What is the Meaning of Life? You’ll be surprised in the Famous German Philosophers’ Answers

© by Jensen DG. Mañebog/MyInfoBasket.com

What is the meaning of human life? Where will all these lead to? What, if anything, makes life meaningful? What are our life and existence all about?

Well known German philosophers have tried to answer these existential questions—and you will be surprised in their explanations:

1. Schopenhauer: The point of life is to suffer

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) ended up claiming that the meaning of life is to deny it. He is probably the first Western philosopher to relate the ideas of life and meaning and to explicitly ask and answer the profound question, “What is the meaning of life?”

Concerning the goal, point, aim, end, or purpose of life, Schopenhauer’s answer is pessimistic. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes his philosophy, thus:

“The point or purpose of life is to suffer. We are being punished for the crime of being born, punished for who we are, namely, the nasty thoroughly egoistic will. The meaning of life in this sense, then, is to suffer, to be punished for our sin.’

“Schopenhauer suggests a number of ways of thinking about our phenomenal, experienced life … He recommends that we look upon our life: as an unprofitable episode interrupting the blessed calm of nothingness; as on the whole a disappointment, nay, a cheat; as Hell, in which on the one hand men are the tormented souls and on the other the tormenting devils; as a place of atonement, a sort of penal colony; as some kind of mistake; and as a process of disillusionment …’

“If we ask what we should do, how we can give our lives worth and meaning, Schopenhauer does have an answer. “Salvation” lies in the total denial of the will. Knowledge of the will and its horrific phenomena can and should function as a quieter of the will, bringing it to a state in which it stops willing and effectively abolishes itself. Thinking in this vein, a Schopenhauerian might say that the meaning of life is to deny, quiet, and eventually abolish the will to live that is essentially oneself.” (O’Brien, n.d.)

For Schopenhauer, life as a reflection of a person’s will—that since the human will is aimless, irrational, and painful drive, so human life is, too. (Related: Do a philosophical reflection on a concrete situation from a holistic perspective)

He nonetheless philosophized that salvation, deliverance, or escape from suffering is attained through aesthetic contemplation, sympathy for others, and ascetic living.

2. Nietzsche: The meaning of life is to be terrestrial

Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1844-1900) realized that society has increasingly become secular and scientific, a phenomenon he described through his statement, “God is dead!”

And since people can no longer turn to religion to find life’s meaning, he suggested replacing religion with philosophy, art, music, literature, theatre, and other humanities which can contextualize our sufferings, serve as tools for living to edify ourselves, and teach us how to see the beauty even in miserable incidents.

For him, the meaning of life has to be terrestrial and not celestial. That is, life’s meaning should not be placed in some fictitious world but in this very world in which humans live and have our being.

On the question about what the meaning of life is, Nietzsche gives two different answers: (a) the meaning of life is the will to power; and (b) the meaning of life is the Übermensch (usually translated as ‘Superman’).

The Übermensch is he who creates his own meaning and values without reference to outside influences; he who can overcome the problem of the meaning of life by simply inventing his own meaning and taking full responsibility for it.

Nietzsche offered some examples of people who came close to being an Ubermensch, including Jesus, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and Buddha, but claimed that none of them has really reached the “Superman” status. Nietzsche’s post-human creator of meaning, affirmer of life, and bearer of values is still yet to come. For us who remain average humans, we can merely hope to discover some meaning in looking towards the Superman and the evolution of humanity.

3. Heidegger: The purpose of life is to be a guardian of the earth

The great German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) offered two different outlooks on the meaning of life: (a) the “early Heidegger” held that the meaning of life is to live authentically, while (b) the “later Heidegger” considered being a guardian of the earth as man’s purpose in life.

Early Heidegger underscored living an authentic life, that is, one’s own life, not just the life that has been fixed for him by the community he lives in. Living a meaningful life is living a life of authenticity, a life that one oneself chooses (as opposed to that which is prescribed for him by his social circumstances), which entails having one’s own plan that unifies his life into an organic whole.

To live authentically is to live in a way that is true to one’s (a) heritage and (b) facticity. Being true to one’s heritage is being true to his own, deepest self. “Facticity,” on the other hand, is the “thrownness” of one’s individual existence, as Heidegger considers a human person as “thrown into the world.”

Facticity includes not only the brute fact or the factuality of a concrete historical situation, but also the intractable conditions of human existence, including one’s place, body, past, position, and fundamental relationship to others.

Facticity is a factor in authentic existence concerning one’s past, as he is thrown into the world without consultation and abandoned to chance factors, which limits his human possibilities.

Relatedly, Heidegger philosophized that living a meaningful life also entails coming to terms with temporality—a uniquely human awareness that a human being is a finite, historical, and temporal being.

The human person ought to understand that he or she is a “being toward death.” Healthy anxiety about death affords courageous awareness and acceptance of one’s finitude.

Later Heidegger proposed that the meaning of life is guardianship of the world. The human being ought to understand that the world is a holy place and is thus called to manifest some intellectual and practical outlook toward it, and live with an attitude of respect and reverence toward the natural world.

Exploiting the natural world, such as through mining and highway-building, is not living up to one’s purpose in life.

4. Schlick: Life is meaningful if it does not have some end or purpose

Mortiz Schlick (1882– 1936) was a German philosopher and one of the central figures of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle. From his interpretation of Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, Schlick concluded that life can be meaningful only if it is released from its subjugation to pusposes and ends, that is, if it does not have some end or purpose to which everything is subordinated.

He claimed that the meaning of life is not found in work, which is usually done not for its own sake but for the sake of something else, like certain purpose or end that is to be realized. He ended up proposing is that the meaning of life is found in play, that is, in activity accomplished for its own splendid sake and not to pursue some further goal or intention.

Work, admittedly, is necessary for survival, but it can only be meaningful if it is turned into play, something that a person would do with joy even if ultimately nothing came of it.

Another way to express Schlick’s philosophy is to say that life’s meaning is found in activities that are intrinsically valuable, that is, those in which the means and the ends are fused, or in which the means is itself the end. Playis thus meaningful as it carries its own purpose—in play, people have no purpose except to play.

For Schlick therefore, life’s meaning is found in true joyful play, that which involves passionate enthusiasm of youth, being unconcerned with ends, and devotion to the intrinsic nature of the play. He envisioned a world in which people engage in meaningful, joyful, playful, work.

Against it though, we may say that it seems to reduce humans to an animal existence, living for the moment rather than envisioning eternity or other noble things as self-conscious beings should. (© 2013-present by Jensen DG. Mañebog/MyInfoBasket.com)

Also read: From Socrates to Mill: An Analysis of Prominent Ethical Theories, also by author Jensen DG. Mañebog

Note: Teachers may share this as a reading assignment of their students. For other free lectures like this (especially for students), visit Homepage: Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person

*Free lectures on the subject Pambungad sa Pilosopiya ng Tao

Read also: Reasoning and Debate: A Handbook and a Textbook by Jensen DG. Mañebog

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Also read: From Socrates to Mill: An Analysis of Prominent Ethical Theories by Jensen DG. Mañebog