Is Life Meaningless?
Jean Kazez
Philosophy Department, SMU
Prelude
A few words about
solidarity vs. agreement
Alex Rosenberg’s
cheerful nihilism
Is he right that life is meaningless??
Professor of Philosophy,
Duke University
Background
The debate about God and
the meaning of life
An existential crisis
Everything comes to an end
… my life is meaningless …
I may as well be dead!
Tolstoy, age 51, 1879
Tolstoy’s Conversion
“As I looked around at people,
at humanity as a whole,
I saw that they lived and
affirmed that they knew
the meaning of life.”
Tolstoy, A Confession (1879)
Tolstoy on the
necessity of faith
“… only in faith can we find the
meaning and possibility of life.”
Faith gives “an infinite meaning to
the finite existence of man; a
meaning that is not destroyed by
suffering, deprivation or death.
Tolstoy, A Confession (1879)
∞
Standard Atheist
Response
NO, NO
 No God
 No necessity of God for meaningfulness
Meaning OF life
cosmic purpose
[need God]
Meaning IN life
having your own plans, goals,
ultimate aims
[don’t need God]
My primary goal is
to be a great climber
My primary goal is
to raise my daughters
I’m working on world peace,
thank you very much
∞
Needed more fulfilling goals,
not faith
For meaning in life
God is not necessary
Enter: Trouble
Can there really be meaning IN life?
Meaning IN life
is only possible if…
 Hillary has thoughts ABOUT peace
 Michelle has thoughts ABOUT her daughters
 Mountain climber has thoughts ABOUT mountains
ABOUTNESS IS
PROBLEMATIC!
My brain weighs 2 pounds
It’s spongy
It’s wet
It has electric charge
And it has aboutness. ABOUTNESS?
Are these things possible
in natural, physical world?
 Souls
 The self
 Free will
 Objective morality
 Aboutness
Philosophy of aboutness
(aka “intentionality”)
Franz Brentano
Edmund Husserl
Jerry Fodor
Daniel Dennett
Ruth Millikan
Fred Dretske
Paul & Patricia Churchland
John Searle
Rosenberg:
ABOUTNESS DOESN’T EXIST
Like souls, fairies, witches,
ESP, heaven, destiny, etc. don’t exist
Can’t think about
mountains
Can’t think about
daughters
Can’t think about
world peace
Life is meaningless!
NO MEANING OF LIFE
Because no God
NO MEANING IN LIFE
Because no aboutness
Rosenberg:
life is meaningless?
What me worry?
∞
Rosenberg:
Tolstoy just needed Prozac
Why no aboutness?
Rosenberg’s argument why
aboutness doesn’t exist
Aboutness is unreal because
1) Paris too diffuse—what are the
boundaries?
2) Neurons too simple—
even sea slugs, rats, frogs have
them; just “circuitry”.
Aboutness is unreal because
3) Piling up doesn’t help—
“Piling up a lot of neural circuits that
are not about anything at all can’t
turn them into a thought about stuff
out there in the world.”
Rosenberg, p. 184
Why should atheists
pay attention?
SCIENTISM* – “The physical facts fix all of the facts.”
What “floats” free of physical facts is unreal, illusory.
NO ABOUTNESS
NO GOD
* Not a dirty word in Rosenberg’s view
How should we
respond?
1. Dismiss Rosenberg
as a nut
2. Agree, but secretly
Vote for me, even though I
think God doesn’t exist, life is
meaningless, and nobody has
thoughts about anything.
3. Dismiss Rosenberg’s view
as “self-defeating”
I am not thinking
about anything or
talking about
anything!
4. Reject scientism
 Come to atheism by another route—e.g. argument from
evil
 Say there are genuine facts that float free of physical
facts.
 Accept aboutness as “floater”
5. Rebut his arguments
HE SAID
“Piling up a lot of neural circuits that
are not about anything at all can’t turn
them into a thought about stuff out
there in the world.”
Rosenberg, p. 184
LIKE SAYING
Piling up a lot of atoms that
aren’t conscious can’t make
me conscious.
6. Explain how aboutness
arises from physical facts
How can there be
aboutness in physical
world?
hard question,
piles of literature
Fly detector
A fly-detector has physical states ABOUT flies.
Paris detector
That’s Paris!
Paris detector
Let’s go to
Paris!
Mountain detector
Daughter detector
World peace detector
Mission accomplished
Aboutness and meaning in life defended
Meaning in Life
Expanding on idea
1) Love
“Love saves us … from
squandering our lives in
vacuous activity that is
fundamentally pointless”
“Love makes it possible … for
us to engage wholeheartedly in
activity that is meaningful”
-- Harry Frankfurt, The Reasons
of Love
2) Objective attractiveness
“Meaning arises from loving objects
worthy of love and engaging with them in
a positive way.”
“Meaning arises when subjective
attraction meets objective attractiveness.”
-- Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why it
Matters (2010)
2) Objective attractiveness
An activity is objectively attractive when—
A. Benefit is not received only by me—
but shared by others too
B. Benefit is not seen only by me—
but real, factual
Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why it
Matters (2010)
3) A meaningful life
Not just lots of different
meaningful activities, but goals
that give shape to life as a whole
What is meaningless?
(some examples from online life)
 Checking email and Twitter endlessly
(you don’t love it)
 Malicious online bullying
(not objectively attractive)
 Endless chatter at blogs
(gives no shape to life)
What adds meaning
to our lives?
Three examples
1) Raising children
2) Working for social justice
3) Skilled X-ing
∞
Had all the elements of meaning but didn’t
know it
Blinded by … religion? Sexism?
Bibliography
Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Life: Enjoying Life without
Illusions
Jean Kazez, Review of Rosenberg in Free Inquiry (August/September
2012)
Leo Tolstoy, A Confession
Harry Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love
Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why it Matters
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – look up Intentionality; Causal
theories of mental content
Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
Links at my blog—kazez.blogspot.com