{"id":8904,"date":"2013-03-22T18:11:32","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T18:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/03\/22\/could-the-meaning-of-life-be-the-quest-for-the-meaning-of-life\/"},"modified":"2013-03-22T18:11:32","modified_gmt":"2013-03-22T18:11:32","slug":"could-the-meaning-of-life-be-the-quest-for-the-meaning-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/03\/22\/could-the-meaning-of-life-be-the-quest-for-the-meaning-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Could the Meaning of Life be the Quest for the Meaning of LIfe?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia;\"><span style=\"font-family: Trebuchet MS;\">I <\/span>&#0160;have toyed with the notion that the meaning of life just is the search for its meaning.&#0160; But&#0160;this is really no better than saying that the meaning of life is subjective: posited and maintained by the agent of the life, and potentially different for different agents.&#0160; If the meaning of human life is subjective, however, then it has no meaning. Similarly, if the meaning of life is exhausted in the search for life&#39;s meaning, then there is no meaning apart from the search, which&#0160;is to say that life has no meaning, strictly speaking.&#0160; The following, then, is a nonstarter:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia;\">1. The meaning of human life consists in the quest for its meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia;\">But (1) is to be distinguished from<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia;\">2. No human life can count as truly meaningful unless some portion of it is&#0160;devoted to raising, investigating, and answering for oneself the question as to the meaning of human life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia;\">(2) I heartily endorse.&#0160; The difference between (1) and (2) is that (1) identifies the quest for meaning with meaning<\/span> <span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">whereas (2) does not.<\/span><\/p>\n<fieldset class=\"zemanta-related\">\n<legend class=\"zemanta-related-title\">Related articles<\/legend>\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\" style=\"margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden;\">\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"list-style: none; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px; padding: 0px; width: 84px; text-align: left; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: top; float: left; display: block;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2012\/09\/if-our-lives-have-meaning-we-cannot-be-its-source.html\" style=\"padding: 2px; border-radius: 2px; text-decoration: none; display: block; box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999;\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/113808683_80_80.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px currentColor; width: 80px; display: block; max-width: 100%;\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2012\/09\/if-our-lives-have-meaning-we-cannot-be-its-source.html\" style=\"padding: 5px 2px 0px; height: 80px; line-height: 12pt; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; display: block;\" target=\"_blank\">We Cannot Be the Source of Our Own Existential Meaning<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"list-style: none; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px; padding: 0px; width: 84px; text-align: left; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: top; float: left; display: block;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2012\/07\/mortalism-again.html\" style=\"padding: 2px; border-radius: 2px; text-decoration: none; display: block; box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999;\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/98655102_80_80.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px currentColor; width: 80px; display: block; max-width: 100%;\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2012\/07\/mortalism-again.html\" style=\"padding: 5px 2px 0px; height: 80px; line-height: 12pt; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; display: block;\" target=\"_blank\">Mortalism Again<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I &#0160;have toyed with the notion that the meaning of life just is the search for its meaning.&#0160; But&#0160;this is really no better than saying that the meaning of life is subjective: posited and maintained by the agent of the life, and potentially different for different agents.&#0160; If the meaning of human life is subjective, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/03\/22\/could-the-meaning-of-life-be-the-quest-for-the-meaning-of-life\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Could the Meaning of Life be the Quest for the Meaning of LIfe?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meaning-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}