[lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 11:42:04 +0000 (GMT)




----- Original Message ----
From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, 1 December, 2008 18:18:02
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life

>OK: I don't want to go on about this as 'interesting' is a largely subjective 
>category and I don't think it is
possible to convince someone to find something interesting by a purely logical 
argument. 

DM: Be that as it may...

>O.K. However, the long list (by no mean exhaustive) of philosophers referenced 
>in the article who devoted their attention to sucide shows that they 
>considered it an important and/or interesting philosophical problem. 

DM: But this list does not explain why, or give an argument why, it is truly 
and especially interesting, philosophically.We might as well argue for and 
against 'meaning-analysis' in philosophy by drawing up lists of those 
philosophers who found it important and those who did not, respectively - but 
neither list would constitute much of an argument. And a list of those who find 
suicide interesting philosophically would surely have to be counterbalanced 
with a list of those who did not. In addition, it is doubtful that there is 
anything 'paradoxical' about suicide in any logically or analytically 
interesting way - it is only paradoxical in the loose sense, according to the 
article you referred me to, that it raises a moral dilemma. Is it any more 
paradoxical than death itself, even where unwilled, for how can a living thing 
turn into a dead one - or life itself, for how can living matter emerge from 
non-living matter?

Donal
Snowy Salop  


     
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