The Mohists propose the concept of “inclusive love” jian ai, a kind of impartial care for fellow human beings that includes everyone in society. The primary source on Confucianism is The Analects of Confucius. To be able to judge of others by what is nigh in ourselves – this may be called the art of virtue. Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others. One of many ways Confucius explained virtue is this: ConfucianismĬhinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC) tells us to cultivate virtue called Ren (仁) which is an altruistic sort of feeling one experiences when taking care of one’s children and parents. One of its well-known representatives is the French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes (1596-1650). The idea of determinism is ancient, reviving in the mathematics of the 18th. The meaning of life, is there is one, is also pre-determined, and we cannot do anything to understand it. Since nothing can be changed in a pre-determined world, a person cannot have free will. Determinismĭeterminism is the idea that all events happen as a result of previously existing causes. 6th – 4th century BC) is the primary source on Daoism. The Dao De Jing (aka Tao Te Ching) by Chinese philosopher Lao Zi (lived c. The Dao reveals itself only when a person simply is. And yet, “the way” cannot be understood through any explanation or action. Such action leads to finding the Dao, which is “the way”. Daoismĭaoism offers people a painless way of finding life’s meaning through Wu Wei (無爲) “action without intention” or “naturalness”. Theism dates back to the dawn of humanity where it was practiced in its various forms depending on what a group of humans believed their god to be like. The meaning of life is then prescribed by the God that one believes in. Theism is the proposition that God or a Supreme Being exists.
Pantheism is an ancient idea that was formalized as a separate philosophy in Ethics by the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) in 1675. The meaning of life is in living in harmony with all that there is. Pantheism is the belief that God is in everything, that all things together comprise an all-encompassing god. We start with Natural Pantheism, humanity’s first attempt to explain its existence. Roughly, all philosophies follow this pattern: first, people appeal to God and supernatural forces, then they look for meaning within the community, later they look at the individual person, and finally, they look at humanity as a whole. We follow the history of philosophy chronologically.
All belief systems that are definitely religions fall under “theism” in this infographic. But the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as a religion. Take Daoism, for example, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines it as a philosophy. Ideologies and religions are often mistaken for philosophies and vice versa. Then there is a question of what is a philosophy. The philosophies of the East and West also follow a pattern: Easterners think in terms of “we”, the community, while Westerners think in terms of “I”, the individual.
life has a supernatural/unexplainable meaning.Can the meaning of life be told in a word? Maybe it is naive, but there is nothing wrong with wanting a simple answer to an apparently simple question: why live? Here we visualized the most prominent philosophies that tackled this question over the past 5000 years.Ĭreate an infographic like this on AdiomaĪll philosophies on the meaning of life seem to fall into one of the four groups:
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