Is Meaning in Life Constituted by Value or Intelligibility?
Several authors have recently argued that intelligibility, rather than value, constitutes life's meaning. In this paper I criticize the intelligibility view by offering examples of cases in which intelligibility and meaningfulness rates do not coincide. I show this for both meaning in life and...
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| Published in | Philosophical papers (Grahamstown) Vol. 50; no. 1-2; pp. 211 - 234 |
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| Main Author | |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
Routledge
04.05.2021
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| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Several authors have recently argued that intelligibility, rather than value, constitutes life's meaning. In this paper I criticize the intelligibility view by offering examples of cases in which intelligibility and meaningfulness rates do not coincide. I show this for both meaning in life and meaning of life; under both naturalist and supernaturalist assumptions; and in ways relevant to subjectivists, objectivists, and hybridists. I show why the value view is not, in fact, vulnerable to several putative counterexamples to it, and I explain why, if value rather than intelligibility constitutes meaningfulness, there are so many cases in which intelligibility and meaningfulness rates do coincide. Finally, I explain why various arguments for the intelligibility view fail to show that it is advantageous to the value view. |
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| ISSN: | 0556-8641 1996-8523 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/05568641.2021.1898288 |