Introduction

Who are we as human beings? In what sense are we part of nature (like plants and animals) and in what sense are we different? What is our place in the world? Is there a common meaning to life or is there a series of culturally based meanings? Is there such a thing as meaning of life?

It is probably fair to say that some of the most exciting (as well as challenging) questions are those directly related to the human condition (see the examples above). In today's globalized and warming world, in which an unprecedented opportunity to come together and share perspectives (both online and offline) and the (post-) postmodern isolation of the individual represent two sides of the same coin, these questions seem to be ever more pressing. It is therefore rather surprising to observe that many present-day philosophers show a strange reluctance to address these topics. As Terry Eagleton, himself not a professional philosopher, put it in his recent book on the meaning of life, ‘Philosophers have an infuriating habit of analysing questions rather than answering them’ (2007, 1).

Are these questions, then, for at least some philosophers, too ambitious to ask? Who else should address them? Were they formulated in an immature state of philosophy when it was not clear that ‘what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence’ (Wittgenstein [1922] 2001, 89)? These and similar questions come to mind when we reflect on the possibility of philosophical inquiry about the human condition.