Product Description

This book is an invitation to step outside the flow of life for a time, to reflect on things normally taken for granted - life and death, love and sex, morality and religion, art and science - and to gain a degree of understanding of the full meaning of our humanity.

It is written in a lively, non-technical and discursive style to engage a general audience that is drawn to philosophy, to throw light on fundamental questions of life and how it should be lived.

Dialogues, philosophical stories, thought experiments, illustrations and literary and dramatic works are employed to make this book a highly accessible introduction. This way of doing philosophy offers a pleasurable experience for those who are encountering philosophy seriously for the first time in their life.

Primarily written as an undergraduate textbook, Meaning of Life can also be adopted in secondary schools. It provides lessons in moral reasoning, conceptual analysis and philosophical evaluation of the good life in both the West and the East, from Aristotelian and Christian to Confucian and Daoist traditions.

Meaning of Life shows how philosophy can make a difference to our understanding of life and meaning, and is an indispensable part of the good life itself.

About the Author

TAO Lai Po-wah, Julia Dr. Tao received her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of Hong Kong and obtained her PhD from the University of East Anglia in the UK. Her training straddles the disciplines of philosophy and policy study. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Public and Social Administration and is also the Director of the Governance in Asia Research Centre at the City University of Hong Kong. She is interested in Confucian philosophy, comparative philosophy and applied ethics. She is also the Principal Investigator of a Teaching Development Grant Project "Enhancing Moral Reasoning and Moral Imagination in Ethics Education".

YAN King-tak, Hektor Dr. Yan received his BA from the University of Hong Kong and his PhD from the University of Wales, Lampeter. He is an Instructor in the Department of Public and Social Administration at the City University of Hong Kong. Before he became an Instructor at the Department, he worked as a Research Fellow for the Teaching Development Grant Project "Enhancing Moral Reasoning and Moral Imagination in Ethics Education".