Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s a decent work. Frankl recounts his experiences during the Holocaust, and relates them to his therapeutic method of ’logotherapy’, which is essentially an extension of his idea of a will-to-meaning, as opposed to Nietzche’s will-to-power; Freud’s will-to-pleasure; or Socrates will-to-meaning, among many others. I find it tough to believe in any one of these schools, and certainly not generally — each human is probably motivated by any of these in various ratios. Granted, I’m not a psychologist.

Give it a shot. You might like it more than me, who wasn’t really interested in the exact workings of the psychologic system (the account of the Holocaust was more compelling to me). That doesn’t mean I’m not sympathetic to the idea — obviously every man needs a meaning, a purpose. But so does he need pleasure, and reason, and so on. But maybe I misunderstood it.

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