Sources and References

Required Textbooks:

• E. F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed (Harper Perennial, 2015)
• J. Budziszewski, How and How Not to be Happy (Regnery Gateway, 2022)
• Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity (Anansi, 1991); also published as The Ethics of Authenticity
• Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life: Ecclesiastes, Job, and Song of Songs (Ignatius Press, 1989)
• Josef Pieper, In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (St. Augustine’s Press, 1999)

Supplementary Readings:

• P. M. S. Hacker, “Philosophy and Neuroscience: What Cognitive Neuroscience Can, and What It Cannot, Explain”
• John Kay, “Obliquity”
• Charles Taylor, “The Great Disembedding”
• Seneca, “On Providence,” “On the Happy Life,” “On the Tranquillity of the Mind,” “On the Shortness of Life”
• Arthur Schopenhauer, “On the Suffering of the World,” “Some Observations on the Antithesis of the Thing in Itself and Appearance,” “On Affirmation and Denial of the Will to Live,” “On the Vanity of Existence,” “On the Nothingness and Suffering of Life”
• Lauren Freeman, “Boredom (Langeweile)”
• Max Scheler, “The Meaning of Suffering”
• Gabriel Marcel, “Sketch of a Phenomenology and a Metaphysic of Hope”

Reference Works:

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “The Meaning of Life,” “Stoicism,” “Schopenhauer”
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Gabriel Marcel”
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIae, QQ. 1–5

Chapter 1: What Is the Meaning of Life?

1.1 Framing the Question

The question “What is the meaning of life?” is perhaps the most fundamental and far-reaching question a human being can ask. In popular culture, philosophy is often described as being about precisely this inquiry, and while this characterisation is sometimes treated as a stereotype, there is considerable truth to it. The question concerns the intelligibility (可理解性) of existence—particularly the existence of living beings and, above all, human beings. By “intelligibility” we mean the possibility of coming to understand and know what life is about. The human mind or intellect is thus squarely involved in this endeavour.

The notion of meaning (意义) is a loaded one, connoting significance, importance, purpose, and value. It is not immediately obvious what we are asking when we inquire into the meaning of life. Are we asking about our own individual lives, or about life in general? Are we seeking a cosmic purpose for humanity as a whole, or are we asking what makes a particular human existence worthwhile? Philosophers distinguish between the meaning of life (人生的意义)—humanity’s cosmic purpose—and meaning in life (人生中的意义)—what makes an individual existence significant.

1.2 Major Philosophical Positions

1.2.1 Supernaturalism

Supernaturalism (超自然主义) holds that life’s meaning depends on spiritual conditions—God, the soul, or a transcendent order. Extreme supernaturalism maintains that without God or a soul, life is entirely meaningless. Moderate supernaturalism concedes that some meaning exists in a purely natural world but holds that God or the soul would substantially enhance it. A prominent argument within this tradition is that fulfilling a purpose God has assigned constitutes life’s meaning. Robert Nozick advanced a related claim: finite conditions require meaning from something transcendent to avoid an infinite regress, and only God suffices as the ultimate ground of meaning.

1.2.2 Naturalism: Objectivism and Subjectivism

Naturalism (自然主义) holds that a meaningful life is possible in a purely physical universe without recourse to God or soul. Within naturalism, two camps emerge:

• Subjectivism (主观主义): Meaning depends entirely on individual preferences and desires. Harry Frankfurt’s formulation captures this: life is meaningful to the extent that one cares about or loves something.
• Objectivism (客观主义): Certain activities—moral action, intellectual pursuit, creative expression—possess inherent worth regardless of subjective attitudes. Susan Wolf’s influential synthesis states that meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness.

1.2.3 Nihilism

Nihilism (虚无主义) denies that meaningful life is possible at all. Arguments for nihilism include error theory (objective values do not exist), the argument from cosmic insignificance (our tiny impact across vast spacetime prevents genuine meaning), and determinism concerns (if our choices are predetermined, we lack the authorship necessary for meaningful lives). David Benatar’s anti-natalism contends that existence itself is harmful because suffering is real but the absence of pleasure in non-existence is not a deprivation.

1.2.4 An Emerging Consensus

Despite these disagreements, philosophers broadly agree that meaningfulness is a final good distinct from happiness or morality, that it is gradual rather than all-or-nothing, and that it is exemplified by what the tradition has called “the good, the true, and the beautiful”—beneficent relationships, intellectual pursuits, and creative expression.

1.3 The Approach of This Course

This course approaches the question of the meaning of life from a variety of perspectives. It moves from a philosophical “map” of reality (Schumacher) to the nature of happiness (Budziszewski), from the modern crisis of authenticity (Taylor) to ancient Stoic wisdom (Seneca), from the pessimism of Schopenhauer and the reality of suffering (Scheler) to the religious interpretation of life in Biblical wisdom literature (Kreeft), and finally to the celebratory and hopeful vision of festivity and transcendence (Pieper, Marcel). Throughout, the course integrates ancient and modern perspectives in a fruitful dialectical exchange, aiming not merely at academic knowledge but at the practical wisdom needed to make sense of the journey of life.

Chapter 2: Levels of Being and the Problem of Scientism

2.1 E. F. Schumacher and A Guide for the Perplexed

E. F. Schumacher (1911–1977), best known for his work Small Is Beautiful, offers in A Guide for the Perplexed a philosophical “map” of reality that challenges the dominant materialist worldview. The title deliberately echoes Maimonides’ medieval classic, signalling Schumacher’s conviction that modern people are as perplexed as their medieval forebears—but for different reasons. Where the medievals struggled with the relationship between faith and reason, moderns struggle with maps of reality that omit the most important features of human existence.

2.2 The Four Levels of Being

The variables x, y, and z represent ontological discontinuities that cannot be reduced to lower levels. Schumacher argues that while we can recognise and destroy life, we cannot create it from non-living matter—suggesting something irreducible about each transition.

2.2.1 Life (x)

Life (生命) separates the mineral from the plant. Although the life sciences study the physico-chemical substrate that carries life, physics and chemistry cannot fully explain the phenomenon of life itself. A dead plant and a living plant may be chemically identical at the moment of death, yet something essential has departed.

2.2.2 Consciousness (y)

Consciousness (意识) distinguishes animals from plants. Animals possess the capacity for primitive thought, intelligence, sensation, and the ability to become unconscious—capacities entirely absent in the vegetable kingdom.

2.2.3 Self-Awareness (z)

Self-awareness (自我意识) defines the human level. Human beings do not merely experience the world; they reflect upon their own experience. This capacity for reflexive thought enables transcendence, moral reasoning, creativity, and the pursuit of meaning itself.

2.3 The Principle of Adaequatio

Physical senses suffice for understanding inanimate matter, but understanding higher levels of being demands what Schumacher calls “intellectual senses”—developed internal capacities of empathy, moral sensitivity, and self-awareness. A complex philosophical text means different things to an animal, an illiterate person, an educated reader, and a trained philosopher—each possesses different internal “senses.”

The crucial implication is that those who view reality exclusively through the lens of materialist scientism cannot perceive higher levels of being, because their worldview systematically excludes the possibility of such levels. As Schumacher puts it, “Everything can be seen directly except the eye through which we see.”

2.4 The Four Fields of Knowledge

Schumacher identifies four distinct domains of knowledge, each requiring its own methodology:

True knowledge integrates all four fields. Modern science privileges the fourth field—external, objective observation—while systematically neglecting the first three. This methodological bias produces a dangerously incomplete picture of reality.

2.5 Convergent and Divergent Problems

Divergent problems cannot be solved by technical means alone. They demand transcendence (超越)—rising above the opposition to a higher principle that reconciles apparent contradictions. Education, for instance, works through “love and discipline” or “love and freedom,” where love is the transcendent principle uniting seemingly opposed approaches.

2.6 The Critique of Scientism

Schumacher does not oppose science as such but rather the philosophical ideology of scientism, which inappropriately applies methods designed for the study of inanimate matter to living systems and human phenomena. The consequences of this reductionism are grave:

• Studying humans as animals (“naked apes”) leads to treating them as “animal machines.”
• False objectivity: Restricting observation to measurable externals achieves a limited objectivity at the expense of knowledge of the object as a whole.
• Moral vacuum: Removing vertical dimensions from reality leaves only moral relativism and utilitarianism as guides for human action.
• Existential impoverishment: The philosophical maps produced by scientism are “grey, limited, utilitarian” worldviews that lack room for beauty, meaning, spirituality, and the higher dimensions of human existence.

2.7 Hacker on Philosophy and Neuroscience

P. M. S. Hacker’s essay “Philosophy and Neuroscience” complements Schumacher’s critique by exposing what Hacker (together with the neuroscientist Max Bennett) calls the mereological fallacy (整体与部分的谬误).

Although it is true that we can do nothing without our brains, it is not brains that think and decide but persons—just as it is aeroplanes that fly, not jet engines. Hacker argues that cognitive neuroscience, despite its empirical achievements, often commits a form of crypto-dualism: by attributing mental properties to brains, it effectively smuggles in a dualism of brain-as-subject and body-as-instrument while claiming to have overcome the mind-body problem.

This analysis reinforces Schumacher’s point about adaequatio: the methods appropriate to studying neural mechanisms (Field 4 knowledge) are not adequate for understanding the full reality of the human person, who exists simultaneously across all four fields of knowledge.

Chapter 3: Happiness, Desire, and the Good

3.1 J. Budziszewski and the Thomistic Tradition

J. Budziszewski’s How and How Not to be Happy presents a modern, accessible account of the theory of happiness as expounded by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). Drawing on Aquinas’ treatment of human happiness in the Summa Theologiae (Ia-IIae, QQ. 1–5), Budziszewski systematically examines what happiness is, where it is to be found, and why modern approaches to the pursuit of happiness so often fail.

3.2 The Nature of Desire

Human beings possess a universal, powerful longing that no finite good can fully satisfy. Every particular desire—for food, knowledge, love, honour—is a specification of a more fundamental desire for the good as such. This restless longing is itself evidence of our nature and our destiny: if nothing in creation can satisfy us, there is nothing left to seek but the Creator.

3.3 Ends and Purposes

Budziszewski, following Aristotle and Aquinas, argues that human action is inherently teleological—directed toward ends. Every action aims at some good, and there must be an ultimate end (最终目的) that is desired for its own sake and not for the sake of anything beyond itself. Without such an ultimate end, practical reasoning would dissolve into an infinite regress: we would always be acting for the sake of something else, and nothing would ever be genuinely worth doing.

3.4 The Good and Happiness

Budziszewski methodically demonstrates that happiness cannot consist in any finite good:

• Wealth (财富): Wealth is a means, never an end in itself. The miser who hoards wealth defeats the very purpose of possessing it.
• Honour and fame (荣誉): These depend on the opinions of others and are therefore unstable and external to the person.
• Power (权力): Power can be used for good or evil and is therefore not good in itself.
• Bodily goods (身体的善): Health and physical pleasure, while genuine goods, are transient and insufficient for lasting fulfilment.
• Knowledge (知识): Even intellectual attainment, while a high good, remains incomplete in this life.

3.5 Pleasure and Its Limits

Budziszewski identifies pleasure-seeking—hedonism (享乐主义)—as a fundamental error. Rather than being happiness itself, pleasure functions as a by-product of worthy pursuits. Chasing positive emotions directly produces what he calls “hedonistic burnout” and ultimately fails to satisfy, because pleasure divorced from its proper object becomes a form of addiction rather than fulfilment.

3.6 Friendship

Friendship is essential to happiness because the human being is by nature a social and political animal. No one would choose to live without friends, even if he possessed all other goods. True friendship involves a shared commitment to the good and is therefore inseparable from virtue.

3.7 The Principle of Obliquity

John Kay’s essay “Obliquity” argues that complex goals are best achieved indirectly. The most profitable companies are not those that pursue profit most single-mindedly; the happiest people are not those who make happiness their primary objective. This principle has deep roots in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition: happiness follows from virtuous activity rather than being the direct object of pursuit.

3.8 The Virtues

Budziszewski distinguishes virtue from skill. While skills produce external results, virtues constitute the good life itself. Happiness “has more to do with virtues than with skills” because virtue is not an external means to a good life but is intrinsic to it.

The cardinal virtues (四枢德) are:

1. Prudence (明智/审慎, prudentia): Right reason about things to be done; the charioteer of the virtues.
2. Justice (正义, iustitia): The constant will to render to each what is due.
3. Temperance (节制, temperantia): The moderation of sensible appetites.
4. Fortitude (勇毅, fortitudo): Firmness of soul in the face of difficulty and danger.

The theological virtues (三超德) are:

1. Faith (信德, fides): Trust in and assent to divine revelation.
2. Hope (望德, spes): Confident expectation of divine assistance and eternal beatitude.
3. Charity (爱德, caritas): Love of God above all things and of neighbour as oneself.

3.9 Imperfect and Perfect Happiness

Even the virtuous life, Budziszewski argues, does not fully satisfy. Natural happiness remains fragmentary and vulnerable to misfortune. Every finite good—wealth, status, knowledge, friendship—eventually leaves us asking whether this is truly what we wanted. The vision of God alone represents the perfect good “which leaves nothing further to be desired,” completing what natural philosophy can illuminate but not fully achieve. This is the point at which philosophy yields to theology, and reason to faith.

Chapter 4: Authenticity and Modernity

4.1 Charles Taylor and the Modern Condition

Charles Taylor (b. 1931) is one of the most influential philosophers of the contemporary era. His book The Malaise of Modernity (1991), based on his Massey Lectures for CBC Radio and published outside Canada as The Ethics of Authenticity, offers a searching diagnosis of the spiritual and cultural crisis of modern Western civilisation. Taylor is neither a simple defender nor a simple critic of modernity; rather, he seeks to recover the genuine moral sources underlying modern ideals while exposing the ways in which those ideals have been debased and distorted.

4.2 The Three Malaises of Modernity

Taylor identifies three interconnected “malaises” afflicting modern civilisation:

4.2.1 Individualism and the Loss of Meaning

The first malaise is the fading of moral horizons (道德视野的消逝). The rise of individualism has freed people from older social orders and cosmically grounded hierarchies, but it has also produced a pervasive sense of meaninglessness. When each person is thrown back upon herself as the sole authority for values, the result is not liberation but a “culture of narcissism” in which nothing outside the self provides a framework of significance.

4.2.2 The Dominance of Instrumental Reason

The second malaise is the growing dominance of instrumental reason (工具理性)—the kind of rationality that calculates the most efficient means to a given end. When instrumental reason becomes the primary or sole form of rationality, everything—nature, social institutions, human relationships—is evaluated purely in terms of utility and efficiency. The result is a disenchanted world in which nothing possesses inherent value.

4.2.3 The Loss of Freedom

The third malaise is a subtle loss of freedom (自由的丧失) that accompanies the first two. As moral horizons fade and instrumental reason dominates, individuals retreat into private life, abandoning the public sphere to technocratic management. Tocqueville’s warning about “soft despotism” becomes relevant: citizens are not oppressed by a tyrant but gently managed by a vast, benevolent bureaucracy that gradually removes the need—and the capacity—for genuine self-governance.

4.3 The Ethics of Authenticity

Taylor’s central argument is that authenticity is a genuine moral ideal, not merely the expression of subjectivism or narcissism. But it can be realised only within a framework that acknowledges certain conditions:

1. Authenticity requires horizons of significance. Being true to oneself is meaningless unless there are things that matter independently of one’s choosing. If all values are mere projections of personal preference, then the “authentic” choice is no more significant than any other.

2. Authenticity is dialogical, not monological. Human identity is formed in dialogue with others—through language, culture, recognition, and love. The monological ideal of the self-defining individual is an illusion.

3. Authenticity demands engagement with the world. Genuine self-realisation requires connection to something beyond the self—nature, art, community, the sacred. A purely self-referential authenticity defeats itself.

4.4 The Post-Metaphysical World

Taylor argues that modernity has produced a post-metaphysical (后形而上学的) culture in which the old cosmic order—the hierarchical universe of medieval Christendom in which each person had a place and a purpose—has collapsed. This collapse has liberated individuals from rigid social hierarchies but has also deprived them of the frameworks of meaning that made life intelligible.

The challenge of modernity, as Taylor sees it, is not to return to the pre-modern order but to retrieve the moral sources that animated it—the sense of a cosmic order, of goods that transcend individual choice, of a telos for human life—within the conditions of modern freedom and pluralism.

4.5 Values and Strong Evaluation

Taylor argues that strong evaluation is constitutive of human agency. We are not merely beings who have desires; we are beings who evaluate our desires against standards of worth. This capacity is what makes moral life possible and is precisely what the subjectivist and emotivist currents of modernity threaten to undermine.

4.6 The Great Disembedding

In pre-modern societies, individuals were deeply embedded (嵌入) in a “cosmos”—a world permeated by spiritual power, structured by sacred hierarchies, and ordered by divine purpose. Around 1000 BCE, the “Axial” religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Greek philosophy) began a first phase of disembedding by positing a “higher reality” beyond the cosmos. But the modern “buffered self” completed the process by separating from both the cosmic and the transcendent orders, producing a world in which all meaning is immanent and the individual is, in principle, self-sufficient.

4.6.1 The Affirmation of Ordinary Life

One of the most important fruits of this process is what Taylor calls the affirmation of ordinary life (日常生活的肯定)—the modern conviction that everyday activities of production (work) and reproduction (family life) are not merely instrumentally valuable but intrinsically meaningful. This represents a democratisation of meaning: the life of the merchant or artisan is not inherently inferior to the life of the philosopher or priest.

However, Taylor warns that the affirmation of ordinary life can itself become debased when it is detached from any horizon of transcendence, producing a flat utilitarianism in which ordinary life is affirmed not because it participates in something higher but simply because there is nothing higher.

Chapter 5: Stoic Wisdom: Seneca on Living Well

5.1 Introduction to Stoicism

Stoicism (斯多葛主义) is one of the great philosophical schools of antiquity, founded by Zeno of Citium (芝诺) around 300 BCE and systematised by Chrysippus (克律西波斯) in the third century BCE. The later Roman Stoics—Seneca (塞涅卡, c. 4 BCE – 65 CE), Epictetus (爱比克泰德, c. 50–135 CE), and Marcus Aurelius (马可·奥勒留, 121–180 CE)—are the best known and most widely read representatives of the school, emphasising practical ethics and the art of living.

5.2 Stoic Physics: Logos and Providence

Stoic physics identifies God with the active principle of the universe—an intelligent, rational force called the Logos (逻各斯)—divine reason that structures all matter according to a providential plan. The Stoics are materialists in the sense that everything that exists is corporeal, but their materialism is far removed from modern mechanistic materialism: the universe is a living, intelligent organism permeated by divine reason.

The Stoics are also determinists (决定论者): every event is the result of a prior cause or chain of causes. Yet they defend a form of compatibilism (相容论) by distinguishing between types of causation, arguing that human assent remains “in our power” even within the causal order. What matters is not what happens to us but how we respond to what happens.

5.3 Stoic Ethics: Virtue and the Indifferents

The Stoic telos (目的) is “living in agreement with nature” (顺应自然而生)—aligning one’s rational mind with cosmic reason. Virtue (德性) alone is genuinely good; everything else—health, wealth, reputation, even life itself—constitutes what the Stoics call indifferents (无关紧要之物, adiaphora). However, some indifferents are “preferred” (proegmena, 可取之物) and warrant rational pursuit, though their actual possession does not affect one’s fundamental flourishing.

5.3.1 Oikeiosis and Natural Law

5.3.2 Apatheia

5.4 Seneca, “On Providence”

In De Providentia, Seneca addresses the classic problem: why do bad things happen to good people in a universe governed by divine providence? His answer is characteristically Stoic: nothing genuinely bad can happen to the good person, because opposites do not mix. What appears to be adversity is in fact a means by which the virtuous person exercises and strengthens virtue. Just as a wrestler needs a strong opponent to develop his skill, so the wise person needs hardship to develop moral excellence.

5.5 Seneca, “On the Happy Life”

In De Vita Beata, Seneca defines the happy life as the life lived in accordance with virtue and reason. He defends himself against the charge of hypocrisy—he was, after all, one of the wealthiest men in Rome—by explaining the Stoic doctrine of preferred indifferents: the wise person may possess wealth without being attached to it. What matters is not whether one is rich or poor but whether one’s character is virtuous. Wealth rightly used can serve the good; it becomes an evil only when it enslaves its possessor.

5.6 Seneca, “On the Tranquillity of the Mind”

In De Tranquillitate Animi, Seneca offers practical guidance for achieving tranquillity (心灵的宁静, tranquillitas animi)—a state of mental calm and equilibrium in which the soul is neither elated by success nor crushed by failure. This requires:

• Withdrawal from excessive busyness and the cultivation of leisure (otium) devoted to philosophy and self-examination.
• Acceptance of what lies beyond our control and concentrated effort on what lies within our control—our own judgements, desires, and character.
• Engagement with the world balanced by inner detachment. The Stoic does not flee from public life but participates in it without being consumed by it.

5.7 Seneca, “On the Shortness of Life”

In De Brevitate Vitae, Seneca argues that life is not short but that we waste a great deal of it. “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.” The problem lies not in the quantity of time allotted to us but in the quality of our attention and the direction of our will.

Seneca surveys the many ways in which life is squandered: by ambition that pursues advancement without purpose, by giving all our time to others, by engaging in vice, by deferring genuine living to a future that may never come. His solution is to live in the present, to devote time to philosophy and meaningful activity, and to treat each day as a complete life in itself.

Chapter 6: Schopenhauer’s Pessimism and the Will to Live

6.1 Arthur Schopenhauer: Life and Context

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) stands as the great pessimist of the Western philosophical tradition. Against the prevailing idealism of Hegel and the dominant optimism of the Enlightenment, Schopenhauer insisted that the universe is not a rational, progressive, purposeful order but a blind, aimless, ceaselessly striving force that condemns all sentient beings to suffering.

6.2 The World as Will and Representation

Schopenhauer’s central metaphysical thesis is that the world has two aspects. As representation, it is the world of ordinary experience—individual objects in space and time, governed by causal laws. But underlying this phenomenal surface is the Will—a “mindless, aimless, non-rational impulse” that manifests itself at every level of nature, from the force of gravity to the blind instincts of animals to the conscious desires of human beings.

6.3 The Pendulum of Pain and Boredom

When we lack what we desire, we suffer. When we obtain it, we experience only momentary relief before new desires arise or boredom sets in. Life is thus a continuous oscillation between two forms of misery, and what we call “happiness” is merely the brief absence of pain.

6.4 The Vanity and Nothingness of Existence

Schopenhauer argues that existence is characterised by vanity (虚空)—a term he deliberately borrows from Ecclesiastes. Human projects, achievements, and aspirations are ultimately without lasting significance. Time destroys everything; death claims every individual; and the cosmic process continues its blind, purposeless churning without regard for human hopes or values.

The Will’s fragmentation into individual beings creates inevitable conflict: each individual strives against every other, producing a “world of constant struggle” in which suffering is structural, not accidental.

6.5 The Influence of Eastern Philosophy

Schopenhauer was deeply influenced by Hindu and Buddhist thought, particularly the Upanishads (奥义书) and the Bhagavad Gita. He recognised parallels between his own system and Eastern teachings on:

• Maya (摩耶/幻象): The illusory nature of the phenomenal world, corresponding to Schopenhauer’s doctrine of representation.
• Samsara (轮回): The endless cycle of desire and suffering, corresponding to the pendulum of pain and boredom.
• Moksha/Nirvana (解脱/涅槃): Liberation through renunciation of desire, corresponding to Schopenhauer’s denial of the Will.

6.6 Paths of Escape

Schopenhauer identifies three modes of temporary or permanent escape from the tyranny of the Will:

6.6.1 Aesthetic Contemplation

In genuine aesthetic experience, consciousness temporarily transcends individuality to perceive universal essences—what Schopenhauer, following Plato, calls Ideas (理念). During aesthetic contemplation, one “loses oneself in the object” and forgets one’s individuality, achieving a momentary liberation from the Will. Schopenhauer particularly valued music (音乐), which he regarded as “a copy of the Will itself”—a direct expression of metaphysical truth more profound than any conceptual philosophy.

6.6.2 Moral Compassion

Beyond aesthetics, moral consciousness recognises the underlying unity binding all beings. When we comprehend that others share our essential nature, compassion (同情, Mitleid) naturally arises. This universal empathy dissolves the illusion of separation sustaining egoism. Compassion is, for Schopenhauer, the foundation of morality.

6.6.3 Ascetic Denial of the Will

The highest path involves ascetic renunciation (苦行/禁欲)—voluntarily minimising desires and bodily attachments. Saints and mystics exemplify this denial, achieving a “tranquillity” through wilful withdrawal from life’s affirmations. This ascetic consciousness approaches mystical states described by the great religious traditions as union with the transcendent.

6.7 Heidegger and the Three Forms of Boredom

Lauren Freeman’s essay “Boredom (Langeweile)” introduces Martin Heidegger’s (1889–1976) phenomenological analysis of boredom, which deepens and transforms Schopenhauer’s observations. In his 1929–1930 lecture course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, Heidegger distinguishes three forms of boredom:

Where Schopenhauer sees boredom as mere evidence of the Will’s futility, Heidegger sees in profound boredom a potential opening to authentic existence—a call to take responsibility for one’s own being.

Chapter 7: The Problem of Suffering

7.1 Suffering as a Philosophical Problem

The reality of suffering (苦难) presents one of the most formidable challenges to any account of life’s meaning. If life is purposeful and good, why is it pervaded by pain, loss, and grief? If suffering is pointless, can life as a whole be meaningful? The problem of suffering intersects with the problem of evil (theodicy, 神义论), but it is not reducible to it: even those who do not believe in God must grapple with the place of suffering in human existence.

7.2 Schopenhauer on the Suffering of the World

Schopenhauer’s treatment of suffering, discussed in the previous chapter, represents the most radical philosophical response: suffering is not an accident or a deviation but the very essence of existence. The Will’s ceaseless striving ensures that all sentient beings are condemned to frustration, conflict, and pain. There is no ultimate justification for suffering, no higher purpose that redeems it. The only authentic response is the denial of the Will—a turning away from the affirmation of life itself.

7.3 Max Scheler on the Meaning of Suffering

Max Scheler (1874–1928), the great German phenomenologist, offers a profoundly different account. In his essay “The Meaning of Suffering,” Scheler argues that suffering is not merely destructive or pointless but possesses a positive, even redemptive, significance.

7.3.1 Pain as the Pain of Growth

Scheler conceives of pain as an irreducibly ambiguous phenomenon—both a non-intentional feeling-state and an intentional feeling directed toward value. All pain, he argues, is the pain of growth: life intensifies by giving up parts to realise more elevated values in the whole. Pain arises from abandoning the part to give oneself to the greater whole and totality of life. The martyr who suffers for truth, the parent who sacrifices for a child, the artist who endures creative anguish—all exemplify this dynamic.

7.3.2 The Value Hierarchy

Scheler’s phenomenology of values arranges them in a hierarchy from lower (sensory pleasure) to higher (spiritual and sacred values). Suffering often accompanies the transition from lower to higher values—the letting go of lesser goods for the sake of greater ones. This is why the deepest forms of suffering are often inseparable from the deepest forms of love.

7.3.3 Suffering and Solidarity

Suffering also creates bonds of solidarity among human beings. Shared suffering breaks down the barriers of egoism and opens the self to compassion and mutual aid. In this way, suffering can become a source of community and even of joy—not because pain is good in itself but because the love and solidarity it evokes are among the highest human goods.

7.4 Boredom and Existential Emptiness

Freeman’s essay on boredom, discussed in connection with Heidegger in the previous chapter, also contributes to the phenomenology of suffering. Boredom is a distinctively modern form of suffering—a “suffering of meaninglessness” rather than a suffering of physical or emotional pain. In an age that has eliminated many traditional forms of hardship, boredom emerges as a new and pervasive source of existential distress, testifying to the human need for purpose and meaning that no amount of material comfort can satisfy.

Chapter 8: Three Biblical Philosophies: Vanity, Suffering, Love

8.1 Peter Kreeft and Biblical Wisdom

Peter Kreeft (b. 1937) is a Catholic philosopher who has devoted his career to making the great philosophical and theological traditions accessible to a wide audience. In Three Philosophies of Life, Kreeft argues that the three Biblical wisdom books—Ecclesiastes, Job, and the Song of Songs—represent the three most profound philosophies of life ever articulated. Together, they form a journey from despair through suffering to love, paralleling Dante’s movement from Hell through Purgatory to Paradise.

8.2 Ecclesiastes: Life as Vanity

Ecclesiastes, attributed to King Solomon, presents a philosophy of radical disillusionment. The Preacher (Qoheleth) has tried everything—wisdom, pleasure, wealth, achievement—and found it all “vanity and a chasing after wind.” Life goes nowhere except to death, and death undoes everything. “What has been will be again; what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (1:9).

8.2.1 The Existential Force of Vanity

Kreeft emphasises that Ecclesiastes is not merely pessimistic but profoundly honest. It articulates what every thoughtful person has felt: the gnawing suspicion that nothing we do ultimately matters, that all our striving is destined for oblivion. This is not a pathology but a legitimate philosophical insight—indeed, Kreeft argues that it is a necessary stage on the journey to meaning.

8.2.2 Ecclesiastes and Schopenhauer

Kreeft notes the striking parallels between Ecclesiastes and Schopenhauer. Both diagnose the fundamental futility of desire; both recognise the corrosive power of time; both arrive at a vision of existence as characterised by repetition without progress. But whereas Schopenhauer’s pessimism is his final word, Ecclesiastes’ pessimism is only the first act in a larger drama.

8.3 Job: Life as Suffering

8.3.1 The Inadequacy of Theodicy

Kreeft argues that the Book of Job systematically demolishes all merely theoretical solutions to the problem of suffering. Job’s friends represent the rationalising impulse—the attempt to explain suffering away by fitting it into a neat theological scheme. But God’s answer from the whirlwind (Job 38–41) is not a philosophical explanation but a personal revelation: God appears not to answer Job’s questions but to overwhelm him with the mystery and majesty of creation.

8.3.2 The Answer of Presence

The real answer to Job’s suffering is not a proposition but a presence (临在). God does not explain why Job suffers; instead, God reveals himself. And this revelation transforms Job’s experience from one of meaningless pain to one of encounter with the divine. “My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5). Suffering becomes, not less painful, but no longer meaningless—because it takes place within a relationship with the living God.

8.4 Song of Songs: Life as Love

8.4.1 Love as the Answer to Vanity

If Ecclesiastes asks, “Is there any meaning?” and Job asks, “Is there any hope in suffering?”, the Song of Songs answers: “Love is the meaning.” Love is the alternative to vanity, the redemption of suffering, and the true purpose of existence. “Love is as strong as death” (Song of Songs 8:6)—indeed, stronger, because love is the only force that transcends death and gives eternal significance to temporal existence.

8.4.2 The Spousal Analogy

Kreeft emphasises the spousal analogy (婚姻类比): the relationship between God and the human soul is not that of master and slave, or creator and creature, but that of lover and beloved. This is the most intimate and personal of all relationships, and it transforms the meaning of everything—including vanity and suffering. When suffering is endured within a love relationship, it becomes sacrifice; when vanity is confronted within a love relationship, it becomes detachment—the freedom to enjoy created goods without being enslaved by them.

Chapter 9: Festivity, Hope, and the Sacred

9.1 Josef Pieper: Leisure, Work, and the Sacred

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) is one of the most important Thomistic philosophers of the twentieth century. Best known for Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), Pieper argues throughout his work that the modern world has fundamentally misunderstood the relationship between work and leisure, activity and contemplation, the useful and the meaningful. In In Tune with the World: A Theory of Festivity (1963), he extends this analysis to the phenomenon of festivity (节庆/庆典).

9.2 The Nature of Festivity

Pieper’s principal thesis is that festivity is first and foremost a celebration of being (存在) and the whole creation as gift. The festival says: “It is good that this exists; it is good that you exist; it is good that the world exists.” Without this fundamental affirmation, there can be no genuine celebration—only distraction, escapism, or forced merriment.

9.2.1 The Conditions of Genuine Festivity

Pieper identifies several conditions that must be met for a festival to be genuine rather than spurious:

1. A reason to celebrate: There must be something truly worth affirming. A festival without a genuine object of celebration is empty ritual.
2. Leisure (闲暇, otium): Festivity requires a stepping-back from the world of work and utility. One cannot celebrate while calculating profit or measuring efficiency.
3. A connection to the sacred (神圣): Pieper argues that all genuine festivity has, at its root, a religious or sacred dimension. To affirm that existence is good is implicitly to acknowledge a Creator who has made it good.

9.2.2 Festivity and Worship

For Pieper, festivity and worship (崇拜/敬拜) are intimately connected. The highest form of celebration is liturgical worship, in which the community gathers to praise the Creator and to affirm the goodness of creation. The great festivals of the Christian calendar—Christmas, Easter, Pentecost—are paradigmatic instances of genuine festivity because they celebrate not merely human events but divine action in history.

9.3 The Critique of Modern Pseudo-Festivity

Pieper subjects the modern age to close and painful scrutiny, arguing that we no longer know what festivity is. He identifies several forms of pseudo-festivity (伪节庆):

• Commercialised holidays: Traditional feasts contaminated by consumer culture, in which the meaning of the celebration is drowned out by the pressure to buy and sell.
• Artificial holidays: Invented occasions created in the interest of commerce or ideology, with no genuine object of celebration.
• Coerced festivities: Holidays decreed by totalitarian regimes, which force external displays of joy while suppressing genuine freedom and meaning.
• Entertainment as substitute: The modern tendency to replace genuine celebration with mere amusement—passive consumption of spectacle that leaves the soul untouched.

9.4 Joy, Love, and the Affirmation of Being

At the heart of Pieper’s theory of festivity is the connection between celebration and joy (喜乐). Joy is not mere pleasure or satisfaction but a fundamental response to the goodness of being. It arises when the whole person—intellect, will, and feeling—affirms that something is good. And the deepest joy is the joy of love: “It is good that you exist; how wonderful that you are!”

This affirmation of being links Pieper’s work to the broader themes of the course. Against Schopenhauer’s denial of the Will and his characterisation of existence as suffering, Pieper affirms that existence is fundamentally good and that the appropriate human response to it is not resignation but celebration. Against the modern malaise diagnosed by Taylor, Pieper offers the vision of a life oriented not toward mere self-fulfilment but toward grateful participation in the goodness of creation.

9.5 Gabriel Marcel: Hope as a Metaphysical Virtue

Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973) was a French Catholic existentialist philosopher who, in contrast to the atheistic existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, developed a philosophy grounded in hope, fidelity, and openness to transcendence. His essay “Sketch of a Phenomenology and a Metaphysic of Hope” provides a philosophical complement to Pieper’s theory of festivity.

9.5.1 Mystery vs. Problem

9.5.2 The Nature of Hope

Marcel characterises the human being as Homo Viator (行路人)—a wayfarer, a pilgrim, a being on the way. Hope is the virtue proper to the wayfarer: it sustains the journey even when the destination is not yet visible. “Speaking metaphysically, the only genuine hope is hope in what does not depend on ourselves, hope springing from humility and not from pride.”

9.5.3 The Dialectic of Hope and Despair

There is a dialectical relationship between hope and despair (绝望): where there is hope, there is always the possibility of despair, and only where there is the possibility of despair can we respond with genuine hope. Despair is the conviction that “there is nothing in the whole of reality to which I can extend credit, nothing worthwhile.” Hope is “the act by which this temptation is actively or victoriously overcome.”

9.5.4 Hope and Fidelity

Hope is closely linked to fidelity (忠诚, fidélité)—the unconditional commitment to a person, a cause, or a value that persists through all trials and temptations to despair. Fidelity is not mere stubbornness or habit but a creative and ongoing act of the will, sustained by grace and oriented toward the absolute. The experiences of fidelity, hope, presence, and intersubjectivity are best explained if they are understood as being pledged to an absolute, transcendent reality.

9.5.5 Hope and the Sacred

Marcel’s phenomenology of hope converges with Pieper’s theory of festivity at a crucial point: both insist that genuine human flourishing requires openness to the sacred (神圣). Without a transcendent horizon, hope degenerates into mere optimism (a calculation of probabilities), fidelity degenerates into mere habit, and festivity degenerates into mere entertainment. The sacred is not an optional addition to human life but its deepest ground and ultimate horizon.

Concluding Synthesis: The Meaning of Life Reconsidered

The journey of this course traces an arc from perplexity to affirmation. Schumacher’s philosophical map reveals the richness and hierarchical depth of reality that scientism obscures. Budziszewski, drawing on Aquinas, shows that happiness is real but that its fullness exceeds the natural order. Taylor diagnoses the spiritual crisis of modernity—the loss of horizons, the dominance of instrumental reason, the debased ideal of authenticity—while also pointing toward the recovery of genuine moral sources. Seneca offers the ancient Stoic wisdom of virtue, acceptance, and inner freedom. Schopenhauer confronts us with the darkest possibility—that existence is fundamentally characterised by suffering and futility—while Scheler and Freeman reveal that suffering can be a source of growth, solidarity, and love. Kreeft’s reading of the Biblical wisdom literature presents the journey from vanity through suffering to love as the archetypal human story. And Pieper and Marcel bring the course to its culmination: the vision of life as a festival, grounded in hope, oriented toward the sacred, and animated by the joyful affirmation that it is good to exist.

The question “What is the meaning of life?” does not admit of a simple propositional answer. But the thinkers studied in this course converge on a profound insight: meaning is found not in the solitary, autonomous individual pursuing private satisfactions but in the person who is open to reality in all its dimensions—natural and supernatural, individual and communal, temporal and eternal. The meaning of life, in the end, is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.