Julian Young is one of the most prominent philosophers of the United States and a prominent researcher of the German philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries. He is the author of more than 10 philosophical books and numerous articles awarded the highest honors in the field of philosophy. In his book The Death of God and the Meaning of Life, Young explores the most relevant question in the postmodern era. The question of the meaning of life has been studied by many philosophers, but each of them has their own ideas about what makes sense and what God is. In his informative book, the author explores the issues related to the meaning of the universe and God, based on the philosophy of some of the most influential people of the 20th century. The author analyzes the development of certain concepts and theories starting with Plato's studies and gradually comes to the theories of Marx. The book is divided into several parts, each of which critically examines the most important details of the respected and trusted viewpoints. In other words, Young makes a narrow historical inquiry into the philosophy of Nietzsche, Kant, and Hegel on the issue of the crisis of humanity's fundamental values. Besides the fact that this book can serve as an excellent introduction to the philosophy of 19th-20th centuries, it explains the essence of the question about the meaning of life, exploring the parallel set of basic problems of human existence.
The World and Being in Plato's Philosophy. In the first chapter, Young explores the basic elements of Plato's philosophy, which relate to the division of human life into several parts as well as the concepts of beauty and soul. For example, the philosopher dwells on the concept of "beauty" and its very essence. According to him, it is not beautiful things that are heterogeneous and unstable. It is necessary to admit that there is something unknown from direct experience, beautiful, which is always the only one and unchanging. Beautiful things are not the subject of the concepts but the experiences (feelings), while the subject of the same concept is "beautiful," or the idea of beauty: "Hence beauty represents a kind of fissure through which something from the realm of Forms leaks through, as it were, to the domain of sense" (Young 10). In fact, the rule holds in other concepts: they should have their own object. This object cannot be things; they should be some other being, the predominant feature of which is always constant (Young 10).
Hence, such an understanding of the object leads Plato to the idea that there is a being which is not given to human directly. He called the discovered being an "idea" (Young 9). There are many ideas and they constitute a different world. The relationships that exist between them, is the same as that between the concepts. The way of establishing of hierarchy of concepts is the same as the way of setting of the hierarchical structure of the world of ideas: beginning with the most simple and lowest to the more general and higher and then up to the highest idea, i.e. the idea of good. Despite the fact that the ideas and things, being and phenomena, have unequal reality and perfection, they are linked. The very commonality between things and ideas (for example, "beautiful things" and idea of beauty) indicates that connection (Young 10). Things are not ideas; however, they are similar to them. Plato explains it by the fact that things depend on the ideas and this dependence is not of a causal nature: the ideas are not the causes and patterns of things (Young 11). They seem to be "involved" in the ideas and therefore adopt their characteristics. Thus, people see a kind of "presence" of an idea in things. The nature of both worlds, i.e. the ideas and things, is different, but their structure is the same, as the order of the real world reflects the world of ideas.
In addition, the author examines Plato's theories and views of soul, which represent the crucial elements of his ethics. Preserving the biological understanding of soul, Plato rejects the interpretation of its material at the same time. Soul (being a vital factor) opposes the matter since matter is passive by its nature, while soul is a source of the movement (Young 9). It is real but not material. In early Greek philosophy, knowledge was considered not a mental but only a bodily function. The perception is seen in manifestation of physiology, while thinking has the same nature that is inherent in perception. However, Plato changes this view. It is obvious that not all knowledge of a person gets through bodily faculties, for example, an eye perceives a color, and ears hear a sound. But what is a sensory organ with which a person perceives the difference, identity, similarity, and many other features that are common to objects of different senses? Soul knows itself without sensory organs (Young 9). Knowledge is a function of soul but not of body. Body and its feelings are the instruments of cognition for a soul. It knows itself, either directly or indirectly by using these tools.
At the end of the first chapter, Young sums up the philosophical teachings of Plato and mentions Christianity for the first time. He draws a parallel between the Christian religious idea and philosophical views of Plato, claiming that they have much in common (Young 13). The author cites the example of the concepts of cycles and benefactors, as well as the question of the soul: "Yet in both the Platonic and the Christian story there is the same immortal, immaterial soul which figures in the same three-part story of sin, fall and redemption" (Young 13).
In the next chapter that is devoted to Kant and Christianity, Young discusses the meaning of life by describing the views of Christianity on life itself. The author claims that all Western thought of the 18th century was entirely Christian, and the question about the meaning of life is not a problem, since this issue was continued to be considered from the standpoint of Platonism. "This meant that throughout this period the question of the meaning of life was a non-issue; a non-issue because the answer was obvious, self-evident, the topic completely sewn up by Christianity's version of Platonism" (Young 15). Schopenhauer complements this quotation by means of comparing it to the act of a burned Galileo (Young 15). The analysis continues with the author's findings of the similarity between Plato's theories about the Earth and the universe, and then Young argues that Platonic theory of being was used by the Church for religious purposes. In fact, Galileo's astronomical theory refuted all religious concept based on Platonism. The astronomer was one of the first to put forward the theory that the Earth was not the center of the universe and that the Sun did revolve around it. This theory became a serious threat to the Church, so the scientist was persecuted by the church inquisition.
Furthermore, Young cites Nietzsche's lines from his "Gay Science", which states that "God is dead" and that "we killed him" (Young 75). This quote from Nietzsche's early labor is comparable to Galileo's theory. The author points to the high importance of the German philosopher's theories about the death of God, as in fact, it is the first step on the way to nihilism. It is necessary to sum up the above stated. Young begins his review by examining the theory and ethics of Plato, which relates directly to human being, soul, and beauty. Consequently, the philosopher reviews the Western world that is based on Christian dogma. Christianity was considered the ruling ideology of the 18th century, but the author claims that it was based on the Platonic model of existence. When Galileo proposed his astronomical theory that the earth revolved around the sun and was not a center of the universe, it became a threat to the prevailing culture of values. Then Young dwells on Schopenhauer's critical statement against Christianity supplementing it with Nietzsche's concept of "the dead God". Since Nietzsche was a follower of Schopenhauer, here one can notice a continuation of the idea of the transformation of the life meaning. The most important line in this section is the author's comment that relates directly to the meaning of life: "This meant that sooner or later the meaning of life had to re-emerge as an issue, as something needing to be newly thought out and answered in a new way" (Young 17). This is the starting point of his critical analysis of the concept of "life meaning", which has become a problem to be solved.
Gradually, Young first talks about Kant, arguing that this philosopher is truly the first great post-medieval philosopher, who understands that the question of the meaning of life becomes more and more disturbing. The author recalls Kant's great work entitled "Critique of Pure Reason" written in 1781, which changed the world philosophy forever (Young 17). Young sees two main ways to solve the existing problems. These problems are connected with established theories that no longer correspond to reality. The author gives an example of a state system of the Soviet Union while speaking of Kant's philosophy and a necessity to address the problem of the meaning of life. Analyzing Communism and opposing each other of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Young argues that there is almost always equal 2 ways to solve this problem. The first is the replacement of the revolution and established norms, and the second is one is reformism. According to Young, Kant used the reformist strategy; however, he was still a "reforming conservative" in questions of Christianity and the meaning of life (Young 19).
In addition, the author speaks of the Enlightenment and its influence on the philosophy of Kant. During the period of the greatest discoveries in science, human consciousness began to change dramatically and this is reflected on all aspects of human existence. Young briefly describes some of the discoveries of Newton, to make it clear how science and the human mind began to form the philosophy of the time (Young 19). It was at that moment, according to the author, when the theories and the views of the Middle Ages along with Christianity turned into "nothing but a myth, a primitive, pre-scientific superstition" (Young 18). Hence, a conflict between religion and science emerges for the first time, which ultimately destroys the Platonic model of the universe. Talking about Kant, the author describes some of his theories about the incomprehensibility of reality. Young concludes by analyzing Kant's views and writes about the moral law, which gives reason to believe in immortality of soul. It is based on the fact that faith, according to Kant, has a rational nature, so a person cannot prove its foundations, but he or she needs it in order to confirm a sense of the moral problem. Here moral task acts as a meaning of life.
One of the main niches in Young's analysis is featured to Friedrich Nietzsche and his voiced news about the death of God. The author turns Nietzsche's philosophy in some kind of a link between the Old and New time, focusing on the correct use of concepts: "God is dead" (Young 44). In fact, he writes that Nietzsche does not mean the death of the Christian God, rather it was the disappearance of the old time or era. However, the old principles and ideals lost their value forever along with the main Platonic ideas and new scientific advances. This concept has a common name in the book "European Buddhism" (Young 40) Young writes about the "radical Continental Philosophy" and that Nietzsche was the first representative of this level after a general analysis of the philosophical views of Nietzsche (Young 83). According to the author, the philosopher was the first one who decided to erase the boundary between old and new completely.
Undoubtedly, It is worth noting about the fate of the Nietzschean doctrine of a superman. Basically, people often perceive it as the justification of force and permissiveness, in particular the right to evil as unique and creative driving force of history. Such an interpretation is considered too distorted as in case of fascism that had put it at the service of its "blond beasts", so in the case of the opposite form of criticism, which exposed this doctrine by means of the very possibility of such use. The interpretation of the idea of a superman in the sense of strengthening the human in man, i.e., hypertrophy in a person, has the same roots. A philosophical analysis (for example, Heidegger's analysis) that detects in that idea the rudiments of the doctrine of transcendence in connection with the interpretation of the specificity of human existence appear to be more balanced and therefore closer to the truth: a man is never equal to himself, to his present state, but he is a person because he "transcends" (Young 92).
It has been already noted that Nietzsche was able to guess and express many explicit and implicit tendencies of contemporary culture; he became a kind of a mirror that reflected a person's confidence on earth without God. No wonder that Nietzsche was so inspired by the Renaissance. But he wanted to go further than it was possible. According to him, one should get rid of prejudices and the stigma of past eras in order to find a new meaning in life. A man should "surpass himself", and only then "he will he will be able to build a new meaning - a new world" (Young 93).
Conclusions
In his book, Julian Young explores the issues related to the meaning of life, which is directly connected with the concept of "death of God". The book consists of 2 parts, each of which contains the chapters on the main philosophers who explore these questions. The author analyzes the key concepts and viewpoints of Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, using various examples from science and history. Proceeding from the analysis of the book "The Death of God and the Meaning of Life", it can be said that Young has created a truly informative and high-quality review of the most crucial part of humanity's philosophy. He uses the main theory and the works of the most influential philosophers and combines their views with Christianity in order to demonstrate how the concept has transformed the meaning of life for many ages. Exploring the concept of "death of God", it is clear that the author does not study the death of the Christian God, but rather discusses the death of the "true world".
Work Cited
Young, Julian. The Death of God and the Meaning of Life. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2014. Internet resource.
