Shipka lecture examines meaningfulness in life

Susan Wolf, the Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, presents “Meaningfulness: A Third Dimension of the Good Life” 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 19 in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center on the campus of Youngstown State University.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is part of the Dr. Thomas and Albert Shipka Speaker Series and is presented by the YSU Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies.

During the lecture, Wolf will explore the idea that a good life is not just a happy one and a moral one – it is a meaningful one as well. But what is meaningfulness in life? Wolf will also cover the thought that life is meaningful insofar as one is gripped or excited by things worthy of one’s love, and one is able to do something positive about it.

Wolf has held fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Guggenheim Foundation, and has been a visiting fellow at Princeton, at Oxford, at the Australian National University, and at the National Humanities Center. Wolf is the author of three books, Freedom Within Reason, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, and The Variety of Values: Essays on Morality, Meaning, and Love, as well as numerous articles on a wide range of topics in ethics.