Back to the Roots – Man’s Search for Meaning

This meetup will mark the one-year anniversary of the creation of our meetup group - "The Symposium: Philosophy Community of Chicago".

Like every rock band that has been successful for “too long”, philosophers have lost touch with their roots. We need to get back to our roots! Another plant-themed meetup will save us.

The text that will guide us back to our fibrous roots will be Viktor Frankl’s widely acclaimed "Man’s Search for Meaning" – a book so accessible one could call it prephilosophy. Indeed, at the college I teach, it is the first text assigned in our Philosophy 101 course. It is the kind of book that inspires people to begin reading philosophy in the first place. But then philosophy people get lost in the thorny vines of Carnap’s "Aufbau", caught in the leafy foliage of Heidegger’s… everything, and tangled in like 20 definitions for the word “intensionality” (or is it “intentionality”? - nobody really knows)... until the police find them naked, sprawled out on the floor next to something that reads “First Paralogism of Substantiality” because they’ve forgotten how to eat.

That’s why we need to get back to our roots… before it’s too late… (https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/e/8/2/4/600_470039428.jpeg)

Two Ways to Access the Text

1. The black version – The book can be purchased from amazon.com for $6.99 here (https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/080701429X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523344851&sr=8-1&keywords=man%27s+search+for+meaning&dpID=41C2r7-HbkL&preST=SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40&dpSrc=srch)

2. The blue version - A free, pdf version of the book can be accessed here (http://the420formula.com/new/headshop/books/pdfs/Mans-Search-for-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl.pdf)

The book is short and is split into two parts. We will primarily talk about the first part; the section on pgs 64-84 of the black version (pgs 61-77 in the blue version) beginning with “While I was working as a doctor…” is particularly pertinent. Reading ahead of time is recommended but not required. We will read passages at our meeting.

Considering “Man’s Search for Meaning” contains an account of Frankl’s experiences in a concentration camp, it is strikingly apolitical. It is not about the Holocaust, concentration camps, or World War 2. It is about that which is efficacious to every human being.

Something someone important said about the book – “Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful."

In order to lay out the complexity of the rigorous goals I have for this meetup, I modified a diagram I found in an encyclopedia of contemporary botanical sciences… (https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/e/7/4/b/600_470039211.jpeg)

Finally, Some Fruits Harvested from the Tomato Plants of Thought…

• “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” -Viktor Frankl

• “Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.” -Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations”

• “Our life is shaped by our mind. We become what we think.” -Gautama Buddha, “The Dhammapada”

• “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.” -Epictetus, “The Enchiridion” (Epictetus was also a former Roman slave)

• “Hold on to the center and make up your mind to rejoice in this paradise called life.” -Lao-tzu, “Tao te Ching”

• “Yes, tomatoes are fruits, botanically speaking. They contain seeds.” -me, here