No matter how busy a man is with his own affairs, no matter how sad or happy his life is, the question still arises before him - what is all this for? Why do we live if we die anyway, moreover, if those we love inevitably die? This is the problem of the meaning of life - probably the very problem in which philosophy itself arose. Because in this problem is concentrated all the most important and valuable for any person who is not afraid to think about it.
Any system of beliefs, worldview and philosophical views, in the end, is based on an approach to solving this issue. This is not surprising, because in the end, all the prohibitions and regulations, traditions and values are justified only by why and in the name of which they should be observed. That is why the meaning of life in philosophy and the relation to the finiteness of life and death are very connected. In addition, the individual meaning - that is, the meaning of the life of a particular person - and the social - the meaning of the life of society or humanity as a whole, are intertwined in this matter. Historically, philosophy has known three types of approaches to this problem.
The first is the traditional faith-based approach. Life only makes sense when it is eternal. When all the best that you have does not disappear, when neither evil nor time no longer exists, but only eternal joy and fullness of being. But in order to achieve such a life - to rise again after physical death in another world - one must still achieve unity with the gods or with God during his life, and observe the instructions and restrictions given above. With this approach, the problem of the meaning of life is removed by striving for God and eternal life. However, many religious systems have demanded and are demanding a rejection of human individuality, or they have shared the provision on hell and eternal death for those who do not observe divine regulations.
A religious-related, secular approach suggests that a person’s mission is to equip or rearrange the world in such a way that people do not suffer from fear or hunger, but live according to the principles of justice and brotherhood. For the sake of this progress, an individual lives. To some extent, this approach takes paradise from another world to the future. But if the religious approach often turns an individual with his or her shortcomings or disbelief into an obstacle that needs to be overcome, then the problem of the meaning of life when secularly poses a question becomes exclusively collective in nature, and people become a kind of humus for future generations.
Another, no less traditional approach, puts forward the version that the meaning of life as such, proceeding from some higher rules or values, does not exist, and human life is finite in principle. Therefore, you need to use it and give it the meaning that we ourselves want to give it. Thus, a person either drinks, eats and has fun, because he will die tomorrow, or consciously decides to fall victim to the struggle for his identity, but at the same time not hoping for anything. But the problem of the meaning of life in this case seems to fade into the background and shade, hide. Not everyone has the courage to share the heroism of such an approach, and therefore supporters of this approach need to overcome despair and pain, especially since such an approach, reconciling with the existence of death, does not solve the problem of death of loved ones.
The problem of the meaning of life in philosophy and its historical development also allows us to see that many famous personalities, famous for their wisdom, shared this or that approach. So, Diogenes, Epicurus, Nietzsche and, with certain reservations, Spinoza can be called supporters of the view that life makes sense in itself, and a person should realize this and practice it, striving for happiness, inner peace, realization of the “will to power” and so on. Aristotle, Marx, Feuerbach, Mill preferred to see the meaning of life in the realization of social aspirations. As for Egyptian, Indian, Chinese philosophy, Socrates and Plato, various directions of Christian and Muslim philosophy, classical European philosophy, especially in the person of Kant, they basically shared a religious approach, even if they often criticized many of its shortcomings. At the same time, the philosophy of existentialism stands somewhat apart, whose representatives could also be guided by a secular, atheistic, or religious approach. But their contribution to the study of this issue lies in the study of the process of the “borderline situation”, when a person suddenly finds himself in a critical, “near-death” state and, overcoming it, is able to gain freedom and understand the meaning of his own being.
