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The first English use of the expression "meaning of life" appears in Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), book II chapter IX, "The Everlasting Yea". [1]Our Life is compassed round with Necessity; yet is the meaning of Life itself no other than Freedom, than Voluntary Force: thus have we a warfare; in the beginning, especially, a hard-fought battle.
Lebensphilosophie (German: [ˈleːbm̩s.filozoˌfiː]; meaning "philosophy of life") was a dominant philosophical movement of German-speaking countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which had developed out of German Romanticism. Lebensphilosophie emphasised the meaning, value and purpose of life as the foremost focus of philosophy. [1]
Control is "a cognitive model whereby people strive to comprehend the contingencies in their lives and achieve goals. [4] Narrative psychology proposes that people construct life stories as a way to understand life events and impose meaning on life, thus connecting [via explanation] the individual to the event. [8]
Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that life has no objective meaning or purpose. [1] The inherent meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism, where one can potentially create their own subjective "meaning" or "purpose".
Philosophy has almost as many definitions as there have been philosophers, both as a subject matter and an activity, and no simple definition can do it justice. The issue of the definition of philosophy is thus a controversial subject that is nowadays tackled by Metaphilosophy (or the philosophy of philosophy).
Becker posits that people deny their mortality by embracing cultural narratives and ideologies that imbue their lives with meaning and a sense of permanence. When faced with death's inevitability, individuals adopt symbolic worldviews — such as cultural, religious, or personal ideologies — to repress existential angst.
Plato (c. 428 – c. 347 BCE) teaches in the Republic that a life committed to knowledge and virtue will result in happiness and self-realization.To achieve happiness, one should become immune to changes in the material world and strive to gain the knowledge of the eternal, immutable forms that reside in the realm of ideas.
For example, in contrast to the abstract meaning of the universal "dog", the referent "this dog" may mean a particular real life chihuahua. In both cases, the word is about something, but in the former it is about the class of dogs as generally understood, while in the latter it is about a very real and particular dog in the real world.