The meaning of life

We have all wondered about the meaning of life. But is there an answer? And do we even really know what we´re asking? Terry Eagleton takes a stimulating and quirky look at this most compelling of questions: at the answers explored in philosophy and literature; at the crisis of meaning in modern times; and suggests his own solution to how we might rediscover meaning in our lives.

* An intelligent, witty, and refreshingly approachable guide to the ultimate question. * Ties in philosophy and literature - from the 12th century scholastics to Marx, Schopenhauer, Sartre, and Beckett.
* Reveals how the the philosophy of language can be applied to questions of any kind, how meaning can be understood and applied, and where the limits of questioning lie.

* Eagleton suggests that the problem of the meaning of life arose with modernity. He looks at the cultural and philosophical reasons for this, and examines the meaninglessness that appears to plague our times - from ´New Age softheadedness´ to fundamentalism.

* After surveying a variety of possible candidates, Eagleton suggests his own, perhaps surprising, conclusion to the answer to the meaning of life.