Relation to oneself· Existence
Teleology and providence
Axis: The meaning of life — How should we respond to the enigma of life's meaning?
Meaning exists, but it does not give itself at once: existence belongs to a world order or a providential design that must be learned and deciphered. Faced with the enigma, the task is to seek that purpose, to trust it even while it remains obscure, and to align one's conduct with it.
Movements 8
Platonismexplicit
Platonism is fundamentally teleological (explaining beings by the end, the telos, toward which they tend): the world is ordered by the Demiurge for the best, after the model of the Forms, and everything tends toward the Good as toward its end. Human existence finds its meaning in this orientation of the soul toward the principle that orders the whole.
Plato, Timaeus, 29d-30c, the ordering of the world · Plato, Republic, 505a-509c, the Good as end
Stoicismexplicit
The cosmos is a single living being pervaded by the , the divine reason; man is a part of it endowed with a fragment of that reason. « Living according to nature » therefore means living according to reason, one's own and that of the whole, which coincides with virtue. The meaning of existence is not to be invented: it lies in the right place one holds within the rational order, against an Epicurean world of indifferent atoms.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations · Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, book II
Vedānta (Advaita)explicit
If the Self is already and has fallen into saṃsāra only through error, then the end of existence is not a goal to be invented but a truth to be recovered: meaning is inscribed in the structure of the real, and life has for its term , the conscious return of the Self to what it has never ceased to be. This spiritual teleology marks itself off on two fronts: against the absurdity of an existence without direction, it posits an objective end; but against the ritualism of Mīmāṃsā, which made meaning the correct performance of Vedic acts for the sake of future fruits, it objects that no action, by nature productive of fruits and so of fresh karman, can liberate: only the knowledge of what is already accomplished can.
Śaṅkara, Commentary on the Brahma-Sūtras (Brahma-Sūtra-Bhāṣya), I, 1, 4 · Kaṭha Upaniṣad
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Aristotelianisminferable
The meaning of existence is teleological: since every being tends toward its proper end, human life finds its meaning in the actualization of its function, the life according to reason, whose summit is contemplative activity. Meaning is therefore neither wholly self-constructed nor absurd, but inscribed in the very nature of the human being.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, X, 7-8
Buddhisminferable
Since the cessation of suffering is possible, it gives existence an end toward which everything is ordered: to be freed from the cycle of rebirths so as to reach (the going-out of greed, hatred, and delusion). Meaning is therefore neither invented by each person nor decreed by a creator, unlike ends fixed by a God: it is discovered as the very nature of things, which gives Buddhism a teleological structure without transcendence, the goal lying in the possibility of extinction rather than in any external will.
Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (the sermon at Benares) · Dhammapada, ch. XXVI (The Brahmin)
Taoisminferable
For Taoism, the Tao is the source and order of all things, the spontaneous course to which existence belongs. Meaning is not invented but found by attuning oneself to this course through wu-wei and simplicity, renouncing the artificial ends man forges for himself. To live well is to wed a fabric that precedes and exceeds us, yet without the personal design of a god.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching · Zhuangzi
Confucianisminferable
Confucianism sets meaning within the Mandate of Heaven, a normative order and Way that surpass the individual; but this order holds only as accomplished in self-cultivation, the rites and the rectitude of human relationships. Meaning is thus received from a heavenly order and realized through ethical effort, never left to individual choice alone nor held to be absent.
Analects (Lunyu) · Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong)
Romanticisminferable
The world is neither an indifferent mechanism nor an absurd chaos: it is shot through with a meaning, a spirit unfolding within it to which the human being is called to respond. The Romantic feeling of the infinite and the longing for a lost unity presuppose that existence has a direction and a depth, however veiled: meaning is not to be invented from nothing but to be sensed and recovered in nature, art and history.
Novalis, The Novices of Sais · Schelling, Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature
Philosophers 17
Platoexplicit
The whole order of things is directed toward the Good, the principle and end of all reality: in the the Demiurge fashions the world as beautiful and good as possible by looking to the eternal model. Human life finds its meaning in this cosmic teleology, by becoming as far as possible like the divine and the order of the whole.
Timaeus, 29d-30c, 47a-c · Republic, VI, 505a-b
Plotinusexplicit
The very movement of being is circular: each thing proceeds from the by and then tends to return to it, and the return () is inscribed in the nature of whatever issues from the Good. The meaning of human life is therefore neither to be invented nor absent: it is given by this structure, the soul having consciously to retrace the path to its source. To live fully is to convert one's gaze, to turn away from the outside and climb back toward the origin from which one is never wholly cut off.
Enneads, VI, 9 · Enneads, V, 1
Thomas Aquinasexplicit
The meaning of life is for Thomas given, inscribed in a that orders every being to its end: the human being is created to know and love God, and all his existence finds its direction in this return toward its origin. A slight constructive part remains, since it falls to each one to cooperate freely with this end through his acts, but the fundamental orientation is neither invented nor absurd, it is received from a willed order.
Summa contra Gentiles, III, 25 and 37
Aristotleexplicit
From the general finalism follows a consequence for human existence: what holds for the eye or the plant holds for the human, who likewise has a proper function (ergon) inscribed in its nature. The meaning of life is accordingly neither received from elsewhere nor freely invented: it is to be actualized from a nature already oriented toward its end, rational activity. Hence the leaning toward a given meaning, while leaving each individual the task of bringing into act what is at first only in potency.
Nicomachean Ethics, I.7 (the function argument) · Physics, II.8
Marcus Aureliusexplicit
The cosmos is a whole ordered by the , and man, a fragment of that reason, holds his place and function within it: to live well is to fall in with it. Yet Marcus introduces an un-Stoic note, the « providence or atoms » alternative he keeps turning over: either the world is , or it is no more than a swirl of atoms, and in either case the wise man must keep his soul upright. He always comes down on the side of rational order, but this recurring hypothesis betrays a restless lucidity that sets him apart from the doctrinal serenity of .
Meditations, IV, 4 · Meditations, IX, 28 · Meditations, XII, 14
Senecaexplicit
The world is a cosmos ordered by a providential reason (), and the meaning of human life is to live in accordance with that rational nature. Man's end, as a fragment of the divine whole, is inscribed in the order of things: a cosmic teleology grounds ethics.
On the Happy Life, III (living according to nature) · On Providence, I and V (the providential order of the world)
Epictetusexplicit
The world is ordered by a rational and every being has an assigned role in it, which reason allows us to recognize and fulfill. A constructive part remains, since it falls to each of us to play the received role well, like an actor in a play.
Discourses, I.16 · Enchiridion, §17
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Leibnizinferable
For Leibniz, this world is the best of all possible worlds, chosen by God among the infinity of possibles according to the principle of the best. Nothing happens in it without a sufficient reason, and each substance, through pre-established harmony, contributes to the order and perfection of the whole. Life draws its meaning from this providential purpose that envelops it, to be recognized rather than invented.
Theodicy · Monadology, §§ 53-60
The Buddhainferable
Existence has an assignable end and a directed meaning: to be freed from suffering and the cycle of rebirths so as to reach (the going-out of greed, hatred, and delusion). The whole path is ordered toward this goal, giving the teaching a teleological structure, even though the end is set not by a creator but discovered as the nature of things.
Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Saṃyutta Nikāya 56.11 (the sermon at Benares) · Dhammapada, ch. XXVI (The Brahmin)
Śaṅkarainferable
Existence belongs to an order whose end is fixed in advance: to leave the cycle of rebirths and recover the identity of the self and . Meaning is not an arbitrary creation of the individual but the recognition of a truth already there, veiled by ignorance; every life is oriented, whether it knows it or not, toward this liberation. A measure of personal journeying remains, since it falls to each to walk the path, but the end is not invented: it is discovered.
Commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā · Upadeśasāhasrī
Nāgārjunainferable
Like all of , Madhyamaka orders existence toward an assignable end: liberation from suffering through the understanding of . This end is set not by a creator but discovered as the nature of things, hence a teleological structure, which the identity of saṃsāra and brings back entirely into this very world.
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way), ch. XXV (the examination of nirvāṇa)
Socratesinferable
Socrates takes his calling to examine men as a mission entrusted to him by the god, one he cannot desert: he is stationed in Athens as at a post of battle one does not leave. The meaning of his life is thus given by a divine command, and the gods do not neglect the good man: far from a constructed meaning or an absurd universe, a watches over it.
Plato, Apology, 28d-29a (the post assigned by the god) · Plato, Apology, 41c-d (the gods' care for the good man)
Lockeinferable
A Christian, Locke holds man to be the workmanship and property of God, set in the world to fulfill his ends according to the natural law that reason illumines. This providential frame gives life its direction; but Locke joins to it a large human share, the free pursuit of happiness and the care of oneself, which does not await its meaning from a revelation.
Second Treatise of Government, II · Essay concerning Human Understanding, II, 21
Confuciusinferable
Meaning, for Confucius, is rooted in the Mandate of Heaven (Tian ming): a normative order, a Way that surpasses the individual and to which one must attune one's conduct. But this order is fulfilled only through human effort, self-cultivation, the rites and the justice of relationships: life takes on meaning by realizing, here below, the share that falls to us in the harmony willed by Heaven.
Analects (Lunyu), II.4 and XVI.8
Descartesinferable
Descartes believes in a provident God and in the immortality of the soul, which set life within a willed order and promise it an end; but he banishes final causes from knowledge, judging divine wisdom impenetrable. Accessible meaning then shifts toward the human: the right use of , the perfection of reason and the contentment of , a work to accomplish more than a purpose to contemplate.
Meditations on First Philosophy, IV · The Passions of the Soul, arts. 153-156
Kantinferable
The meaning of life, for Kant, lies in the moral vocation: to become worthy of happiness by fulfilling the law that reason gives itself, which belongs to autonomy, not to a received end. But the realization of the highest good exceeds our powers and postulates a moral world-order guaranteed by God: a rationally hoped-for providence thus borders autonomy with a teleological horizon.
Critique of Practical Reason, Dialectic · Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim
Rousseauinferable
The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar affirms a good God, a providence and an immortal soul, and makes conscience the infallible voice of nature within us: a given order, with which the upright life accords. But the most intimate meaning Rousseau finds in the sentiment of existence and the authenticity of the self, recovered far from social artifice, a properly human and inward share.
Emile, IV (Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar) · Reveries of the Solitary Walker
Argument
- A meaning I give myself I can just as well take back: nothing holds me to it but my decision, and what depends only on my decision cannot truly bind me.
- Yet a life needs a meaning that surpasses and orients it: something in whose name it is worth acting even when it costs, and that no whim can undo.
- Such a meaning cannot therefore be an invention: it must be found, inscribed in an order that precedes me, nature, the Logos, a design, whose assigned place for me it is my task to decipher.
Therefore So meaning is not to be created but discovered: existence is inscribed in an order that surpasses it, and to live well is to learn to attune oneself to it.
See the pageObjectionAttacks the position
- Teleology claims to read, in the order of the world, a design that precedes us and that would give our lives their direction.
- But that order, the laws, the fitting of living things, is fully explained by blind processes, selection, physics, without any intention having to intervene. One explains the same world without supposing an end.
- And nowhere does the world show that it has a meaning intended for us: to our demand for meaning it answers with silence. To read a design into things is to project onto them our own need to be awaited somewhere.
Therefore So the meaning teleology claims to find might well be only a projected one: nothing, in the order of the world, attests to an end destined for us.
See the page- DescriptiveIs meaning inscribed in things?
Does the world carry an order or design that precedes us, as the Stoics and providentialisms hold, or is it silent? Constructing one's meaning, revolting, or renouncing all share the same starting point: nothing is given.
the order of things - Descriptive Thought experimentSisyphus and his rock
When our thirst for meaning meets the silence of the world, where can an answer lie: in an end that surpasses us, in the meaning we give ourselves, or in the lucid revolt of a life with no answer?
an existence - DescriptiveMeaning of life, or in life?
Does life have an overall meaning, an answer to « why all this? », or only local meanings, the ones we find in a love, a work, a commitment, even if the whole has none?
a life - DescriptiveMust it last?
If everything ends, through death and then the erasure of every trace, is what we do in vain, or can something have full meaning without lasting forever?
the span of a life - DescriptiveWill any meaning do?
Can a life be full of meaning if it is devoted to something trivial, or even bad, or does meaning require that the thing be objectively worth it?
a life devoted to something - DescriptiveMeaning without God?
Does the meaning of existence presuppose a divine order that surpasses us, or can it hold entirely without God, on wholly human grounds?
the order of the world