The meaning of a person’s life is everything for which he lives on earth. But not everyone really knows what makes them live. Every thinking person has a moment when he is faced with the question: what is the meaning of a person’s life, what goals, dreams, desires make people live, overcome all life’s trials, go through the school of good and evil, learn from mistakes, make new ones, and so on. Various sages, outstanding minds of different times and eras tried to find the answer to the question: “what is the meaning of human life?”, but no one, in fact, came to a single definition. The answer is individual for each person, that is, what one individual sees as his meaning of existence may not interest another at all, due to differences in individual characterological characteristics.
The meaning of a person’s life lies in the value he perceives, to which he subordinates his life, for the sake of which he sets life goals and realizes them. This is a component of the spiritual meaning of existence, which is formed independently of social values and constitutes an individual human value system. The discovery of this meaning of life and the creation of a value hierarchy occurs in each individual in his reflections, based on personal experience.
Social science sees the purpose and meaning of human life as fully realized only in the case of the necessary conditions of society: freedom, humanism, morality, economic, cultural. Social conditions should be such that a person can realize his goals and develop, and not become an obstacle to his path.
Social science also sees the purpose and meaning of a person’s life as inseparable from social phenomena, so an individual may know what his goal is, but society may not share it and in every possible way hinder its implementation. In some cases this is good when it comes to the goals that a criminal or sociopath wants to achieve. But when a private small business owner wants to develop, and socio-economic conditions slow him down, and he is not allowed to express his opinion, this, of course, does not in any way contribute to the development of the individual and the implementation of his plans in life.
The meaning of human life: philosophy
A pressing issue in philosophy is the meaning of human life and the problem of existence. Even ancient philosophers said that a person can philosophize by getting to know himself; the whole mystery of the existence of a person lies in himself. Man is the subject of epistemology (cognition) and at the same time, he himself is capable of knowing. When a person comprehended his essence, the meaning of life, he had already resolved many issues in his life.
The meaning of human life philosophy briefly. The meaning of life is the basic idea that determines the purpose of any object, object or phenomenon. Although the true meaning may never be fully comprehended, it may lie in such deep structures of the human soul that a person has only a superficial understanding of that meaning. He can know it by looking inside himself, or by certain signs, symbols, but the full meaning never comes to the surface, only enlightened minds can comprehend it.
Most often, the meaning of a person’s life is considered to be the meaning of objects and phenomena with which he endows them himself, depending on his individual perception, understanding and degree of importance of these objects directly for this person. Therefore, the same objects can have multiple meanings, depending on the people with whom they interact. Suppose some thing may be completely inconspicuous, and it is of no use to one person at all. But for another person, this same thing can mean a lot, it is filled with a special meaning. He may associate her with certain events, a person, she may be dear to him not in material terms, but in spiritual terms. A common example of this is the exchange of gifts. A person puts his soul into a gift, regardless of its price. The main thing is that he wants the memory of him to remain. In this case, the most ordinary object can acquire an unprecedented meaning; it is filled with love, wishes, and charged with the energy of the giver.
Just like the value of objects, there is also the value of an individual’s actions. Every action of a person is charged with meaning when he makes a certain decision that is important to him. This meaning means that certain actions carry value, depending on the decision made and its value for the person and those around him. It also lies in the feelings, states, emotions and realizations that arise in an individual.
The meaning of human life, as a philosophical problem, is also studied in religion.
The meaning of human life in religion means contemplation and personification of the divine principle in the soul, its direction towards the superhuman shrine and joining the highest good and spiritual truth. But the spiritual essence is interested not only in the truth that describes an object, its real meaning, but the very meaning of this object for a person and the satisfaction of needs.
In this sense, a person also gives meaning and assessment to facts, incidents and episodes from his life that were significant to him and through the prism of this he realizes his value attitude towards the world around him. The peculiarity of the individual’s relationship with the world occurs due to the value attitude.
The meaning and value of a person’s life are correlated as follows - a person defines value as everything that has significance for him, carries meaning, is native, dear and sacred.
The meaning of human life - philosophy briefly, as a problem. In the twentieth century, philosophers were especially interested in the problems of the value of human life and put forward various theories and concepts. Theories of value were also theories of the meaning of life. That is, the meaning and value of human life, as concepts, were identified, since the meaning of one passed into the other.
Value is defined almost equally in all philosophical movements, and the lack of value is also explained by the fact that a person is indifferent and is not interested in any differences in life between the categories of good and evil, truth and falsehood. When a person cannot determine values, or does not know which of them to guide him in his own life, it means that he has lost himself, his essence, the meaning of life.
The most important among the personal forms of the individual’s psyche are the values of will, determination, self-regulation and self-control. The most important value guidelines of a person are faith, as a person’s positive aspirations. It is thanks to faith that a person feels alive, he believes in a better future, he believes that he will achieve his life goal and that his life has meaning, without faith, a person is an empty vessel.
The problem of the meaning of human life began to develop especially in the nineteenth century. A philosophical direction was also formed - existentialism. Existential questions are the problems of a person living everyday life and experiencing depressive emotions and states. Such a person experiences a state of boredom, fear of death and a desire to free himself.
The famous psychologist and philosopher Viktor Frankl created his own theory and school in which his followers studied. The object of his teachings was man in search of the meaning of life. Frankl said that when a person finds his destiny, he becomes mentally healthier. In his most famous book, which is called “Man’s Search for the Meaning of Life,” the psychologist describes three ways to comprehend life. The first path involves performing labor actions, the second - experiences and feelings associated with a certain person or object, the third path describes life situations that actually cause a person all his suffering and unpleasant experiences. It turns out that in order to find meaning, a person must fill his life with work, or some main activity, caring for a loved one, and learn to cope with problematic situations, drawing experience from them.
The problem of the meaning of a person’s life, the study of his life path, trials, severity and problems is the subject of a direction in existentialism - logotherapy. At its center stands man, as a creature who does not know his destiny and seeks peace of mind. It is precisely the fact that a person poses the question of the meaning of life and existence that determines his essence. At the center of logotherapy is the process of searching for meaning in life, during which a person will either purposefully search for the meaning of his being, think about this question and try what to do, or he will be disappointed in the search and stop taking any further steps to determine his existence.
The meaning of human existence
The essence of human existence
At the social level, the problem of individual human existence also arises. In accordance with the point of view stated earlier, a person appears, first of all, as an objective, bodily being, that is, as a thing.
Like other things, he enters into direct objective interaction with them, changing them, for example, by assimilating food or processing stone. However, in contrast to all other things, a person (individual) has such properties as a reflection of reality in the form of consciousness and, based on it, the ability to consciously and purposefully influence the objective environment. This specifically human way of interacting with the objective world radically changes the individual’s attitude towards other people, as well as towards himself. Such relationships, being mediated by human labor, acquire the character of social relationships, including the spiritual interaction of people. As a result, individual existence always appears not only as an objective-physical, but also as a person’s spiritual relationship to natural and social reality.
Philosophical orientation towards a fundamentally substratum (objective) understanding of being allows us to see the intrinsic value of an integral individual. It is relevant, “topical”, because it focuses attention on the need to preserve the natural environment, adequate to man as an objective-corporeal being, not reducible to either a set of relationships or an information complex.
Man is a bodily-spiritual microcosm, and the interests of the development of his spiritual sphere require the preservation of his objective-corporeal nature and the natural environment of his existence. This is a condition for the preservation of human existence itself. And therefore, the abstract philosophical understanding of the unity of things, their properties and relationships is one of the “corner stones” in the theoretical foundation of humanism.
The meaning of human existence in a structuralist interpretation
In the structuralist interpretation of being, the foregrounding of structures and relationships instead of things with their properties logically leads to an understanding of the individual not as a being that is corporeal in nature, but as an “intersection point” of social and other connections.
Denying the existence of things, structuralism extremely rationalizes a person, reducing his world to information connections. As a result, a person becomes entirely a product of the system, a social function, and the question of his needs, desires, his subjectivity, and initiative remains “behind the scenes.” At the same time, discrediting the objective-corporeal nature of existence reduces the latter to the existence of the spirit as the only “true” reality, which is what existentialism, mysticism (a truly real state is achieved through meditation) and other forms of irrationalism insist on. The structuralist understanding of being now finds support in the growing influence of information reality, which is increasingly “fencing off” a person from the objective world and even replacing it. In this case, objective reality becomes, as it were, optional, human activity is reduced to the activity of the spirit: I think, therefore I exist - everything else does not matter.
The purpose and meaning of human life
A person must think carefully about what his purpose is, what he wants to achieve at the moment. Because throughout life, his goals may change, depending on external circumstances and internal metamorphoses of the individual, her desires and intentions. Changing life goals can be traced using a simple life example. Let's say a girl finishing school dreams of passing her exams with flying colors, entering a prestigious university, she is delirious about her career and is postponing her wedding with her boyfriend until an indefinite time. Time passes, she acquires capital for her business, develops it and becomes a successful businesswoman. As a result, the initial goal was achieved. Now she is ready to have a wedding, she wants children and sees in them her future meaning in life. In this example, two very strong goals were set, and regardless of their order, they were both achieved. When a person knows exactly what he wants, nothing can stop him, the main thing is that these goals and the algorithm of actions to achieve them are correctly formulated.
On the way to achieving the main goal in life, a person goes through certain stages, between which there are also so-called intermediate goals. For example, first a person studies to acquire knowledge. But it is not the knowledge itself that is important, but its practical application. Then, receiving a diploma with honors can help you get a prestigious job, and the correct performance of your duties will help you improve your career ladder. Here you can feel the transition of important goals and the introduction of intermediate ones, without which the overall result cannot be achieved.
The purpose and meaning of human life. It happens that two people with the same resources live their life paths completely differently. One can achieve one goal and come to terms with the fact that he does not feel the need to go further, while another, more purposeful, constantly sets himself new goals, achieving which he feels happy.
Almost all people are united by one life goal - creating a family, procreation, raising children. Thus, children are the meaning of life for many people. Because, with the birth of a child, all the general attention of the parents is focused on him. Parents want to provide the child with everything necessary and work for this, trying as best as possible. Then they work to provide education. But, most importantly, every parent dreams of raising their child in the right way, so that he grows up to be a kind, fair and reasonable person. Then the children, having received all the necessary resources from their parents in their old age, can thank them and make it their goal to take care of them.
The meaning of human existence is the desire to leave a mark on the earth. But not everyone is limited to the desire to procreate; some have more requests. They express themselves by trying to stand out from the gray mass in various areas of life: sports, music, art, science and other fields of activity, it depends on the talents of each person. Achieving some result can be a person’s goal, like a bar he has jumped over. But when a person’s goal is realized by an achievement and he understands that he has brought benefit to people, he feels much more satisfied with what he has done. But achieving and fully realizing such a great goal may take years. Many outstanding people were never recognized for their lives, but the meaning of their value was understood when they were no longer alive. Many die at a young age, when they have achieved a certain goal, and no longer see the meaning in life, ending it with suicide. Among such people there are mainly creative individuals (poets, musicians, actors), and the loss of the meaning of life for them is a creative crisis.
Such a problem gives rise to thoughts about extending human life, and it may be a scientific goal, but one must clearly understand why this is needed. If you look from the perspective of humanism, then life has the highest value. Therefore, its extension would be a progressive step in relation to society, and also to individuals specifically. If this problem is considered from a biological point of view, then it can be argued that there are already some successes in this area, for example, organ transplants and the treatment of diseases that were once considered incurable. A lot is said about the elixir of youth, as a source for maintaining an eternally young body, but this is still at the level of science fiction. Even if you delay old age by adhering to a healthy and correct lifestyle, it will inevitably come, along with all its manifestations, psychological and biological. This means that the goal of medicine should also be some way so that older people do not feel physical discomfort and do not complain about reason, memory, attention, thinking, so that they retain mental and physical performance. But not only science should be concerned with prolonging life, society itself should also create the necessary conditions for the development of human talents and ensure inclusion in public life.
The life of a modern person is very fast, and he has to expend a lot of energy and effort to meet the standards of society and keep up with progress. When a person is in such a rhythm, he has no time left to stop, stop doing everyday activities and memorized, practiced movements to the point of automatism and think about why all this is being done and how expensive it really is, deeply comprehend life and develop the spiritual sphere life.
The meaning of life for a modern person is the pursuit of mirages, imaginary success and happiness, templates implanted in people’s heads, and the false consumer culture of our time. The life of such a person has no value in spiritual terms; it is expressed in constant consumption, squeezing all the juices out of oneself. The result of this lifestyle is nervousness, depression, burnout syndrome, and fatigue. People want to grab a big piece for themselves, to take a place in the sun, regardless of the needs of others. If you look from this perspective, it seems that life is going downhill, and soon people will become like robots, inhuman, heartless. Fortunately, the likelihood of such a course of events is very low. This idea is very extreme, and, in fact, only applies to those who have truly shouldered the burden of a career and all the difficulties associated with it. But modern man can be viewed in a different context.
The meaning of life for a modern person is the birth and upbringing of children to be proud of, self-improvement and improvement of the world. Every modern person is the creator of the future world, and every human labor activity is an investment in the development of society. Realizing his worth, a person understands that his life has meaning, and he wants to give of himself even more, invest in the future generation, and do good deeds for the good of society. Involvement in the achievements of humanity gives people an understanding of their own importance, they feel like bearers of a progressive future, because they were lucky enough to live in such a time.
The meaning of life for a modern person is self-improvement, advanced training, obtaining a diploma, new knowledge, thanks to which one can generate new ideas and create new objects. Such a person is naturally valued as a good specialist, especially when he likes what he does and considers it his meaning in life.
When parents are smart, then their children should be smart too. Therefore, parents strive to develop and educate their children so that they become worthy members of society.
Historical research into the essence of existence
To describe the philosophical meaning of the problem of being, it will be necessary to briefly consider historical research in this area of cognition. The term introduced was first used by Parmenides (philosopher of the 5th-4th centuries BC). During the existence of this thinker, people's faith in the gods of Olympus began to noticeably decline. Myths began to be viewed as fiction, which destroyed basic world norms. The world, the Universe began to be perceived as something formless and unreliable, as if the support had been knocked out from under people’s feet. The person began to experience fear and anxiety, which made their life terrible.
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People subconsciously despaired, began to doubt everything, could not find a way out of the impasse. They needed to find strong, reliable support, faith in new strength. In the person of Parmenides, philosophy was able to recognize the current problem. Doubts about the power of the gods were replaced by an awareness of the power of the mind and thoughts. But these were not just thoughts. This is a “pure”, absolute thought that is not associated with sensory experience. Parmenides notified humanity of the new power discovered by him. She holds the world together, preventing it from falling into chaos. This approach made it possible to streamline global processes in people’s understanding.
The new philosophical meaning of being was considered by Parmenides as providence, Divinity, eternal. He argued that all processes occur for a reason, but “out of necessity.” The course of things cannot change by chance. The sun will not suddenly go out and people will not disappear overnight. Behind the objective-sensory world, the philosopher saw something that would serve as a guarantor for all things. Parmenides called this Divinity, which meant new support and support for people.
The philosopher borrowed the term “being” from the Greek language. But the meaning of this word has received a new meaning. To be is to exist in reality, to be present. This category became an objective response to the needs of that era. Parmenides endowed being with the following characteristics:
Being is true existence, which has no beginning or end. It is indivisible, indestructible, endless. Being does not need anything, it is devoid of feelings. Therefore, it can only be comprehended by the mind, by thought. Parmenides, in order to briefly describe the philosophical meaning of the category of being, presented it to people as a sphere that has no boundaries in space. This description stemmed from the idea that the ball is the most beautiful, perfect form.
By thought, which is being, according to the philosopher, he meant Logos. This is the cosmic Mind through which a person discovers the Truth of existence. It opens up to people directly.
