國立臺灣大學哲學論評

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The focus of this paper is on life as an academic concept and philosophy of life as a body of knowledge or a discipline, defining, clarifying, and examining relevant concepts or questions.

The structure of this paper is divided into eight sections in terms of definition, clarification, questioning, and examination. The first section, “Introduction,” points out the theme and gives a general outline of the theme. The second section, “What Is Life?”, brings forward in the forms of list and succinct definition the most common definitions of life as organism in academic cycle. In order to develop a better definition of life, this paper makes a critical review of the above and, in a non-fixated and open manner, defines life as “a coherent base, mechanism, or principle which manifests life as such a process of life.” Such a definition not only avoids the deficiencies of narrowness, fixation, and closure but also makes it a suitable foundation for investigating philosophy of life, philosophy of religion, or Buddhist philosophy. The third section, “Clarifying Life and Related Concepts,” makes a distinction among human life, living creature,living entity, phenomena of life, livelihood, living, and death in order not to confuse life with these related concepts. The fourth section, “What Is Philosophy?”, concisely indicates what philosophy means from the light of philosophy as a professional field. The fifth section, “What Is Philosophy of Life?”, follows to define philosophy of life after discussing the concepts of life and philosophy. Philosophy of life is “the study of life with life as its main concern and philosophical inquiry and reasoning as the method.” The sixth section, “The Relation of Life to Philosophy,” discusses the relation between life and philosophy in terms of life to philosophy and philosophy to life respectively. The seventh section, “Clarifying Philosophy of Life and Related Disciplines,” makes a proper clarification among philosophy of life, biology, philosophy of human life, life studies, life-and-death studies, and thanatology. By means of contrast, this section makes the definition of philosophy of life clearer and more intelligible. The eighth section, “Conclusions and Prospects,” summarizes the key points of this paper and anticipates future discussions.

The main objective of this paper includes at least the following two points. One is to offer a more rigorous and complete outline for the concept of life and philosophy of life by way of philosophical writing. The other is to present philosophy of life as less narrow than conducive to be connected with philosophy of religion and Buddhist philosophy, open to the religious way of life practice, and contributing to understanding the close relationship between theory and practice on the topic of life.