Richard Taylor
Sisyphus would find meaning in his task if he were given the desire to roll his rock.
Life
Richard Taylor (1919-2003), an American philosopher, taught at Brown, Columbia and Rochester among others. He defended fatalism in a famous paper ('Fatalism', 1962), and a theory of free will in which the agent himself is the cause of his acts. In Good and Evil (1970) he also wrote on the meaning of life: the myth of Sisyphus serves as an image of a life with no external goal.
Main works
A short, widely read introduction to the big questions of metaphysics.
Defends a theory of action in which the agent is the cause of his acts.
Examines ethics and the meaning of life, including the Sisyphus example.
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceAgent causation: a person can originate action as a self-moving cause, not just as the result of prior events, though he finds this hard to explain.
Taylor, Action and Purpose (1966); Metaphysics (1963)
In Good and Evil he argues that moral rules are not founded on any higher authority and that morality is a human creation.
Taylor, Good and Evil (1970)
Life has no given objective meaning; the Sisyphus-like repetition of our efforts is meaningful only through the desires we actually have.
Taylor, 'The Meaning of Life', in Good and Evil (1970)