----- 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html