The Meaning of Life in Modern Materialism

Abstract

The article introduces the Russian-speaking reader to the stormy and original discussion that unfolded in the English-language philosophical literature at the end of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century on the question of the meaning of life. These studies unfold within the framework of the trilemma “nihilism-natu­ralism-supernaturalism”; the most vivid disputes occur both between naturalistic and supernaturalistic positions, and between different views within naturalism. Born within the analytical tradition, these discussions take detailed and ex­tremely refined forms, actively use thought experiments, sometimes reaching the discussion of very unusual and at first glance paradoxical topics: the meaning of life outside of man, the meaning of life in the absence of free will, etc. The authors not only give comprehensive analyse of such studies, but offer a de­tailed classification of approaches to the meaning of life. Naturalistic approaches are divided in relation to the source – into immanent or transcendent; in relation to the subject: objective or subjective (is there a meaning in life independent of a particular subject?); by predestination: freely created by the subject and im­posed from the outside. Based on the proposed systematics of approaches to un­derstanding the problem of the meaning of life in modern materialism, the anti­nomy arising here is demonstrated. The meaning of life should be immanent and freely accepted by the subject. The correction of concepts proposed in the article (carried out in the spirit of the analysed analytical tradition) – shifting the em­phasis from the meaning of life to the purpose of life – will avoid such an anti­nomy and will be able to accurately demarcate the religious and non-religious approach to the meaning of life. Attempts of naturalism to continue the search for the meaning of life inevitably lead either to absurdity or to a religious (quasi-religious) approach.