"D'où venons nous? Que sommes nous? Où allons nous?" Breve reflexão sobre o sentido da vida

• Autor(a) principal: Pire, Maria Laura Bettencourt
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/gaudiumsciendi.2017.2969

Inspired by Paul Gauguin, I have given this article, in which I briefly reflect on the "Meaning of Life", the same title the artist gave to one of his famous paintings. It refers to one of the most fascinating and difficult questions about which men have always pondered mainly in our more and more secularized culture. In order to do research on the topic, one has to read several works, such as, among others, the ones by Augustine, Descartes, Freud, Camus, Spinoza, Pascal, Darwin, Wittgenstein, Marx, Schopenhauer, Shakespeare and Becket. Nowadays, in a world, which urgently requires redemption, among them, I emphasize, the Epistle of James and the Encyclical Letter Caritas In Veritate of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI. In order to reflect more deeply, I also quote Sartre, Albert Einstein and Pope Francis as well as Martha Nussbaum, who, in her vast bibliography, tells us that only a well lived and virtuous existence permits happiness and she refers to the theme of the importance and need of change in education in our dehumanized society, in which there is a decline of imagination, of independent judgment and of the capability to resist manipulation. As to the danger of reducing men's motivations only to economical matters, and thus people, nowadays, being evaluated by their acquisitive power and to the fact that pragmatism reflects "a society that does not have time to remember and to meditate" and in which the search for truth and for a meaning have lost their place and ceased to be appealing, some blame the idealization of technology and the myth of scientific progress, having, thus, a rationalization of social, economic and administrative life that emphasizes the crucial importance of reflection and ethical action. Referring to the wisdom of the ancient intellectuals of the past, I am implicitly making a choice and therefore, in a certain way, giving a personal perspective, although I know that there will never be a conclusive word on this question partly because each one of us has to ask the right questions to obtain answers that will satisfy him. From a less optimistic perspective, we must also consider every aspect that seems to deprive life from meaning, such as death, suffering, illness and hunger, that make us wonder if it is worth living and if self- realization is, indeed, a coherent ideal. At the end of my journey, and having in consideration the readings I have made, I conclude that, although there is not a clear prescription to live a life with meaning, I think that the capabilities and the vulnerabilities of human beings allow them to act responsibly, thus showing that they have for others the same consideration they have for themselves, and therefore being able to live together and feel reciprocity and friendship. We must also be conscious that each one of us who has a virtuous behaviour contributes to the "common good", which is a precondition for general happiness, for acting ethically and with wisdom makes the world better and virtue is facilitated by compassion and by love, which lead to altruism, collaboration and sharing thus giving a meaning to life.