Often, people ask themselves daily what the meaning of life is. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning examines the meaning of human existence during his time in concentration camps. Frankl miraculously survived to write his memoir on how he found the strength to live. Socrates, a great philosopher, also addresses the philosophical aspects of man’s searching in his dialogue Meno. Meno analyzes the form of virtue. I shall argue why the search for meaning has personal significance in one’s life and that it requires teamwork in order to be achieved. In this essay, we will first explore how Frankl found meaning in his life and how this meaning relates to logotherapy. Then we will study how achieving significance satisfies our own will to meaning and how meaning can be found through suffering. Finally, we will examine how the search for meaning relates to the philosophical dialogue Meno by emphasizing how teamwork plays a role in the search for meaning. To begin, I will explain how Frankl found meaning in his life despite the harsh conditions of the concentration camps. Frankl says, “Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a …show more content…
Although, Meno failed to search intrinsically for meaning, Socrates pushed Meno to understand that only he can discover things for himself. We must turn away from external things that cloud our vision in order to open up our internal life. By looking at the world, and inside ourselves, we are able to find our own meaning of life at a specific moment. Frankl explains in Man’s Search for Meaning that we give suffering meaning by how we respond to it. I believe that man can live and die for his ideals and values! The question “what is the meaning of life?” may never be fully answered because everyone finds their own significance in life through internal reflection and
It is beneficial that Wiesel published this, if he had not, the world might not have known the extent of the Nazi reign. He exposes the cruelty of man, and the misuse of power. Through a lifetime of tragedy, Elie Wiesel struggled internally to resurrect his religious beliefs as well as his hatred for the human race. He shares these emotions with the world through Night. Being confined in a concentration camp was beyond unpleasant.
Viktor Frankl, the author of the novel Man’s Search For Meaning, a holocaust survivor and also known for his theory of locotherapy, explains the hardships that the holocaust brings while living in a concentration camp. Throughout his experience, he confesses that it is hard to have hope and faith in order to live. He gave strongly worded advice to other inmates and was also a doctor to the victims. He is seen as a powerful, bold, and courageous character towards everyone he meets. His stories and incidents that occur throughout the novel portray locotherapy, which is described as the search for meaning in life. By setting goals and looking toward the future can help to push through hardships such as the holocaust.
In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, narrates his experience as a young Jewish boy during the holocaust. The Jews were enslaved in concentration camps, where they have experienced the absolute worst forms of torture, abuse, and inhumane treatment. Such pain has noticeable physical effects, but also shows psychological changes on those unfortunate enough to experience it.These mutations of their characters and mortality showed weaknesses of the Jews’ spirit and mentality, leading them to act vigorously and being treated like animals. However, these actions proved to Jews that the primary key to surviving their tortures was to work selfishly towards one another.
Some people say that living through hard times can make you stronger. It is a crucible that you come out of with a more powerful soul. In the memoir Night, by Eliezer Wiesel, Elie and his family are sent to concentration camps throughout Germany. Eliezer is employed to do very taxing jobs in these camps, and he is rarely given any ration of food or rest. This essay is meant to evaluate these horrific events and how they affected the author, Eliezer Wiesel. Throughout the Holocaust Eliezer matured faster and more than anybody should.
...ences the individuals dealt through in the Nazi concentration camps. He writes to avoid any personal bias, as he was a prisoner himself and emphasizes the notion that man has the ability to determine what will become of his life, as he himself was able to apply this thought while living three years in captivity. His notion of finding meaning in life becomes a key factor in survival, which was ultimately able to help him and help others under his teachings, to make it out from the camps alive with a positive attitude. The need for hope, gave him a purpose to keep fighting, although others became struck down with the thought of suicide. Though Victor E. Frankl faced many difficulties and challenges while in captivity and days following his release, he comes to the ultimate realization that life will never cease to have meaning, even when under the cruelest conditions.
The meaning of life is to find the meaning of life. Is it not? We all go through each day trying to figure out which road out the infinite amount of paths will lead us in a better direction where happiness is prominent and society is flawless. However, not every single human being is going to fit on that narrow, one-lane highway to success. Bad choices, accidents, fate, family matters, society, temptation, anger, rage, addiction, and loss of hope can all be deciding factors in opting to choose that wrong path to self-destruction. The adverse thing is, once you've traveled so far down the road, you get so discouraged that you feel like you can never turn back or make up for the "lost time."
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
The question of life's meaning is not simply an exercise in intellectual curiosity; it arises when life is seen as a problem, and it is one that it is imperative to solve. For example, Albert Camus, in his `The Myth of Sisyphus', sees the question as linked closely to the problem of suicide: Why commit suicide? Why not, if life has no meaning?
In his work, Who is Man, Abraham J. Heschel embarks on a philosophical and theological inquiry into the nature and role of man. Through analysis of the meaning of being human, Heschel determines eight essential traits of man. Heschel believes that the eight qualities of preciousness, uniqueness, nonfinality, process and events, solitude and solidarity, reciprocity, and sanctity constitute the image of man that defines a human being. Yet Heschel’s eight qualities do not reflect the essential human quality of the realization of mortality. The modes of uniqueness and opportunity, with the additional singular human quality of the realization of mortality, are the most constitutive of human life as uniqueness reflects the fundamental nature of humanity,
Viktor Frankl's concept regarding survival and fully living was developed through his observations and experiences in the concentration camps. He used his psychiatric training to discern the meanings of observations and to help himself become a better person. He uses analysis to develop his own concepts and describes them in steps throughout the book. When the prisoners first arrived at the camp most of them thought they would be spared at the last moment. The prisoners believed they had a chance of surviving, but this belief was eventually eliminated and it was at this time when the prisoners began to learn how to survive by using their internal strength. A sense of humor had emerged among the prisoners. This humor helped to get through some difficult situations they faced. Viktor also observed how much a person could really endure and still live. Even though the prisoners could not clean their teeth and were deprived of warmth and vitamins, they still were able to survive. The sores and abrasions on their hands did not suppurate despite the dirt that gathered on them from the hard labor. The challenge of staying alive under these wretched conditions was to have and maintain strong internal strength. During the time he spent in the camps, Viktor learned what was needed to survive and how to keep his internal strength despite his weakening external strength. During the second stage of Viktor's psychological reaction, prisoners lost their sense of feeling and emotion toward events that would be emotional to people outside the camps. This was a result of the violent environment, which consisted of beatings of prisoners and the death of many others. The prisoners could no longer feel any disgust or horr...
"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive...." Joseph Campbell made this comment on the search for meaning common to every man's life. His statement implies that what we seem bent on finding is that higher spark for which we would all be willing to live or die; we look for some key equation through which we might tie all of the experiences of our life and feel the satisfaction of action toward a goal, rather than the emptiness which sometimes consumes the activities of our existence. He states, however, that we will never find some great pure meaning behind everything, because there is none. What there is to be found, however, is the life itself. We seek to find meaning so that emptiness will not pervade our every thought, our every deed, with the coldness of reality as the unemotional eye chooses to see it. Without color, without joy, without future, reality untouched by hope is an icy thing to view; we have no desire to see it that way. We forget, however, that the higher meaning might be found in existence itself. The joy of life and the experience of living are what make up true meaning, as the swirl of atoms guided by chaotic chance in which we find our existence has no meaning outside itself.
While being held prisoner in the death camps, Frankl began to observe his fellow inmates. He payed close attention to the prisoners who survived and those who did not. Frankl concluded that those who felt they had meaning in life such as hope in seeing loved ones at home, unfinished business or great faith had better chances of survival than those who had no hope. This quickly became the basis of his theory. Frankl extrapolated that philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was correct in saying, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” (Frankl 126).
Nevertheless ,we just appreciate life The meaning of life is finding the meaning of life and meanwhile live the life enjoying everything you do, if you don 't like something just change it. Trial and error.if i can do it all time I do little time then it will be easy to do it because when I know what meaning of life puts me in power place in life if I know meaning of life I so Know should have high position because I knew what my captives because I like the job that I worked on it and it was interesting that helps me to make design in difficult. people should make contrast between difficult things and easy things meaning of life-like travel you should know what are going to travel you have to search and find a comfortable seat in the plant meaning dream what abilities what ideas in shudder what he did accomplish the people Being stratification about yourself for what have that a diomed of life things the money is the most important things that find meaning of life and this
People may say that the “Good Life”, is what you make to be; that in order to have a good life you have to work hard, get and education and be kind to others, others may say that you have to follow the laws given by God and you may have a good life along with a long an peaceful life. While other may just simply go with the flow; for this paper, two excerpts were read The Republic and The Human Search for Meaning which are supposed to bring an understanding on how to achieve the “wealth” of the soul that will allow the readers to experience the “Good life” as Plato and his thinkers.
The meaning of life, defined by Victor E. Frankl, is the will to find your meaning in life. It is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. He believes that if you are approached with the question of “what is the meaning of my life” or in this case, “life is meaningless,” then you should reverse the question to that person asking the question. For example: What are you bringing to me? What are you as an individual contributing to this life? This forces the person in question to take a look at themselves and to ultimately be responsible. Frankl says that if you are a responsible member of society than the meaning of life transcends from yourself rather from your own psyche. He also says that if we for some reason cannot find meaning within ourselves it has to be from some outside source. This is referred to as service. And an example of this is love. Victor Frankl describes three ways in which we can discover the meaning of life; Creating work-doing a deed, experiencing something-someone, and by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.