Lao Zi's View of Human Life ("Lebensphilosophie")

Abstract

A thinker's view of life, or (renshengguan)—what might also be called "lebensphilosophie"—is his or her view on what life's purpose is, or, in other words, what one lives for. It is strange, but, for whatever reason, in the last few decades, philosophers no longer speak about the philosophy of life anymore. We think that we should still talk about it. There are those who argue that the philosophy of life (renshengguan) is only a part of a "world-view" (shijieguan)—or "weltenschauung," [and therefore cannot be discussed as an independent subject apart from the discussion of "worldview."] It is, of course, correct to say this, by saying this we mean that one's view of life, or philosophy of life, is included and contained within one's worldview in the broad sense of the latter, and yet even then, it—that is, one's view of life, or renshengguan—is still a special component of the latter in that it possesses considerable and relative independence.