What we talk about when wetalk about meaning in/of life

Minao Kukita
Graduate School of Informatics, Nagoya University
minao.kukita@i.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Characteristics of Metz’s approach• “Analytic” in a narrow sense: attempting to formulate
rigorously and unequivocally the conditions for judgements
such as “this guy’s life has meaning” to be true.
• Naturalist: Not drawing on anything supernatural such as Godor life after death.
• Realist: Meanings in life exist independently of humans who
judge them.
• This combination is familiar to and hence easy to accept forcontemporary analytic philosophers.

I propose an alternative approach• Metz and many others take it for granted that thestatements about meaning in life are of the type whosetruth is determined by objective criteria, i.e., for which
the “model-theoretic semantics” is well suited.
• However, not every statement is of the same type.
• Shouldn’t we consider first which category of statements
those about meaning in life belong to?
• At least, we should not think by default that the modeltheoretic one is the semantics for them.

I propose an alternative approach• By the way, I want to say the same thing to analytic
philosophers working on meanings of mathematicalstatements.
• Mathematical statements can be understood better if wegive up model-theoretic semantics and take a pragmatic
point of view.

Pragmatic or speech-act theoretic approach• Think about➢ when we actually use such statements, and➢ what we use them for.
• Let us classify them into the third person, second person,
and first person uses.

Third person• “Picasso’s life is more meaningful than van Gogh’s.”• We do not usually say such things.
• I’d rather even call this pragmatically “ungrammatical”.

Third person• “My son’s life was meaningless” said by a bereaved father.
• This must be an expression of deep lament or grief over
his son’s death.
• If he says “My son’s life was meaningful”, he may try to
comfort himself or other family members.

Second person• “You are living a meaningless life”; “You should dosomething more meaningful”.
• These are statements including “blaming”.
• They seem to be more like what Strawson called“reactive attitudes”.

First person• “What meaning does my life have?”• This overlaps what Morioka called “the core of themeaning in life”.
• However, we want to focus on a different aspect thanMorioka’s “core”.
• While Morioka assumes “solitary entity” who both asks
and answers this question by itself, it is important toconsider first person plural subjects or “solidary entities”.

I'd imagine the whole world was one bigmachine. Machines never come with any
extra parts, you know. They always comewith the exact amount they need. So I
figured, if the entire world was one bigmachine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had
to be here for some reason. And thatmeans you have to be here for some reason
too.
Hugo (2011)

“Existential question”• Yu Urata, Psychology of Meaning in Life: Minds Asking
Existential Question 浦田悠『人生の意味の心理学：実存的な問いを生む心』（京都大学学術出版会、2013）• It is “Existential emptiness” that causes one to ask suchquestions as “Does my life has meaning?”• It also has “potential to cause various psychologicalproblems such as fear, depression, feeling of alienation,
attempted suicide, etc. （Urata, p. 122）
• Questioning one’s own life may be an expression ofsuffering, or a plea for help.

Conclusion• Our ordinary talks about the meaning in/of life seem tobe very different from descriptions of objective facts.
• When we talk about meaning in life, we usually do notplay the same language game as when we report ordescribe, for example, movements of physical bodies,chemical reactions, the population of a country, thecurrency exchange rate, today’s weather, and so on.
• Using the phrase “meaning in/of life” may have various
purposes and effects: expression of lament, blame,existential emptiness, etc.
• It’s far from “the fine game of nil”.

A question to Metz
• Does Benatar oriented his rationality positively or
negatively towards fundamental conditions of humanexistence?
• His claim is denial of human existence. Thus it seems
negative.
• However, it also aims at increasing of net happiness, andso it can be regarded to be positive.