Meaning and Aging:
Book summary: Aging is a topic of growing interest these days. As life expectancy in Western societies is still increasing, the growing number and proportion of older persons raise urgent questions on how to age "well". Predominantly, issues on aging are taken for biomedical and economic paradigms, which are intertwined. While people of age are seen as a cost in society, biomedical research aims at curing the declining effects of aging, thus furthering ideals of "healthy" aging, "active aging", or "successful" aging. Due to the orientation towards these ideals, the current academic debate on aging is primarily on biomedical, genetic, demographic, and policy topics, and based on behavioral and social science research. This book adds another perspective to the addition of aging: a humanist view of "meaningful" aging, focusing on existential issues and meaning in life.