title: The Meaning of Life: Perspectives from the World's Great Intellectual Traditions
author: Professor Jay L. Garfield
description: The Meaning of Life: Perspectives from the World's Great Intellectual Traditions is an invigorating way to begin or to continue your pursuit of these questions, with no previous background in philosophical or religious thought required. Its 36 lectures offer a rigorous and wide-ranging exploration of what various spiritual, religious, and philosophical traditions from both the East and the West have contributed to this profound line of questioning.
  
  Guided by Professor Jay L. Garfield of Smith Collegeas well as of the University of Massachusetts, Melbourne University in Australia, and the Central University of Tibetan Studies in Indiayou'll gain insights from a broad array of sources, including these:
  
      Ancient Indian texts, including the Bhagavad-Gita
      Foundational Chinese texts such as the Daodejing and the Chuang Tzu
      Classical Western texts such as Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and Marcus Aurelius's Meditations
      Modern philosophers such as David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Leo Tolstoy
      The unique perspectives offered by Native Americans; in this case, the Lakota Sioux medicine man and writer, John Lame Deer
      More recent and contemporary philosophers, such as Mohandas Gandhi and the Dalai Lama
zlib_text: Philosophy & 
  Intellectual History
  Topic
  Intellectual History
  Subtopic
  The Meaning of Life: 
  Perspectives from the World’s 
  Great Intellectual Traditions
  Course Guidebook
  Professor Jay L. Garﬁ eld 
  Professor Jay L. Garﬁ eld 
  Smith College
  
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  Jay L. Gar� eld, Ph.D.
  Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities
  Smith College
  P
  rofessor Jay L. Gar� eld is Doris S