Does Life Have a Meaning?

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The meaning of life"...we question it, ponder it, dispute and fret about it, but at some point each of us finds the need to address this fundamental issue of human existence. Some believe that there is purpose inherent in our nature as human beings and in the vast universe of which we are but a small part. Others hold that the values we strive for and the virtues we seek are revealed to us by a divine creator of the cosmos in whose plan we figure as integral components. Still others say that our lives have no intrinsic meaning beyond that which we give them. With such competing views, how are we to sort out for ourselves this special human concern? In Does Life Have a Meaning? well-known philosopher and scholar Milton Munitz suggests that we must first set aside our comfortable assumptions and try to gain an accurate understanding of this powerful concept known as "the meaning of life". The power of its impact on our lives requires that we first consider the basic character of the world around us. We can approach this intellectual and spiritual need by trying to map out the major dimensions of existence in the hope of sorting out what constitutes the content of our world. Equipped with such an overview, we should be in a better position to consider the locus, opportunities, and limits for finding various types and sources of meaning in our individual lives. In pursuit of this goal, Munitz contends that we must recognize a basic distinction between two important dimensions of Reality: (1) the observable universe - the domain of interactive existents (including human existents) open to increasingly refined identification of its varied contents, their intelligibility, and - in verylimited cases - to human control, and (2) Boundless Existence, a wholly unintelligible, transcendent aspect of Reality that should not to be confused with common theistic conceptions of God. Munitz explores the "the meaning of life" on the dimension of the observable universe when the life of any individual human existent is made intelligible in some degree and the extent to which at least some of the meanings embedded in the multiple interactions of a human existent with other existents (human or not) are of a welcome, rewarding character as judged by humanly chosen criteria, rather than by claiming to ground them in some preassigned cosmic or divine source and authority. Conversely, he discusses the prospects for finding meaning in life within the context of Boundless Existence, that vast transcendence devoid of properties and conceptual bounds whether religious, scientific, or philosophic. Does Life Have a Meaning? will tweak many comfortable beliefs about who we are and what, if anything, life has to offer. It will help remove the intellectual clutter from a topic that has occupied our attention for centuries.