Vanity of vanities, all is vanity

Ecclesiastes: "nothing new under the sun"

Qohélet (l'Ecclésiaste) c. 300 BC · c. 200 BC'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity': nothing new under the sun.

What it claims

Work and knowledge do not give life a meaning that lasts; the best is to eat one's bread with joy and enjoy one's labour, as a portion received.

Why

Nothing we do under the sun leaves anything lasting, and the same fate awaits the wise and the fool.

The same idea through history

Qohélet (l'Ecclésiaste)250 BCA sage of Jerusalem observes that human toil leaves no lasting gain, and advises enjoying what is given.

Arthur Schopenhauer1844The same finding of vanity, but built on a theory of willing; Schopenhauer cites Qohelet and sometimes judges him too optimistic.

In short

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" is an argument by Qohélet (l'Ecclésiaste) (Qohelet (Ecclesiastes), ch. 1-3 and 9, 250 BC) on the question "Does life have a meaning?" (answer: the absurd). Its claim: Work and knowledge do not give life a meaning that lasts; the best is to eat one's bread with joy and enjoy one's labour, as a portion received. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Qohelet (Ecclesiastes), ch. 1-3 and 9

Valid with an implicit premise

The book opens with "The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem". Tradition sees Solomon in him, but the text never names him, and most scholars date the book several centuries after him (about the 3rd century BCE). Qohelet (in Hebrew, one who gathers or who addresses an assembly) examines everything done "under the sun": work, knowledge, wealth. He finds the same result everywhere: "vanity", that is, a breath, something that leaves nothing behind. He does not conclude that one should despair, but that it is better to enjoy one's bread and one's labour, which God gives. Note: the book ends with "Fear God and keep his commandments" (12:13), but these last verses speak of Qohelet in the third person: many readers see in them an editor's addition, which is debated.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a case where all is vanity, with no profit, nothing new and the same fate for all, and yet it is not true that one should enjoy: nothing links the finding to the advice.

Valid with P5. Qohelet does not state it as a premise: he presents it as a conclusion drawn from his inquiry ("I perceived that there is nothing better..."). Without P5, one can grant that all is vanity without concluding that one should enjoy: one could also choose despair, revolt or asceticism.

Analogy. A traveller on a train that goes nowhere and from which no one will get off. He has two choices: grumble that the train arrives nowhere, or enjoy the scenery and the meal during the trip. Qohelet chooses the meal.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

The believing reading, based on the end of the book attacks premise 1

The book does not say that all is vain without exception: it ends with "Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man" (12:13). Vanity only describes life "under the sun", without God. With God, life has a meaning, and that is the conclusion of the book.

(l'Ecclésiaste) replies

The book itself (12:9)

The last verses speak of the Preacher in the third person: "because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge". So it is not he who is speaking.

The debate goes on (our summary) Many scholars conclude that the ending is an editor's addition, which is debated: others see in it a conclusion consistent with the rest, since Qohelet himself writes that the pleasure of eating and drinking "was from the hand of God" (2:24) and that God "accepteth thy works" (9:7). In both cases, the text does not say that God gives a meaning that erases vanity: it says that life is a gift, to be received with fear and without illusion. The debate over what "the conclusion of the whole matter" is remains open.

Objection that Camus allows us to formulate (our construction) 1942 · attacks the conclusion

For Camus, the only way to keep the absurd is not to consent to it: "The absurd has meaning only in so far as it is not agreed to." Yet advising to eat one's bread with joy because nothing lasts looks like a consent. Qohelet would observe the divorce, then settle into it.

no reply

No reply possible: objection raised in 1942, after the author's death (-200).

The debate goes on (our summary) Camus does not cite Qohelet in this passage: it is a comparison we make, and Qohelet, who wrote twenty-two centuries earlier, could not answer. The text lets us answer for him, though: the advice to enjoy is not passive, since it also says "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might" (9:10). Camus himself draws three consequences from the absurd, among them passion and freedom (see the argument camus-absurde-refus-suicide). The disagreement is about revolt: Qohelet does not revolt, he receives his portion. Is it a consent or another way of holding the absurd? The debate is open.

Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (Supplements, ch. 50) 1844 · attacks the conclusion

Schopenhauer compares Spinoza's ethics with the advice of Ecclesiastes (IX, 7-10): man must simply rejoice in his life as long as it lasts. And he sees optimism in it. If life is mostly suffering and pleasure only a stop of pain, enjoying is not an answer to vanity: it is a flight from it.

no reply

No reply possible: objection raised in 1844, after the author's death (-200).

The debate goes on (our summary) In this passage, the main target is Spinoza, and Qohelet serves as a point of comparison. Schopenhauer cites the same book elsewhere to approve it: "Qui auget scientiam, auget et dolorem" (The World, I, §56) and "Better to mourn than to laugh" (II, ch. 49), which he attributes to a Qohelet "still Jewish, but so philosophical". He thus reads the book in two: its lucidity about pain, which he keeps, and its advice to enjoy, which he rejects. See the argument schopenhauer-affaire. Qohelet could not answer, but his book contains both gestures, and the debate is about which is the more faithful.