What Is the Meaning of Life?

Abstract

This is an edited transcript of a lecture given at the LSE in March 2023. The lecture introduces the “meaning of life” question via Tolstoy’s Confession, then considers the strengths and limitations of religious and secular answers to the question.

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Jonathan Birch
London School of Economics

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References found in this work

Death and the Afterlife.Samuel Scheffler - 2013 - New York, NY: Oup Usa. Edited by Niko Kolodny.
The absurd.Thomas Nagel - 1971 - Journal of Philosophy 68 (20):716-727.
Meaning in Life.Thaddeus Metz - 2017 - In Benjamin Matheson & Yujin Nagasawa (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook on the Afterlife. Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 353-370.
Dark Matters: Pessimism and the Problem of Suffering.Mara van der Lugt - 2021 - Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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