Happiness, Death and the Meaning of Life

Claire Colebrook

Origin: Static Issue 03
Content: Text

"We might argue that a meaningful life is better than a happy life: a life that follows some narrative sequence is more worthy, if not more satisfying and pleasurable, than a life of fortuitous and contingent felicity. When sense and meaning are placed above happiness this is usually done to argue for a happiness beyond pleasure, an actively sought and earned happiness, a happiness that comes from one’s life being one’s own. The happiness of immediacy and pleasure is readily sacrificed for the happiness one may or may not achieve in a chosen life. Another answer ties happiness inextricably to meaning: a happy life is a meaningful life; there is no happiness without sense."  

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Contributor:

Claire Colebrook teaches in the Department of English, Edinburgh University. She has published widely on continental philosophy, feminist theory, literary theory and Romanticism. Her Deleuze: A Guide for the Perplexed was published by Continuum in 2006.

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