PhOnline Logo

Paper Display

Knowledge and the Meaning of Human Life
Carlo Cellucci
 
Area 1 Epistemology
None
Keywords knowledge meaning life
http://www.naturalism.org/Knowledge%20and%20the%20meaning%20of%20life.pdf
In this paper I discuss the view, put forward by several people from Aristotle to Russell, that knowledge is the ultimate purpose and meaning of human life, and I find it wanting. I also argue that all attempts to show that human life has a meaning from an external and higher point of view have been unsuccessful, human life having a meaning only from an internal point of view. I discuss such meaning and argue that, while knowledge is not the ultimate purpose and meaning of human life, it is a precondition of its meaning from an internal point of view.