Critical Analysis of Paulo Coelho’s Viewpoint about Meaning of Life

Evaluation and judgment about Paulo Coelho’s response to the question of what is the “meaning of life”, is the main purpose of this research. Therefore, the components of the meaning of life in the works of Coelho were explained by qualitative content analysis method and, the necessary field for the rational critique of his view was provided by deducing his view as a normative statement of the meaning of life. Coelho has used the “meaning of life” in all three of its common concepts somehow related to each other. As he has chosen a comprehensive concept of value, purpose, and function of life. In such a way that he believes that every person in order to make his life meaningful must put his own personal myth in the goal of his life. In this case, his own personal myth will give a positive value to anything that it attaches to, and, on the other hand, because it is his only duty in the cosmos, his life will function and will have an effective role in the universe. This view which is taken under the internal naturalistic approach, has the deficiency of incompleteness toward all the semantic levels of life and meaningful life experiences, and since this requires epistemic relativism, it is ineffective in solving the problem of nihility and feeling meaningless in life.