The question, “What is the meaning of life?” is a question that most lay-people would think must form a chief focus of the work of those who style themselves professional philosophers. But, until relatively recently, hardly anybody who called themselves a professional philosopher had worked on the question “What is the meaning of life?” at all. Why was that? And why did it change? Because it has changed. How is the question “What is the meaning of life?” now understood? Of what relevance, if any, is it to the Philosophy of Religion and of what relevance, if any, is the Philosophy of Religion to it? The author of this piece charts the emerging respectability of the question, “What is the meaning of life?” within Analytic Philosophy and its interactions with the Philosophy of Religion and with Religions. He ventures some predictions about where “What is the meaning of life?” will go in the next stage of its history.
