Philosopher Thomas Nagel's Essay On The Meaning Of Life

1852 Words4 Pages

Victor Fitzgerald Ochei Jr.
Philosophy 2300-005
Assignment #1
October 13, 2014

Meaning of Life Paper For majority of life I’ve gone through the motions and have done as I have been told to do. Naïve and ignorant to how amazing life really is and refusing to question how things work or what my true purpose is other then surviving. For centuries there have been numerous philosophers to question what our purpose is and have developed different theories to help us get as close as we possibly can to finding the meaning of life. One thing I’ve learned since opening my eyes to the reality of the world is that in our lifetime the closest thing we will have is theories and ideas but we will never know the true meaning of life.
“You will never be …show more content…

He removes himself from a subjective viewpoint and helps us translate all that we cherish to true meaning. Nagel breaks down the subjective and objective to help us realize what is not actually important and vice versa. Life is meaningful if it is objectively meaningful. He argues that since there is no objective metric of meaningfulness, life is not objectively meaningful. If there are no objective standards in the universe, Nagel, therefore, concludes that life is ultimately meaningless (Nagel 755-62). Nagel also strongly believed that there were certain experiences and characteristics that were beyond human understanding. In his publication “What is it Like to Be a Bat” he tries to express that all though we can imagine what it would be like for us to be a bat we could never think like or be precise about what its really like because we aren’t bats. For example we can try to imagine flying around blind searching for bugs to eat but will never have the same senses or perception as a bat. Another example is that of mans best friend. You can crawl on all fours, eat dog food, and imitate barking to the best of our ability. Unfortunately we have human senses and comprehend as human beings due to years of conditioning. He observed that we can describe any number of phenomenon associated with thinking beings but in any of them consciousness seems to be something that may be there or not. In the same way …show more content…

When it comes to the meaning of life for Martin analyzes The Problem of the Meaning of Life vs. The Problems of Life. He distinguishes that there are three different barriers that challenge the meaning of life, which are death, bad times, and philosophical doubts. The problem of the meaning of life is just the life long question of whether or not our lives have any meaning to them. It brings up other speculations such as what is out there beyond my understanding or if there is even a higher power that wants me to serve a certain purpose. Since we are still searching for the answer to The Problem of the Meaning of Life we then try and solve The Problem of Life. The Problem of Life consist of questions about whether or not we are living our life in a way we believe is worth living. Both important questions but Martin is unfortunately stuck since he will never know the answer to The Problem to the Meaning of Life. In Martin’s pursuit to find the answer to The Problem of Life he begins by saying that if one is able to live one’s life so that it is worth living, as possible one will have meaning in one’s life. Martin believed that we could determine meaning in one’s life simply if one is doing something one

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