Section A: The Search for Meaning and Values - An Introduction

'At first glance the title appears unproblematic. What could be more straightforward than to explore the contours of the search for meaning and values, a quest with which everyone is familiar?'


This is how Eoin Cassidy begins his book The Search for Meaning and Values - and you get the sense that a very big 'but' is about to follow. The 'search' can prove problematic for most of us, mainly because the answers are often provisional at best, and subject to constant review.

Plato described the human being as a ‘leaky vessel’ – we keep pouring in experience, but we’re never truly full. This concept is at the heart of this section – The search for meaning and values chronicles humanity’s history of grappling with mystery and our attempted answers to ultimate questions.

Three distinct periods are covered – the ancient world, the medieval world and the modern world. The attempt to answers questions about the goal and purpose of life is constant, but each period produces answers of a different character – we move from mythic and religious answers to those based on reason and logic, and eventually arrive in our current sceptical, secular age.

Along the way three types of questions have recurred:

  • Is there a goal or purpose to life and if so, what is it and how do we attain it?
  • Is there such a thing as the good life and, if so, how can we know what it is?
  • What causes suffering in the world, and will we ever be able to eliminate it?

In this section we encounter the answers provided by ancient myth, philosophy, theology, cosmology, art and literature.



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