Meaning of Life

Tuesday, January 18, 2005
First Aired:
Tuesday, May 18, 2004

What Is It

Does life have a meaning? If we were created by a powerful God, would that give our lives meaning? Who gave God's existence meaning? What if we were created by a crazy scientist wholly for the purpose of irritating their spouse? John and Ken search for meaning with Howard Wettstein from UC Riverside.

Listening Notes

生命的意义是什么?为此,生命的意义意味着什么?它是一般人类生活的意义,还是每个生活在其中的人的意义?许多人认为生命的意义是一个宗教问题。正如约翰所说,我们的生命可以代表某种东西,也可以被神赋予意义,就像我们赋予我们所说的话意义一样。但是,肯恩指出,为什么仅仅因为我们是上帝创造的,我们就应该有意义?神是如何明白他的意思的,这是一个永恒的问题。此外,正如康德所论证的那样,人类可以通过自主定义自己生命的意义来实现自身的目的。即使生命的意义这个问题没有答案,我们仍然需要过好每一天。也许问题不在于生命的意义,而在于如何活下去; answering the question “How should I live?” and finding something beyond yourself to help discover an answer.

霍华德·维特斯坦曾就读于巴黎圣母院,在那里他成为了一名无神论者。然而,在离开大学后不久,他在个人损失中找到了宗教。母亲去世后,维茨坦在上帝那里找到了安慰——不是指死后的生活,也不是他认为是幻觉的死亡的不现实,而是指意义。因此,肯问维特斯坦,他反思母亲之死的意义何在。他所说的“意义”是什么意思?意义是什么意思?特别是在语言哲学中,这个问题很难确定。韦特斯坦认为,最好谈论意义或它的衍生,重要性,而不是意义本身。无论一个人是否重视一些超越自己的东西,她必须仍然需要在她是谁和她正在做的事情中找到意义。

在巴黎圣母院的时候,维特斯坦遇到了一位研究宗教哲学的教授。在他们的一次对话中,教授发现了一座蚁丘,他说,如果没有上帝,他的生命就会像山上蚂蚁的生命一样毫无意义。但对韦特斯坦来说,这似乎并不是毫无意义的案例。他突然想到,那些强烈相信上帝的人仍然会觉得他们的生活毫无意义。另一方面,那些有重大计划和关系的无神论者会觉得他们的生活充满意义。所以,宗教是如何帮助一个人的生活变得有意义的似乎仍然不清楚。

  • Roving Philosophical Reporter(Seek To 00:04:21): In San Francisco, Amy Standen takes a poll of various men and women on the meaning of life. There are, she says, as many different types of people as there are philosophies.
  • Sixty-Second Philosopher(Seek To 00:49:59): What is the meaning of life? Throughout the millennia, different philosophers had different answers. Existentialists think life has no meaning. Wittgenstein believed that the question itself was meaningless. Darwinians, of course, thought the meaning of life was to produce more life. If we change the question to be how to gain satisfaction from life, we get a whole new set of answers.

Transcript