not presuppose the existence of meaning and has no memory for it. Therefore, it can create new meanings. But Eagleton does not accept the formation of meaning in a vacuum because it is affected by the meanings made by others and in interaction with them, our meaning finds its existence.
These are the introductions that lead Eagleton to adopt a social and experience-oriented approach to meaning, an approach that obviously has a Marxist and collectivist characteristic and finally talks about the formation of meaning in the case of a larger whole (community) which basically follows There is no meaning, but a collective meaning beyond everyone's understanding appears in it. The factor that binds people together in such a context is love, a love that arises from the nature of human mortality, and according to Eagleton's definition, it is sacrificing a part of one's being for another, which if it happens to everyone, in such an exchange It creates new meanings. In my opinion, Alain Badiou's footprint is quite evident in such statements
Regardless of these thought-provoking discussions, Eagleton's complex and metaphorical language, sometimes full of irony, makes it difficult to understand the text and shows off his literary character. Linguistic discussions about the word meaning, especially in the second chapter, sometimes seem out of place and may not have definite functions at this time. In addition, Eagleton's Aristotelian approach, which appears in many places in the book, is consistent with his summary path, while the Platonic approach, which is the basis of many spiritual philosophies and traditional mysticisms, seems to be deliberately ignored. which somehow attack Eagleton's results, and Eagleton, whenever Matalhin's feet open to the subject, just passes it by with a sting and sarcasm and does not give an explanation for his opposition or neglect. Apart from instilling such a selective view on the history of dealing with meaning, reading the book is not without grace to understand a leftist approach to meaning in a material context and emphasizing its experience-centeredness to create material meaning.
literature philosophy religion
32 likes
6 comments
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Ahmed Ibrahim
1,196 reviews1,522 followers
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November 7, 2018
"But if life has meaning, it is certainly not of the speculative kind. The meaning of life is not so much an assumption as a practice."
Is the question about the meaning of life his question is meaningful? Is it a general question question that many people can answer the same? Certainly not, and this is what the writer is dealing with here.
In the first chapter the books begin to raise the question and show its illogicality and that it is nothing but a meaningless linguistic manipulation, and the problem of language has occupied our modern times until we no longer find any outlet from it, the problem of language in contemporary philosophy is what Terry Eagleton discussed at the beginning. In the second and third chapter, it deals with the problem of meaning and what this concept symbolizes when combined with any subject, and the problem of the eclipse of meaning and the decline of man into nihilism by discussing the most important points that have raised philosophers since Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and contemporary existentialists, as well as what these things represent in the doctrine of religious and fundamentalist fundamentalists. In the last chapter, he moves on to the second and most important part of life, our treatment of it, and how we coexist.
The affiliation of this book or any book to a very short introduction series does not mean that it is suitable for everyone. Here, for example, the writer delves into the problems of an entire era in a philosophical language, which makes the reader who is not interested in philosophy immersed in it and does not know his head from his foot, even if reading it carefully will not be useful.
2018 borrowed it philosophy
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Trevor
1,268 reviews20.8k followers
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May 3, 2011
This book is quite fun – as long as you don’t take it too seriously, and, let’s face it, it is almost impossible to take seriously a book called ‘the meaning of life, a very short introduction’. There is something paradoxical about the meaning of life being an introduction – surely we are after conclusions.
This has a nice pace and enough jokes to keep you smiling between ideas. My favourite joke in the whole thing (one I’d never heard before and feel very surprised that I never thought of it myself) was the reported t-shirt that reads, ‘What if the hokie-pokie really is what it is all about?’
He covers a lot of ground here – none of it all that unfamiliar, although, I don’t really mean that as a criticism. Lots of stuff on Aristotle and Schopenhauer, Kant and Wittgenstein, Nietzsche and Jesus. So that a lot of this was also a nice and quite easy introduction to philosophy too and its relationship to theology and aesthetics and other things along the way – post-modernism, mostly.
Like I said, this is a quick and amusing little book and such are both its failings and successes. He is always clear and that has to be a good thing.
philosophy religion
22 likes
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Fact100
215 reviews21 followers
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November 8, 2021
As someone who asks, questions and seeks answers, it was a work that I liked very much. The fact that he questioned the questions and their significance while searching for the answers gave me a new perspective on my behalf. What is the answer? Perhaps we will never know or comprehend. Maybe it really is 42. Keep looking for answers... but there's a new question to ask: What's the question?
21 likes
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Mehmet
Author 1 book390 followers
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ReadJanuary 20, 2022
"If our lives have meaning, that meaning is something we give them;" (p.45)
One should not look at its pretentious name and think "I can find the meaning of life in this book". This book naturally, other books as well; He probably won't be able to say the meaning of life with a crack, but the feature of this book is more about why we seek it, why we question it, and what this questioning really is, rather than the "meaning of life". In other words, we can say that the book traces the meaning of "the meaning of life".
20 likes
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Amir
555 reviews38 followers
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February 19, 2015
If you want to get a philosophical understanding of the proverb "Falling from the meek into the cauldron", this book is a good choice. The author made an appointment with himself to write an easy and ok book for the general audience. But... yes, you guessed it right. If we want to respect social relations and not use the main word, we have to use the verb "dirty". But in fact, in the true sense of the word... [again, you guessed correctly] the book turned out to be very watery, and this does not reflect the structure of the book. By the way, Eagleton has started from a good place. At the very beginning, he focused on the meaning of "meaning" itself. But I will leave it up to you to judge how well he managed to do this
Another important point of the book is the conclusion of the book. In the end, the author keeps the two competitors of love and happiness as the final options for the meaning of life. But it is not known how these options can eliminate other options. The author has not provided any convincing reason for his work, why, for example, wealth cannot be the meaning of life. Can simply stating that wealth is a "tool" deprive it of the ability to be the meaning of someone's life? Or, for example, why not freedom? no why not Why love and happiness at all?
This is one of the brilliant sentences of the book
in a world where absolutes have no place, even despair cannot be absolute
.
philosophy
18 likes
10 comments
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Omar's wish
492 reviews438 followers
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August 23, 2020
"The meaning of life is not a solution to a problem, but a question of living a certain way. It is not a metaphysical question, but a moral question. It is not something separate from life, but the thing that makes it worth living; that is, it represents a certain quality, depth, abundance and strength of life. And in this Frame The meaning of life is life itself, but only after it is understood in a certain way.
The second joint reading with Dr. Ahmed Taha, of a very complex subject and a book that is not really just an introduction, but is not read until after careful readings in philosophy and on various topics.
Were it not for the joint reading, this book would not have been completed. Thanks for the kind companionship and deep discussions.
2020 philosophy very short introduction
17 likes
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Leyla Shb
62 reviews9 followers
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March 14, 2022
If we have entered the world through mutual means, this should have strong consequences for the question of the meaning of life.
*******
I read this book twice, once I read it halfway, and then I went back to the beginning of the book and read it from the beginning, because in the middle I realized that I didn't get anything coherent and maybe my information is little.
But there are three factors in disliking this book, one is that the author himself does not know what the meaning of life is and he is not going to get an answer because this question has no answer and he jumps a lot in the explanation of this issue, he goes from one theory to another and is unable to make a connection. And it should be coherent and express fluently so that the audience does not have difficulty in understanding
. Secondly, the translation is not without fault and the translator has fallen into the same trap as the author, and in some places the content is not comprehensible at all, and he was also unable to give a smooth translation because he was with the author. It can be pulled in any direction.
Third, for such a book, you must have a series of information.
In some places, it had interesting content, for example, where it discusses the fact that a series of questions arose because of the structure of our language and is fundamentally wrong,
and also that the question of the meaning of life has no answer, and if creation has no purpose, then life is meaningless. It cannot be vain
, or the expression of the opinion of some believers about the fact that God had no purpose in the creation of man and that the universe owes no meaning to man.
I have a criticism for the author, he completely beat the postmodernists, but in the end, the result was not much different from them.
********
The meaning of life is more of an action than a statement. This meaning is not a mysterious truth. Rather, it is a certain form of a life. Therefore, it is only in life that it can be known
15 likes
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Eli Za
186 reviews98 followers
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ReadAugust 16, 2018
I don't know if it is because of the translation of the book or because the author wrote it like that, some paragraphs of the text are not really understandable. The reason they are not comprehensible is that they are hard to write, not that there is an incommunicable or difficult concept in them. In my opinion, he twisted many things so to speak, while it would have been much easier to express them. Since Terry Eagleton is also a genius in the field of literature, this style of writing is strange to me.
In my opinion, the fourth chapter is the brilliant chapter of the book. It is written in a simple way, it is full of words and practical. It is a hard book to read that I personally do not regret reading, but honestly, I do not recommend anyone to read it.
Historical-political-social Philosophy
15 likes
3 comments
==
Displaying 1 - 10 of 340 reviews
Ahmad Sharabiani
9,569 reviews55.7k followers
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December 19, 2021
The Meaning of Life: َA Very Short Introductions (Very Short Introductions #186), Terry Eagleton
Terence Francis Eagleton is a British literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual. Eagleton has published over forty books, but remains best known for Literary Theory: An Introduction.
We have all wondered about The Meaning of Life. But is there an answer? And do we even really know what we're asking?
Terry Eagleton takes a stimulating and quirky look at this most compelling of questions: at the answers explored in philosophy and literature; at the crisis of meaning in modern times; and suggests his own solution to how we might rediscover meaning in our lives.
The meaning of life is that which we choose to give it.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دهم ماه مارس سال2010میلادی
Title: The meaning of life; Author: Terry Eagleton; Translator: Abbas Mokhbar; Tehran, Age Publishing, 2018, on 223 pages; ISBN 9789643291693; The topic of life from British writers - 20th century
Is it correct to propose a general question, such as "the meaning of life", in a time when general answers and great meta-narratives have disappeared? The question about the meaning of life is a question that was raised mostly in the modern era, because in pre-modern societies, people looked for the answer to this question mostly in religion, and thought that religious doctrine, "the meaning of life." "He answers the human being on the earth, with the legend of creation, and the idea of the end, and the destiny of the holy destiny;
In the "post-modern" era, it is not encouraging to propose general answers, because most of the post-modernists considered the general answers to be "transcendent", and they were and still are, that human knowledge is "partial", and therefore, General questions and answers, such as the question about the "meaning of life", do not lead anywhere; In the book "The Meaning of Life", "Terry Eagleton" has criticized the answers to this question in "Cultures", "Schools", and "Great Thinkers", and in response to this question, is the "Meaning of Life" the same? , which is made in the way of life and actions of people? They come close to this answer, that "if our lives have a meaning, that meaning is what we give to life"; In his book, "The Meaning of Life", "Eagleton" seeks people, more than anything else, in "love for man", and describes love as "creating space for other flourishing"; The book "The Meaning of Life" in four chapters with the titles: "Questions and answers", "Question of meaning", "Eclipse of meaning" and "Is life what you make it?" It has been arranged
Date of update: 10/12/1399 AH; 09/27/1400 AH; A. Sherbiani
20th-century british non-fiction
...more
159 likes
4 comments
Like
Comment
Amen
274 reviews303 followers
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March 28, 2019
Eagleton bases his discussion on presenting three historical periods for the formation of meaning. In the pre-modern era, when the existence of God was considered self-evident, and basically the question of meaning did not arise much, and the question of meaning was actually a question of the level of faith. In the modern era, with the formation of secular mentality, man seeks to understand nature and history and universal aspects in life with a scientific method and enlightenment philosophy, which provide models for understanding meaning, but do not have metaphysical properties. And finally, the post-modern era, which criticizes modernity for considering universals such as science, nature, and history, putting them in the place of God, while the era of partial generalization is over and everyone makes their own meaning or gives meaning to their lives individually. Gives. Eagleton criticizes the intersection of such a postmodern approach and the results of progress in biological and evolutionary sciences; An approach that focuses on human beings and is the basis of a pluralist and liberal view in the post-industrial society
Therefore, by considering an Aristotelian approach to the problem of meaning, which mentions virtues and by accepting their non-individual properties, they go beyond the individual, he explores individualistic approaches in order to reach his desired conclusion. In this regard, the tragedy of meaning and nihilism of the modern era must be overcome, because that era has a historical memory of the past that assumed meaning and lost it all at once. The postmodern era is not the era of the decline of meaning, because it does not presuppose the existence of meaning and has no memory for it. Therefore, it can create new meanings. But Eagleton does not accept the formation of meaning in a vacuum because it is affected by the meanings made by others and in interaction with them, our meaning finds its existence.
These are the introductions that lead Eagleton to adopt a social and experience-oriented approach to meaning, an approach that obviously has a Marxist and collectivist characteristic and finally talks about the formation of meaning in the case of a larger whole (community) which basically follows There is no meaning, but a collective meaning beyond everyone's understanding appears in it. The factor that binds people together in such a context is love, a love that arises from the nature of human mortality, and according to Eagleton's definition, it is sacrificing a part of one's being for another, which if it happens to everyone, in such an exchange It creates new meanings. In my opinion, Alain Badiou's footprint is quite evident in such statements
Regardless of these thought-provoking discussions, Eagleton's complex and metaphorical language, sometimes full of irony, makes it difficult to understand the text and shows off his literary character. Linguistic discussions about the word meaning, especially in the second chapter, sometimes seem out of place and may not have definite functions at this time. In addition, Eagleton's Aristotelian approach, which appears in many places in the book, is consistent with his summary path, while the Platonic approach, which is the basis of many spiritual philosophies and traditional mysticisms, seems to be deliberately ignored. which somehow attack Eagleton's results, and Eagleton, whenever Matalhin's feet open to the subject, just passes it by with a sting and sarcasm and does not give an explanation for his opposition or neglect. Apart from instilling such a selective view on the history of dealing with meaning, reading the book is not without grace to understand a leftist approach to meaning in a material context and emphasizing its experience-centeredness to create material meaning.
literature philosophy religion
32 likes
6 comments
Like
Comment
Ahmed Ibrahim
1,196 reviews1,522 followers
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November 7, 2018
"But if life has meaning, it is certainly not of the speculative kind. The meaning of life is not so much an assumption as a practice."
Is the question about the meaning of life his question is meaningful? Is it a general question question that many people can answer the same? Certainly not, and this is what the writer is dealing with here.
In the first chapter the books begin to raise the question and show its illogicality and that it is nothing but a meaningless linguistic manipulation, and the problem of language has occupied our modern times until we no longer find any outlet from it, the problem of language in contemporary philosophy is what Terry Eagleton discussed at the beginning. In the second and third chapter, it deals with the problem of meaning and what this concept symbolizes when combined with any subject, and the problem of the eclipse of meaning and the decline of man into nihilism by discussing the most important points that have raised philosophers since Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and contemporary existentialists, as well as what these things represent in the doctrine of religious and fundamentalist fundamentalists. In the last chapter, he moves on to the second and most important part of life, our treatment of it, and how we coexist.
The affiliation of this book or any book to a very short introduction series does not mean that it is suitable for everyone. Here, for example, the writer delves into the problems of an entire era in a philosophical language, which makes the reader who is not interested in philosophy immersed in it and does not know his head from his foot, even if reading it carefully will not be useful.
2018 borrowed it philosophy
...more
25 likes
Like
Comment
Trevor
1,268 reviews20.8k followers
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May 3, 2011
This book is quite fun – as long as you don’t take it too seriously, and, let’s face it, it is almost impossible to take seriously a book called ‘the meaning of life, a very short introduction’. There is something paradoxical about the meaning of life being an introduction – surely we are after conclusions.
This has a nice pace and enough jokes to keep you smiling between ideas. My favourite joke in the whole thing (one I’d never heard before and feel very surprised that I never thought of it myself) was the reported t-shirt that reads, ‘What if the hokie-pokie really is what it is all about?’
He covers a lot of ground here – none of it all that unfamiliar, although, I don’t really mean that as a criticism. Lots of stuff on Aristotle and Schopenhauer, Kant and Wittgenstein, Nietzsche and Jesus. So that a lot of this was also a nice and quite easy introduction to philosophy too and its relationship to theology and aesthetics and other things along the way – post-modernism, mostly.
Like I said, this is a quick and amusing little book and such are both its failings and successes. He is always clear and that has to be a good thing.
philosophy religion
22 likes
Like
Comment
Fact100
215 reviews21 followers
Follow
November 8, 2021
As someone who asks, questions and seeks answers, it was a work that I liked very much. The fact that he questioned the questions and their significance while searching for the answers gave me a new perspective on my behalf. What is the answer? Perhaps we will never know or comprehend. Maybe it really is 42. Keep looking for answers... but there's a new question to ask: What's the question?
21 likes
Like
Comment
Mehmet
Author 1 book390 followers
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ReadJanuary 20, 2022
"If our lives have meaning, that meaning is something we give them;" (p.45)
One should not look at its pretentious name and think "I can find the meaning of life in this book". This book naturally, other books as well; He probably won't be able to say the meaning of life with a crack, but the feature of this book is more about why we seek it, why we question it, and what this questioning really is, rather than the "meaning of life". In other words, we can say that the book traces the meaning of "the meaning of life".
20 likes
Like
Comment
Amir
555 reviews38 followers
Follow
February 19, 2015
If you want to get a philosophical understanding of the proverb "Falling from the meek into the cauldron", this book is a good choice. The author made an appointment with himself to write an easy and ok book for the general audience. But... yes, you guessed it right. If we want to respect social relations and not use the main word, we have to use the verb "dirty". But in fact, in the true sense of the word... [again, you guessed correctly] the book turned out to be very watery, and this does not reflect the structure of the book. By the way, Eagleton has started from a good place. At the very beginning, he focused on the meaning of "meaning" itself. But I will leave it up to you to judge how well he managed to do this
Another important point of the book is the conclusion of the book. In the end, the author keeps the two competitors of love and happiness as the final options for the meaning of life. But it is not known how these options can eliminate other options. The author has not provided any convincing reason for his work, why, for example, wealth cannot be the meaning of life. Can simply stating that wealth is a "tool" deprive it of the ability to be the meaning of someone's life? Or, for example, why not freedom? no why not Why love and happiness at all?
This is one of the brilliant sentences of the book
in a world where absolutes have no place, even despair cannot be absolute
.
philosophy
18 likes
10 comments
Like
Comment
Omar's wish
492 reviews438 followers
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August 23, 2020
"The meaning of life is not a solution to a problem, but a question of living a certain way. It is not a metaphysical question, but a moral question. It is not something separate from life, but the thing that makes it worth living; that is, it represents a certain quality, depth, abundance and strength of life. And in this Frame The meaning of life is life itself, but only after it is understood in a certain way.
The second joint reading with Dr. Ahmed Taha, of a very complex subject and a book that is not really just an introduction, but is not read until after careful readings in philosophy and on various topics.
Were it not for the joint reading, this book would not have been completed. Thanks for the kind companionship and deep discussions.
2020 philosophy very short introduction
17 likes
Like
Comment
Leyla Shb
62 reviews9 followers
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March 14, 2022
If we have entered the world through mutual means, this should have strong consequences for the question of the meaning of life.
*******
I read this book twice, once I read it halfway, and then I went back to the beginning of the book and read it from the beginning, because in the middle I realized that I didn't get anything coherent and maybe my information is little.
But there are three factors in disliking this book, one is that the author himself does not know what the meaning of life is and he is not going to get an answer because this question has no answer and he jumps a lot in the explanation of this issue, he goes from one theory to another and is unable to make a connection. And it should be coherent and express fluently so that the audience does not have difficulty in understanding
. Secondly, the translation is not without fault and the translator has fallen into the same trap as the author, and in some places the content is not comprehensible at all, and he was also unable to give a smooth translation because he was with the author. It can be pulled in any direction.
Third, for such a book, you must have a series of information.
In some places, it had interesting content, for example, where it discusses the fact that a series of questions arose because of the structure of our language and is fundamentally wrong,
and also that the question of the meaning of life has no answer, and if creation has no purpose, then life is meaningless. It cannot be vain
, or the expression of the opinion of some believers about the fact that God had no purpose in the creation of man and that the universe owes no meaning to man.
I have a criticism for the author, he completely beat the postmodernists, but in the end, the result was not much different from them.
********
The meaning of life is more of an action than a statement. This meaning is not a mysterious truth. Rather, it is a certain form of a life. Therefore, it is only in life that it can be known
15 likes
Like
Comment
Eli Za
186 reviews98 followers
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ReadAugust 16, 2018
I don't know if it is because of the translation of the book or because the author wrote it like that, some paragraphs of the text are not really understandable. The reason they are not comprehensible is that they are hard to write, not that there is an incommunicable or difficult concept in them. In my opinion, he twisted many things so to speak, while it would have been much easier to express them. Since Terry Eagleton is also a genius in the field of literature, this style of writing is strange to me.
In my opinion, the fourth chapter is the brilliant chapter of the book. It is written in a simple way, it is full of words and practical. It is a hard book to read that I personally do not regret reading, but honestly, I do not recommend anyone to read it.
Historical-political-social Philosophy
15 likes
3 comments
