Meaning of life and emergent philosophy

I don’t think there is any universal definition as to the meaning of life, which is more a matter of personal belief and philosophical inquiry that has entered the minds of philosophers since time in memorial.

For the oldest known civilisation, that of our First Nations peoples in Australia, it was manifested in their rich culture and ontology, whose habitat was understood as bequeathed to humanity by the creation spirits. 

Thereafter it was their responsibility to preserve that legacy in order to live a meaningful existence. For the first nations people, all living things were believed to be made co-dependent and reactive to one another in one inseparable land. Hence the land and all of nature was inextricably woven into their existence.   

So, it was this idea (called the dreamtime) that dominated every facet of their rich life; in mythical creation stories, ceremonial art, music, ritualistic practice; initiation rites into adulthood; and in the repository of knowledge of the law handed down from one generation to another. Within their system adolescents were isolated away from the rest of the mob under the control of elders who provided tutelage on all matters of their law until they were sufficiently aware to make the positive transition to adulthood which carried with it the responsibility towards their tribe and the environment upon which they were dependent - Charles P Mountford – The Dawn of time.

These ideas are of interest to secular philosophers because of the strength of unity such a system has on members of the clan or mob and to the wider nations; to hold what things and ceremonies are sacred for life’s existence, to apportion responsibilities on attaining adulthood, to be seen fit and able to support a partner, to embrace life without a fear of death, to return to the creative dreamtime and to share in all things in a meaningful existence.

A similar thematic existed in other indigenous societies elsewhere whose oral traditions, long before western philosophy and religious thought permeated society through various writings, were deeply spiritual in their thinking to find meaning in existence tied up with responsibility for the land to which they were inextricably linked. 

What subsequently took shape given the impact of civilisation, in terms of trade routes and emergent philosophical enquiry meant different aspects to the meaning of existence came into being.   

In the absence of scientific knowledge religious views were shaped mostly on polytheism attributing natural phenomena to the Gods that gradually gave way to an omniscient single GOD or Yahweh of the OT and the Way in the East. 

But for Christianity, which became the Religion for the Roman Empire in 320 AD, the underlying tension between the Hebrew way of thinking with the specified covenants to GOD and the freer spirit from the letters of St Paul that merged with Greek Rationalism, proved a stumbling block to the early communities.  

The attempted cross fertilisation of the two distinct cultures and their underlying ideas underwent a very slow transformation that did not emerge in any synthesis until over a thousand years later. Along the way various splits occurred in Christianity with the eastern movement more comfortable with ideas that allow humans to be deified in the Greek tradition. The West maintained that gap to the new heavenly Jerusalem under Augustine (354-430).

To reiterate the confusion arises once you attempt to merge the individual experience of the Jewish GOD with the universal truth espoused in Greek rationalism as in the Aristotelian categories.  

Aquinas {1224-74) provided some material progress in his majestic philosophical work to define how one ought to live; a mixture of revelation and rational reflection. 

Meanwhile in Eastern philosophy, "the Way," or "Tao," was considered a fundamental principle of the universe, encompassing natural order, the flow of existence, and the path to enlightenment. It is a concept central to various traditions like Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, but with nuanced interpretations depending on the specific school of thought.  

Western Tradition 

Returning to the home of western philosophy in ancient Greeks we find evidence of the phenomenology of the body in Homer’s Polytheism according to late Professor Hubert Dreyfus who was Harvard university's long-time scholar on such ancient texts.

Homers polytheism    

The ancient Greek ideas and how they were influenced by their belief in GODs became part of their everyday life.  Homer is famous for his epic poems, The Iliad and the Odyssey, which have had an enormous effect on western culture.  Homer’s work offers an introduction to the ethics and heroics of that time. The ethics of the Greek immortal GODs were to principally shine a light on honour and glory. Their ancient religion incorporated poems sung to princes, hymns, dances, rituals, festivals and sacrifices offered to the GODs.  

By way of explanation, much later on phenomenology was further developed largely by Edmund Husserl and expanded upon by Martin Heidegger. The principal idea posits reality is made up of objects and events which are called phenomena as they are perceived or understood in the human consciousness, and not in relation to anything independent of human consciousness.

Homer’s very basic phenomenology of the body incorporates the idea that our various moods keep us continually in tune with ourselves and give rise to a meaningful life; a reflection of, or as arising from the various GODs, so that there is sacred nature to our existence.  
In other words, our consciousness depends upon personalities at a higher level than our own, an input from the GODS.  

Homer may appear irreligious at times but it should be remembered the Greek Gods he portrayed were in the image of humanity with the same foibles except they were immensely powerful and eternal. In other words, we are made in the image of the GODS who also compete with one another just as we do.  

At that time, it gave meaning to existence as one could imagine the belief that it is only the GODS that send us back feedback in the form of the feel-good emotional signals or a rush of joy or heightened emotional rewards.

That in turn reinforced in the memory of the emotional satisfaction, attributed to the GOD’s. But Dreyfus suggests Homer's ideas are closer to our natural mode of existence than what was to come long after him in the autonomy and self-determination of the enlightenment. Homer's idea is that we are respectful in our engagement of others and objects according to that mood upon which he attaches a link to the GODS.

Dreyfus also advocates the personage of Jesus, as one who meets the demanding criteria of what constitutes a life worth living, to give life meaning, as was contained in the parables. They invite imagination, are largely non-prescriptive and represent a radical departure from the entrenched culture of that period and possibly in some respects even today. Stepping back into time they must have seemed revolutionary to those in power who were in charge of the Temple and whose authority was recognised by the Romans. For the Jewish leaders had formed an uneasy truce with Rome and were able to continue to practice their religion.

Logic enters the fray 

The impact of Socrates in the discourse by Plato followed by his student Aristotle was of monumental importance as the meaning of life took on a whole new dimension. Humans were meant to live a flourishing life tied up with the concept of eudaimonia- but were prone to failure because of a weakness of the will. The extent of the influence remains significant today in Aristotle's psychology were meaning to life is tied to his themes of happiness. That was achieved as a consequence of retaining your good character and resistance to temptation by forming good habits. As I mentioned previously, Greek rationality influenced the spread of Christianity by St Paul who merged that concept with Hebrew mysticism which proved to be confusion amongst communities. 

Enlightenment philosophers on the cusp of the scientific revolution 

But notwithstanding these tentative moves and the reformation, it was not until Descartes established the idea of human knowledge, supported by the authority of Greek philosophy that any degree of synthesis was developed. 

Descartes contributed enormously to societal ideas and is known as the modern Father of western philosophy. He was both an analytical philosopher and one that relied also on the idea of synthesis. Possibly his best-known work is contained in the Meditations. These began with his scepticism before laying the foundation for his thinking embodied in the famous statement; I think, therefore I am. One might say his rational reasoning rested on the materialist premise that there has to be one who is a thinker or doubter and so this provided his foundation.   

Descartes' radical sense of freedom needed an articular, which was Kant, whose idea was the subject replaced GOD as the order of the world so that from that time onwards that idea took hold more convincingly; that we need to take personal responsibility for our actions. His ideas remain interwoven into the modern world to provide meaning. 
Hence the enlightenment offered a new way of thinking based on a scientific and more rational approach that was to dispel the myths of the past. But to reiterate there was also the propensity to replace the passions associated with our existence with rationality as in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.  
According to Kant, the critical question is how the world comes to be understood by us. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason aims to show how reason determines conditions under which our experience and knowledge are possible.

However, it was Soren Kierkegaard in (1813- 55) who provided a more comprehensive synthesis that underpinned the subsequent existentialists movement. According to Professor Hubert Dreyfus, it was his synthesis that helped more so than any previous philosopher, in resolving the existential Judeo-Christian tension. 

In ‘Sickness unto Death’ Kierkegaard, in his dense narrative, talks about his synthesis. His synthesis is existential as it implies a freedom and an individual’s responsibility to one’s self and how that works as in an unconditional commitment to a cause or GOD. The synthesis is defined by him as the factors of being in: freedom and necessity, the finite and infinite, the temporal and eternal. Kierkegaard introduced the idea of each of these categories as pointers in regard to how to live and find meaning in life.

Where they are not in sync this leads to anxiety or despair which Kierkegaard describes as a sickness. So that he talked about the various negatives as in (1) not acknowledging any existential despair (unconscious in a manner of speaking, as in so caught up in worldly affairs so as to obliterated or unconscious so to speak) (2) of acknowledgment but being despairing in the form of seeking an escape (take drugs or some form of escapism) and finally (3) to find a way through it as in an unconditional commitment. 

So that the finite factor of being refers to necessity, or if you will, the concrete here and now to one’s reality, as a definite something in the world. But the infinite, by virtue of an unconditional commitment to GOD (or to substitute CAUSE for an agnostic interpretation) is infinite. In other words, the infinite allows us to explore the potentiality or capacity to incorporate new ideas or creations, or revise one's thoughts and so on.

This provides our meaning to life. 
It is a more enlightened view of existence in my view since it accepts, we are already in the world as in being. So, we need to find our own meaning by accepting the sacred as in an unconditional commitment to GOD or a CAUSE.

Kierkegaard’s existential psychology is practiced today to help one find meaning in life.  

Rise of the post WW2 existentialist's

In the post WW 2 period a war-torn audience was desperate to find meaning to life given the savage nature of warfare and particularly the atrocities witnessed at the concentration camps and large-scale indiscriminate bombing.  So, the stage was set for philosophy to provide answers which were offered in the likes of Jean Paul Satre and his intellectual life partner Simmone de Bouvier,

They both endorsed the idea that existence precedes essence so that meaning in life (as in its essence) was what you made of it because of our freedom to choose.  Sartre exemplifies that idea in his novel Nausea.

Sartre's novel Nausea exemplifies the existentialist idea that "existence precedes essence". The novel explores this concept through the protagonist, Antoine Roquentin, as he grapples with the meaninglessness of existence and the arbitrary nature of reality. 

Here's how Nausea embodies this idea:

The Absurdity of Existence:

Roquentin experiences alienation and nausea once confronted with the sheer fact of existence, both his own and that of the world around him. He reaches the conclusion that things simply exist without a preordained purpose or meaning. 

No Inherent Meaning:

He realises humans are not defined by a predetermined essence. They are born into existence and must create their own meaning and purpose. 

The novel highlights things that could just as easily not exist whose realization leads to a sense of uneasiness and a feeling of absurdity.  

His experience indicates the burden of human freedom. Without a predefined essence, humans are constantly making choices and forging their own identities, which can be a source of anguish. 

Despite such an initial despair, Roquentin's journey suggests that humans can create meaning and purpose in a world devoid of inherent meaning. This creation of meaning is an ongoing process, not a fixed state. 

His ideas were further explained in his book entitled Being and Nothingness. In a nutshell the self as he describes humanity before itself, is a nullity. That is our interaction with the world and society is our freedom, so we become what we choose to be in good faith or avoid that responsibility as in bad faith. So, you find meaning in life by accepting your responsibility to always act in good faith. 

But Simmone de Bouvier expanded on the idea of freedom to realise one person's freedom may entail another's curtailment or even slavery. Good faith may represent the crossroads between factivity and freedom. She also wrote the influential publication called 'The second Sex' demonstrating bad faith was instigated by a societal propensity to stereotype women's roles. Her work was more strident than that of the founder of feminism namely Mary Wollstonecraft who saw inequity for both sexes as a cause for concern. 

The logical positivists 

Also roughly aligned to the so-called Vienna School the idea was that European philosophy that embraced metaphysics couldn't be substantiated scientifically. They were therefore dismissive of most philosophical ideas of that nature and instead wanted progress and meaningful engagement to be restricted to matters that were supported by facts. Bertrand Russell exemplified the movement in terms of his resistance to the First World War and served a gaol service as a consequence of his opposition. So that by adhering to a scientifically based philosophy the movement found meaning in the fact the more robust approach supports meaningful outcomes and engagement subject to the rigorous examination of science.

Conclusion on absurdism  

Finally in relation to absurdity as talked about by Sartre and Camus we must bear in mind the fact we all are born to struggle through life and then die, that idea sounds absurd to those philosophers - Is that all there is? So, they posit, we must make our own meaning in life. 

If we agree on individual freedoms to the extent, we are free to believe what we will, then whether or not we believe life is absurd is not what's at issue is more to do with how you find meaning or that need to find meaning.   

The absurdist’s in that respect to that extent exemplify all of those other philosophers who talk about how you find meaning in life, because that's up to you and what decisions you make. 

Most Australians and those in the western world probably I would think life isn’t absurd but ask those whose existence is tied to the life of hell in a war-torn country and you might get a different answer.

Maybe Sartre and Camus would have been out on the street fighting for their rights if still alive, because they believed life was absurd, and so they believed we must remain true to good faith given ones meaning of life - to honour courage and justice.