Thoughts on Nagel’s The Meaning of Life

I agree with some of what Nagel was saying in Chapter 10: The Meaning of Life. His main claim was that life is absurd and meaningless and believing in a God to give life meaning does not make sense. Nagel explains that we view our lives from an objective and subjective perspective. Using the objective perspective, we cannot justify why our life actually matters, so we feel that nothing matters. In the subjective perspective, life seems important and valuable to oneself and other people. Since there is a conflict in the two ways we view our lives, Nagel simply deems our lives absurd.

He says our lives are meaningless because we cannot feel meaningful if our lives are absurd. Using his arguments, I believe that yes, our lives could be meaningless, but it doesn’t matter if we feel happy in the projects we commit ourselves to (which is the main idea of Wolf’s argument). If we feel like we are working towards something that is important and we are important to other people, then we will feel meaningful even if when looking at the “bigger picture” it doesn’t matter.

11 thoughts on “Thoughts on Nagel’s The Meaning of Life

  1. I like how you describe the difference between the objective and subjective perspectives on the meaning of life. Although there is a conflict between these two views, you do a good job talking about how people can still find meaning in life. I think it’s easier to be somewhat ignorant towards the “bigger picture” and work towards what we can control, and that may be why Nagel says life is “absurd” but I feel that constitutes as giving a meaning to life.

  2. I think that not having a larger, universal meaning isn’t required to be happy since we don’t have the ability to work or even completely observe on that scale. We should focus on what we more directly interact with in order to find meaning.

  3. I agree with the idea that we must focus on the present and meaning in the present and that a universal meaning isn’t required. Wolf really does a good job of explaining this concept in her article by trying to explain how no one knows what the evolution of future society will be which is why it is important to concentrate on now.

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