Question Hello, as a bit of background I grew up in a non-religious household and consider myself agnostic. Recently, I've had trouble coming to grips with my own mortality and while I've read through both the religion and death sections of this great website, the more I read the more I've come to believe that Tolstoy was right when he concluded in his Confession that a simple belief in God is, for lack of a better word, the "best" way to find meaning in life. (I freely admit I could be wrong) I find that philosophy helps me deal with this issue on an intellectual level, but leaves me feeling wanting on an emotional or spiritual level. Can philosophy give spiritual meaning to people's lives the same way religion does for others?

Accepted:
December 24, 2010

Comments

A great many philosophers today think that, yes, philosophy or a philosophical approach to life need not involve any religious beliefs or practices and yet it can be deeply satisfying in what may be called a spiritual manner. Among the panelists on this site, Louse Antony is in that position or that is what seems to emerge in the book Professor Antony edited: Philosophers Without God. Owen Flanagen and the late Robert Solomon have published books arguing for an explicitly spiritual approach to life on atheistic or non-theistic grounds (there is also the UK philosopher Grayling who has published in this area). For these thinkers "spirituality" does not suggest the transcendent, but it has more to do with living life with reverence, respect, love / compassion, and more. You might check out Solomon's book Spirituality for the Skeptic or Flanagen's The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World. There is also Wesley Wildman's Science and Religious Anthropology: A Spiritually evocative naturalist interpretation of human life.

Having said all that, I am personally far more with Tolstoy than these secular alternatives (as promising and impressive as they are)! Cambridge University Press published a book Jesus and Philosophy edited by Paul Moser a few years ago in which I more or less defend Tolstoy in the final chapter, and identify some of what I suggest are the shortcomings of secular naturalism. A very intersting, recent case of an atheist philosopher who is keenly aware of the challenge facing secular naturalism when it comes to spirituality is Thomas Nagel's collection of essays: Secular Philosophy and the religious temperament (Oxford University, 2010).