2025w-apphil1100m-03

AP/PHIL1100 3.0 M: The Meaning of Life

Offered by: PHIL


 Session

Winter 2025

 Term

W

Format

LECT

Instructor

Calendar Description / Prerequisite / Co-Requisite

An exploration of a number of fundamental practical philosophical questions, including: What is the meaning of (my) life? What is happiness, and how can I achieve it? What is wisdom? What is death, and what does it mean to me?


Course Start Up

Course Websites hosted on York's "eClass" are accessible to students during the first week of the term. It takes two business days from the time of your enrolment to access your course website. Course materials begin to be released on the course website during the first week. To log in to your eClass course visit the York U eClass Portal and login with your Student Passport York Account. If you are creating and participating in Zoom meetings you may also go directly to the York U Zoom Portal.

For further course Start Up details, review the Getting Started webpage.

For IT support, students may contact University Information Technology Client Services via askit@yorku.ca or (416) 736-5800. Please also visit UIT Student Services or the Getting Help - UIT webpages.


    Additional Course Instructor/Contact Details

Dr. Duff Waring
dwaring@yorku.ca
Office Hour:  Mondays 12:30 - 1:30

    Expanded Course Description

How should we reflect on the question of whether life has any meaning? What do we mean when we say of all life, or of this or that individual life, that it is meaningful? If it is, does meaning just reside within my life or is there meaning in life beyond my own? What (or who) gives life its meaning? Is meaning in life to be discovered or do we create it? If we can live meaningful lives, what, if anything, is good or valuable about them and how should they be pursued? If living a meaningful life is living a good life, then do we have a responsibility to live that way? How meaningful can our lives be in the face of suffering and death? And since we all die, why would it matter that we ever lived? If it doesn’t matter, is there any point to being concerned about it?

This course explores a range of philosophic responses to these questions. These include stoicism, hedonism, existentialism, absurdism, atheism, and theism. We will study readings by: Epictetus, Sartre, Camus, and Nagel, among others. Links to any other materials (e.g., interviews, podcasts, internet sites, YouTube videos) will be posted on the eClass site. Students will be challenged to articulate their own approaches to living their lives with (or without?) meaning after reflecting on these responses.

    Required Course Text / Readings

There is no course kit and no textbook. Unless otherwise noted, all texts used in the course are accessible online through the Yorku Libraries system. If otherwise noted, they are in the public domain and easily found on the internet with a simple Google search.

    Weighting of Course

Tutorial Participation: 20%. Tutorial participation will be graded in two ways: 1) attendance (1/2 mark for each of 12 weeks attended, max of 6%); 2) active and informed participation in tutorial discussion (graded by your TA, max of 14%).

First Essay (2000 - 2200 words max exclusive of bibliography and title page) due on Fri. Feb. 14: 20%. Submit electronic copies to Turnitin on the eClass website by midnight.

Second Essay (2000-2200 words max exclusive of bibliography and title page) due Friday Mar. 28: 20%. Submit electronic copies to Turnitin on the eClass website by midnight.

These essays must be argumentative. See the Essay Writing Handbook for Philosophy Students that is posted on the Course Website.

Final Exam: TBA. 40%. Long and Short Answer questions in Essay Format.

You are responsible for the required readings and everything covered in the lectures and tutorials.

Late Penalties: Written assignments must be submitted on the due date. Late submissions will be penalized 5% of the assignment value per day including weekends. In exceptional cases (e.g., serious illness with proper and legible documentation from a physician), your tutorial leader or I may exercise discretion and waive the late penalty. We must be given 24 hours notice on email for these exceptions to be made, and they are at our discretion, not automatic.

    Organization of the Course

This course is completely in-person. There are no asynchronous, online components. The eClass website will be used to post course-related documents and anonymized grade sheets. My lectures will be delivered on Mondays and Wednesdays from 11:30 – 12:30. I always leave time in my lectures for class discussion, so be prepared to think out loud with me and your student colleagues. It is disrespectful to use your cellphones to make calls, send texts, or surf the net during my classes. Please don’t.

This course is not all about me. You have two eminently qualified TAs, Ariel Rozinov and Araxi Meldonian, who will be leading your tutorials. As such, the three of us are a teaching team. Your TA is an invaluable resource for questions about the required readings, essay writing, and proper citation. Some of the most interesting discussions will take place in their tutorials, so if you want to make the most of this course, make the most of what your TAs have to offer.

Your tutorials will be held on their scheduled days and times and will begin the first week of classes. They will not be recorded, and I urge you to attend them diligently. Students are expected to read the assigned materials beforehand and to participate actively in tutorial discussions. Exam questions will be related directly to the materials discussed in tutorials, contained in the required readings, and covered in the lectures.

    Additional Information / Notes

Citations: Either MLA, APA, or Chicago Manual styles are fine, but they must be used consistently and clearly. Parenthetical references should be used in your essays as opposed to footnotes or endnotes. There are guides to citing sources posted on the eClass website. If you use secondary sources, they must be properly cited in full, lest you fall prey to the perils of…

Academic Misconduct: We take academic integrity very seriously. The proper citation of sources is an essential scholarly skill that is required in this course. You must be honest about submitting your own work and you must cite all of your sources with accuracy. Academic misconduct will not be tolerated. It is YOUR responsibility to know what Academic Misconduct is, what the penalties for it are, and how to avoid it. Know in advance that we will thoroughly investigate suspected breaches of the Yorku Senate Academic Conduct Policy and Procedures. Please review the policy at: (https://www.yorku.ca/secretariat/policies/policies/academic-conduct-policy-and-procedures/). I also urge you to complete the Academic Integrity Tutorial: (https://www.library.yorku.ca/spark/academic_integrity/). The tutorial is designed to help you learn about central aspects of academic integrity. It explores plagiarism and related matters with excellent examples and supportive strategies. It will aid you in your academic endeavors and help you to avoid breaching the Senate Policy on Academic Conduct.

 

I also require that all students submit their essays to Turnitin.com. Instructions will be provided by your TAs. Pursuant to the Guidelines of the Yorku Academic Advisory Group, students have the right to opt out of submitting assignments to Turnitin. If you elect not to use Turnitin, then your TA and I will conduct our own academic integrity review which will require one or more of the following: the submission of multiple drafts, the submission of a detailed annotated bibliography, or the submission of photocopies of source documents. We may also require you to take an oral examination directed at issues of your assignment’s originality, ask you to respond in writing to questions about your assignment’s originality, or provide a written report concerning the process of completing the work. The easiest option is submitting to Turnitin. We will not assign a grade to any essay that has not been submitted to Turnitin or that has not met our requirements for an alternative academic integrity review.

 

You are not permitted to use generative AI technology, e.g., ChatGPT, to complete any assignments for this course. Doing so would constitute a breach of York University’s Senate Policy on Academic Conduct.

Students may not disseminate material from the course without permission, e.g., uploading tests, lecture notes, recorded lectures, or assignment instructions on sites like Course Hero. Any student who uploads such material without my permission is in breach of the Yorku Senate Policy on Academic Conduct. If I find that any course materials have been misappropriated, the student(s) responsible will have an academic misconduct case brought against them.

 

 

 

Lecture Schedule.

 

Lecture 1 Mon. Jan. 6: Introduction to the Course and Some Basic Definitions.

 

Lecture 2 Wed. Jan 8: What Do We Mean When We Ask Whether Life Is Meaningful?

 

Required Readings:

 

Thaddeus Metz, “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”, in "The Meaning of Life", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2023/entries/life-meaning/

 

Tatjana Schnell, “Defining Meaning,” in The Psychology of Meaning in Life (London: Routeledge 2020), 5-13.

 

Lecture 3 Mon. Jan. 13: Are There Benefits to Leading a Meaningful Life?

M.F. Steger, J.Y. Shin, & A. Fitch-Martin, “Is Meaning in Life a Flagship Indicator of Well-Being?” The Best Within Us: Positive Psychology Perspectives on Eudaimonia, ed. A.S. Waterman (Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 2013), 160-169. See also the Conclusion at 175.

Lecture 4 Wed. Jan. 15: Spiritual/Theistic Approaches to Living a Meaningful Life.

 

Required Readings:

 

William James, “Is Life Worth Living (1897)?” Be Not Afraid: In the Words of William James, eds. John Kaag & Jonathan van Belle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023), 110-138.

 

Lecture 5 Mon. Jan. 20: Atheistic Approaches to Living a Meaningful Life.

 

Required Readings:

 

Eric J. Wielenberg, “Atheism and Meaning in Life,” The Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life, ed. Iddo Landau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 216-228.

 

Lecture 6 Wed. Jan. 22: Two Ancient Perspectives: Stoicism as a Way of Life. 

 

Required Readings:

 

Epictetus, The Handbook (The Enchiridion) selections #1-5, 8-12, 15, 17, 20-21, 26-27, 30, 33-34, 48, 51. https://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

 

Graver, Margaret, "Epictetus", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/epictetus/   See ss. 4.3 Volition, 4.4. Value, 4.5 Emotional Adjustment, 4.6 Appropriate Other-concern, and 4.7 Self-cultivation and Autonomy.

Lecture 7 Mon. Jan. 27: Two Ancient Perspectives (contd.): Epicureanism as a Way of Life.

Required Readings:

 

Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus https://godandgoodlife.nd.edu/resource/epicurus-letter-to-menoeceus-avoid-pain/

 

Tim O’Keefe, “Ethics 5 a – g(ii)” in Epicurus, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, https://iep.utm.edu/epicur/#H5 .

Lecture 8 Wed. Jan. 29: How to Write an Argumentative Essay.

 

Required Readings:

 

Read the guide to writing argumentative essays posted on the eClass website.

 

Lecture 9 Mon. Feb. 3: Existentialism as a Way of Life.

 

Required Readings:

 

Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, trans. Carol Macomber (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 20-40.

 

Aho, Kevin, “5.5 Self -Recovery in Sartre and de Beauvoir”, in “Existentialism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2023/entries/existentialism/

 

Lecture 10 Wed. Feb. 5: Absurdism.

 

Required Readings:

 

Albert Camus, “An Absurd Reasoning,” The Myth of Sisyphus, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Vintage International, 2018), 4-8, 18-24. https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil360/16.%20Myth%20of%20Sisyphus.pdf

 

Thomas Nagel, “The Absurd,” Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 11-23.

 

Lecture 11 Mon. Feb. 10: How Meaningful Can Life Be Given Unavoidable Suffering?

 

Required Readings:

 

Michael S. Brady, “Suffering and Meaning in Life,” The Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life, ed. Iddo Landau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 461-474.

Lecture 12 Wed. Feb. 12: How Meaningful Can Life Be Given Unavoidable Death?

 

Required Readings:

 

Thomas Nagel, “Death,” Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 1-10.

 

Friday Feb. 14. First essay due. Submit to Turnitin by midnight.

 

Winter Reading Week Sat. Feb. 15 – Sun. Feb. 23.

 

Lecture 13 Mon. Feb. 24: Would Immortality Be Any Better?

 

Required Readings:

 

J.M. Fischer, “Why Immortality Is Not So Bad,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 2, no. 2 (1994), 257-270.

 

Lecture 14 Wed. Feb. 26: Objective Meaning in Life.

 

Required Readings:

 

Susan Wolf, “Meaning in Life,” Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010), 7-33.

 

Lecture 15 Mon. Mar. 3: Subjective Meaning in Life.

 

Required Readings:

 

  1. Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 80-94.

 

Lecture 16 Wed. Mar. 5: How Is Meaning-in-Life Experienced by Those Who Claim to Have It?

Required Readings:

 

Antti Kauppinen, “The Experience of Meaning,” The Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life, ed. Iddo Landau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 343-355.

 

Lecture 17 Mon. Mar. 10: Authenticity and Living a Meaningful Life.

Required Readings:

Charles Guignon, “Authenticity”, Philosophy Compass, 3 (2008): 277–290.

 

 

 

Lecture 18 Wed. Mar. 12: Better Living Through Better Chemistry: Can a Meaningful Life Be Drug-Induced?

Ido Hartogsohn, “The Meaning-Enhancing Properties of Psychedelics and Their Mediator Role in Psychedelic Therapy, Spirituality, and Creativity,” Fronters in Neuroscience 12, no. 129 (2018): 1-5.

William R. Smith & Dominic Sisti, “Ethics and Ego Dissolution: The Case of Psilocybin,” Journal of Medical Ethics 47 (2021): 807-814. https://jme.bmj.com/content/47/12/807

Lecture 19 Mon. Mar. 17: How Meaningful is the Mindful Life?

Required Readings:

 

Jon Kabat-Zinn, “Mindfulness,” Mindfulness 6 (2015): 1481-1483.

 

Sahanika Ratnayake, “The Problem of Mindfulness,” Aeon July 25 (2019). https://aeon.co/essays/mindfulness-is-loaded-with-troubling-metaphysical-assumptions

 

University of Copenhagen, “Philosopher argues that mindfulness rests on dubious philosophical foundations,” Phys.Org Aug. 17 (2023). https://phys.org/news/2023-08-philosopher-mindfulness-rests-dubious-philosophical.html

 

Lecture 20 Wed. Mar. 19: Contemporary Perspectives on the Questions We Started With.

 

Required Readings:

 

Michael F. Steger, “Meaning in Life: A Unified Model,” The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, eds. C. R. Snyder; Shane J. Lopez; Lisa M. Edwards & Susan C. Marques (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 959-967.

Iddo Landau, “Identifying 1,” Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 206-216.

Lecture 21 Mon. Mar. 24: Contemporary Perspectives (contd.).

 

Required Readings:

 

Julien Baggini, “As Long as You’re Happy,” What’s It All About? Philosophy and the Meaning of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 89-105.

 

 

 

Lecture 22 Wed. Mar. 26: Contemporary Perspectives (contd.).

 

Required Readings:

 

Terry Eagleton, “Is Life What You Make It?” The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 78-101.

 

Friday March 28: Second essay due. Submit to Turnitin by midnight.

 

Lecture 23 Mon. March 31: Contemporary Perspectives (contd.).

 

Required Readings:

 

Ronald Dworkin, “What Is a Good Life?” New York Review of Books, Feb. 10 (2011).

 

Lecture 24 Wed. April 2: Class Discussion/Exam Review.

 

    Relevant Links / Resources