The Question of Life's Meaning
An African Perspective
Page
%P
15 Result(s)
within
Aribiah David Attoe
Ethics
-
Chapter
Conclusion
In this book, we have sought to answer the question(s): what are the African conceptions of the meaning of life? Which one, if any, is defensible? And what does it entail for how to live? In answering the prim...
-
Chapter
Understanding “Meaning”
In this chapter, I undertake a critical analysis of the question of life’s meaning—what it means and what does not count. Furthermore, I carefully distinguish between conceptions of meaning and the concept of ...
-
Chapter
Accounts of Life’s Meaningfulness from a Contemporary African Perspective
In the available literature on African conceptions of meaning, the focus has mostly been on traditional African conceptions of meaning in life, or conceptions of meaning that appeal to those traditional views....
-
Chapter
A “Concept” of the Meaning of Life
In this chapter, I present a concept of the meaning of life that I show is plausible. I argue that any ideas about the meaning of life (understood in the way I explained it in part one) would involve what I ha...
-
Chapter
The Path of Meaninglessness: Beyond Ada Agada’s Consolationism
In the previous chapters, I alluded to the fact that although death does not allow us to talk about the meaning of life, a longer life or an eternal life would equally not grant us the meaningfulness we desire...
-
Chapter
Indifference and the Future of Human Existence: Towards an Anti-natalist Destiny and Specie Suicide?
In the previous chapter(s) I had made certain claims about meaning in life, the meaning of life and the meaninglessness of life. It is only pertinent that in this section of this work, I take the principle of ...
-
Chapter
Introduction
The question of life’s meaning is an important philosophical question and is a question that has received little attention within the African philosophical space. It is this gap that partly inspires the writin...
-
Chapter
African Metaphysical Thought: What We Mean and Why It Is Important
In this chapter, I provide an understanding of the underlying metaphysics that undergirds (especially) traditional African conceptions of meaning in/of life. This metaphysics is the dominant metaphysics that v...
-
Chapter
The Philosophy of Indifference: An Introduction
If we grant the fact that life is ultimately meaningless, one question that might arise is: How does one live with the meaninglessness of life? In this chapter, I introduce the philosophy of indifference as a ...
-
Chapter
Some Traditional African Conceptions of Meaning in Life
In this chapter, I attempt to present some plausible theories of meaning in African thought. Achieving this would involve proffering answers to the question: what are the African conceptions of the meaning in/...
-
Chapter
Rejecting the Obsolete
In this chapter, I engage in a conversation with the dominant understanding of African metaphysics, which views God as a personalised entity that is spiritual, and also views reality as being composed of, and ...
-
Chapter
Passionate Yearning Theory as a Theory of Meaning in Life
In this chapter, I frame what I believe to be a plausible account of meaning in life—the passionate yearning theory. This view loosely draws inspiration from Ada Agada’s metaphysical system, which he calls “co...
-
Chapter
Death and Meaninglessness
In the discussions related to the question of the meaning of life, I hinted that the idea of death would play a crucial role in talk about the potential meaninglessness of life. In this chapter, I elaborate on th...
-
Book
-
Article
Passionate Yearning Theory as a Theory of Meaning in Life
In this paper, I offer an original account of meaning in life, which I call the passionate yearning theory. Within the framework of the passionate yearning theory, meaning is understood as the intrinsically de...
