The Meaning of Life taught by Professor Jay L. Garfield was a wonderful experience.

In the last year or so I have tried to look into my life in a more meaningful and deeper way. This line of thinking began to manifest itself once I became a father. I wanted to be someone that my daughter could emulate. And so the question "Who am I?" began to surface.

I had looked into the subject of Philosophy a couple of times and I would always end up feeling overwhelmed by the amount of different schools of thought, each with their own beliefs and terminology. I didn't know where to begin. This course served as a guiding hand in the quest for studying my life and my place in the world.

Professor Garfield does a great job at narrating the courses. He's very thorough and breaks down the ideas behind Stoicism, Buddhism, Taoism and many others. I learned about the ideas and thoughts of Nietzsche, Hume, Kant, Mill, Gandhi, Lame Deer and the 14th Dalai Lama.

The course doesn't aim to answer that grand question "What is the meaning of life?" It simply provides multiple viewpoints from different thinkers and then lets you marinate on those ideas. This was a great introductory course and it certainly expanded my horizons. I also plan on reading the texts of the many philosophers I learned about. Highly recommended! ( )