On the Meaning of Life

The question 'What is the meaning of life?' is one of the most fascinating, oldest and most difficult questions human beings have ever posed themselves. In an increasingly secularized culture, it remains a question to which we are ineluctably and powerfully drawn.Drawing skillfully on a wealth of thinkers, writers and scientists from Augustine, Descartes, Freud and Camus, to Spinoza, Pascal, Darwin, and Wittgenstein, On the Meaning of Life breathes new vitality into one of the very biggest questions.

Preface Chapter 1 The QuestionThe question that won't go awayScience and MeaningSomething rather than nothingA Religious question?Meaning after GodMan the Measure of All things?Variety, MEaning and EvaluationWhat Meaningfulness impliesMeaning and MoralityHumanity and OpenessChapter 2 The Barrier to MeaningThe VoidThe Challenge of ModernityThe Shadow of DarwinScience, Religion and MeaningEvolution and 'Blind' ForcesThe 'Nastiness' of the Evolutionary MechanismMatter and Surplus SufferingThe Character of the CosmosChapter 3 Meaning, Vulnerability and HopeMorality and AchievementFutility and FragilityReligion and the Buoyancy of the GoodVulnerability and FinitudeSpirituality and Inner ChangeDoctrine and PraxisFrom Praxis to FAithCoda: Intimations of Meaning