The question 'What is the meaning of life?' is one of the most fascinating, oldest and most difficult questions human beings have ever posed themselves. In an increasingly secularized culture, it remains a question to which we are ineluctably and powerfully drawn. Drawing skillfully on a wealth of thinkers, writers and scientists from Augustine, Descartes, Freud and Camus, to Spinoza, Pascal, Darwin, and Wittgenstein, On the Meaning of Lifebreathes new vitality into one of the very biggest questions.Preface Chapter 1 The Question The question that won't go away Science and Meaning Something rather than nothing A Religious question? Meaning after God Man the Measure of All things? Variety, MEaning and Evaluation What Meaningfulness implies Meaning and Morality Humanity and Openess Chapter 2 The Barrier to Meaning The Void The Challenge of Modernity The Shadow of Darwin Science, Religion and Meaning Evolution and 'Blind' Forces The 'Nastiness' of the Evolutionary Mechanism Matter and Surplus Suffering The Character of the Cosmos Chapter 3 Meaning, Vulnerability and Hope Morality and Achievement Futility and Fragility Religion and the Buoyancy of the Good Vulnerability and Finitude Spirituality and Inner Change Doctrine and Praxis From Praxis to FAith Coda: Intimations of Meaning