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What is the point of living? If we are all going to die anyway, if nothing will remain of whatever we achieve in this life, why should we bother trying to achieve anything in the first place? Can we be mortal and still live a meaningful life? Questions such as these have been asked for a long time, but nobody has found a conclusive answer yet. The connection between death and meaning, however, has taken centre stage in the philosophical and literary work of some of the world's greatest writers: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Soren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Herman Melville, Friedrich Nietzsche, William James, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Marcel Proust, and Albert Camus.
This book explores their ideas, weaving a rich tapestry of concepts, voices and images, helping the reader to understand the concerns at the heart of those writers' work and uncovering common themes and stark contrasts in their understanding of what kind of world we live in and what really matters in life.
Prelude
Chapter 1: Arthur Schopenhauer and the Worst of All Possible Worlds
Chapter 2: Søren Kierkegaard and the Despair of Not Being Oneself
Chapter 3: Herman Melville and the Interlinked Terrors and Wonders of God
Chapter 4: Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the Hell of No Longer Being Able to Love
Chapter 5: Leo Tolstoy and the Inevitable End of Everything
Chapter 6: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Joy of Living Dangerously
Chapter 7: William James and the Dramatic Richness of the Concrete World
Chapter 8: Marcel Proust and the Only Life That Is Really Lived
Chapter 9: Ludwig Wittgenstein and our Hopeless Battle against the Boundaries of Language
Chapter 10: Albert Camus and the Benign Indifference of the World
Postlude
Sources
Description
What is the point of living? If we are all going to die anyway, if nothing will remain of whatever we achieve in this life, why should we bother trying to achieve anything in the first place? Can we be mortal and still live a meaningful life? Questions such as these have been asked for a long time, but nobody has found a conclusive answer yet. The connection between death and meaning, however, has taken centre stage in the philosophical and literary work of some of the world's greatest writers: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Soren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Herman Melville, Friedrich Nietzsche, William James, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Marcel Proust, and Albert Camus.
This book explores their ideas, weaving a rich tapestry of concepts, voices and images, helping the reader to understand the concerns at the heart of those writers' work and uncovering common themes and stark contrasts in their understanding of what kind of world we live in and what really matters in life.
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