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Some very few Britannica -appointed contributors are mistaken. A notorious instance from the Britannica's early years is the rejection of Newtonian gravity by George Gleig , the chief editor of the 3rd edition — , who wrote that gravity was caused by the classical element of fire. The Britannica has received criticism, especially as editions become outdated. It is expensive to produce a completely new edition of the Britannica, [a] and its editors delay for as long as fiscally sensible usually about 25 years.
When American physicist Harvey Einbinder detailed its failings in his book, The Myth of the Britannica , [] the encyclopaedia was provoked to produce the 15th edition, which required 10 years of work. In an inaccurate entry about the Irish civil war was discussed in the Irish press following a decision of the Department of Education and Science to pay for online access.
Writing about the 3rd edition — , Britannica ' s chief editor George Gleig observed that "perfection seems to be incompatible with the nature of works constructed on such a plan, and embracing such a variety of subjects. With regard to errors in general, whether falling under the denomination of mental, typographical or accidental, we are conscious of being able to point out a greater number than any critic whatever.
Men who are acquainted with the innumerable difficulties attending the execution of a work of such an extensive nature will make proper allowances. To these we appeal, and shall rest satisfied with the judgment they pronounce. Since the early s, the company has promoted spin-off reference works. The Britannica has been issued in 15 editions, with multi-volume supplements to the 3rd and 4th editions see the Table below.
The 5th and 6th editions were reprints of the 4th, the 10th edition was only a supplement to the 9th, just as the 12th and 13th editions were supplements to the 11th. The 15th underwent massive re-organization in , but the updated, current version is still known as the 15th. The 14th and 15th editions were edited every year throughout their runs, so that later printings of each were entirely different from early ones.
Throughout history, the Britannica has had two aims: In the first era 1st—6th editions, — , the Britannica was managed and published by its founders, Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell , by Archibald Constable , and by others. It went on sale December The Britannica of this period was primarily a Scottish enterprise, and it is one of the most enduring legacies of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Although some contributors were again recruited through friendships of the chief editors, notably Macvey Napier , others were attracted by the Britannica's reputation. The contributors often came from other countries and included the world's most respected authorities in their fields. A general index of all articles was included for the first time in the 7th edition, a practice maintained until Production of the 9th edition was overseen by Thomas Spencer Baynes , the first English-born editor-in-chief. Dubbed the "Scholar's Edition", the 9th edition is the most scholarly of all Britannicas.
In the third era 10th—14th editions, — , the Britannica was managed by American businessmen who introduced direct marketing and door-to-door sales. The American owners gradually simplified articles, making them less scholarly for a mass market. The 10th edition was a nine-volume supplement to the 9th, but the 11th edition was a completely new work, and is still praised for excellence; its owner, Horace Hooper , lavished enormous effort on its perfection.
When Hooper fell into financial difficulties, the Britannica was managed by Sears Roebuck for 18 years —, — In , the vice-president of Sears, Elkan Harrison Powell , assumed presidency of the Britannica ; in , he began the policy of continuous revision. This was a departure from earlier practice, in which the articles were not changed until a new edition was produced, at roughly year intervals, some articles unchanged from earlier editions.
William Benton , then a vice president of the University, provided the working capital for its operation. The stock was divided between Benton and the University, with the University holding an option on the stock.
Exploring Heavenly Places: Volume 7: Discernment Encyclopedia for God's the authors acknowledge what the Word of God so clearly articulates; just as the . Heavenly Places Volume 9 - Travel Guide to the Width, Length, Depth and. In the Hebrew Bible, Sheol (שאול) is the "abode of the dead," the In fact, Jews used the word "Hades" for "Sheol" when they translated their Sheol in the Bible ; 4 Sheol and Gehenna; 5 Book of Enoch; 6 Notes; 7 References; 8 Credits deep," "the Pit," and "the land of forgetfulness," cut off from both God.
In , near the end of this era, the Britannica celebrated its bicentennial. In the fourth era —94 , the Britannica introduced its 15th edition, which was re-organized into three parts: This second version of the 15th edition continued to be published and revised until the print version.
In the fifth era —present , digital versions have been developed and released on optical media and online.
In , the Britannica was bought by Jacqui Safra at well below its estimated value, owing to the company's financial difficulties. One part retained the company name and developed the print version, and the other, Britannica. Since , the two companies have shared a CEO, Ilan Yeshua , who has continued Powell's strategy of introducing new products with the Britannica name. In March , Britannica's president, Jorge Cauz , announced that it would not produce any new print editions of the encyclopaedia, with the 15th edition being the last.
The company will focus only on the online edition and other educational tools. Britannica ' s final print edition was in , a volume set. It contained 30 volumes and 18, pages, with 8, photographs, maps, flags, and illustrations in smaller "compact" volumes. It contained over 40, articles written by scholars from across the world, including Nobel Prize winners. The following is Britannica ' s description of the work: Written by international experts and scholars, the articles in this collection reflect the standards that have been the hallmark of the leading English-language encyclopedia for over years.
The Britannica was dedicated to the reigning British monarch from to and then, upon its sale to an American partnership, to the British monarch and the President of the United States. With preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences. The three new supplementary volumes constituting, with the volumes of the latest standard edition, the thirteenth edition. New revisions of the 14th edition appeared every year between and with the exceptions of , and At that time also an online version was offered for paid subscription. In this was offered free, and no revised print versions appeared.
The experiment was ended in and a new printed set was issued in From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This is the latest accepted revision , reviewed on 7 December For other uses, see Britannica disambiguation. General knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. United Kingdom — United States —present. American businesses, including Sears Roebuck and the Benton Foundation 15th edition: Scotland portal Chicago portal Books portal.
I has viii , , i pages, but 10 unpaginated pages are added between pages and II has iii , , ii pages, but page numbers as well as page numbers were used twice; additionally page numbers were not used. III has iii , , i pages, but page numbers were not used. The New York Times. Retrieved 13 March Booklist Publications, American Library Association. Archived from the original on 5 July Encyclopedias, Atlases, and Dictionaries. New Providence, New Jersey: Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc 15th edition, Index preface ed.
Aside from providing an excellent summary of the Britannica's history and early spin-off products, this article also describes the life-cycle of a typical Britannica edition.
A new edition typically begins with strong sales that decay as the encyclopaedia becomes outdated. When work on a new edition is begun, sales of the old edition stop, just when fiscal needs are greatest: Elkan Harrison Powell identified this fluctuation of income as a danger to any encyclopaedia, one he hoped to overcome with continuous revision. Archived from the original on 22 March Retrieved 11 April Archived from the original on 30 August Retrieved 10 April Retrieved 18 April Archived from the original on 28 September Archived from the original on 29 July Retrieved 11 August Archived from the original on 23 August Retrieved 15 November Retrieved 28 September Retrieved 10 February Archived from the original on 14 August Retrieved 27 September Retrieved 26 March Archived from the original on 27 September Archived from the original on Retrieved 30 June Archived from the original on 29 January Retrieved 28 November Archived from the original on 30 September Retrieved 20 July Archived from the original on 8 August One image database to rule them all Reference Online".
Retrieved 30 October Archived from the original on 20 October Retrieved 17 October University of Chicago Chronicle. Archived from the original on 9 July Retrieved 15 March Archived from the original on 13 October Encyclopaedia Britannica's new Chrome extension could help". A Position to Command Respect: Women and the Eleventh Britannica. Archived from the original on 17 January Retrieved 21 November Retrieved 6 April Microsoft Encarta Premium Archived from the original on 31 October Retrieved 1 December The sheer volume of content [ When compared to the top 3, educational reference sites in the US, Wikipedia is No.
Archived from the original on 25 March Retrieved 16 December Jimmy Wales' Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries". Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica". Retrieved 5 July Retrieved 21 October The University of Chicago Press.
University of Pennsylvania Press. Association of Educational Publishers. Archived from the original on 17 October Retrieved 15 July Wolff, Geoffrey June Cole, Dorothy Ethlyn June Britannica 3 is difficult to use Davis, Robert Gorham 1 December McCracken, Samuel February This arrangement has nothing to recommend it except commercial novelty. Critics reply that even if these virtues would not be possible, there are other virtues that could be. And of course it is not obvious that meaning-conferring justice, benevolence and courage would not be possible if we were immortal, perhaps if we were not always aware that we could not die or if our indestructible souls could still be harmed by virtue of intense pain, frustrated ends, and repetitive lives.
There are other, related arguments maintaining that awareness of immortality would have the effect of removing meaning from life, say, because our lives would lack a sense of preciousness and urgency Lenman ; Kass ; James or because external rather than internal factors would then dictate their course Wollheim , Note that the target here is belief in an eternal afterlife, and not immortality itself, and so I merely mention these rationales for additional, revealing criticism, see Bortolotti I now address views that even if there is no spiritual realm, meaning in life is possible, at least for many people.
Among those who believe that a significant existence can be had in a purely physical world as known by science, there is debate about two things: Subjectivists believe that there are no invariant standards of meaning because meaning is relative to the subject, i. Roughly, something is meaningful for a person if she believes it to be or seeks it out. Objectivists maintain, in contrast, that there are some invariant standards for meaning because meaning is at least partly mind-independent, i. Here, something is meaningful to some degree in virtue of its intrinsic nature, independent of whether it is believed to be meaningful or sought.
There is logical space for an intersubjective theory according to which there are invariant standards of meaning for human beings that are constituted by what they would all agree upon from a certain communal standpoint Darwall , chs. However, this orthogonal approach is not much of a player in the field and so I set it aside in what follows.
According to this view, meaning in life varies from person to person, depending on each one's variable mental states. Common instances are views that one's life is more meaningful, the more one gets what one happens to want strongly, the more one achieves one's highly ranked goals, or the more one does what one believes to be really important Trisel ; Hooker ; Alexis Lately, one influential subjectivist has maintained that the relevant mental state is caring or loving, so that life is meaningful just to the extent that one cares about or loves something Frankfurt , , Subjectivism was dominant for much of the 20 th century when pragmatism, positivism, existentialism, noncognitivism, and Humeanism were quite influential James ; Ayer ; Sartre ; Barnes ; Taylor ; Hare ; Williams ; Klemke Such a method has been used to defend the existence of objective value, and, as a result, subjectivism about meaning has lost its dominance.
Those who continue to hold subjectivism often are suspicious of attempts to justify beliefs about objective value e. Theorists are primarily moved to accept subjectivism because the alternatives are unpalatable; they are sure that value in general and meaning in particular exists, but do not see how it could be grounded in something independent of the mind, whether it be the natural, the non-natural, or the supernatural. In contrast to these possibilities, it appears straightforward to account for what is meaningful in terms of what people find meaningful or what people want out of life.
Wide-ranging meta-ethical debates in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language are necessary to address this rationale for subjectivism. There are two other, more circumscribed arguments for subjectivism. One is that subjectivism is plausible since it is reasonable to think that a meaningful life is an authentic one Frankfurt If a person's life is significant insofar as she is true to herself or her deepest nature, then we have some reason to believe that meaning simply is a function of satisfying certain desires held by the individual or realizing certain ends of hers.
Another argument is that meaning intuitively comes from losing oneself, i. Work that concentrates the mind and relationships that are engrossing seem central to meaning and to be so because of the subjective element involved, that is, because of the concentration and engrossment. However, critics maintain that both of these arguments are vulnerable to a common objection: One is not really being true to oneself if one intentionally harms others Dahl , 12 , successfully maintains 3, hairs on one's head Taylor , 36 , or, well, eats one's own excrement Wielenberg , 22 , and one is also not losing oneself in a meaning-conferring way if one is consumed by these activities.
There seem to be certain actions, relationships, states, and experiences that one ought to concentrate on or be engrossed in, if meaning is to accrue. So says the objectivist, but many subjectivists also feel the pull of the point. Paralleling replies in the literature on well-being, subjectivists often respond by contending that no or very few individuals would desire to do such intuitively trivial things, at least after a certain idealized process of reflection e.
More promising, perhaps, is the attempt to ground value not in the responses of an individual valuer, but in those of a particular group Brogaard and Smith ; Wong Would such an intersubjective move avoid the counterexamples? If so, would it do so more plausibly than an objective theory?
Objective naturalists believe that meaning is constituted at least in part by something physical independent of the mind about which we can have correct or incorrect beliefs. Obtaining the object of some variable pro-attitude is not sufficient for meaning, on this view. Instead, there are certain inherently worthwhile or finally valuable conditions that confer meaning for anyone, neither merely because they are wanted, chosen, or believed to be meaningful, nor because they somehow are grounded in God. Morality and creativity are widely held instances of actions that confer meaning on life, while trimming toenails and eating snow and the other counterexamples to subjectivism above are not.
Objectivism is thought to be the best explanation for these respective kinds of judgments: To obtain meaning in one's life, one ought to pursue the former actions and avoid the latter ones. Of course, meta-ethical debates about the nature of value are again relevant here.
Relatively few objectivists are pure, so construed. That is, a large majority of them believe that a life is more meaningful not merely because of objective factors, but also in part because of subjective ones such as cognition, affection, and emotion. Most commonly held is the hybrid view captured by Susan Wolf's pithy slogan: This theory implies that no meaning accrues to one's life if one believes in, is satisfied by, or cares about a project that is not worthwhile, or if one takes up a worthwhile project but fails to judge it important, be satisfied by it, care about it or otherwise identify with it.
Different versions of this theory will have different accounts of the appropriate mental states and of worthwhileness. Pure objectivists deny that subjective attraction plays any constitutive role in conferring meaning on life. For instance, utilitarians with respect to meaning as opposed to morality are pure objectivists, for they claim that certain actions confer meaning on life regardless of the agent's reactions to them.
On this view, the more one benefits others, the more meaningful one's life, regardless of whether one enjoys benefiting them, believes they should be aided, etc. Midway between pure objectivism and the hybrid theory is the view that having certain propositional attitudes toward finally good activities would enhance the meaning of life without being necessary for it Audi , For instance, might a Mother Teresa who is bored by her substantial charity work have a significant existence because of it, even if she would have an even more significant existence if she were excited by it?
There have been several attempts to theoretically capture what all objectively attractive, inherently worthwhile, or finally valuable conditions have in common insofar as they bear on meaning. Some believe that they can all be captured as actions that are creative Taylor , while others maintain that they are exhibit rightness or virtue and perhaps also involve reward proportionate to morality Kant , pt.
Most objectivists, however, deem these respective aesthetic and ethical theories to be too narrow, even if living a moral life is necessary for a meaningful one Landau It seems to most in the field not only that creativity and morality are independent sources of meaning, but also that there are sources in addition to these two. For just a few examples, consider making an intellectual discovery, rearing children with love, playing music, and developing superior athletic ability. So, in the literature one finds a variety of principles that aim to capture all these and other apparent objective grounds of meaning.
One can read the perfectionist tradition as proffering objective theories of what a significant existence is, even if their proponents do not frequently use contemporary terminology to express this. Consider Aristotle's account of the good life for a human being as one that fulfills its natural purpose qua rational, Marx's vision of a distinctly human history characterized by less alienation and more autonomy, culture, and community, and Nietzsche's ideal of a being with a superlative degree of power, creativity, and complexity.
More recently, some have maintained that objectively meaningful conditions are just those that involve: One major test of these theories is whether they capture all experiences, states, relationships, and actions that intuitively make life meaningful. The more counterexamples of apparently meaningful conditions that a principle entails lack meaning, the less justified the principle.
There is as yet no convergence in the field on any one principle or even cluster as accounting for commonsensical judgments about meaning to an adequate, convincing degree. Indeed, some believe the search for such a principle to be pointless Wolf b, 12—13; Kekes ; Schmidtz Are these pluralists correct, or does the field have a good chance of discovering a single, basic property that grounds all the particular ways to acquire meaning in life?
Another important way to criticize these theories is more comprehensive: Furthermore, a life that not only avoids repetition but also ends with a substantial amount of meaningful parts seems to have more meaning overall than one that has the same amount of meaningful parts but ends with few or none of them Kamm , — Extreme versions of holism are also present in the literature. For example, some maintain that the only bearer of final value is life as a whole, which entails that there are strictly speaking no parts or segments of a life that can be meaningful in themselves Tabensky ; Levinson For another example, some accept that both parts of a life and a life as a whole can be independent bearers of meaning, but maintain that the latter has something like a lexical priority over the former when it comes to what to pursue or otherwise to prize Blumenfeld What are the ultimate bearers of meaning?
What are all the fundamentally different ways if any that holism can affect meaning? Are they all a function of narrativity, life-stories, and artistic self-expression as per Kauppinen , or are there holistic facets of life's meaning that are not a matter of such literary concepts? How much importance should they be accorded by an agent seeking meaning in her life?
So far, I have addressed theoretical accounts that have been naturally understood to be about what confers meaning on life, which obviously assumes that some lives are in fact meaningful. However, there are nihilistic perspectives that question this assumption. According to nihilism or pessimism , what would make a life meaningful either cannot obtain or as a matter of fact simply never does.
One straightforward rationale for nihilism is the combination of supernaturalism about what makes life meaningful and atheism about whether God exists. If you believe that God or a soul is necessary for meaning in life, and if you believe that neither exists, then you are a nihilist, someone who denies that life has meaning. Albert Camus is famous for expressing this kind of perspective, suggesting that the lack of an afterlife and of a rational, divinely ordered universe undercuts the possibility of meaning Camus ; cf.
Interestingly, the most common rationales for nihilism these days do not appeal to supernaturalism.
The idea shared among many contemporary nihilists is that there is something inherent to the human condition that prevents meaning from arising, even granting that God exists. For instance, some nihilists make the Schopenhauerian claim that our lives lack meaning because we are invariably dissatisfied; either we have not yet obtained what we seek, or we have obtained it and are bored Martin Critics tend to reply that at least a number of human lives do have the requisite amount of satisfaction required for meaning, supposing that some is Blackburn , 74— Furthermore, contemporary rationalist and realist work in meta-ethics has led many to believe that such a moral system exists.
In the past 10 years, some interesting new defences of nihilism have arisen that merit careful consideration.
According to one rationale, for our lives to matter, we must in a position to add value to the world, which we are not since the value of the world is already infinite Smith The key premises for this view are that every bit of space-time or at least the stars in the physical universe have some positive value, that these values can be added up, and that space is infinite.
If the physical world at present contains an infinite degree of value, nothing we do can make a difference in terms of meaning, for infinity plus any amount of value must be infinity. One way to question this argument is to suggest that even if one cannot add to the value of the universe, meaning plausibly obtains merely by being the source of value. Consider that one does not merely want one's child to be reared with love, but wants to be the one who rears one's child with love.
And this desire remains even knowing that others would have reared one's child with love in one's absence, so that one's actions are not increasing the goodness of the state of the universe relative to what it would have had without them. Another fresh argument for nihilism is forthcoming from certain defenses of anti-natalism, the view that it is immoral to bring new people into existence because doing so would be a harm to them. There are now a variety of rationales for anti-natalism, but most relevant to debates about whether life is meaningful is probably the following argument from David Benatar , 18— According to him, the bads of existing e.
If indeed the state of not existing is no worse than that of experiencing the benefits of existence, then, since existing invariably brings harm in its wake, existing is always a net harm compared to not existing. Although this argument is about goods such as pleasures in the first instance, it seems generalizable to non-experiential goods, including that of meaning in life.
The criticisms of Benatar that promise to cut most deep are those that question his rationale for the above judgments of good and bad. He maintains that these appraisals best explain, e. The former would be wrong and the latter would not be wrong, for Benatar, because no pain in non-existence is better than pain in existence, and because no pleasure in non-existence is no worse than pleasure in existence.
Critics usually grant the judgments of wrongness, but provide explanations of them that do not invoke Benatar's judgments of good and bad that apparently lead to anti-natalism e. This survey closes by discussing the most well-known rationale for nihilism, namely, Thomas Nagel's invocation of the external standpoint that purportedly reveals our lives to be unimportant see also Hanfling , 22—24; Benatar , 60—92; cf.
According to Nagel, we are capable of comprehending the world from a variety of standpoints that are either internal or external. The most internal perspective would be a particular human being's desire at a given instant, with a somewhat less internal perspective being one's interests over a life-time, and an even less internal perspective being the interests of one's family or community. When one takes up this most external standpoint and views one's finite—and even downright puny—impact on the world, little of one's life appears to matter.
What one does in a certain society on Earth over an approximately 75 years just does not amount to much, when considering the billions of years and likely trillions of beings that are a part of space-time. Very few accept the authority of the most external standpoint Ellin , —17; Blackburn , 79—80; Schmidtz or the implications that Nagel believes it has for the meaning of our lives Quinn , 65—66; Singer , —34; Wolf b, 19— However, the field could use much more discussion of this rationale, given its persistence in human thought.
It is plausible to think, with Nagel, that part of what it is to be a person is to be able to take up an external standpoint. However, what precisely is a standpoint? Must we invariably adopt one standpoint or the other, or is it possible not to take one up at all? Is there a reliable way to ascertain which standpoint is normatively more authoritative than others? These and the other questions posed in this survey still lack conclusive answers, another respect in which the field of life's meaning is tantalizingly open for substantial contributions. Supernaturalism Most English speaking philosophers writing on meaning in life are trying to develop and evaluate theories, i.
Naturalism I now address views that even if there is no spiritual realm, meaning in life is possible, at least for many people. Nihilism So far, I have addressed theoretical accounts that have been naturally understood to be about what confers meaning on life, which obviously assumes that some lives are in fact meaningful. Bibliography Works Cited Affolter, J.
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