Masahiro Morioka
Masahiro Morioka, Ph.D., is a professor at Waseda University, Japan. He teaches philosophy and ethics. His specialties include philosophy of life, bioethics, gender studies, and civilization studies. He was born in Kochi Prefecture, Japan, in 1958. He graduated from the University of Tokyo and worked for the International Research Center for Japanese Studies and Osaka Prefecture University before he came to Waseda. He is considered by many to be one of the leading philosophers in the current Japanese philosophical community.
He is the director of the Tokyo Philosophy Project, and the editor-in-chief of Journal of Philosophy of Life ( http://www.philosophyoflife.org/ ).
Although his books and a majority of his papers have been published only in Japanese, you can read his English papers, essays, and some translated excerpts from his books on his website, http://www.lifestudies.org , and/or in the papers/books section of this webpage.
Current Positions:
2015- Professor of philosophy and ethics, School of Human Sciences, Waseda University, Japan.
Previous Positions:
2005-2015 Professor of philosophy and ethics at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan
1998-2004 Professor of philosophy and ethics at the College of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan
2001-2003 Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, the University of Tokyo
1997-1998 Associate Professor at Osaka Prefecture University
1988-1997 Research Associate at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Japan
1991 Visiting Scholar at Wesleyan University, U.S.A.
1988 Research Associate at the University of Tokyo
Award:
1994 Telecom Social Science Award (for Consciousness Communication)
Major Publications (Listed below are books only.)
2013 Manga Introduction to Philosophy (Kodansha, in Japanese)
2012 Connecting the Living and the Deceased (Shunju Sha, in Japanese)
2009 The 33rd Stone: A Philosophy for a Wounded Age (Shunju Sha, in Japanese)
2008 Lessons in Love for Herbivore Men (Media Factory, in Japanese)
2005 Confessions of a Frigid Man: A Philosopher's Journey into the Hidden Layers of Men's Sexuality (Chikuma Shobo, in Japanese)
2003 Painless Civilization: A Philosophical Critique of Desire (Transview Publications, in Japanese)
2001 Life Studies Approaches to Bioethics: A New Perspective on Brain Death, Feminism, and Disability (Keiso Shobo, in Japanese)
2001 Life Torn Apart (kinokopress.com, in Japanese)
1997 An Intellectual Method of Facing Oneself (PHP Publications, in Japanese)
1996 How to Live in a Post-Religious Age (Hozokan, in Japanese)
1994 Reconsidering the View of Life (Chikuma Shobo, in Japanese)
1993 Consciousness Communication (Chikuma Shobo, in Japanese)
1989 Brain-Dead Person: Human Relationship-Oriented Analysis of Brain Death (Tokyo Shoseki, in Japanese)
1988 An Invitation to the Study of Life (Keiso Shobo, in Japanese)
He is the director of the Tokyo Philosophy Project, and the editor-in-chief of Journal of Philosophy of Life ( http://www.philosophyoflife.org/ ).
Although his books and a majority of his papers have been published only in Japanese, you can read his English papers, essays, and some translated excerpts from his books on his website, http://www.lifestudies.org , and/or in the papers/books section of this webpage.
Current Positions:
2015- Professor of philosophy and ethics, School of Human Sciences, Waseda University, Japan.
Previous Positions:
2005-2015 Professor of philosophy and ethics at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan
1998-2004 Professor of philosophy and ethics at the College of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan
2001-2003 Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, the University of Tokyo
1997-1998 Associate Professor at Osaka Prefecture University
1988-1997 Research Associate at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Japan
1991 Visiting Scholar at Wesleyan University, U.S.A.
1988 Research Associate at the University of Tokyo
Award:
1994 Telecom Social Science Award (for Consciousness Communication)
Major Publications (Listed below are books only.)
2013 Manga Introduction to Philosophy (Kodansha, in Japanese)
2012 Connecting the Living and the Deceased (Shunju Sha, in Japanese)
2009 The 33rd Stone: A Philosophy for a Wounded Age (Shunju Sha, in Japanese)
2008 Lessons in Love for Herbivore Men (Media Factory, in Japanese)
2005 Confessions of a Frigid Man: A Philosopher's Journey into the Hidden Layers of Men's Sexuality (Chikuma Shobo, in Japanese)
2003 Painless Civilization: A Philosophical Critique of Desire (Transview Publications, in Japanese)
2001 Life Studies Approaches to Bioethics: A New Perspective on Brain Death, Feminism, and Disability (Keiso Shobo, in Japanese)
2001 Life Torn Apart (kinokopress.com, in Japanese)
1997 An Intellectual Method of Facing Oneself (PHP Publications, in Japanese)
1996 How to Live in a Post-Religious Age (Hozokan, in Japanese)
1994 Reconsidering the View of Life (Chikuma Shobo, in Japanese)
1993 Consciousness Communication (Chikuma Shobo, in Japanese)
1989 Brain-Dead Person: Human Relationship-Oriented Analysis of Brain Death (Tokyo Shoseki, in Japanese)
1988 An Invitation to the Study of Life (Keiso Shobo, in Japanese)
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In order to tackle the problems of painless civilization, we must look inside our inner world because the “desire of the body” that lurks within us is the ultimate cause of our society’s movement toward painlessness. Love and the meaning of life are the central topics of discussion in the following chapters.
Because the original manuscript was written in 1998, the discussion of social issues may seem slightly dated, especially when it comes to reproductive technologies and juvenile delinquency, but I believe my central argument here has not aged at all; on the contrary, I think the times have finally caught up with my theory of painless civilization. I hope readers will join me in thinking deeply about the essence of contemporary civilization.
(Painless Civilization 1 is available as an open access book: https://www.philosophyoflife.org/tpp/painless01.pdf).
Chapter One discusses the definition, history, and category of antinatalism. Antinatalism is the thought that all human beings or all sentient beings should not be born. Although I am not an antinatalist, I believe that antinatalism poses an important question about procreation and the meaning of our lives. This is why I presented an overview of antinatalistic thoughts in the past and the present and also performed an analytical examination of their arguments.
In Chapter Two, I take up Philosopher Thaddeus Metz’s argument on meaning in life, especially his fundamentality theory, and claim that “the heart of meaning in life,” which is the concept I propose in this chapter, cannot be compared with anything whatsoever.
Chapter Three deals with the concept of “birth affirmation,” which means that I can say “yes” to my having been born. I believe that birth affirmation is one of the most promising ideas that can contribute to contemporary philosophical discussions on meaning in life, and I call this approach “an affirmation-based approach to meaning in life.” The concept of birth affirmation has two dimensions: the psychological dimension and the philosophical dimension. I would like to show in this chapter that it is difficult to clarify what it actually means to say “yes” to my having been born.
Chapter Four discusses the relationship between the dropping of the atomic bombs and the trolley problem. I argue that the dropping of atomic bombs was a typical example of the events that contained the logic of the trolley problem in both their decision-making processes and justifications. I further argue that the trolley problem has its own unique problems, which I call “the problem of the trolley problem.” This problem has been overlooked in academic discussions of the trolley problem. I also refer to a religious aspect of this problem.
In Chapter Five, I talk about the “philosophy of life” as an academic discipline. We have the philosophy of language, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of history, but why don’t we have the philosophy of life in the field of philosophy? Of course, we have Lebensphilosophie, but it does not cover philosophical discourses in ancient worlds, nor current analytical approaches to the concepts of life and death. A new research field is required to advance contemporary philosophy.
In Chapter Six, I illustrate an outline of my “painless civilization” theory, a criticism of contemporary civilization that deprives us of a joy of life in exchange for eliminating pain and suffering. I also discuss the concept of “fundamental sense of security,” which is considered indispensable for us to be able to live a life without regret.
*
The original text of this chapter was written in 1998, more than twenty years ago, but I believe what I argued there is becoming increasingly important today. Painless civilization is a pathology of contemporary society. We will be pulled much deeper into a painless stream in the future. What is needed is the wisdom to see through the fundamental structure of our painless civilization and its relationship with the meaning of life.
**
Modern society seems on the verge of being swallowed up by the pathology of “painless civilization.” I have written this book for people who, in the midst of anxiety studded with pleasure, joyless repetition, and a maze from which they cannot escape no matter how far they walk, nevertheless retain in some corner of their hearts a desire to live life fully and without regrets.
*
When we feel a vague anxiety, like being bound in gossamer cords, in the midst of modern society, we are perhaps intuitively sensing the existence of “painless civilization.” This book is an attempt to give words to this feeling that the reader has, I am sure, already experienced at least once in their life.
The most striking feature of this book is that it was written from the author’s first-person perspective. The author is a professor who teaches philosophy and ethics at a university in Japan, and in this book he talks about his own sexual fetishism, his feeling of emptiness after ejaculation, and his huge obsession with young girls and their developing female bodies. He undertakes a philosophical investigation of how and why sexuality took such a form within a person who had grown up as a “normal,” heterosexual man.
This may be the first case in which a philosopher delves deep into his own sexuality and poses an ambitious hypothesis about the formation of male “frigid” sexuality, which might actually be shared by many “normal” men in our society in a hidden way. Reading this book, female readers will come to know, for the first time, some hidden aspects of male sexuality which men have skillfully submerged in a deep layer of their psyches.
Table of Contents
Foreword to English Readers
Preface
Chapter 1: As Long as There’s a Miniskirt I Don’t Need a Flesh and Blood Woman!?
Chapter 2: Men Who Avert Their Eyes from “Male Frigidity”
Chapter 3: Why am I Attracted to School Uniforms?
Chapter 4: Delving into the Psychology of Men with “Lolita Complexes”
Chapter 5: Moving Beyond Being a “Frigid Man”
Epilogue: Further Thoughts on a Frigid Man – Year 2013
* You can read a newspaper article on this book entitled "Professor examines Lolita complex by first looking at his own experience" in Japan Times, May 5, 2017.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/05/national/social-issues/professor-examines-lolita-complex-first-looking-experience/#.WQ7-Xvnyipo
From "Preface"
"In this book I am going to write about the idea that men may not feel much sexual pleasure or satisfaction, and that it is because of this lack of feeling that they become absorbed in sexual fantasies involving things like miniskirts, uniforms, “lolicon” [a Japanese term for “Lolita complex”], and rape. In order to support this assertion I will speak extensively about myself. I intend to consider this issue not in terms of a general theory of male sexuality but rather from the point of view of my own specific case.
But I hope male readers read this text as if it were written just for them. I hope female readers read it with a sense of urgency, imagining that the man they are with may be subject to some of the same psychological workings it describes. I have resolved to speak with complete frankness; I intend to explore this unknown world without any fear or reservation. ....."
Books (edited by Morioka) by Masahiro Morioka
Introduction
: Descartes and Artificial Intelligence
Masahiro Morioka
Isaac Asimov and the Current State of Space Science Fiction
: In the Light of Space Ethics
Shin-ichiro Inaba
Artificial Intelligence and Contemporary Philosophy
: Heidegger, Jonas, and Slime Mold
Masahiro Morioka
Implications of Automating Science
: The Possibility of Artificial Creativity and the Future of Science
Makoto Kureha
Why Autonomous Agents Should Not Be Built for War
István Zoltán Zárdai
Wheat and Pepper
: Interactions Between Technology and Humans
Minao Kukita
Clockwork Courage
: A Defense of Virtuous Robots
Shimpei Okamoto
Reconstructing Agency from Choice
Yuko Murakami
Gushing Prose
: Will Machines Ever be Able to Translate as Badly as Humans?
Rossa Ó Muireartaigh
We held the Fourth International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life online at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa, on January 17–19, 2022. This conference was hosted by the University of Pretoria and supported by the Waseda Institute of Life and Death Studies. We accepted about 50 presentations from around the world. Professor Cheshire Calhoun, Professor Guy Kahane, and Professor Berit Brogaard gave keynote lectures.
After the conference, we called for papers for publication from the speakers, and we accepted six papers for the special issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Life. We would like to give special thanks to the anonymous referees who kindly reviewed the submitted manuscripts. The accepted papers deal with a variety of topics, such as the methodology of ethics, the meaning of affirmation, Simone de Beauvoir, and subjectivism, and they are all discussed from the perspective of the philosophy of life’s meaning.
In January 2022, we were still in the midst of the Covid19 pandemic. Professor Thaddeus Metz, the chair of the conference, and supporting staff members decided to hold the conference online, and with the help of their devotion we were able to hold the three–day meeting successfully. We had many participants from around the world and we had lively discussions online. I would like to sincerely thank them for their contributions.
As the editor-in-chief, I hope that readers will enjoy the stimulating papers in this volume.
We held the Third International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life online at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, on July 21–23, 2020. This conference was co-hosted by the Birmingham Centre for Philosophy of Religion, and the Waseda Institute of Life and Death Studies. We accepted about 50 presentations from around the world. Professor Lisa Bortolotti and I gave keynote lectures.
After the conference, we called for papers for publication from the speakers, and we accepted seven papers and an essay for the special issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Life. We would like to give special thanks to the anonymous referees who kindly reviewed the submitted manuscripts. The accepted papers deal with a variety of topics, such as the subjective/objective debate, narrative meaning, Simone de Beauvoir, and Alain Badiou, and they are all discussed from the perspective of the philosophy of meaning in life.
Special Issue “Philosophy and Meaning in Life: International Perspectives
Vol.1,” Journal of Philosophy of Life, Vol.9, No.1, 2019, pp.1-97.
Masahiro Morioka
i
Précis of Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study
Thaddeus Metz
ii-vi
Source and Bearer: Metz on the Pure Part-Life View of Meaning
Hasko von Kriegstein
1-18
Fundamentality and Extradimensional Final Value
David Matheson
19-32
Meaningful and More Meaningful: A Modest Measure
Peter Baumann
33-49
Is Meaning in Life Comparable?: From the Viewpoint of ‘The Heart of Meaning in Life’
Masahiro Morioka
50-65
Agreement and Sympathy: On Metz’s Meaning in Life
Sho Yamaguchi
66-89
Metz’s Quest for the Holy Grail
James Tartaglia
90-111
Meaning without Ego
Christopher Ketcham
112-133
Death and the Meaning of Life: A Critical Study of Metz’s Meaning in Life
Fumitake Yoshizawa
134-149
Metz’ Incoherence Objection: Some Epistemological Considerations
Nicholas Waghorn
150-168
Meaning in Consequences
Mark Wells
169-179
Defending the Purpose Theory of Meaning in Life
Jason Poettcker
180-207
Review of Thaddeus Metz’s Meaning in Life
Minao Kukita
208-214
A Psychological Model to Determine Meaning in Life and Meaning of Life
Yu Urata
215-227
Assessing Lives, Giving Supernaturalism Its Due, and Capturing Naturalism: Reply to 13 Critics of Meaning in Life
Thaddeus Metz
228-278
Special Issue “Nihilism and the Meaning of Life: A Philosophical Dialogue
with James Tartaglia,” Journal of Philosophy of Life, Vol.7, No.1, 2017,
pp.1-315. Two years ago, in 2015, we published the book Reconsidering
Meaning in Life: A Philosophical Dialogue with Thaddeus Metz, and after
the publication, one of the contributors to the above book, James Tartaglia, published his own intriguing philosophical book on the meaning of life and its connection with nihilism, entitled Philosophy in a Meaningless Life: A System of Nihilism, Consciousness and Reality (Bloomsbury 2016). I thought it would be a good idea to have a symposium on his book in the Journal of Philosophy of Life.
I invited ten philosophers who have a strong interest in this topic, and
edited a special volume dedicated to Tartaglia’s book. After receiving their papers, I asked James to write a reply to each of them, and in July this year we published a special issue in the Journal. You can read all of them, along with the replies by Tartaglia, in this single book.
Papers by Masahiro Morioka
In order to tackle the problems of painless civilization, we must look inside our inner world because the “desire of the body” that lurks within us is the ultimate cause of our society’s movement toward painlessness. Love and the meaning of life are the central topics of discussion in the following chapters.
Because the original manuscript was written in 1998, the discussion of social issues may seem slightly dated, especially when it comes to reproductive technologies and juvenile delinquency, but I believe my central argument here has not aged at all; on the contrary, I think the times have finally caught up with my theory of painless civilization. I hope readers will join me in thinking deeply about the essence of contemporary civilization.
(Painless Civilization 1 is available as an open access book: https://www.philosophyoflife.org/tpp/painless01.pdf).
Chapter One discusses the definition, history, and category of antinatalism. Antinatalism is the thought that all human beings or all sentient beings should not be born. Although I am not an antinatalist, I believe that antinatalism poses an important question about procreation and the meaning of our lives. This is why I presented an overview of antinatalistic thoughts in the past and the present and also performed an analytical examination of their arguments.
In Chapter Two, I take up Philosopher Thaddeus Metz’s argument on meaning in life, especially his fundamentality theory, and claim that “the heart of meaning in life,” which is the concept I propose in this chapter, cannot be compared with anything whatsoever.
Chapter Three deals with the concept of “birth affirmation,” which means that I can say “yes” to my having been born. I believe that birth affirmation is one of the most promising ideas that can contribute to contemporary philosophical discussions on meaning in life, and I call this approach “an affirmation-based approach to meaning in life.” The concept of birth affirmation has two dimensions: the psychological dimension and the philosophical dimension. I would like to show in this chapter that it is difficult to clarify what it actually means to say “yes” to my having been born.
Chapter Four discusses the relationship between the dropping of the atomic bombs and the trolley problem. I argue that the dropping of atomic bombs was a typical example of the events that contained the logic of the trolley problem in both their decision-making processes and justifications. I further argue that the trolley problem has its own unique problems, which I call “the problem of the trolley problem.” This problem has been overlooked in academic discussions of the trolley problem. I also refer to a religious aspect of this problem.
In Chapter Five, I talk about the “philosophy of life” as an academic discipline. We have the philosophy of language, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of history, but why don’t we have the philosophy of life in the field of philosophy? Of course, we have Lebensphilosophie, but it does not cover philosophical discourses in ancient worlds, nor current analytical approaches to the concepts of life and death. A new research field is required to advance contemporary philosophy.
In Chapter Six, I illustrate an outline of my “painless civilization” theory, a criticism of contemporary civilization that deprives us of a joy of life in exchange for eliminating pain and suffering. I also discuss the concept of “fundamental sense of security,” which is considered indispensable for us to be able to live a life without regret.
*
The original text of this chapter was written in 1998, more than twenty years ago, but I believe what I argued there is becoming increasingly important today. Painless civilization is a pathology of contemporary society. We will be pulled much deeper into a painless stream in the future. What is needed is the wisdom to see through the fundamental structure of our painless civilization and its relationship with the meaning of life.
**
Modern society seems on the verge of being swallowed up by the pathology of “painless civilization.” I have written this book for people who, in the midst of anxiety studded with pleasure, joyless repetition, and a maze from which they cannot escape no matter how far they walk, nevertheless retain in some corner of their hearts a desire to live life fully and without regrets.
*
When we feel a vague anxiety, like being bound in gossamer cords, in the midst of modern society, we are perhaps intuitively sensing the existence of “painless civilization.” This book is an attempt to give words to this feeling that the reader has, I am sure, already experienced at least once in their life.
The most striking feature of this book is that it was written from the author’s first-person perspective. The author is a professor who teaches philosophy and ethics at a university in Japan, and in this book he talks about his own sexual fetishism, his feeling of emptiness after ejaculation, and his huge obsession with young girls and their developing female bodies. He undertakes a philosophical investigation of how and why sexuality took such a form within a person who had grown up as a “normal,” heterosexual man.
This may be the first case in which a philosopher delves deep into his own sexuality and poses an ambitious hypothesis about the formation of male “frigid” sexuality, which might actually be shared by many “normal” men in our society in a hidden way. Reading this book, female readers will come to know, for the first time, some hidden aspects of male sexuality which men have skillfully submerged in a deep layer of their psyches.
Table of Contents
Foreword to English Readers
Preface
Chapter 1: As Long as There’s a Miniskirt I Don’t Need a Flesh and Blood Woman!?
Chapter 2: Men Who Avert Their Eyes from “Male Frigidity”
Chapter 3: Why am I Attracted to School Uniforms?
Chapter 4: Delving into the Psychology of Men with “Lolita Complexes”
Chapter 5: Moving Beyond Being a “Frigid Man”
Epilogue: Further Thoughts on a Frigid Man – Year 2013
* You can read a newspaper article on this book entitled "Professor examines Lolita complex by first looking at his own experience" in Japan Times, May 5, 2017.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/05/national/social-issues/professor-examines-lolita-complex-first-looking-experience/#.WQ7-Xvnyipo
From "Preface"
"In this book I am going to write about the idea that men may not feel much sexual pleasure or satisfaction, and that it is because of this lack of feeling that they become absorbed in sexual fantasies involving things like miniskirts, uniforms, “lolicon” [a Japanese term for “Lolita complex”], and rape. In order to support this assertion I will speak extensively about myself. I intend to consider this issue not in terms of a general theory of male sexuality but rather from the point of view of my own specific case.
But I hope male readers read this text as if it were written just for them. I hope female readers read it with a sense of urgency, imagining that the man they are with may be subject to some of the same psychological workings it describes. I have resolved to speak with complete frankness; I intend to explore this unknown world without any fear or reservation. ....."
Introduction
: Descartes and Artificial Intelligence
Masahiro Morioka
Isaac Asimov and the Current State of Space Science Fiction
: In the Light of Space Ethics
Shin-ichiro Inaba
Artificial Intelligence and Contemporary Philosophy
: Heidegger, Jonas, and Slime Mold
Masahiro Morioka
Implications of Automating Science
: The Possibility of Artificial Creativity and the Future of Science
Makoto Kureha
Why Autonomous Agents Should Not Be Built for War
István Zoltán Zárdai
Wheat and Pepper
: Interactions Between Technology and Humans
Minao Kukita
Clockwork Courage
: A Defense of Virtuous Robots
Shimpei Okamoto
Reconstructing Agency from Choice
Yuko Murakami
Gushing Prose
: Will Machines Ever be Able to Translate as Badly as Humans?
Rossa Ó Muireartaigh
We held the Fourth International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life online at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa, on January 17–19, 2022. This conference was hosted by the University of Pretoria and supported by the Waseda Institute of Life and Death Studies. We accepted about 50 presentations from around the world. Professor Cheshire Calhoun, Professor Guy Kahane, and Professor Berit Brogaard gave keynote lectures.
After the conference, we called for papers for publication from the speakers, and we accepted six papers for the special issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Life. We would like to give special thanks to the anonymous referees who kindly reviewed the submitted manuscripts. The accepted papers deal with a variety of topics, such as the methodology of ethics, the meaning of affirmation, Simone de Beauvoir, and subjectivism, and they are all discussed from the perspective of the philosophy of life’s meaning.
In January 2022, we were still in the midst of the Covid19 pandemic. Professor Thaddeus Metz, the chair of the conference, and supporting staff members decided to hold the conference online, and with the help of their devotion we were able to hold the three–day meeting successfully. We had many participants from around the world and we had lively discussions online. I would like to sincerely thank them for their contributions.
As the editor-in-chief, I hope that readers will enjoy the stimulating papers in this volume.
We held the Third International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life online at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, on July 21–23, 2020. This conference was co-hosted by the Birmingham Centre for Philosophy of Religion, and the Waseda Institute of Life and Death Studies. We accepted about 50 presentations from around the world. Professor Lisa Bortolotti and I gave keynote lectures.
After the conference, we called for papers for publication from the speakers, and we accepted seven papers and an essay for the special issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Life. We would like to give special thanks to the anonymous referees who kindly reviewed the submitted manuscripts. The accepted papers deal with a variety of topics, such as the subjective/objective debate, narrative meaning, Simone de Beauvoir, and Alain Badiou, and they are all discussed from the perspective of the philosophy of meaning in life.
Special Issue “Philosophy and Meaning in Life: International Perspectives
Vol.1,” Journal of Philosophy of Life, Vol.9, No.1, 2019, pp.1-97.
Masahiro Morioka
i
Précis of Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study
Thaddeus Metz
ii-vi
Source and Bearer: Metz on the Pure Part-Life View of Meaning
Hasko von Kriegstein
1-18
Fundamentality and Extradimensional Final Value
David Matheson
19-32
Meaningful and More Meaningful: A Modest Measure
Peter Baumann
33-49
Is Meaning in Life Comparable?: From the Viewpoint of ‘The Heart of Meaning in Life’
Masahiro Morioka
50-65
Agreement and Sympathy: On Metz’s Meaning in Life
Sho Yamaguchi
66-89
Metz’s Quest for the Holy Grail
James Tartaglia
90-111
Meaning without Ego
Christopher Ketcham
112-133
Death and the Meaning of Life: A Critical Study of Metz’s Meaning in Life
Fumitake Yoshizawa
134-149
Metz’ Incoherence Objection: Some Epistemological Considerations
Nicholas Waghorn
150-168
Meaning in Consequences
Mark Wells
169-179
Defending the Purpose Theory of Meaning in Life
Jason Poettcker
180-207
Review of Thaddeus Metz’s Meaning in Life
Minao Kukita
208-214
A Psychological Model to Determine Meaning in Life and Meaning of Life
Yu Urata
215-227
Assessing Lives, Giving Supernaturalism Its Due, and Capturing Naturalism: Reply to 13 Critics of Meaning in Life
Thaddeus Metz
228-278
Special Issue “Nihilism and the Meaning of Life: A Philosophical Dialogue
with James Tartaglia,” Journal of Philosophy of Life, Vol.7, No.1, 2017,
pp.1-315. Two years ago, in 2015, we published the book Reconsidering
Meaning in Life: A Philosophical Dialogue with Thaddeus Metz, and after
the publication, one of the contributors to the above book, James Tartaglia, published his own intriguing philosophical book on the meaning of life and its connection with nihilism, entitled Philosophy in a Meaningless Life: A System of Nihilism, Consciousness and Reality (Bloomsbury 2016). I thought it would be a good idea to have a symposium on his book in the Journal of Philosophy of Life.
I invited ten philosophers who have a strong interest in this topic, and
edited a special volume dedicated to Tartaglia’s book. After receiving their papers, I asked James to write a reply to each of them, and in July this year we published a special issue in the Journal. You can read all of them, along with the replies by Tartaglia, in this single book.
In this paper, I briefly summarize the history of antinatalistic thoughts and propose a set of categories on antinatalism and related thoughts.
２ 永井均の〈私〉論の概要
３ 『存在と時間 哲学探究１』における「無内包の現実性」
４ 独在的存在者の確定指示について
５ 現実・現象世界・客観的世界
６ 「いま」と「自己出産」
７ 独在今在此在的存在者
８ 他我問題、リアリティ、時の過ぎ去り
Thaddeus Metz (University of Johannesburg) "Is a Moderate Supernaturalism about Meaning in Life Possible?"
Keynote 2
Masahiro Morioka (Waseda University) "A Solipsistic and Affirmative Approach to Meaning in Life"
Keynote 3
David Benatar (University of Cape Town) "An Unexpected Route to Anti-Natalism"
in/of life as considered in the field of philosophy. Please send an abstract of no more than 500 words, prepared for blind review via Google forms.