I was interested through my prior experience with Hocking | The second part was based on a latter 1936 lecture at the University of Chicago titled "Meanings of Life" which my friend was considering having his students read |
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Hocking expanded each of these lectures and added considerable additional material including an interlude on philosophical developments subsequent to 1942 and an Epilogue which is his attempt at a summation | He sometimes calls naturalism a "monistic" approach to philosophy in that it considers nature as, single, entirely of a piece, and subject fully to the laws developed by science and to nothing else |
Popular understanding suggests that philosophers are concerned with "the meaning of life" but most, including idealistically and religiously inclined philosophers, know the perils of an approach to this question.
3The book shows a suitable humility in dealing with the large question of its title | Hocking nowhere attempts to prove immortality |
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Hocking points out that immortality is difficult to address because framing and considering the question depends in large part on one's philosophical commitments on some dryer and more basic philosophical issues | Then, in a section called "Meanings of Life" Hocking tries to show how an individual approach to meaning in "spots" is insufficient |
He argues passionately that the search for meaning by individual human beings in their projects and relationships creates in its wake the feeling that reality is somehow responsive and leads beyond the world of naturalism.
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