Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age

by A.C. Grayling

"Magnanimity is in short supply," writes A. C. Grayling is this wonderfully incisive book, "but it is the main ingredient in everything that makes the world a better place" And indeed Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age is itself a generous, insightful, wide-ranging, magnanimous inquiry into the philosophical and ethical questions that bear most strongly on the human condition.
Containing nearly fifty linked commentaries on topics ranging from love, lying, perseverance, revenge, racism, religion, history, loyalty, health, and leisure, Meditations for the Humanist does not offer definitive statements but rather prompts to reflection. These brief essays serve as springboards to the kind of thoughtful examination without which, as Socrates famously claimed, life is not worth living. As Graying notes in his introduction, "It is not necessary to arrive at polished theories on all these subjects, but it is necessary to give them at least a modicum of thought if one's life is to have some degree of shape and direction." The book is divided into three sections-Virtues and Attributes, Foes and Fallacies, and Amenities and Goods-and within these sections essays are grouped into related clusters. But each piece can be read alone and each is characterized by brevity, wit, and a liveliness of mind that recalls the best of Montaigne and Samuel Johnson. Grayling's own perspective on these subjects is broadened and deepened by liberal quotations from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Byron, Twain, Proust, Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many others.
For those wishing to explore ethical issues outside the framework of organized religious belief, Meditations for the Humanist offers an inviting map to the country of philosophical reflection.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Essays, Atheism, Psychology, Spirituality, History

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Anthony Clifford "A. C." Grayling is a British philosopher. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London. Until June 2011, he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught from 1991. He is also a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.

He is a director and contributor at Prospect Magazine, as well as a Vice President of the British Humanist Association. His main academic interests lie in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophical logic. He has described himself as "a man of the left" and is associated in Britain with the new atheism movement, and is sometimes described as the 'Fifth Horseman of New Atheism'. He appears in the British media discussing philosophy.

Reviews

[Heidi Amar]

نكذب أم نقول الحقيقة؟
هل نحمل الأمل أم نميل إلى التشاؤم؟
أنتخوف من الموت أم نحبه؟

لا توجد إجابة قاطعة على هذه الأسئلة
لأن لكل واحدٍ منّا إجابته الخاصة.

في كتاب "معنى الأشياء" يطرح المؤلف عشرات المقالات التي يناقش فيها قضايا الحياة من جوانبها المتعددة، مؤيدًا ومعارضًا، متأملاً ومتسائلًا.

ومن المؤكد أن من قرأ كتب السير الذاتية أو شاهد أفلامًا مقتبسة من حياة العظماء، سيلاحظ عاملًا مشتركًا يتكرر في مئات القصص، وهو: الحزن.

يشير الكاتب في هذا الكتاب إلى أن الحكمة وترك الأثر في الحياة غالبًا ما يرتبطان بتجربة حزينة عميقة. لكن، لا ينبغي لهذا الحزن أن يبتلعنا أو يُقعدنا، بل يجب أن نحوله إلى طاقة دافعة للإنتاج، أو على الأقل _كما يفعل الرواقيون_ أن يكون حزننا تحت سيطرتنا. ومع الوقت، تتكون لدينا بصيرة ورؤية أعمق تجعلنا أكثر تعاطفًا مع الآخرين.


الخوف من الموت، كما يراه الكاتب، ليس خوفًا من موتنا نحن، فنحن لن نشعر بشيء عند رحيلنا، بل الخوف الحقيقي يكمن في حزن من يحبوننا، في افتقادهم لنا.

قد يكون الموت خيرًا في بعض الأحيان؛ إذ يرفع عنّا معاناة طويلة، أو يبعد عنّا من كان يؤذينا.
وقد يكون شرًا حين يسلب منّا لحظات جميلة، أو يأخذ أحبابًا لا يُعوّضون.

الكتاب سهل الفهم، وأسلوبه بسيط، لكنه قد لا يروق للبعض ممّن لديهم تحفظات دينية، إذ يعرض بعض المواضيع من زوايا فلسفية قد تتعارض مع المعتقدات الدينية التقليدية.

ترجمة بديعة كالعادة قدمها أستاذ أحمد الزناتي

تقييمي:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Chris]

I love this book as it stimulates thought around very basic concepts. It is split into little 2-3 page sections, which makes it perfect for a 'pick up and put down' sort of reading style.

[Kristen]

This was an excellent book. It is a collection of short essays on a variety of topics ranging from education to religion to love. While I don't agree with everything Grayling said, all the essays are thought provoking and stimulating.

I have seen Grayling give a couple talks online and was intrigued by him--he's a soft spoken, mild mannered gentleman who nevertheless oh so politely punctures the arguments of stupid people. It's amusing to watch. It made me want to read some of his work, and since I am not a philosopher, I thought this would be a good book to start with. I was right. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to get their cerebral juices flowing and to give some new perspectives on old topics.

[Mon]

Alternate title: If you're too embarrassed to shop at the self-help section, try this.

[Elnaz Tahsini]

It took me awhile to read this book, partially being because I’m a slow reader but also because the book carries heavy content. I’ve previously read from the reviews that some individuals disagree with the points made but the author which I agree with as so have I as well, but for me I see this book as the opportunity to open your eyes into the other perspectives which surrounds philosophy. Grayling challenges readers to uptake a more open minded approach when reading this book and puts things into perspective like no other. I highly recommend this book due to its fresh take on deepening general understandings of basic concepts which we encounter.

[Sagar]

An interesting read. The book is well compiled but I don't agree with him in a few chapters.

[Ernie]

I loved this book. Infact It was the first book I ever bought with my own money at age 17. I needed to read something that would tell me a little bit about life and all the sorts of things people think, feel and act upon you know. so dabbling into this and that really gave my conscience a great deal of things to construe. It's not only a valid opinion or discussion that our great man Anthony here brings to the table in each essay; but also one of the most profound vocabularies that I have come across, even to this day.

When I read it the second time over; still being 17, I had to take a pad of A4 paper and write down every single word that I didn't truly understand the meaning behind, by which I mean, If I were incapable of describing or defining the word, then it would be written down and later researched via google-define:eg'circumlocution' (incidentally became a word of my googlewhack: Circumlocution-Pillowcase')

Anyhoo, the book helped me during dire times and I think if I dusted it off and read it again, as well as using the google definition trick, i would once again benefit an uncountable times over.

No flag has ever stopped a bullet from a gun - that's my philosophy.
L.A's getting kinda' crazey & New York's gettin' kinda' cold.

[Rachael Shipard]

The most cringe book I've read in 2021. For someone who decries ignorance and hatred as characteristics of poor moral development, A.C. Grayling would do well to dampen his own personal hatred of organised religion (especially Christianity) and open his mind to actually understand true theology and philosophy instead of making embarrassingly naive and outright false claims about such topics. Excruciatingly underwhelming. Also, the sheer laziness of copying and pasting quotes (usually with little context) without sufficient elaboration just shows his sheer desire to show off his 'wide reading' instead of making robust arguments.

[Anton]

Delightful little essays. Feels like a conversation with an erudite. Or little prose poems. I found this book a very enjoyable read!

[Manar Ibrahim]

A book for reflection. Although, I didn't necessarily agree with everything Grayling says but there is always so much to consider in ever subject he issues. His range of knowledge from Shakespeare to Plato to Mark Twain and Cicero, is overwhelming and pushes you to read further and dig deeper into all the subjects touched in there.

[Abhinav Talwar]

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was given to me as a gift and I am grateful it was because I am not sure whether I would of actively selected this book to read. This book is split into 3 sections, each with a series of essays on various aspects of human emotion, nature and behaviour. My favourite chapters were the essays on Civility and Tolerance.

[Ken]

I found this book to be thought-provoking, but not as densely so as some other collections of essays (eg, Montaigne). The positions taken seem to be fairly standard humanist positions, although I found Grayling's rationale and explanations of those positions to be insightful.

[Eva Härter]

Super interesting thoughts on so many aspects of life. At times confronting, comforting and refreshing to read alike. Grayling refers to many great philosophers and poets, reflecting on what it means to be human, what life entails and what makes life worth living by voicing his critique on how we live, are and value.

One of many things worth quoting here:
“To say that trifles make up the happiness or the misery of human life is to voice a cliché no less true for being one, and no less worth remembering.”

[David Msomba]

Goodreads,why you don't have 20 stars rating,because this one deserve 20 stars........on many works of Philosophy that I have read this year,this one takes the number one spot,as the greatest one.

Thank Prof.Grayling,can't wait to read the rest of the series.

Btw, highly recommended if you are secular humanist,atheist or any moral descent human being,who is on search of moral teaching and guidance, wisdom,seek to understand moral secular values,blending Philosophical/Literature ideas with our daily life obligations and ethical teachings outside tradition/norm.

[Jeffrey Bradt]

Grayling seems to think that he has a lot of wisdom to impart with this book. His writing style is flowery and intelligent-sounding, but in terms of actual insight and solid judgment, The Meaning of Things lacks.
For the last twenty or thirty pages, I found myself reading to finish the book so that I could give myself credit for finishing another book, not because it kept my interest.
I disagree with certain points Grayling makes; I find many of them pointedly unwise and cynical.
I bought this book seeking sagacity, but now I am giving it to charity because I do not find it worth keeping.

[Nwaf]

محاولة جيدة لتقديم مدخل إلى الفلسفة الحياة اليومية ، لكنه يفتقر تمامًا إلى العمق أو الفهم لأي من المواضيع المطروحة ، يعتمد على الكثير من التعميمات بأسلوب كتابة متكلف للغاية .

[Maddy]

I enjoyed this book immensely, particularly the format. These short chapters were originally for a weekly publication and Grayling has condensed them into a convenient sized easy to read book broken up into three sections. I had some favourites within these sections.

Part 1 - Virtues and Attributes (Moralising, Fear, Death, Lying, Delusion, Love and Happiness)
Part 2 - Foes and Fallacies (Hate, Revenge, Miracles,Prophecy, Poverty and Capitalism)
Part 3 - Amenities and Goods (Peace, Reading, Memory, Travel, Family, Age, Gifts and Trifles)

All in all an excellent read, looking forward to more of his writing.

[Arianne X]

The Post-Humanist Response

I read in this text the desperate, but well-executed and even more well-intentioned, attempt to avoid the full-on confrontation with the post-humanist nihilism as presented by the age in which we exist. Grayling attempts to replace the discredited worldview of Christianity with a secular alternative to faith and piety justified within a framework of rationality and a belief in progress, at least within the Western paradigm. This book is a catalog of the best secular and humanist values achievable without resort to the extravagant metaphysical baggage of religious belief. But the confidence placed in rationality and progress has been misplaced. The great patrimony of the Enlightenment movement, the gift of reason, has become instrumentalized (Max Horkheimer) and has led us to barbarism and irrationality in addition to emancipation from religion, myth and superstition. In this text by Grayling, we have the curious phenomena of embracing both the moral and cultural relativism presented by the postmodern intellectual world, while simultaneously presenting a catalog of universalizable and egalitarian virtues and values. This combines moralism in the political / economic sphere with relativism in the cultural / social sphere as well as subjectivism in the philosophical sphere. When taken together, this odd conflation of paradigms is what is irrational, but this is what has become deeply entrenched in Western thinking – it is an attempt, at all costs, to avoid the confrontation with nihilism and instead take refuge in a postmodern realism to avoid the reality of nihilism and in so doing confirm nihilism.

The Dream of Modern Humanism gives way to The Nightmare of Post-Modern Post-Humanism:

Readers of this review, please understand that we are headed into a post-humanist future from which a cold wind is blowing. The warning signs of an impending violent creation of a new destruction are all around for all to see and for all to ignore. So please continue to cope with the fictional present with your humanist hallucinations, religious delusions, secular illusions, or ideological conclusions - which ever makes you feel best and offers you the most dreamy comfort for which you crave. Any of these will work, at least for now, so please enjoy utopia realized. You see, the complexity of existence itself destroys the possibility of narrative, to say nothing of meaning. There are no reservoirs of meaning left, they are all dried up. Anxiety and despair are all that is left of the once mighty self. The self, the human subject, is being effaced and the subject is dropping out of subjectivity. What little remains is becoming a fractal self trapped within the paradox of chaos. Most of what we are now pleased to call the self is a secondary narrative picked up from the wider mass culture. It is just a correlation of narrative stories that we call the self. In this sense, post humanism is not what we are, it just is what has happened to us. Please note, by post-humanist I do not mean simply post-human. Post-human will come first as we all know with technological augmentation, AI and the potential singularity. The issue is that with this post-human ontology will come the post-humanist ethic. Immense distance has been traveled by human subjectivity to arrive at a post-humanist place and time where humans are no longer the cause of things; things are now the cause of themselves; where the virtual is more real than the real. The real war is now waged against reality itself. However, I fear that our current society might already be too superficial for this account where perspective is formed as a fashion or as simply part of the latest fad. I am not sure if there even is a coherent social theory to explain this, I simply think of it as the post modern ontology followed by the post humanist ethic but I am not sure if there is a strong enough concept to describe present conditions. Lived experience is dying up in the post-modern post-humanist world. The post modernism and post humanism is not personal, it is a systematic distortion of human experience.

In the midst of our consumption, consumerism, conditioning and control there is a compression of language and thought that insulates us from the real terms of existence. For example, social media platforms compress the language and in so doing compress and narrow thought itself, they narrow the range of thoughts possible, I have in mind Twitter and its character limit, which leads to word choice limit, which leads to language limit, which leads to a limitation of presentation possibilities and thus to the compression thought itself, thus to the thought limit. The worry is not one of overt thought control but one a worry of a covert thought limit. With thought so limited the domain of human consciousness is diminished and with it the capacity for authentic and genuine human relationships that encompass sympathy and empathy. With social media platforms, we have a new virtual burning of the books and banishment of an independent and original climate for human thought. Twitter and texting together realize Orwell’s Newspeak. Corruption of language is corruption of thought. To dumb-down language is to reduce the menu of possible expression and thus to dumb-down human thought and creativity. Our social media mediated lives proceed like a waking dream turn comatose nightmare in a conflated world of illusion and allusion. Social media and virtual reality world distort, they do not enhance, social relationships.

[Jade]

A thought-provoking book, divided into short and digestible chapters which are essentially essays on a range of interesting topics. This is an easy book to dip in and out of, although I should say that Grayling has taken care to order these essays logically and so there is something to be gained from more continuous reading. You may not agree with everything the author has to say but you do not need to. This book is eloquently written and most importantly will make you think.

[Ashish Singh]

I found it to be a nice book that provides ideas and a bit of perspective on many topics related to philosophy.

[عمر الحمادي]

اراء فلسفية مبسطة في شتى مناحي الحياة الفكرية والعلمية والاجتماعية والصحية.. سلس ومثير للاهتمام والتفكير.

[Sri Dwaraka]

The opinions given and the analysis to each and every topic is thought provoking. There are some arguments which someone will disagree with. Overall it's a thought provoking read.

[Joseph Caygill]

READ IT!!!

[Wm Jas Tychonievich]

This is a light but stimulating read, consisting of 61 very short essays on a wide variety of philosophical and moral issues. It's not the sort of book that will convince you of anything -- at three or four pages per topic, there is little room for sustained argument -- but serves more as a lightly annotated list of interesting questions to think about. The author's views are invariably conventional and in some cases (generally wherever biology is involved) obtuse -- he assures us, for example, that concern for chastity is an arbitrary artifact of religion, and that racism is wrong because there is actually no such thing as race. On less politically charged topics his embrace of conventional wisdom is more thoughtful and thought-provoking. He points out several times that cliches are, after all, usually true and deserve to be thought about, which is true enough.

The words "famously" and "commonplace" are overused throughout the book, as are allusions to Hitler and the Holocaust, which turn up in at least 13 of the essays (I skimmed the book counting them in order to quantify my sense that the book seemed oddly Nazicentric). Other than that, the style is graceful and readable, which, combined with the shortness of the chapters, makes it all too easy to read just one more chapter and then just one more and end up going to bed far too late.

[Nahid]

الكتاب مقسم لأقسام كل قسم يتناول موضوع يتحدث عنه الكاتب-ملحد- في عدد من الصفح لايزيد عن الثلاثه.
نوع من الفلسفه البدائيه والتناقض الملحوظ في الأفكار
فقط يحاول الكاتب إثبات وجهة نظرة-لنفسه-في كتاب أو مجموعة من المقالات المُجمعه في مغلف واحد فيبدأ الكاتب بمهاجمة الmoraliser والاستدلال ببعض الإقباسات لفلاسفة آخرين كنيتشه وسقراط،إلى آخره..
ربما كان الكتاب في الأصل بغرض تظاهر الكاتب بقدرته على جمع الإقتباسات وتفسيرها.ثم يبدأ الكاتب بعد تلك المهاجمه بدور الواعظ فيتحدث عن الخوف والحُب و الموت والهزيمة.
أرشح الكتاب كمدخل لمعرفة معنى الفلسفه أو لمعرفة الإقتباسات المشهوره لبعض الفلاسفه أو الأفضل ككتاب تعليمي للغة الإنجليزيه حيث يشرح الكاتب بعض الكلمات في مقالات قد تكون thought provoking نوعاً ما.
وإن كان الكاتب مُوفق في بعض الجمل:
"But it remains that fear itself is more to be feared than most of the things people usually fear"

"Ordinary life evokes more extraordinary courage than combat or adventure because both the chances and inevitabilities of life-grief,illness, disappointment,pain,struggle, poverty,loss,terror, heartache: all of them common features of the human condition, and all of them experienced by hundreds of thousands of people every day -demand kinds of endurance and bravery that make clambering up Everest seem an easier alternative."

"Is this present moment really worth keeping?"

"We tolerate others best when we know how to tolerate ourselves"

[Aura]

This book is simply Humanism at its best, for those of you looking for a sense of guidance without religion this is defiantly for you but even if you are religious don’t be put off, it’s a great read for all. Don’t let the 61 essays in this little beauty put you off either, most of them are no more than two pages long, which makes this a great ‘before I go to bed read’ for anyone looking to get into the habit of reading more (a habit everyone should pick up). Grayling tackles various topics including Sin, education, hate, lying, loyalty, betrayal and moralising, without ever being as hypocritical to moralise himself. For those of you ( I’m talking to the youngins here) who aren’t content with getting familiar with the classical greats ,Grayling puts a modern twist to the art of Philosophy, while still managing to make it easy for any audience who wishes to expand their mind beyond the daily two dimensional way of looking at life.

This book is also published under the title:Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age, they both contain the exact same content.

[Alkisti]

Quite disappointing to be honest. Philosophy is only hastily and superficially applied to life. I don't particularly seek to read essays whose points of view I agree with - far from it, I enjoy reading a well-developed idea that contrasts my own. That's the whole purpose of critical thinking. However... this feels like a collection of essays that was put together only to accompany the ones the author is acutely passionate about (it's easy to see which ones stand out both length wise and in analysis). Moreover, it feels that the author is relying on other sources of authority (*too many* quotes that are not properly attributed!) to prove a point he's almost too lazy to elaborate on. One needs only to read the last paragraphs of each essay to understand how lingering a thought is left. And that is not in a good, thought-provoking for the reader way. Rather it's, once again, rushed, a messy ending that does not wrap up, nor concludes, but only mentions ideas, notions, or (more) quotes, that are not contemplated nor elaborated fully upon.

[Nahla Bassam]

The author gives his own philosophical definitions to different virtues, traits and feelings trying to give them meanings.
Although I disagreed with him in most of these definitions, and I thought he was extremely biased against religion, I thought the book was thought provoking and a bit interesting, only as long as you don't take his words too seriously (or as givens, of course) however, it's not so enlightening if you already know how to "think" for yourself.
The quoting from ancient philosophers wasn't bad, and each chapter was 2,3 pages so it's good as a light read.



- Moralizing is condenscending so don't ask prostitutes to dress decently in courts because they should be allowed to keep wearing the "uniform of their profession" :/
- Should the tolerant tolerate the intolerant? No! Because tolerance has to protect itself (what?!)
- Fear is the source of many social ills, it gives rise to superstition and religion.

And so it goes..

[Mathew]

A collection of short essays on topics that are sure to have affected everyone at some point, or are likely to in the future. Each essay as interesting as the next, they all provide a resource for healthy debate, however some may tire of him connecting nearly every argument to religion. I never, I felt this made it even more enjoyable. Grayling does not speak of religion as Dawkings does, although also clearly an atheist he states his opinions on religion with clarity and understanding.

Most importantly is the accessibility of these essays, an in-depth knowledge of philosophy is not required before beginning here, only an experience of day to day life. It is a book worth keeping to refer back to (for those who choose not to keep books), to keep on the bedside table or the 'toilet-cistern-bookshelf' if thats preferable, as his opinions are most definately worth re-examining.

[D]

You need to be a pretty vacuous and shallow person to find this book in any way insightful. It consists of a series of VERY short chapters, each on a different topic. No abstruse concepts were introduced and there was neither deep analysis nor challenging of the author's own assumptions. Rather, the author indulged in a series of rationalisations of his own middle class, liberal biases. Aside from the lack of actual philosophy, it's not even particularly well written.