Assessing views of life: a subjective affair?

Markus, Arjan

doi:10.1017/s0034412503006425

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(6 reference statements)

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“…A pluralist concept of meaning would be the logical approach and one would find pluralist accounts in the works of Arjan Markus (2003) and Garrett Thomson (2003). The pluralist approach is also Metz's preferred approach when he presents what he terms "the family resemblance" approach.…”

Section: Defining Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Covid-19 Pandemic and Meaning in Life

Attoe¹,

Chimakonam²

2021

Phronimon

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In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, where death, sickness and suffering persist, there is some hint that there is nothing so special about the human race that particularly makes it immune to decimation. This is at odds with the general feeling that there is something significant, purposeful and/or meaningful about human life. Thus, the question that immediately comes to mind is whether the present pandemic and the negative situations it presents, destroy any hope of attaining meaning in life. In this article, we critically examine how the Covid-19 pandemic affects meaning in life. While it is not far-fetched to assume that the pandemic, suffering, isolation, economic hardship, and so forth disrupt humanity’s abilities at creating moments of meaning in life, it is our claim that it does not destroy it altogether, as many persons have found new ways of creating such moments, albeit small, through self-sacrifice/care, solidarity, and more. Finally, we conclude that in the face of this tragedy, what humanity can best hope for is the continuous creation of moments of meaning in life in order to reduce despair and sustain hope, however small. We expect that this article will foster future discussions about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the question of meaningfulness.

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Section: Defining Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Covid-19 Pandemic and Meaning in Life

Attoe¹,

Chimakonam²

2021

Phronimon

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“…It is enough to recall a thought experiment by Robert Nozick: life in a virtual world created by a pleasure machine can be happy, but only a few would choose it because of its meaninglessness (1974, 42–45). When one talks of the “meaning of life,” one may have in mind, according to some authors, choice‐worthy, subjectively important purposes and values, qualities that are worthy of pride or admiration, conditions that render a life pleasant or intelligible; other authors notice instead that the narrative of meaning contains heterogeneous ideas and exhibits no unity (Czeżowski ; Bocheński ; Markus ; Thomson ; Mawson ; Baggini ).…”

Section: Amalgam Concept Of Meaningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Science, Religion, and the Meaning of Life and the Universe: “Amalgam” Narratives of Polish Natural Scientists

Rogińska¹

2016

Zygon

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This article deals with phenomena occurring at the interface of the existential, the religious, and scientific inquiry. On the basis of in‐depth interviews with Polish physicists and biologists, I examine the role that science and religion play in their narrative of the meaning of the Universe and human life. I show that the narratives about meaning have a system‐related (“amalgam") character that is associated with responses to adjacent metaphysical questions, including those based on scientific knowledge. I reconstruct the typical amalgam questions of Polish scientists and come to a conclusion about the stability of religious and nonreligious amalgams in this group. Critically referring to the thesis concerning the secularizing impact of science, I conclude that science by itself does not have a destructive effect on Polish scientists’ confidence that life and the Universe are meaningful, but is rather an exacerbating factor of the existing worldview system.

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“…Firstly, three main senses of meaning are distinguished in the literature (cf. Markus, , pp. 96–97, and Thomson, , p. 12).…”

Section: The Question Of Life's Meaning: One or Many?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the—in our view—undeniable importance to human beings of questions concerning life's meaning and what makes life meaningful, and despite the renewed interest in these issues in philosophy (not least due to Metz—see Metz, , , , —and Wolf, ) and psychology (e.g. Baumeister, ; Steger, ; Wong, ; Hicks and Routledge, ), very few authors have explicitly dealt with the issue in philosophy of education.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education and Life's Meaning

Schinkel¹,

Ruyter²,

Aviram³

2015

Journal of Philosophy of Education

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There are deep connections between education and the question of life's meaning, which derive, ultimately, from the fact that, for human beings, how to live-and therefore, how to raise one's children-is not a given but a question. One might see the meaning of life as constitutive of the meaning of education, and answers to the question of life's meaning might be seen as justifying (a particular form of) education. Our focus, however, lies on the contributory relation: our primary purpose is to investigate whether and how education might contribute to children's ability to find meaning in life or at least deal with the question. This issue is not only theoretically interesting (though relatively neglected)-it also has practical urgency. For people have a need for meaning that, if unfulfilled, leads to personal and potentially social crises-a need that often expresses itself first and strongly in adolescence; and there are reasons to have doubts about the contribution of today's traditional formal education system to the meaningfulness of children's (and future adults') lives. We argue for the importance of frameworks of values, as well as for a greater emphasis on the affective dimension of meaning, though we reject pure subjectivism. The underlying purpose of this article, however, is not to argue for a particular comprehensive position, but to persuade philosophers of education of the importance of the issue of life's meaning in thinking about education today.

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Assessing views of life: a subjective affair?

Cited by 14 publications

References 6 publications

The Covid-19 Pandemic and Meaning in Life

The Covid-19 Pandemic and Meaning in Life

Science, Religion, and the Meaning of Life and the Universe: “Amalgam” Narratives of Polish Natural Scientists

Education and Life's Meaning

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