Socrates And Richard Taylor's View On The Meaning Of Life

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Socrates believes that the aim or purpose in life is to find virtue to better one’s soul and then continue to do so everyday onwards. Richard Taylor believes that life has meaning as long as we work to put our own meaning into it. In this essay I will be comparing their two lines of thought and the similarities between them.

Beginning with Socrates, he has a very existential outlook on the meaning of life. In the Apology he states “I say again that the greatest good of man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living” and challenges the jury to not only look at the world around them and think about the things they can see …show more content…

While Taylor’s outlook isn’t as metaphysical as Socrates’ may be there is still an existential aspect that is inherent in both philosophies. Socrates believes that the meaning of life is tied directly to the soul and also being able to look within ourselves and reflect rather than living our life based on external factors which very closely aligns with what Taylor’s outlook is. At the end of Taylor’s “The Meaning of Life” he philosophises that “The meaning of life is from within us, it is not bestowed from without, and it far exceeds in both its beauty and permanence any heaven of which men have ever dreamed or yearned for”. Richard Taylor’s belief on the meaning of life is directly tied to what is inside of a person rather than all the external things in our world. He calls this “subjective meaningfulness. This means that every person is different and that they will find happiness in different things. It is all based on how you yourself identify with being meaningful and fulfilling. He believes that all of our lives have meaning if we put it there. He believes that through engaging in our wills everyday and continuing to do so until the end of time then our lives have

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