In All Things Shining, philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly discuss the search for meaning in our secular world. While they do a decent job of cataloging earlier belief systems and explaining their current disuse, they do a poor job of finding modern alternatives.
Hubert Dreyfus was a fairly well-known and influential philosopher. His primary areas of expertise were the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, as well as 20th century French and German philosophy, particularly existentialism. In addition, Dreyfus wrote a number of books critiquing technology and the potential of artificial intelligence. He is well-known for his critique of the idea that expert systems could ever pass the Turing test or achieve general intelligence in any meaningful sense. I have one of his books, Mind Over Machine, which I haven't finished yet. As for Sean Kelly, I've never heard of him.
My first beef with this book is its choice to largely ignore existentialism. There is a long and productive intellectual tradition going back at least to Nietzsche of writers and philosophers who have attempted to answer some of the questions raised by Dreyfus and Kelly. Yet Dreyfus and Kelly do precious little to consult the existentialists, or other similar philosophers interested in the meaning of life in a seemingly meaningless universe. Camus is never mentioned, despite devoting almost his entire career to this question. Sartre is referenced twice. Nietzsche is referenced multiple times, but the authors only provide a superficial overview of his thought. Dreyfus and Kelly largely ignore 20th-century efforts to find meaning, which surprises me. It seems amateurish.
If Dreyfus and Kelly had wanted to write a book about finding answers to these pressing questions in the texts they referenced, that would be one thing. But writing a book nominally devoted to answering these questions and then ignoring similar works seems quite odd. I can't make up my mind as to why they chose to do that. Obviously Dreyfus is well acquainted with existentialism. So why not reference some of the existentialists in trying to answer these questions?
All Things Shining is also less than satisfying because with such an ambitious project it ought to spend more time searching for the answer. The book has 7 chapters, 6 of which are devoted to diagnosing the problem (our current lack of meaning) and examining historical sources of meaning. Only the (quite short) conclusion seems interested in finding something to replace this lost sense of meaning. The subtitle of the book is “Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age.” That is really not what the book is about. Most of the book seems devoted to reading the Western classics and cataloging the various sources of meaning that have existed over the centuries. For instance, the authors examine Dante's Inferno and claim that the people of the Middle Ages viewed God as the ultimate source of meaning. While this is one of the historical sources of meaning mentioned, it doesn't seem like a good candidate for a modern source of meaning. We live in a supposedly secular age. If we don't believe in God, then how can God be our ultimate source of meaning? The book really doesn't seem to answer that question. Instead, it just goes through a list of the historical sources of meaning, without giving much of a suggestion as to what our current source of meaning should be.
While I found myself somewhat frustrated with the book and its failure to make a real effort, that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. Dreyfus and Kelly are obviously thoughtful and well-read individuals. Their musings on the Western classics do seem reasonably well thought out and not without some value. However, there's really nothing very new or original in their thoughts on those subjects. A better source of knowledge would be an intellectual history of the Western literary canon or some such work. Perhaps histories of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment. Or just a general-purpose history work. Dreyfus and Kelly essentially seem to be rehashing a literary history of Western Europe, without answering the question of “What should our source of value be?”
In a 226 page book, only the 32-page conclusion actually seeks to answer this question. The answers proposed are almost laughably inadequate. Dreyfus and Kelly primarily discuss sporting events, such as Lou Gehrig's retirement speech, or watching Federer play tennis in his prime. While I think those might constitute good things on which to spend one's time, they certainly don't seem like the sources of meaning that could replace a loss of belief in God. What would Nietzsche have to say if he read this? One can only imagine him laughing or weeping.
In conclusion, I was quite underwhelmed by All Things Shining. It's a good introduction to some of the broad contours of the Western literary tradition, as well as a loving ode to Moby Dick. But it entirely fails to present a satisfactory source of meaning for one's life, unless you happen to be a rabid sports fan.