The Meaning of Life

'Philosophers have an infuriating habit of analysing questions rather than answering them', writes Terry Eagleton, who, in these pages, asks the most important question any of us ever ask, and attempts to answer it. So what is the meaning of life? In this witty, spirited, and stimulating inquiry, Eagleton shows how centuries of thinkers - from Shakespeare and Schopenhauer to Marx, Sartre and Beckett - have tackled the question. Refusing to settle for the bland and boring, Eagleton reveals with a mixture of humour and intellectual rigour how the question has become particularly problematic in modern times. Instead of addressing it head-on, we take refuge from the feelings of 'meaninglessness' in our lives by filling them with a multitude of different things: from football and sex, to New Age religions and fundamentalism. 'Many of the readers of this book are likely to be as sceptical of the phrase "the meaning of life" as they are of Santa Claus', he writes. But Eagleton contends that in a world where we need to find common meanings, it is important that we set about answering the question of all questions; and, in conclusion, he suggests his own answer.

ISBN 0199532176   Volumes 1 ISBN13 9780199532179 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 111 Publisher Oxford University Press   Published in Oxford Imprint Oxford University Press   Series title Very Short Introductions Format Paperback   Previous ISBN 9780199210701 Publication date 24 Apr 2008   Height (mm) 174 Library of Congress 2007051203   Width (mm) 111 DEWEY 128   Spine width (mm) 7 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level General Pages 128

		List of illustrations
1		Questions and answers		1
2		The problem of meaning		33
3		The eclipse of meaning		56
4		Is life what you make it?		78
		Further reading		102
		Index		106

"This is a brief, ambitious, and satisfying book. As a survivor of the theory wars, Terry Eagleton has emerged as a critic and thinker who will help us theologues ponder not only life's meaning but the next steps we should take as even postmodernism fades into cultural history. If there is a cultural life for us all in the aftermath of the conflict between essentialism and relativism, Eagleton's provocative essay will point the way both to making and discovering its meaning."--Gary R. Hall, Anglican Theological Review

"Eagleton's witty eclecticism is perfect for such a lofty subject, but would it be inappropriate to ask for more?--Leoppold Froelich, Playboy

"The Meaning of Life may be 'lie' relative to how much more a scholar like Mr. Eagleton might have said, but it is still a work that demands close attention from readers who are already well grounded in literature and philosophy."--Mark Grannis, The Washington Times

"The news that Terry Eagleton has tackled the

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