Meaning in Life and Self-Cultivation
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Meaning in Life and Self‑Cultivation L.A. Scripter1 Accepted: 26 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
1 Introduction What sorts of activities are most conducive to leading a meaningful life? It has been argued by Neil Levy that “superlatively meaningful” lives are those that are devoted to a certain kind of work—namely, that which cannot be completed and thus keeps an agent busily engaged.1 Elsewhere I have criticized Levy for overstating the place of work in life and underappreciating ordinary meaningful lives that find meaning in, say, personal relationships.2 But he deserves credit for exploring what sorts of life choices or patterns are conducive to meaning. Without endorsing Levy’s specific views on the priority of work, we can expand his type of analysis which explores how the shapes and features of various life paths facilitate or impede leading meaningful lives.3 In brief, we might investigate whether there certain structural features of different sorts of life activities that lend them to producing meaning or not. In what follows, I want to explore the ways in which self-cultivation—in brief, intentional attempts at self-transformation and development—may facilitate leading a meaningful life. More specifically, I will argue that pursuits of self-cultivation are strong candidates for meaning based on certain structural features. In this respect, I believe that closer attention to self-cultivation stands to enrich the current discussion about meaning in life within analytic philosophy. It also provides a reason for rethinking Levy’s claim that certain varieties of work count as the best sources of meaning in life. Instead, as I will argue, self-cultivation, while by no means the only source of meaning in life, has a privileged role in lending life meaning. 1
Neil Levy, “Downshifting and Meaning in Life,” Ratio (new series) 18 (2005): 176-189. Lucas Scripter, “Ordinary Meaningful Lives,” International Philosophical Quarterly 58 (2018): 79-91. This builds on Thaddeus Metz, Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study (New York: Oxford UP, 2013), 205207. 3 For another argument that focuses on the meaning-generating superiority a type of activity—namely, “cultured leisure”—see Joe Mintoff, “Transcending Absurdity,” Ratio (new series) 21 (2008): 64-84. 2
* L.A. Scripter [email protected] 1
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 2001 Longxiang Blvd., Longgang District, Shenzhen 518172, China
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The following argument will begin by analyzing what is meant by ‘self-cultivation.’ After offering a preliminary characterization, it will go on to contrast the notion with related ideas of aspiration, spirituality, philosophical anthropology, and projects (§ 2). From here, the paper will distill several major concerns that get voiced in discussions on the meaning of life/meaning in life. Sidestepping these debates, I will formulate a tentative and amendable list of existential interests that will serve as our bridge for considering how self-cultivation is re
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