Document Type : Research

Author

• Hamidreza Mahboobi Arani

Assistant Professor in Philosophy, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World by Prof. Iddo Landau, is a warmly written book, rich with instances from the author's life, history, movies and literature. Prof. Landau attempts to offer new arguments and practical advice that make us become and stay alert to the already meaningful aspects of our ordinary lives and show how we can increase it, if necessary. He confronts most prevailing arguments in the literature that renders our life meaningless or insufficiently meaningful, including the arguments based on perfectionism, the existence of suffering and evil, death and total annihilation of our life and even the whole world and etc. According to Landau, these arguments can at most diminish the meaning in our life, not removing it. We, however, can still find many sufficiently meaningful aspects in our life which are ultimately related to the inherent value of our lives. The book, then, ends up building practical strategies to identify and recognize these aspects. In the current article, I will convey the argument of the book, then elaborate my take on the strategies prof. Landau utilizes this to persuade us that there are many sufficiently meaningful aspects in everyone’s life.

Keywords

• Meaning of Life
• Perfectionism
• Death
• Suffering
• The End of Life

Main Subjects

• Philosophy