Thanks Peter, that is reassuring to hear. Maybe I'll get there too, someday!

Adrian Moore (and he still is!)

How closely related a problem do you think this is to the broader aversion in analytic philosophy today towards system-building? I think it's good that there are things out there like the Nicholas Rescher prize which push back against this tendency.

"Philosophy [...] is better than, and more
important than, say, physics, economics, forestry, biology, neuroscience, cosmology, sociology,
and psychology, to mention but a few." I wonder if this book is actually an elaborate attempt to make more people into hedgers...

I'm a Deleuzian! There is no centre 😈

I wouldn't say it's the only question, or even necessarily the central one, but as one of the 'perennial questions' of philosophy, it is at least a bit odd that it doesn't have more of a central place in contemporary philosophy

I take it that a large part of the problem is that whether you think there is any meaning to life will also depend on your other philosophical commitments, in debates which are still largely undecided (moral realism and the existence of God especially).

But you can answer all of those questions without needing to agree on whether there is meaning to life, and what it is. Hardcore materialists who think there is no meaning, and theists who think life's meaning is in scripture, can all read Marcuse and get the same political analysis out of him.