Viktor E. Frankl Anthology

Introduction to Viktor E. Frankl: The Man and His Message Philosopher of Meaning Viktor Emil Frankl was a philosopher of meaning. Even from his childhood days and into his adolescent years, Frankl was concerned with meaning. At the early age of four, he vividly remembered the thought of his own mortality. In his autobiography, he recalled: “... one evening just before falling asleep, I was startled by the unexpected thought that one day I too would have to die. What troubled me then – as it has done throughout my life – was not the fear of dying, but the question of whether the transitory nature of life might destroy its meaning.” Even as a teenager, Frankl was on a quest for meaning, searching for the answer to the question: “What is the meaning of life?” He wrote: “I well remember how I felt when I was exposed to reductionism in education as a junior high school student at the age of thirteen. Once our natural science teacher told us that life in the final analysis was nothing but a combustion process, an oxidation process, I sprang to my feet and said, ‘Professor Fritz, if this is the case, what meaning does life have?’” In 1921, as a high school student at the age of 16, he gave his first public lecture to an adult education school. It was entitled: “The Meaning of Life.” For Frankl, all of life was imbued with meaning, no matter what situation in which one may find oneself, no how well of ill (chronically or terminally ill) one was, no matter where one was along life’s journey, no matter how badly a person may have wrecked his or her life. In all of its various conditions, life still has meaning, as Frankl often said, “... every life, in every situation and to the last breath, has a meaning, retains a meaning.” He was emphatic: “The so-called life not worth living does not exist.” Frankl was an amazing man who had an amazing message to tell men and women in the 20th century. He was an extremely gifted human being: a physician, psychiatrist and philosopher.