What is Meaning?
Meaning is an understanding that can be shared.
I chose the word meaning rather than equally elusive concepts such as God, evil, beauty, and truth because it opens entire classes of semantical and philosophical questions, relating to linquistics, semiotics, ontology, epistomology, and values.
I disagree that that either understanding or the sharing of understanding are necessary requirements of meaning. For example, a solipsist finds meaning in his solipsism, perhaps merely imaging that he has understanding or that he shares that understanding with equally imaginery others.
Questions that could be raised are as follows:
1. Is meaning an imputed quality or an intrinsic quality? I would say it can be either.
Thus, we might say "Life is sacred" and by so doing we are imputing a value onto something that is objectively real but appears to emperically lack that quality. On the other hand, we might say"The meaning of my cat's life is to sleep and eat." This would be an intrinsic quality, that is to say, sleeping and eating are components of the ontology of Kitty's existence.
2. Is the symbolic representation of reality real? I would say no. The presence or the absence of language of any kind including logic and mathematics neither voids nor advances truth per se. However, as instruments of our comprehension of reality, they are indespensable to discerning truth.
More broadly, meaning ties into the question of the meaning of personal human existence. The question as to whether there is meaning in life isn’t meaningless. A cigarette jingle when such jingles were legal hymned “To a golfer, it’s a hole in one… to a smoker, it’s a Kent.” The meaning of life is what animates our consciousness. The meaning of life for a tiger is to devour small game. Every individual is animated by metaphors—flags under which we march because we believe those flags have transcending value. These metaphors might be called God, materialism, science, politics, race, or art. From these metaphors, we find community and satisfaction. Some people however find meaning in seeking isolation and pain. According to Kant, practical reason allows the mind to accept things even if it cannot prove things. The claim that “life is pointless” is like the statement “life is sacred.” The same must be said for such statements as: “the God of the Bible is”, “reason is”, and “tradition is.” These are statements of meaning—a prioris—rather than statements of fact. The meaning of life is not an object—something that exists in time and space—but ourselves as we encounter time and space. "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked,” Viktor Frankl writes in Man’s Search for Meaning. “In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." Meaning in life, therefore, is in my view the set of those conscious or unconscious presuppositions from which we deal with our life.
I chose the word meaning rather than equally elusive concepts such as God, evil, beauty, and truth because it opens entire classes of semantical and philosophical questions, relating to linquistics, semiotics, ontology, epistomology, and values.
I disagree that that either understanding or the sharing of understanding are necessary requirements of meaning. For example, a solipsist finds meaning in his solipsism, perhaps merely imaging that he has understanding or that he shares that understanding with equally imaginery others.
Questions that could be raised are as follows:
1. Is meaning an imputed quality or an intrinsic quality? I would say it can be either.
Thus, we might say "Life is sacred" and by so doing we are imputing a value onto something that is objectively real but appears to emperically lack that quality. On the other hand, we might say"The meaning of my cat's life is to sleep and eat." This would be an intrinsic quality, that is to say, sleeping and eating are components of the ontology of Kitty's existence.
2. Is the symbolic representation of reality real? I would say no. The presence or the absence of language of any kind including logic and mathematics neither voids nor advances truth per se. However, as instruments of our comprehension of reality, they are indespensable to discerning truth.
More broadly, meaning ties into the question of the meaning of personal human existence. The question as to whether there is meaning in life isn’t meaningless. A cigarette jingle when such jingles were legal hymned “To a golfer, it’s a hole in one… to a smoker, it’s a Kent.” The meaning of life is what animates our consciousness. The meaning of life for a tiger is to devour small game. Every individual is animated by metaphors—flags under which we march because we believe those flags have transcending value. These metaphors might be called God, materialism, science, politics, race, or art. From these metaphors, we find community and satisfaction. Some people however find meaning in seeking isolation and pain. According to Kant, practical reason allows the mind to accept things even if it cannot prove things. The claim that “life is pointless” is like the statement “life is sacred.” The same must be said for such statements as: “the God of the Bible is”, “reason is”, and “tradition is.” These are statements of meaning—a prioris—rather than statements of fact. The meaning of life is not an object—something that exists in time and space—but ourselves as we encounter time and space. "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked,” Viktor Frankl writes in Man’s Search for Meaning. “In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." Meaning in life, therefore, is in my view the set of those conscious or unconscious presuppositions from which we deal with our life.
Labels: philiosophy
posted by My Mall & News at
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