A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe

by Todd May

What makes for a good life, or a beautiful one, or, perhaps most important, a meaningful one? Throughout history most of us have looked to our faith, our relationships, or our deeds for the answer. But in A Significant Life , philosopher Todd May offers an exhilarating new way of thinking about these questions, one deeply attuned to life as it actually a work in progress, a journey—and often a narrative. Offering moving accounts of his own life and memories alongside rich engagements with philosophers from Aristotle to Heidegger, he shows us where to find the significance of our in the way we live them. 

May starts by looking at the fundamental fact that life unfolds over time, and as it does so, it begins to develop certain qualities, certain themes. Our lives can be marked by intensity, curiosity, perseverance, or many other qualities that become guiding narrative values. These values lend meanings to our lives that are distinct from—but also interact with—the universal values we are taught to cultivate, such as goodness or happiness. Offering a fascinating examination of a broad range of figures—from music icon Jimi Hendrix to civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, from cyclist Lance Armstrong to The Portrait of a Lady ’s Ralph Touchett to Claus von Stauffenberg, a German officer who tried to assassinate Hitler—May shows that narrative values offer a rich variety of criteria by which to assess a life, specific to each of us and yet widely available. They offer us a way of reading ourselves, who we are, and who we might like to be.  

Clearly and eloquently written, A Significant Life is a recognition and a comfort, a celebration of the deeply human narrative impulse by which we make—even if we don’t realize it—meaning for ourselves. It offers a refreshing way to think of an age-old question, of quite simply, what makes a life worth living. 

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science, Death, Personal Growth

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 2, 2015

About the author

Todd May was born in New York City. He is the author of 18 books of philosophy. He was philosophical advisor to NBC's hit sit-com The Good Place and one of the original contributors to the New York Times philosophy blog The Stone. Todd teaches philosophy at Warren Wilson College.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is philosophy through-and-through (not self-help). But I daresay this did more to lift the fog of existential nihilism for me than any other collection of ideas in a long time. While much of the book is given to following somewhat familiar lines of reasoning for and against sources of meaning, the real value here is in Todd May's solution to the problem of objective vs. subjective sources of meaning.

I have always fallen into the trap of reasoning that, since I cannot fathom a source of objective meaning lingering somewhere out there in the universe, I must make do with whatever subjective choices of meaningfulness that I can muster (which I have always found terribly, painfully absent). However, Todd May shows a middle way. The argument goes that meaning arises at the intersection of subjective attraction (I value it) and objective attraction (???). The latter mysterious source of objective value is not some primordial set of preordained values imprinted on the universe, but the web of shared narrative values that we find ourselves enmeshed within our various cultures. It may sound like some sort of basic cultural moral relativism, but the values we're talking about aren't traditional moral values, they are narrative values. Narrative values are the values of the ways in which we live, and are not reducible to moral values (more on this in the book). This web of narrative values is ultimately fluid, but provides a relatively solid framework within which we operate as social beings.

Anyhow, if this sounds compelling in the slightest or you're the kind of person that lives their life, however successfully, in existential ennui, do yourself a solid and read this book. For me it contained some significant steps toward relieving this life-long thorn in my side.

In the meantime if you want to get a feel for his voice, you may want to read this http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...

or this http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...

[Flo]

Michael: Searching for meaning is philosophical suicide. How does anyone do anything when you understand the fleeting nature of existence?

We might as well give this book a go and try to avoid the Jenga tower of nihilism.
Later on, May's biggest hit, Death. (Update: Well... I'm not sure now. March 16, 19)

Jan 26, 19

[Amin Dorosti · Rating 5 out of 5]

این کتاب یکی از بهترین کتاب هایی است که در چند سال اخیر خوانده ام؛ و به واقع شاید بهترین. نویسنده در این کتاب کوشیده به این پرسش پاسخ بدهد که «آیا در جهانی که به تعبیر او ساکت و خاموش است، می توان زندگی معناداری داشت؟».
به سخن ساده، منظور نویسنده از جهان ساکت و خاموش این است که این جهان نمی تواند برای معناداری زندگی ما پشتوانه و بنیادی فراهم آورد. به تعبیری دیگر، در شرایطی که نه می توان به غایت مندی هستی تکیه کرد و آن را اثبات کرد و نه به وجود خدا و نه هیچ عنصر متعالی دیگری؛ در شرایطی که به واقع گویا میان آسمان و زمین معلق هستیم و هیچ ریسمان محکمی نیست که بدان چنگ بیاندازیم و خود را از این تعلیق برهانیم؛ در چنین شرایطی آیا باز هم می توان معنایی برای زندگی یافت؟
در واقع نویسنده می خواهد بداند که آیا با پذیرش نیهیلیسم، باز هم می توان زندگی معناداری داشت؟
نویسنده در آغاز نشان میدهد که در شرایط نیهیلیستی، نه فلسفه، نه دین، نه علم و نه عرفان هیچ کدام نمیتوانند کارآیی داشته باشند، چرا که از یک سو خود اینها همگی پادرهوا و به تعبیری معلق هستند و از سوی دیگر حتی اگر چنین نباشند نیز قادر نیستند «معنایی جهان شمول و پذیرفتنی» برای زندگی بیابند.

از این جاست که نویسنده راهکار خود برای یافتن معنا در زندگی را نشان میدهد؛ او با بررسی برخی از زندگی هایی که عموما آنها را معنادار میخوانیم میکوشد تا عنصری مشترک در آنها بیابد: این عنصر مشترک برخورداری از یک روایت غالب و به تعبیری حضور ارزش های وابسته به روایت در زندگی فرد (Narrative Values) است. منظور نویسنده این است که در مسیر زندگی برخی افراد میتوان حضور یک روایت غالب را مشاهده کرد، مثلا وفاداری، ثبات قدم، زیرکی، هیجان و شور و شوق و ... به گونه ای که فرآیند زندگی فرد و کلیت کنش ها و ویژگی های او نشان از حضور یک عنصر پایدار دارند، مثلا فردی که در مجموع انسان وفادار و ثابت قدمی است و این ویژگی در کلیت زندگی او آشکارا خود رانشان میدهد به طوری که هر کس با آشنایی با او میتواند به راحتی این عنصر را مشاهد کند. نویسنده نمونه های زیادی از این افراد را مثال می آورد، به عنوان مثال جیمی هندریکس معروف که در عصر طلایی موسیقی دهه 1960 آمریکا یک چهره سرشناس و یک راک استار بزرگ بود، نویسنده معتقد است که فارغ از جزئیات زندگی او، آنچه که در مسیر زندگی تقریبا کوتاه او به درنگ ما را جذب میکند شور و شوق و به تعبیری شدت احساسات او در کل زندگی و اجراهای او و موسیقی اوست. این شدت احساس و شور و شوق شدید را به خوبی میتوان حتی در یکی از کنسرت های او حس کرد، به گونه ای که این امر او را به یک نمونه تبدیل کرده است، یا مثلا نمونه دیگر، لانس آرمسترانگ، دوچرخه سوار معروف آمریکایی که سالها با سرطان مبارزه کرده و پس از پشت سر گذاشتن سرطان باز هم به دوچرخه سواری برگشت و چند دوره قهرمان توردوفرانس شد، در زندگی آرمسترانگ هم میتوان حضور یک روایت غالب را آشکارا مشاهده کرد: استقامت و پشت کار، یا امیدواری و جنگندگی.
نویسنده در ادامه میکوشد تا با تاکید بر این ارزش های وابسته به روایت زندگی، نشان دهد که وقتی یک زندگی دارای یک روایت غالب باشد و آن روایت از یک سو به گونه ای باشد که فرد به صورت سابژکتیو به آن جذب بشود، یعنی فرد (سوژه) در زندگی خود به طور کامل به آن جذب شود و به نوعی کاملا با آن هماهنگ شود و آن را تایید کند؛ و از سوی دیگر باید به گونه ای آبژکتیو جذابیت داشته باشد، یعنی جذابیت آن وابسته به قضاوت یک سوژه خاص نباشد، بلکه همه جذاب بودن ِ آن را تایید کنند. بدین ترتیب هر گاه این دو شرط برآورده شوند، زندگی فرد را میتوان معنادار خواند. به تعبیر نویسنده، معناداری زندگی زمانی برآورده می شود که جذب شدن ِ سابژکتیو در کنار جذاب بودن ِ آبژکتیو قرار بگیرد و به آن جذب شود.
(where "subjective attraction" meets "objective attractiveness" life is meaningful).

در مرحله بعدی نویسنده میکوشد تا این دو شرط را بیشتر باز کند و چگونگی برآورده شدن آنها را توضیح دهد.
نکته ای که نویسنده بر آن تاکید میکند این است که این پیشنهاد او صرفا و صرفا تنها یکی از راههایی است که می توانیم با آن در مورد معناداری زندگی خود قضاوت کنیم، و ممکن است چندین و چند راه و روش و سنجه دیگر نیز برای این کار بیابیم.

به نظر من نویسنده در کل هم توانسته موضوع مورد نظر خود را به خوبی روش کند و ابعاد مختلف آن را تحلیل و بررسی کند و هم توانسته با پایبندی به اصول عقلی، و بر بستری که از پیش تعیین کرده است پاسخی قانع کننده دربارۀ معنای زندگی به دست دهد.
نکته بسیار مهمی که برای من جذاب بود این بود که نویسنده از همان ابتدای کار ارجاع به یک عنصر متعالی یا ترانساندانت را کنار گذاشت و با روشی درون ماندگار، با پذیرش آنچه که نیهیلیسم میخوانیم، کوشید تا در عین اینکه به نتایج ناگزیر نیهیلیسم وفادار بماند، برای زندگی نیز معنایی درخور و قانع کننده بیابد. در واقع در شرایطی که نیهیلیسم سلطه یافته است روشن است که نمیتوان به خدا، غایت هستی، علم و حتی اخلاق و ارزش های اخلاقی و ... تکیه کرد، چرا که با نیهیلیسم همۀ اینها خود بی بنیاد و سست شده اند و از این رو نمیتوانند به زندگی معنا و ارزش و بنیاد ببخشند؛ و در چنین شرایط دشواری به واقع توجیه زندگی و ارزشمندی و معناداری آن بسیار بسیار دشوار است و اگر نویسنده در بستری چنین دشوار و به تعبیری خاموش و ساکت توانسته است پاسخی قانع کننده (اگرچه نه قطعی و صددرصد) برای پرسش معنای زندگی ارائه کند، به واقع باید او را تحسین کرد.

گذشته از محتوای کتاب، سبک نویسنده و لحن و نوع بیان او نیز واقعا جذاب و دلنشین است، و به واقع نشان می دهد که نویسنده همانگونه که خود او در ابتدای کتاب اشاره کرده است، خود سالها در پی یافتن پاسخی برای این پرسش بوده است و اساسا کشیده شدن او به فلسفه نیز برای یافتن پاسخ همین پرسش بوده است. شاید جذابیت، زیبایی و قدرت اقناع کتاب و نیز تلاش او برای ماندن در حدود ِ عقل، نیز از این روست که این پرسش در واقع درد ِ او بوده است.

نکته دیگری که اشاره به آن سودمند است این است که نویسنده کوشیده است تا در عین دقت فلسفی و برخورداری از عمق و معنای فلسفی، سخن خود را در عین حال ساده و روان و به دور از لفاظی هایی که در میان اهالی فلسفه و متاسفانه به ویژه در کشور ما تاحدی رواج دارد پیش ببرد و از این رو خواندن کتاب او حتی برای کسانی که اندکی با فلسفه آشنایی داشته باشند هم دشوار نخواهد بود و به تعبیری کتاب او کتابی است برای همه کس و برای هر کسی که دغدغۀ معنای زندگی را دارد؛ خواه مخاطب عام و فلسفه نخوانده و خواه استاد فلسفه!

خواندن این کتاب را به همه دوستان و به ویژه آنان که درگیر موضوع نیهیلیسم و معنای زندگی هستند پیشنهاد میکنم.

[Dilara Selici · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dünyanın yükünü sırtlanmış bir konu: hayatın anlamı… Aristoteles ve Camus gibi filozoflar anlamın verili bir şey olması gerektiğini düşündüler. Aristo’ya göre anlam evrene içkindi. Camus ise evrenin bu konuda tamamen sessiz olduğunu düşünüyordu. Todd May ise bu kitabında verili bir anlamı bulmaya çalışmıyor. Beni saran ilk kısmı da bu düşünce, çünkü ne bir Tanrı ne de başka bir şey tarafından belirlenmiş bir anlam olabileceğini düşünmüyorum. Anlamı insan yaratır.

“İnsan yaşamı bir anlama sahip olmaktan çok, sıfat ya da zarf niteliğinde anlamlı hale gelebilir. Anlamlı bir yaşam başka bazılarından daha iyi (veya daha çok) yaşanmış bir yaşam olacaktır.”

İlginç olan Todd May bu anlamlılıkla ilgili nesnel ölçütler ortaya koymaya çalışıyor. Anlamlılık, ahlak gibi bir insan ürünüdür. O zaman anlamlılık ve nesnel ölçütler mi? Sağduyum her yerimden hata fırlatmaya başlıyor. Zınk zınk zınk… İşte bu noktada felsefe tanrılarına nöron kurban etmemiz gerekiyor. Yapacak bir şey yok.

Bahsedilen nesnellik ne bilimdeki kadar keskin ne de tamamen keyfi, bu ikisi arasında bir yerde. Kitap boyunca bu “nesnel” ölçütleri sırasıyla hazla, mutlulukla ve ahlakla kıyaslayarak tanımlamaya çalışıyor. Sonuçta ikna olup olmamak bize kalıyor. Böyle konularda zemin hep kaygandır.

Oldukça yoğun ve ufuk açan bir 200 sayfa. Todd May’in felsefe yapışını seviyorum. Felsefi arkaplanını Fransız felsefesi -akademide vasatlık olarak görülse de- (Foucault, Deleuze) oluşturduğu için ayrı bir ilgi duyuyorum.

[Barış Çeviker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kitabı uzun zamandır yayınlanmasını bekliyordum. Mükemmel bir çalışma ve kaliteli bir kitap olarak çıktı. Kısa bir göz gezdirme yaptım, harika bir kitap beklentimi karşılıyor. Şimdi incik cincik satırları eşeleme zamanı... Todd May'i bütünüyle anlayarak okumak hep uzun sürer zaten :)

[Kenia Sedler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a phenomenal framework for thinking about Meaning from a secular Humanist perspective. May distinguishes between a Happy life, a Good/Moral life, a Beautiful/Aesthetic life, and a Meaningful Life, and how these various ways of honoring human worth both diverge and intersect. Highly recommended for those who seek Meaning outside of religion.

[Justus · Rating 2 out of 5]

May sets out to provide an answer (not the answer) to the question of the meaning of life, a topic he notes is surprisingly little written about in philosophy.

I found this pretty unsatisfying, with May engaging in many of what I've come to think of "typical philosopher pitfalls". He spends a ton of time pointlessly telling us what old, dead philosophers thought. (They were wrong. Who cares? When teaching someone calculus we don't go over all the dead mathematicians who were wrong before Leibniz and Newton.) He has little interest in (or even awareness of) what science -- biology, psychology, evolution -- might say on the subject.

Beyond that, he -- curiously -- leaves the most important chapter to the very end, forcing you to wade through the entire book going "what about? what about? what about?" with the core question unanswered the entire book.

May quickly sets the stage: neither the universe nor god can provide meaning in life. This part is brief but, it seems to me, that this is unsurprising ground, well covered by decades of philosophers, so I appreciated he didn't belabor these points. But then he spends a fair chunk of the book, nearly one-fifth of it, telling us what Aristotle thought (he was wrong), Bentham thought (he was wrong), and J.S. Mill thought (he was wrong).

Finally, one-third of the way into the book he gets to the main point: Susan Wolf's 2010 book Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, which he takes as a starting point for his own exploration. Everything up to here is pointless fluff; this is where the book really starts. It is a shame he took so long to get to it.

Wolf introduces a new way of thinking about meaningfulness (which, you'll note, is slightly different from "the meaning of life"):

Meaning arises when subjective attraction meet objective attractiveness.

Unfortunately, I never felt like May really convinced me of Wolf's point that this is the key to meaningfulness. I'll have to read her book. Anyway, what does it mean? It is pretty simple. Meaningfulness is two-sided. Something is only meaningful is you like it (subjective attraction) and if other people also like it. May's thesis is this other-people part is "narrative values".

But isn't this...unsatisfying? That's not really "objective attractiveness". Instead it is "something that society has decided, for now, in our current historical contingency, is a good thing". Society could be wrong! What does it even mean to say "well, she didn't lead a meaningful life according to his contemporaries; but people in a different century/different continent think she did lead a meaningful life"?

May points out that "meaningfulness" and "good" are different concepts in this framework. One could lead a meaningful life that isn't good. And one could lead a good life that isn't meaningful. But I felt he didn't handle this very well. He has an unconvincing argument that a really bad life can reduce meaningfulness. I didn't buy it. But then his framework can lead to things like:

A devout Nazi who ran a concentration camp can lead a meaningful life, since he was steadfast (e.g. a narrative value) in his racism towards Jews; which was clearly an "objectively attractive" thing in his era.

What does "lead a meaningful life" even mean now?

Even May seems to realize that, ultimately, he has put together a fairly feeble thesis. He was never able to convince me what the point of this "meaningful life" (i.e. one led with narrative values) was. On the one hand he has lofty passages implying that living a life of meaningfulness is

...something that will give heft to our projects, [...] something that will redeem the arc of our lives.

And that it will

[...] address the haunting fear that there is nothing more to our days than being born, dying, and the land increasing.

A life that isn't meaningful is one where...

[t]heir activities don’t add much to the world.

And if we lead a meaningful life...

...perhaps we might avoid the fate of looking back upon our lives with a sense of desolation.

But it is never clear to why leading a life with the narrative value of, say, steadfastness would "redeem the arc of my life", or "add to the world", or "address the haunting fear that there is nothing to our days", or "avoid looking back at my life with a sense of desolation".

In the end, it feels like even May acknowledges his definition of "meaningfulness" doesn't seem to... do anything.

If it is not necessary for one to be successful in order for one’s life to be meaningful, is it necessary for a life to be meaningful at all? Is there some obligation to live a meaningful life? Have people whose lives are not meaningful (or, more accurately, not very meaningful) according to the criteria I have described failed in some duty to themselves or to others? They have not.

So a meaningful life isn't necessary. A person who doesn't lead a meaningful life haven't failed a duty to themselves or others.

If someone were to say, in the face of what I have described here as the character of a meaningful life, “Not interested,” I would have no complaint against him. I would have no argument to put forward as to why he should, even if not interested, feel obliged to express some narrative value or another.

He has no argument why someone should care about leading a meaningful life.

Despite all of that...I do feel like there's the nugget of something in what May writes. At one point he writes

We find our meaning not beneath or beyond our lives, but within them.

And that seems certainly true. Maybe my hangup is just that he tries so hard to load the word "meaning" up to do something. What does it mean for a dog to lead a meaningful life? For a chimp? How about Neanderthals? At what point in our evolutionary development did "meaningfulness" go from something that was absurd to expect to something we did expect? Did it just switch on one day? If so...isn't that just saying a craving for "meaningfulness" is something biologically-oriented in the same way many crave children? Would a species that isn't genetically dispositioned to be tribally-oriented think that "objective attractiveness" (i.e. the opinion of the tribe) is part of the definition of meaningfulness?

[Slade Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

When May first introduced the idea of narrative values, I was not intrigued. It seemed too vague and incapable of assigning meaningfulness to life. However, I kept reading, and I was convinced.

My favorite quote comes from the conclusion: “The key here is that meaningfulness lies not in what is achieved or recognized, but in how a life is lived. Narrative values show us that the way we go about crafting our lives, whether consciously so or not, can determine their meaningfulness. This has nothing to do with success, no matter how much importance our world seems to accord to it” (181).

Meaning is not essential to our lives to make them good lives, valuable lives, moral lives, or lives worth living. However, we can live meaningful lives, and May’s work helps begin the reader on the path to seeing how.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book because it articulated a lot of things I had some intuitions about before. It left me with some big questions like: who get's to say what is evil? In a culture that practices human sacrifice, is the priest's life meaningful? May sidesteps questions about moral relativism. Overall a good read! Spoiler alert, the answer is 42.

[Victoria Hawco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Todd doesn’t quite make the silent universe speak, but it’s a near thing.

“It turns out life isn’t a puzzle that can be solved one time and it’s done. You wake up every day, and you solve it again” Chidi Anagonye, from the Todd May informed show The Good Place.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots to think about here. The author tries to give the reader a layperson’s overview of philosophical approaches to the topic of meaning but the book has many complex themes and may require more than one reading.

[Goatboy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I felt this work suffered from some of the same problems as May's *Death* - in that it can read a bit belabored at parts - I did enjoy this book more for the topic/s covered. I have to say that I'm not completely convinced May argued away Camus' main point as much as he set out to do, because he never convinces that the world is not ultimately and inherently meaningless and absurd, he does show how meaning can be created from more than just arbitrary values by basing it on values seemingly true among humans. Maybe the better way to think about this topic is combining it with the poetic naturalism found in Sean Carroll's book The Big Picture. The ultimate description of life and the universe may be random and "meaningless" but that is not a useful way to talk about meaning in human lives. For that, another level of language needs to be used which would be the language and thoughts described by May.

[Tom Pepper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Superficial answers to big questions.

It is hard to begin to list the errors in this book. The arguments are mostly in the form of rhetorical questions, and the basic assumptions about the naturalness of capitalism and naive acceptance of silly Romantic ideology as a source of meaning are obvious enough. A very disappointing book. I feel sorry for any philosophy student subjected to May as a professor—I had two like him in college, and abandoned philosophy in despair.

[Sydnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the full book review: https://thebeerthrillers.com/2025/10/...
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Excerpt:
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Todd May sets out to offer an answer—rather than the answer—to the question of life’s meaning, a topic he notes is surprisingly underdeveloped in philosophy. Unfortunately, I found the book largely unsatisfying, and often emblematic of what I think of as “classic philosopher pitfalls.”

For one, May devotes a great deal of time summarizing what long-dead philosophers believed about meaning. But if their ideas were wrong—and May clearly thinks they were—why spend so much of the book rehearsing them? When we teach calculus, we don’t trace every mistaken detour taken before Newton and Leibniz; we teach the useful parts. May also shows little interest in what contemporary science—biology, psychology, evolutionary theory—might contribute to the discussion. That blind spot becomes increasingly glaring.

More puzzling still, May defers the most important chapter—the actual core of his argument—until the very end. The result is a reading experience filled with “But what about…?” questions the book refuses to address until it’s nearly over................
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For the full book review click here: https://thebeerthrillers.com/2025/10/...

[Erik Larsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Rather than meaning being a something, it can be a someway". May encourages us to reflect on the narrative values connecting our past to our present and future. We ought to ask, do these narrative values lend meaningfulness to my life? (Both subjectively (my experience), but also somehow objectively (universal appeal). Thinking in this way shifts us from the sometimes otherwise passive pursuit of meaning (we don't just receive meaning, we create it, and often we should strive to give it as well. May suggests we use a Sellars-like holistic approach to evaluating worthwhile narrative values (not totally objective, but not totally arbitrary either). He writes "the objectivity of our values...lies in the whole...it is within the entire web of beliefs that reasons take place and that people can be justified or not...it is the web that grounds our scrutiny of our lives, our practices, and indeed our values."

Foucalt: "What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something related only to objects and not to individuals, or to life. That art is something that is specialized or which is done by experts who are artists. But couldn't everyone's life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life?" (Main Character Shit!)
John Berger: "We were not somewhere between success and failure, we were elsewhere"

[Jay Booth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Main Takeaways:
Ultimately this book supports virtues, or as the author calls it: narrative values (in an attempt to make it sound original/like it's his idea)
Does an alright job of discussing other approaches, like why the pursuit of happiness isn't the highest goal
Interesting thought experiments: Would you accept being hooked into a machine that continually stimulated your pleasure center for your whole life but you didn't do anything?
Goes on in a confusing way to remove the foundation from any value system, saying it's really all arbitrary and subjective, which felt a bit like he was disproving the meaning of pursuing virtues
Overall a pretty interesting book but not the best intro to virtue ethics. At times it felt needlessly deep or braggy, and was unnecessarily written from a first-person perspective.

[Meagan Scotti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to read this book because my professors gave it to me for graduation. I have not read philosophy since then so it was hard to get back into it. I enjoyed the theory of this book as it gives a different answer to how we find meaningfulness in life. May explains that we need to have a narrative value which is a theme of how we interact with the world. Additionally, we must be subjectively engaged with objective activities. Although simplified the combination of the two can create an objectively meaningful life. He also discusses how this is based on our beliefs which has a foundation because beliefs are able to be criticized and changed while holding other beliefs to be true. It is definitely a book that I should read again to gain a greater understanding, but it was worth the time!

[Jonathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel bad only giving this one star--I was tempted to bump it to two. But I really had to force myself to finish the final third of this book, because I was alternatingly frustrated by it and uninterested in it. The text's core question is a significant one, but I feel like so much of this book gets lost in the weeds, first while setting up the main argument by exploring previous approaches, and later by asking too many dull rhetorical questions and offering up numerous pedestrian thought experiments. Also, the author does not write in a particularly clear and concise way; there are many circuitous debates and wandering digressions, and it was hard for me to follow the main thread (if there really was one...) In the end, I did not finish with a greater ability to develop or utilize narrative values compared to when I started, and so I can't really recommend this book.

[Nripesh Pradhan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Todd May undertakes a rather difficult task of explaining "what makes a life meaningful." He encourages to find "meaning" in an arbitrary facticity that we are all thrown at but writes of the arbitrariness of the facticity itself as the "end of the web", where any more justification is impossible.
He does manage to grab the attention of the reader by deflecting the deeper problem until the last chapter, by showing just enough to lure the readers to wait for an impending answer. But there is only meaningfulness within the human framework, and everything outside of that is but a void. I highly doubt that Camus and Todd are talking about the same metaphysical concept of "meaning", but even if they are, Camus is much more convincing.

[ger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book with a lot to say about meaning and a meaningful life. He gives memorable examples and discusses the topic well in light language without hiding behind jargon. That being said, I give it 4 stars because I can't agree with his interpretation of Values as 'Objective' . It's a word game he's playing and he knows it. He even admits that there is no foundation outside the web of human practice to give foundation to what we do (Which I can agree with) BUT still wants to call it 'Objective '. I'm afraid I can't go there even though I recognise the usefulness of the approach. He also ducks a few issues when he wants and comparing values with aesthetics was a self indulgent waste of time. Worth a read though.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a tall order for a 200-page book to fulfill: propose a post-theistic framework for human significance that doesn’t fall into well-known tropes of moral relativism.

It does as much as it can, primarily via two tools. One is a novel (if perhaps too nebulous) concept of “narrative values.” The other is the proposition that our web of beliefs and assumptions can each be examined and interrogated, without undermining the network as a whole.

It’s a bit harsh on Camus, and perhaps overly optimistic about the project of crafting and finding worth and meaning in Human Life™. I still found it a valuable and concise contribution.

Also? “Find Chidi.”

[Tom Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea are worth exploring and there's a lot here to like. The writing to probably a little too academic, in the sense that it reads a bit like a dissertation, overly repetitive and without ever making any interesting leaps that push the reader forward. It feels like a hybrid, not quite academic and not quite "popular moral philosophy" (if there is such a thing, and if there's not, maybe there should be). But again, the ideas are well constructed and worth thinking about. (Plus there's the whole Good Place link, which counts for a lot.)

[Wayne R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a hard book to judge for me. I liked the beginning but didn't like the middle and the end was expected but I was hoping for a different conclusion. However how he goes about examining the topic was interesting. A real academic. The writing style was conducive to my reading. I didnt get lost in educational discussion but it does seem as if was rambling at times. If you like Philosophy this book may interest you but to get an answer to the question of meaning in life , you may be disappointed.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is certainly not the type of book I would pick up on my own. I had to read it for my Introduction to Philosophy class this semester. It is definitely somewhat interesting but repetitive and mostly slow-paced. I feel it could have done better with more anecdotes--the ones it does have really make the arguments more compelling. It is easy to comprehend, but also easy to disagree with. Not the worst thing my professor could have chosen for us to read, I'm sure.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since this was my first philosophy book, there were moments - especially at the beginning - when I struggled to wrap my head around the logical arguments May was making. That said, once it clicked, this book was a joy to read. It is so refreshing to read about creating a life worth living. By the end you feel like you’ve been given a real, valuable answer.

[John Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book is engaging, well-written and a perfect refresher on basic philosophical ideas. The last half loses its way narratively. It becomes unfocused, unconvincing and ultimately unsatisfying. Its oftentimes too dreary and lacks anecdotes to keep the ideas grounded. Would make a decent background reading to a Philosophy course, but it is far from essential.

[Ashkan Darouni · Rating 4 out of 5]

اگر قرار است شادکامی آرزوی ما را برای نیل به یک زندگی ارزشمند برآورده کند، شاید آن‌چه نیاز داریم تبیینی از شادکامی است که نه فقط به احساس شادکامی، بلکه به درگیر‌شدن با عالم نیز توجه داشته باشد، درگیر‌شدنی که آن احساس شادکامی را به وجود آورد. شادکامی فقط احساس نیست، بلکه به موضوع یا تعلق احساس ما(یعنی جهانی که درگیر آن هستیم) نیز مربوط می‌شود.

[Corbin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging, accessible, thoughtful, fair, and quite possibly correct. A terrific read, and particularly useful for non-specialists to engage the complex questions regarding significance without being trite or impenetrable.

[Patricia Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book interesting and his theory of how to define a meaningful life worth considering. He does a good job of laying out his ideas and building step by step to make the philosophy easy to follow.