Is Life’s Meaning Ultimately Unthinkable?: Guy Bennett-Hunter on the Ineffable

Philosophia 44 (4):1247-1256 (2016)
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Abstract

In this critical notice of Guy Bennett-Hunter’s book _Ineffability and Religious Experience_, I focus on claims he makes about what makes a life meaningful. According to Bennett-Hunter, for human life to be meaningful it must obtain its meaning from what is beyond the human and is ineffable, which constitutes an ultimate kind of meaning. I spell out Bennett-Hunter’s rationale for making this claim, raise some objections to it, and in their wake articulate an alternative conception of ultimate meaning.

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Thaddeus Metz
Cornell University (PhD)

Citations of this work

Eliminating ‘ life worth living’.Fumagalli Roberto - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 175 (3):769-792.
Absurd Relations.Jacob Fox - 2019 - Human Affairs 29 (4):387-394.

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References found in this work

Philosophical explanations.Robert Nozick - 1981 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Creating the Kingdom of Ends.Christine M. Korsgaard - 1996 - New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.
Philosophical Explanations.Robert Nozick - 1981 - Mind 93 (371):450-455.
Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study.Thaddeus Metz - 2013 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

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