The article I decided to read and master for this week is written by Richard Taylor titled The Meaning of Life on pages 560-569. I think everybody at some point in life will ask the question, what the meaning of life is or what is my purpose. Taylor has a different approach to answering that question, he wants us to think about what a meaninglessness life looks like. Taylors central argument is the meaninglessness of life. Taylor gives three different examples in his article. The first one is the story of Sisyphus, who rolled a boulder up the hill, it would roll down and he would roll it back up. The next is the glowworm whose purpose is waiting to feed, to transform into winged adults only living a day or two. The third example is the cicada, they burrow into the darkness for 7 years to come up lay eggs and die. All three of these examples amounted to nothing more than endlessly repeating the same task over and over that never came to anything. According to Taylor, life has meaning solely since it has purpose, direction as well as results in anything that lasts. This is in consideration that the rep
etitive nature of life often shows how it lacks meaning. The main points that the author is arguing for includes meaningfulness and the meaninglessness of life-based on Sisyphuss irrational misconceptions. According to Taylor, Sisyphus was fated for rolling a boulder up the hill once he got up the hill the boulder would roll back down the hill forcing him to repeat this over and over without any success thereby making all his efforts pointless. In this connection, the meaning of life is drawn from Sisyphus subjection to endless routine of similar habits or endless efforts which ultimately amounted to nothing. He equates this nothingness in lifes true meaning. Taylor is arguing by having us reflect upon our understanding of the meaninglessness of life. According to him, after making critical reflections on what life is not, is when an individual will realize the exact value and true meaning of life. Reflecting how life is meaningless is the basis of our understanding on the real meaning of life. Taylor believes that meaningless is equally endless, pointless and meaningfulness and so is the life itself.