Chandru asked:

I am very happy to meet you.

My mind is full of unsolved matters which I pursue with eagerness. The complete I-ness is residing in
the concepts like Nature, soul, god, meaningful-meaningless states, life, death, purpose of life. If the
purpose here is an unsolved one then how best we can lead our life until we arrive the truth or if we
are not fond of purpose of life, what next, where are the current philosophy standing about this
context. I request you kindly to provide all available information throughout the search around the
existing world.

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These are big questions. A note at the beginning: One interesting thing about philosophy is that the
really big questions have not been definitively and decisively answered — though many philosophers
have suggested answers. It is also an open question whether these questions canbe answered at all.
Hence the 'current' philosophical thinking is not necessarily 'better' regarding many of these issues
than that of the most ancient philosophers. (This is an important difference to natural sciences).

You mention 'purpose of life'. The term 'purpose' in this context is somewhat ambiguous. It could
indicate a choice you yourself make for your personal life, orit could mean that whether you agree
with it or not, your life has a purpose, which is not chosen by you, but comes from elsewhere. I will
now call the first kind 'personal purpose' and the second kind 'absolute purpose'. Someone who
thought that there is no God and therefore no 'absolute purpose' to life, was Sartre. He thought
however, that we can live a moral life by personal choice i.e. give our life a 'personal purpose'.
Someone who thought that there is an 'absolute purpose' was Aristotle. He argued that every rational
activity aims at something. (Example: I go to the doctor to get healthy, I want to be healthy to feel
good. I go to work to earn a living. I want to earn a living in order to buy things I need. I need things in
order to ... you get the drift.) To avoid infinite regress all these activities ultimately must aim at one
goal — the highest 'good'. This good is happiness, because happiness is the only thing we desire for
itself, and not in order to get something else. To better understand what the good for man is Aristotle
argues from function: As the foot has a function to support the body and the sculptor has a function to
produce statues, so man has a function. This function can most clearly be understood in the capacity
unique to man and distinguishing him from other beings — the capacity for reason/rational thought.
So the good for man is to perform this function and to perform it well i.e. in accordance with virtue. So
the best life — how to live and do well — is the happy life, meaning a life of virtue and contemplation
(exercising man's function). What do you think — is there an 'absolute purpose' to life? And if that
was true, would you be obliged to go along with it?

Truth — that's another one. Is there such a thing as 'absolute truth' and if there was, could we know
it? Plato for example seems to have believed in the existence of absolute truths (even in their reality,
not just abstractions). However there is a lot of evidence to suggest that he did not believe such truths
to be attainable in this life, but believed that the soul was immortal and contemplated the truths before
and after our earthly life. Aristotle disagreed with this theory (and gave some very convincing reasons
for this disagreement). Sceptics have questioned the possibility of knowledge of absolute truths: One
argument goes like this: All our beliefs are based on input via the senses, sense perception. Now
sometimes such beliefs turn out to be mistaken. Example: A stick partly immersed in water looks bent
— so I assume it is bent and find when taking the stick out that this was just an optical illusion. Now if
such mistakes sometimes happen, then I can never be sure that at this particular moment I am not
under an illusion. (Descartes famously suggested the following scenarios: What if I am dreaming?
What if an evil demon is tricking me all the time, creating delusions for me?). Therefore I can never
claim to have knowledge in the sense of absolute truths based on sense perception. I cannot even be
sure of my body, that others exist, that there is a world outside my own mind etc. Do you think there is
such a thing as absolute truth? Or is everything a dream or an illusion? Are there only personal, that
is subjective, truths?

Some other big questions surround the mind/body problem (are they the same or of the same type,
how do they interact, is there an immortal soul etc.etc.), personal identity (is there a self, and if so,
how to define it, what constitutes personal identity over time), moral values (are there any absolute
moral laws, are there 'rights') etc.

Sound like you are embarking on a fascinating trip through the whole of philosophy — have fun!

Helene Dumitriu

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