The Nature Of Meaningfulness

Shope presents a unified perspective on meaningfulness, spanning such varied topics as the meaningfulness of linguistic expressions and conventional signs, Freud's conception of the meaningfulness of various mental phenomena and instances of behavior, a person's meaning to do something, meaning in the arts, and even life's having a meaning. Shope's perspective is based upon a 'constitutive' analysis of what it is for one item to represent another. Criticizing the views of philosophers who attempt to analyze such representing in causal terms, or merely in epistemological terms, he shows that a successful analysis needs to invoke both types of considerations.

What, if anything, does biological evolution tell us about the nature of religion, ethical values, or even the meaning and purpose of life? The Moral Meaning of Nature sheds new light on these enduring questions by examining the significance of an earlier—and unjustly neglected—discussion of Darwin in late nineteenth-century Germany. We start with Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings staged one of the first confrontations with the Christian tradition using the resources of Darwinian thought. The lebensphilosophie, or “life-philosophy,” that arose from his engagement with evolutionary ideas drew responses from other influential thinkers, including Franz Overbeck, Georg Simmel, and Heinrich Rickert. These critics all offered cogent challenges to Nietzsche’s appropriation of the newly transforming biological sciences, his negotiation between science and religion, and his interpretation of the implications of Darwinian thought. They also each proposed alternative ways of making sense of Nietzsche’s unique question concerning the meaning of biological evolution “for life.” At the heart of the discussion were debates about the relation of facts and values, the place of divine purpose in the understanding of nonhuman and human agency, the concept of life, and the question of whether the sciences could offer resources to satisfy the human urge to discover sources of value in biological processes. The Moral Meaning of Nature focuses on the historical background of these questions, exposing the complex ways in which they recur in contemporary philosophical debate.

Throughout its evolution, Piaget's theory has placed meaning at the center of all attempts to understand the nature and development of knowing. For Piaget, all knowing – whether sensorimotor, representational, or reasoned, and whether directed toward successful problem solutions or toward general understanding – is necessarily a construction which arises out of meaning making activity. It was in this context that the editors of this volume, originally published in 1994, approached the board of directors of the Jean Piaget Society with a proposal to organize a recent annual symposium around the topic of the nature and development of meaning. In forming this symposium and in moving from symposium to integrated text, the editors wanted to insure both a breadth and depth to the analysis of the topic. Addressing philosophical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives, this issue-oriented volume provides an integrated exploration of the current understanding of the nature and development of meaning. Contemporary issues that frame alternative understandings of the nature of meaning – nativist vs. constructivist positions, and computational vs. embodied mind contexts – are examined as they impact on the investigation of meaning. Comparative, cognitive, and linguistic developmental dimensions of meaning are described and discussed.

In his account of text and textual meaning, Pettersson demonstrates that a text as commonly conceived is not only a verbal structure but also a physical entity, two kinds of phenomena which do not in fact add up to a unitary object. He describes this current notion of text as convenient enough for many practical purposes, but inadequate in discussions of a theoretically more demanding nature. Having clearly demonstrated its intellectual drawbacks, he develops an alternative, boldly revisionary way of thinking about text and textual meaning. His careful argument is in challenging dialogue with assumptions about language-in-use to be found in a wide range of present-day literary theory, linguistics, philosophical aesthetics, and philosophy of language.

This text argues that separating nature and the life of spirit not only precludes an understanding of how consciousness, awareness of value, and the pursuit of ideal possibilities originate in nature but also masks the discovery of how experience can be me

In this book, first published in 1987, Professor Schleifer sets Greimas’ work in its intellectual context and sets forth the development of his distinctive style of interpretation. Moreover, the author goes on to consider Greimas’ work against the latest examinations of discourse in philosophy, depth psychology, and literary criticism. He tests Greimas’ semiotic square against Derridean deconstruction, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and the literary analyses of Paul de Man. This book will constitute an important and lucid survey of an often inaccessible critic, and will be of interest to students of literature.

Articulating an Augustinian treatment of the nature, limits, meaning, and end of work, this volume will push Augustinian studies toward a more-detailed engagement with issues of political economy. Zachary Settle argues that we inhabit a culture that insists that our life's meaning is bound up in our work; we experience constant pressures at work to be more efficient and productive; and we know the ways in which our work-structures contribute to a seemingly ever-growing, corrosive system of poverty and oppression. These cultural assumptions regarding work, along with a cluster of other labor-related problems (i.e. automation, wage depression, wage theft, the rise of a flexible labor force, a lack of worker representation, over-work, and productivism) have rightfully raised a number of questions about the nature, meaning, and limits of our working lives and working structures. This book sets out the ways in which St. Augustine offers us-in piecemeal fashion-elements with which we can assemble an alternative vision. By examining his understanding of the role of work in the context of the monastery, we see his understanding of both the ways we should undertake our work and the ends toward which we should direct that work during our lives in a sinful world. Settle draws on these piecemeal treatments of work scattered throughout St. Augustine's varied writings in order to develop and articulate a unified theology of work.

Claims that the natural world, as opposed to a supernatural realm, can inspire a religious sensibility and a conviction that life is meaningful.