THE MEANING OF LIFE:

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
• For Richard Taylor, the question whether or not life has a
meaning is both important and one which ought to have a
significant answer.
• But what would it mean to say that life is meaningful?
According to Taylor it is not easy to say, because “the
question whether life has any meaning is difficult to
interpret.” And it is not clear “what sort of thing would
amount to answering the question [of whether or not life has
a meaning].”
• Taylor suggests that it might be easier to imagine what it
would mean to say what would make for a meaningless
existence.
THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS
• For Taylor, the myth of Sisyphus gives
a good picture of a meaningless life.
• In Greek mythology, Sisyphus is
punished by the gods for giving divine
secrets to mortals. Sisyphus was
condemned by the gods to roll a boulder
to the top of a hill, whereupon the stone,
having reached the top, would roll back
down. At that point Sisyphus would
have to push the stone back up, it would
roll back down, he would push it back
up, and so on to infinity.
VERSION ONE OF THE MYTH I
• This, for Taylor, is a
perfect picture of
meaningless toil because it
never gets anywhere,
never accomplishes
anything. Accordingly, it
makes the life of Sisyphus
meaningless because
nothing ever comes from
what he is doing. His life
is devoted to a pointless,
repetitive activity.
VERSION ONE OF THE MYTH II
• Taylor says that it is not the fact
that the labors of Sisyphus
continue forever that robs them
of meaning. For instance,
someone could write symphonies
forever and that would be
meaningful.
• What makes what Sisyphus does
meaningless is that it adds up to
nothing. “His repetitive toil is his
life and reality, and it goes on
forever, and it is without any
meaning whatever. Nothing ever
comes of what he is doing, except
simply, more of the same.”
VERSION TWO OF THE MYTH

If Sisyphus were condemned to roll stones up a hill forever, but

could use them to create something, such as “a beautiful and
enduring temple, then the aspect of meaningless would
disappear.” We might still not think that it was much of a life,
but it would not be meaningless. Rather, “his labors would then
have a point, something would come of them.”
VERSION THREE OF THE
MYTH
Another way in which meaning can be introduced into the
myth of Sisyphus is to make it the case that he has “a
compulsive impulse to roll stones.” His strongest desire is
to push stones to the top of a hill and nothing more. This is
what he lives for, this is what makes him happy.

Even if this seems pointless to us, it is not to Sisyphus.

And because this is what he lives to do, he is no longer
condemned but “his life is now filled with mission and
meaning.”
 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
VERSION ONE AND TWO

Version I Version II

In version one, the labors of Sisyphus are repetitive and pointless in that
they never add up to anything. In addition, he lacks the desire to push a
stone up a hill that he has in version three. In version two, the labors of
Sisyphus are no longer pointless because they result in something. Thus
his activity now has a point. The difference between two and one is
external in consisting in an object which results from his activity.
 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
VERSION ONE AND THREE

Version I Version III

From an external point of view, version one and version three of the myth
of Sisyphus appear identical. The only thing which has changed in this
version is the attitude which Sisyphus takes towards his condition. It may
still seem perfectly meaningless to us, but not to Sisyphus. This is because
it fulfills his desire to roll stones. The difference between three and one is
internal.
Thus, changing the myth in this way means that a life which is objectively
meaningless - as viewed from the outside - can be subjectively meaningful
- as viewed from within. It has meaning for the person whose life it is.
THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF
LIFE I
• Taylor defines meaninglessness as essentially endless
pointlessness. Accordingly, meaningfulness is the opposite or
that which has some point.
• Even long, repetitive activity can be meaningful if it results in
something which has a point which the activity was designed to
bring about.
• We have looked at life as a long, repetitive activity which adds
up to nothing - the first version of the myth; and at life as
consisting of an activity which can add up to something - the
second version of the myth; and as life consisting of an
objectively meaningless activity which yet is subjectively
meaningful to those who live it - the third version of the myth.
THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF
LIFE II
• Which of these views does human life in general
resemble?
• For Taylor, if you look at life in general, including
animal life and human life, it all really seems to
add up to nothing. And “the point of any living
thing’s life is nothing but life itself.”
• “The life of the world presents itself as a vast
machine, feeding on itself, running on and on
forever to nothing.” “And we are part of that life.”
THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF
LIFE III
• Our lives are more complicated than that of other
animals, but Taylor says that the differences are not as
great as we think when we are considering the
meaninglessness of human activity which just repeats
and repeats and doesn’t add up to anything of lasting
significance.
• Most human effort concerns producing children who
will just do over again what countless generations
before them have already done. Each of us is a
Sisyphus pushing stones up hills, and we pass this off
to our children when our turn is up.
THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF
LIFE IV
• For man to achieve meaning from his repetitive activity it
must end in things which endure. For the temple of
Sisyphus to be meaningful, Taylor says that it would have to
“endure, adding beauty to the world for the remainder of
time.”
• But only a few people make things which are beautiful. And
although they may endure for centuries, they will not last
forever. Most people are just like Sisyphus pushing rocks
up the hill.
• “The picture of Sisyphus is the picture of existence of the
individual man, great or unknown, of nations, of the race of
men, and of the very life of the world.”
THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF
LIFE V
• Man builds up civilizations and accomplishments
only for future generations to see them crumble. And
if we ask, “What for?” the answer is “just so this may
go on forever” - like the stone pushing of Sisyphus.
• Thus the picture of human life and that of Sisyphus is
the same when viewed from the proper distance.
• Taylor says that people “invent ways of denying” this
truth. However, he recognizes that the ways in which
men attempt to find significance for life “serve a very
real need.”
 THE MEANING OF LIFE I
• What Sisyphus is forced to do lacks meaning
because it never ends in anything of permanent
significance. In this the labors of humanity are
like Sisyphus.
• People do achieve things, Taylor says, but “every
accomplishment fades.” Because of this, we just
have to work all over again to produce something
new when what was earlier produced no longer
survives.
• And this is an endless cycle.
 THE MEANING OF LIFE II
• What about the states of mind and feelings which we
have when we engage in these labors? Do they give our
labors meaning as in the third version of the myth of
Sisyphus where his strongest desire was to roll stones?
• Taylor’s answer to this is yes. We need to recognize that
our wills to do things, our interests to do things, give
them their meaning.
• “Our lives do indeed resemble that of Sisyphus,” but we
are not infinitely bored by them, and so don’t find them
meaningless to the extent that we are pursuing our
interests.
 THE MEANING OF LIFE III
• Indeed, “the strange meaningfulness which our
lives have for us is that of the inner compulsion to
be doing just what we were put here to do, and to
go on doing it forever.”
• We do not need to question the meaningfulness of
what we are doing from the standpoint of doing it.
It is just the doing of things, and not what is
finally accomplished from the activity, which
Taylor thinks is most responsible for giving
human life its meaning.
 THE MEANING OF LIFE IV
• Taylor says that we would be bored with making
something and then just sitting around and
contemplating what we have done rather than
doing something else.
• Something which does not last can be seen in
retrospect to be sad or meaningless, but the activity
which led to the thing was very meaningful at the
time it occurred. And the later destruction of the
thing does not change the fact that the activity was
important when being done - and so meaningful.
 THE MEANING OF LIFE V
• For Taylor, the endless activity of man - what it is
in the interests of people to pursue - is what gives
it its whole meaning and justification.
• It is the doing of things and the viewing of our
activities from within while we are engaged in
them that gives them their meaning. Taylor says
that this is the way to look at life and its meaning.
• “The point of living is simply to be living, in the
manner in which it is in the nature of man to be
living.”
 THE MEANING OF LIFE VI
• Man would be bored without his projects and
activities.
• What is important for man is what is there to be
done and his will to do it. And this will be true for
your children and their children.
• “The meaning of life is from within us, it is not
bestowed from without.” And this is our idea of
heaven. We would be bored and troubled by
anything else.