By means of a critical reinterpretation of the famous short story by Herman Melville titled “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” I propose a psycho-anthropological explanation of work behaviors, relationships in work environments, and their psychopathological repercussions. The article notably examines behaviors and work relationships connecting them as outcomes of single individuals' efforts to mentalize ideological–cultural models determining them in a given historical moment. A reductively individualistic interpretation is criticized, which is typically present in clinical and work psychology and (...) ascribes to the single person presumed psychical deficits and exclusively looks in his/her personal history for causes of disadaptive behaviors and antecedents of psychopathological formations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article explores the discursive configuration of paid work by Greek employees, shedding light to the symbolic pores they mobilize in order to craft its meaning as well as to the micro- and macrosocial implications of their argumentation strategies. Building upon a social constructionist epistemology, 22 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed using tools and techniques provided by critical approaches to discourse analysis. The ‘school’, the ‘journey’, and the ‘slavery’ repertoires, as I named them, were the (...) three discursive patterns identified, each one grounded in different assumptions about the social universe and thus legitimizing or challenging the hegemonic fixations of the meaning of work. (shrink)

Research on the `meaning of work', especially concerning the Global South, is scarce. This paper aims to reduce this scarcity by applying critical realist meta-theory to the work and life history interviews of workers in Sri Lanka. A key discovery is that finding meaning in life through work is a personal emergent power and that, as such, it explains the way that individuals consciously manoeuvre their life-journeys towards a desired end - a modus vivendi - (...) in a dialectic which involves both emergent structural change (morphogenesis) and agency. This paper also reveals that Margaret Archer's theory of reflexivity, based on interviews with Western individuals, cannot be transferred rigidly to the reflexivity of Global South individuals, and therefore more work on reflexivity within this context is required. This paper therefore makes a theoretical contribution to the existing meaning of work scholarship, and it extends existing understandings of the concepts of reflexivity and emergence. (shrink)

This book is a collection of reflections and empirical studies which examine the many facets of the meanings of work. The authors are significant scholars in fields of study ranging from ethics to sociology. The book is a text which aims at balancing the academic with the practical and so the chapters often reflect the tensions implicit in such a venture. The reader will find in these pages historical, philosophical, educational, religious, entrepreneurial and many other points of view which (...) combine to emerge as a text which is both encyclopedic in information yet engaging and lively in style. The reader will be able to understand how the meanings of work have changed over the centuries varying according to historical place and point of view. At the same time, the diligent reader will observe the centrality that work has in the lives of people both practically and in terms of life quests. Work has previously been defined as an activity that produces something of value for other people. This definition does not even begin to include the information about work that is presented in this book. The reader will feel a invigorating sense of worth from this book. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Wittgensteinian Approach to Discerning the Meaning of Works of Art in the Practice of Critical and Contextual Studies in Secondary Art EducationLeslie Cunliffe (bio)In order to get clear about aesthetic words you have to describe ways of living.Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief1Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place (...) from another side and no longer know your way about.Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations2IntroductionThis article explores a Wittgensteinian approach for dealing with the meaning of works of art in the practice of critical and contextual studies in art education. The article is aimed at developing a methodology for eleven to nineteen year olds, known in the UK as the secondary phase of education, but the approach could be generalized to other educational phases.Henry Finch3 interprets four references to meaning found in Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language as a quadrant that combines the horizontal axis of meaning as physiognomies (the experiential and visual) and meaning as constructions (concepts, uses, science, and mathematics), with a vertical axis of meaning as imperatives (rule following, obligations, and law) and meaning as custom (ceremonies, myths, and ritual).4 The quadrant represents Finch's understanding of Wittgenstein's views about how language serves a different but complementary role in the way human beings engage [End Page 65] with meaning in the world and their place in it.5 Such meanings are embedded in social practices, including first-person responses to a physiognomy, although these start off as biologically primed reactions.Michael Luntley argues that Wittgenstein's philosophy of language and the related remarks on perception should be understood as setting conditions for the possibilities of judgment in "seeing the world aright, in taking the right attitude to the world"6 rather than simply mapping the possibilities of meaning, as the former underscores the role of will7 in the way meaning is actively witnessed and ethically processed by an agent. Having the right view is still only a view, but for Wittgenstein this amounted to an immense ethical and philosophical project to see things accurately and in correct relationship to each other. Such perspectival stances result from an agent's capacity to selectively engage with meaning, with a more unitary understanding resulting from criss-crossing the same territory from different points of view. Wittgenstein's four references to meaning can be thought of as forming four different points on a compass that direct the "self-as-will engaged with that which is independent of will "8 in a quest to see things aright. By extension, such an approach could be used in art education to enable students to develop the dispositions to see works of art aright.Marcia Eaton describes the tension between epistemic and interpretative approaches to the meaning of works of art in this way: "In which direction should one go? In other words, how can judgments which seem so personal (relative, subjective, etc.) also play a role in interpersonal (absolute, objective, etc.) language games?"9 Michael Podro gives a similar description of the apparent tension between a context-bound analysis of works of art and their irreducible and autonomous qualities as like "constantly treading a tightrope."10 Ralph Smith highlights the difference "between having knowledge about art and personally experiencing its presence and power."11Ben Tilghman12 advocates a Wittgensteinian way of going beyond these twofold approaches for understanding and interpreting art by focusing on the role that ponderable and imponderable evidence play in achieving the right stance when attempting to condense the meaning of works of art. Following Wittgenstein, Tilghman argues that a judgment based on imponderable evidence can often be supported by ponderable evidence, a process that is always linked to the relative experience, knowledge, and wisdom of the person making the judgment. Wittgenstein's four references to meaning could be thought of as points on a compass for directing the will in fittingness when endeavoring to understand the role and relationship of ponderable and imponderable evidence in any attempt to see works of art aright. But before these ideas can be... (shrink)

This chapter refutes the long-standing prejudice that Theodor W. Adorno offered no concrete suggestions capable of bridging theory and praxis by scrutinizing the philosopher's contributions to Germany's educational reforms following World War II. The last lines of the introduction that Adorno added to “The Meaning of ‘Working through the Past’” when he gave the lecture again in 1962 suggest, like the original questions and answers to the lecture, that his mind was very much on the ethics suggested by his (...) lecture, on the norms and praxis it unfolded, even if skeptically. As Adorno's best-known work about education, “Education after Auschwitz” commences with the conceptual groundwork laid in “Working through the Past”, not so much by merely beginning where the latter essay leaves off, but—as “Working through the Past” did with “Democratization”–by extracting specific elements from it and subsequently elaborating them in revealingly different directions. (shrink)

Research on meaningful work has not embraced a shared definition of what it is, in part because many researchers and laypersons agree that it means different things to different people. However, subjective and social accounts of meaningful work have limited practical value to help people pursue it and to help scholars study it. The account of meaningful work advanced in this paper is inherently normative. It recognizes the relevance of subjective experience and social agreement to appraisals of (...) meaningfulness but considers them conceptually incomplete and practically limited. According to this normative account, meaningful work should be meaningful to oneself and to others and is also meaningful independent of them. It sets forth grounds for evaluating some work to be more meaningful than other work, asserting the possibility that one could be mistaken about the meaningfulness of one’s work. While it thus proscribes some claims to meaningful work, it also opens up potential new avenues of inquiry into, among other things, self-aggrandizing and harmful work that is experienced as meaningful, morally valuable work that is not experienced as meaningful, and the distinction between experienced and normative meaningfulness. (shrink)

This qualitative research examines the work experiences and gender beliefs of 22 Okinawan women who were young adults during the Battle of Okinawa. In-depth interviews were conducted with Okinawan women, including a subsample of women widowed in World War II, and the work experiences and gender beliefs of widows and nonwidows are compared. Women's orientation to breadwinning is found to shape the gender beliefs that they hold. Widows who defined their work as breadwinning maintained traditional gender beliefs, (...) in compensation for their gender boundary–crossing work experience. Nonwidows who saw their work as supplementary to their husbands' income, however, adopted liberal gender beliefs. (shrink)

In this article I critically discuss English-speaking philosophical literature addressing the question of what it essentially means to speak of 'life’s meaning'. Instead of considering what might in fact confer meaning on life, I make two claims about the more abstract, meta-ethical question of how to understand what by definition is involved in making that sort enquiry. One of my claims is that over the past five years there has been a noticeable trend among philosophers to try to (...) change our understanding of what talk of 'life’s meaning' connotes. For example, whereas most philosophers for a long while had held that such talk is about a kind of value possible in the life of human beings, recently some have argued that certain non-human parts of nature can exhibit meaningfulness, which, furthermore, is not necessarily something valuable. The second claim I advance is that there is strong reason to reject this trend, and instead for philosophers to retain the long-standing approach. (shrink)

In _The Meaning of the Body_, Mark Johnson continues his pioneering work on the exciting connections between cognitive science, language, and meaning first begun in the classic _Metaphors We Live By_. Johnson uses recent research into infant psychology to show how the body generates meaning even before self-consciousness has fully developed. From there he turns to cognitive neuroscience to further explore the bodily origins of meaning, thought, and language and examines the many dimensions of (...) class='Hi'>meaning—including images, qualities, emotions, and metaphors—that are all rooted in the body’s physical encounters with the world. Drawing on the psychology of art and pragmatist philosophy, Johnson argues that all of these aspects of meaning-making are fundamentally aesthetic. He concludes that the arts are the culmination of human attempts to find meaning and that studying the aesthetic dimensions of our experience is crucial to unlocking meaning's bodily sources. Throughout, Johnson puts forth a bold new conception of the mind rooted in the understanding that philosophy will matter to nonphilosophers only if it is built on a visceral connection to the world. “Mark Johnson demonstrates that the aesthetic and emotional aspects of meaning are fundamental—central to conceptual meaning and reason, and that the arts show meaning-making in its fullest realization. If you were raised with the idea that art and emotion were external to ideas and reason, you must read this book. It grounds philosophy in our most visceral experience.”—George Lakoff, author of _Moral Politics_. (shrink)

The article deals with the little-studied but actual problem of loneliness of an outstanding creative personality as a consequence of stereotypical understanding of his works and activity. The cultural and philosophical meaning of Ivan Turgenev’s motif of loneliness is that he was a lone creator, recognized by Russian critics and historians of literature only in the context of the activities of other recognized great writers: Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov. The problem of loneliness is revealed through the paradoxical statement (...) by Turgenev on the question about strange loners and aggressive crowd. The paper presents the loneliness of I.S. Turgenev as a rejection of the understandable and normality among the non-understandable and weirdness. In Russian literatury critical and historico-cultural tradition, during the discussion of Russian classics, the general opinion has been formed: Turgenev is apparently non-Russian author, moreover he is not a classic writer indeed. (shrink)

‘The Meaning of Life’ and ‘The Philosophy of Religion’ have meant different things to different people, and so I do well to alert my reader to what these phrases mean to me and thus to the subject area of this review of recent work on their intersection. First, ‘The Meaning of Life’: within the analytic tradition, an idea has gained widespread assent; whatever the vague and enigmatic nature of the phrase ‘the meaning of life’, we may (...) sensibly speak of meaningfulness in a life as a particular, positive, normative feature that some individuals’ lives may well have, and this feature is to be distinguished from, though closely related to, other positive features – satisfaction, wellbeing, virtue and so forth. There has been much work done on these assumptions in recent years. An excellent summary of this work up to its date of publication is given by Thaddeus Metz (in his 2007 a). Many – though by no means all – philosophers retain an instinctive scepticism toward the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ and a reluctance to engage with it, for it seems to connote vague and/or impossible-to-fulfil cosmic expectations. (See Thomson , chapter 11 and Seachris 2009 for attempts to engage with it nonetheless.) But philosophers are not generally now so sceptical about talk of meaningfulness in life and thus not so sceptical about the phrase ‘the meaning of life’ if it is taken to be referring merely to this. And that is how I shall be taking it. Secondly, ‘The Philosophy of Religion’: in the analytic tradition, this has usually been taken to be philosophical reflection on the rational acceptability or otherwise of classical theism and on what God's existence, should He exist, entails ontologically, metaphysically, metaethically and so forth. Therefore, I shall be talking about recent reflection in the analytic tradition on the relationship between the God of classical theism's existence (or lack of it) and meaningfulness (or lack of it) in human lives. (shrink)

The phenomenon of malaise is on the rise at universities, reflecting a deteriorating psychological state that is a combination of anxiety and stress factors. This psychological and emotional upheaval within students is indicative of a fundamental existential issue. In fact, hidden behind the choice of an educational program is the significance given by the student to their life goals. It is this dimension of attributing meaning to one’s education and, more broadly, to one’s life (the existential dimension) that we (...) have sought to explore. We hypothesized that a stable investment in one’s life goals and a sense of psychological wellbeing during one’s studies could be fostered by reflective work done alongside the educational process. Our research took the form of a mixed methodological approach to the attribution of meaning to education, including an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), and the experimentation of support for the meaning of education. Four dimensions of meaning were found to be observable in varying degrees in all students, each playing a specific role. Moreover, this research has confirmed that the meaning of studies is not to be understood solely in terms of education, but is part of a singular life story. Reflective work, developing meaning, facilitated by others (advisor, teacher, etc.) can help preserve/restore the feeling of wellbeing. It should be noted that, as the work presented in this article predates the pandemic, we will not address the amplifying effects of this health crisis on existential issues, which some recent studies are beginning to highlight. (shrink)

The price of Bitcoin is once more soaring. From early October 2020 to early January 2021, the price of a single Bitcoin token went from roughly $10,000 to nearly $65,000, reinspiring the hopes of the crypto-faithful in the inevitability of a future beyond centralized banking and leaving the rest to dread the jargon of computational libertarianism. The speculative betting driving this recent price action, however, belies a more rudimentary and overlooked shift in the digital economy signaled by cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin (...) in particular. Unlike an earlier industrial logic that sought to reduce heat loss and improve efficiency to maximize surplus value, Bitcoin’s proof-of-work system shifts the basis of value production from efficiency to inefficiency. Moreover, it does so by using a cryptographic algorithm whose purpose is to destroy the meaning of its inputs. Through an exploration of Bitcoin’s proof-of-work technics and its inversion of traditional models of value extraction, the text argues that Bitcoin reveals a profound transformation in the nature of surplus represented by computational capitalism. (shrink)

Suppose we are about to enter an era of increasing technological unemployment. What implications does this have for society? Two distinct ethical/social issues would seem to arise. The first is one of distributive justice: how will the efficiency gains from automated labour be distributed through society? The second is one of personal fulfillment and meaning: if people no longer have to work, what will they do with their lives? In this article, I set aside the first issue and (...) focus on the second. In doing so, I make three arguments. First, I argue that there are good reasons to embrace non-work and that these reasons become more compelling in an era of technological unemployment. Second, I argue that the technological advances that make widespread technological unemployment possible could still threaten or undermine human flourishing and meaning, especially if they do not remain confined to the economic sphere. And third, I argue that this threat could be contained if we adopt an integrative approach to our relationship with technology. In advancing these arguments, I draw on three distinct literatures: the literature on technological unemployment and workplace automation; the antiwork critique—which I argue gives reasons to embrace technological unemployment; and the philosophical debate about the conditions for meaning in life—which I argue gives reasons for concern. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a new perspective on the difficulty and meaning of ethical work for financial controllers. This is achieved by drawing on concepts from Michel Henry’s phenomenology of life in the field of business ethics. The French philosopher Michel Henry is distinguished by his identifying two modes of appearing: ‘intentionality’ and ‘affectivity’ . Henry suggests that relying only on abstract representations constitutes a specific ideology that causes individuals at work to ignore (...) the actual experience of being affected, and hinders the appearance of life to guide their actions, in turn hindering ethics. Empirical illustrations are provided by a case study that explores the practices of management accountants in a travel retail corporation. By observing the empirical practices of management accountants, a body of professionals whose role is largely dependent on information technology, abstraction and technical expertise to trace organisational flows and transactions, we shed light on the difficult ethical issues associated with their role of surveillance and control of other managers’ work. The case study illustrates a wide range of everyday working practices among management accountants. Some convey the impression that they lack empathy and consideration for other individuals, while others engage in close cooperation and ethical practices despite the constraining configuration of their role. A significant result of this research is that it illustrates and interprets, based on Henry’s phenomenology, a wide range of working practices. Consistent with Henry, we argue that the source of business ethics lies beyond professional standards, codes and values. (shrink)

The present article is concerned with some of the human factors involved when overtime and overwork become part of the regular and accepted pattern of work, with sometimes tragic results. While the “economic miracle” of Japan can be much admired, it has not been without human cost. Only recently, national and global attention is being focused on a new and deadly phenomenon in Japan:Karoushi, which the Japanese define as “death from overwork,” and which I choose to re-define as “stress-death” (...) related to feelings of helplessness.It is my tentative hypothesis thatkaroushi is not directly caused by overwork, as popularly assumed. Rather, I believe that overwork is only one factor, and that stress-death is actually caused by the cumulative, long-range effects of working in a situation where one feels trapped and powerless to effect any change for the better, which in turn leads to attitudes of hopelessness — attitudes which are exacerbated, rather than ameliorated, by environmental and managerial factors. (shrink)

Research concerning work on caring for older people shows that care providers experience a variety of consuming emotions and stress. They can be said to be in a vulnerable position. It is not known, however, how the care providers themselves understand vulnerability. The aim of this study was to illuminate the meaning of vulnerability to care providers caring for older people. A qualitative interpretive approach was adopted. Data were collected through tape-recorded interviews with 16 female registered and practical (...) nurses who were experienced in caring for older people. Qualitative analysis resulted in one core theme and six themes with subthemes. The core theme showed that, for the participating nurses, vulnerability essentially meant being human. The meanings of being human were illustrated by the six themes: having feelings; experiencing moral indignation; being harmed; having courage; protecting oneself; and maturing and developing. Analysis showed that vulnerability was a resource as well as a burden. (shrink)

The thesis that there is a reciprocal relationship between human beings and work—i.e., although man controls work, he may find in it either fulfillment or degradation—has its roots in the Marxist theory of alienation. This paper, therefore, tackles this problem from a Marxist perspective. It examines Marx and Engels’s analysis of the history and causes of human alienation by presenting their views on human nature and how work is related to the individual’s search for meaning and (...) fulfillment. The two—man and work—cannot be separated, for doing so leads to alienated work (production alienation) and alienated worker (self-alienation). Hence, the problem of employee satisfaction has to be dealt with from the perspective of how employees experience their relation to their work. (shrink)

National Book Award Finalist. How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?" In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other (...) species. Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey, in the process bridging science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence—from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends. Continuing his groundbreaking examination of our "Anthropocene Epoch," which he began with The Social Conquest of Earth, described by the New York Times as "a sweeping account of the human rise to domination of the biosphere," here Wilson posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way. Once criticized for a purely mechanistic view of human life and an overreliance on genetic predetermination, Wilson presents in The Meaning of Human Existence his most expansive and advanced theories on the sovereignty of human life, recognizing that, even though the human and the spider evolved similarly, the poet's sonnet is wholly different from the spider's web. Whether attempting to explicate "The Riddle of the Human Species," "Free Will," or "Religion"; warning of "The Collapse of Biodiversity"; or even creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.," Wilson does indeed believe that humanity holds a special position in the known universe. The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I argue that the concepts of work and labor have been shaped by political and feminist philosophers in ways that are more revealing of their specific visions of society than the character and significance of various socially necessary activities. Hegel, Marx, and Arendt each have particular understandings of work that illuminate other elements of society that are considered important, detrimental, or dysfunctional. Their normative understandings stem from the idiosyncratic visions of the public and private spheres (...) that are embedded in their writings and the specific moral and political characteristics that they ascribe to the concepts of labor and work. For feminist theorists such as Eva Kittay, the notion of labor as housework, childcare or carework stems from the project of offering an alternative social or political framework that accommodates women and recognizes their role in the overall functioning of society. However, feminist accounts of labor in the domestic realm also suffer from a tendency to highlight certain important dimensions and elements of society, such as care, moral labor, or the invisible conditions of capitalist production. This focus distracts us from understanding the role of work as a universal practice engaged in subjectively, idiosyncratically, by each member of society. The latter vision of work requires not a concrete definition but a broad contour of the boundaries of work activities. ;My purpose in exploring the role of work in these writings is twofold: the first is to show the normative role and meanings of work in these philosophers. The second is to clear the way for a new understanding of work. Since the recognition of one's membership in a polity is partially dependent on one's contributions to society, and one's contributions are often evaluated in terms of the concept of "work," there is a need for a more expansive vision of work. The concept and meaning of work must be reformulated in order to acknowledge the social obligations and commitments that individuals express through the performance of a broad variety of work activities. If we can arrive at a new formulation of the concept of work, then we can implement it to acknowledge the social character of various activities, and the individuals who perform them, whether or not they are wage-earners , as crucial to society, i.e. as contributing citizens. (shrink)

As research on meaning in work progresses, access to theoretically integrated, differentiated survey instruments becomes crucial. In response to this demand, the present article introduces ME-Work, a modular inventory to measure meaning in work. Derived from research findings on meaning in life, the ME-Work inventory offers three modules that can be used separately or jointly. Module 1 assesses four facets of meaning in work, i.e., coherence, significance, purpose and belonging; module 2 (...) measures the subjective assessment of work as meaningful or meaningless, and module 3 records the extent to which work is perceived as a source of meaning. We report on the development of the instrument and the results of an exploratory factor analysis in a pilot study of 115 working adults. A further study with 278 working adults provided evidence for construct and incremental validity. Relationships with meaning in life, mental health, job satisfaction, socio-moral climate, burnout and work as meaning were investigated. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the factor structure. Gender-specific analyses of the four facets of meaning’s differential predictive power provided additional insights. Practical implications and further research needs are discussed. (shrink)

A critical overview of mainly Anglo-American philosophical literature addressing the meaning of life up to 2002.

The present essay aims at integrating different concepts of meaning developed in semiotics, biology, and cognitive science, in a way that permits the formulation of issues involving evolution and development. The concept of sign in semiotics, just like the notion of representation in cognitive science, have either been used too broadly, or outright rejected. My earlier work on the notions of iconicity and pictoriality has forced me to spell out the taken-forgranted meaning of the sign concept, both (...) in the Saussurean and the Peircean tradition. My work with the evolution and development of semiotic resources such as language, gesture, and pictures has proved the need of having recourse to a more specified concept of sign. To define the sign, I take as point of departure the notion of semiotic function (by Piaget), and the notion of appresentation (by Husserl). In the first part of this essay, I compare cognitive science and semiotics, in particular as far as the parallel concepts of representation and sign are concerned. The second part is concerned with what is probably the most important attempt to integrate cognitive science and semiotics that has been presented so far, The Symbolic Species, by Terrence Deacon. I criticize Deacon’s use of notions such as iconicity, indexicality, and symbolicity. I choose to separate the sign concept from the notions of iconicity, indexicality, and symbolicity, which only in combination with the sign give rise to icons, indices, and symbols, but which, beyond that, have other, more elemental, uses in the world of perception. In the third part, I discuss some ideas about meaning in biosemiotics, which I show not to involve signs in the sense characterised earlier in the essay. Instead, they use meaning in the general sense of selection and organisation, which is a more elementary sense of meaning. Although I admit that there is a possible interpretation of Peirce, which could be taken to correspond to Uexküll’s idea of functional circle, and to meaning as function described by Emmeche and Hoffmeyer, I claim thatthis is a different sense of meaning than the one embodied in the sign concept. Finally, I suggest that more thresholds of meaning than proposed, for instanceby Kull, are necessary to accommodate the differences between meaning (in the broad sense) and sign (as specified in the Piaget–Husserl tradition). (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to determine the psychological meaning of coauthorship for a group of scientists, based on the assumption that the meaning of a concept is related to experience on “how a person behaves in a situation, depending on what the situation signifies to him”. The semantic meaning provides for an interpretation of action in beliefs, goals and intentions, following the idea that semantic meaning is a basis for inferring intentions to perform action. (...) We used the Natural Semantic Networks Method. We interviewed 162 scientists in the physical and natural sciences. Results show a cluster of the semantic meaning of coauthorship in which collaboration, teamwork, work, common interest, discussion and others, are retrieved from memory and represented as a natural semantic network of the concept of coauthorship. Collaboration and teamwork are the two concepts that have the highest semantic value and this holds true for various disciplines although teamwork is the most elicited word associated to coauthorship. We propose a model in which coauthorship represents the result of the experience, attitudes and behavior of a group process concerning collaboration and teamwork in science. (shrink)

In a letter to Jacobi dated August 30, 1795, Fichte writes: »What is the purpose of the speculative standpoint, and indeed of philosophy as a whole, if it does not serve life?« But the question is also: in what sense is the meaning of life founded on the meaning of freedom? What I would like to suggest here is that the Science of Knowledge Nova methodo, probably the pinnacle of Fichte’s thought during the Jena period, should be read (...) together with the Bestimmung, which brought this period to a close. The two works tackle head-on the question of the meaning of freedom, which directly links up with the question of the meaning of human existence, with both questions being entirely immanent to the reflection of finite consciousness on its synthetic activity. (shrink)

Two problems are discussed: Can and should psychological concepts be defined, and can and should they be organized in an axiomatic system? I point out that definitions in terms of physiological or behavioral measures are strictly impossible because any particular measure can mean anything, whereas phenomenological definitions always point to antecedents and consequents. I then point out that definitions of antecedents and consequents can be given either in terms of causes or in terms of reasons, and that causes and reasons (...) belong to two incompatible languages. Causes exist independently of persons and reasons exist only for persons. Only the latter belong to psychology, as I see it. The working of the system of psycho-logic is illustrated by an analysis of the conditions of trust. I conclude that psychological terms should be defined by means of semantic primitives, and that one should try to organize them in an axiomatic system. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This essay describes some of the basic pragmatic tendencies at work in the world of working and then shows how the finite provinces of meaning of theoretical contemplation and literature act against those pragmatic tendencies. This analysis prepares the way to see how the religious province of meaning in a similar but also distinctive way acts back against these pragmatic tendencies. These three finite provinces of meaning make it possible to see the world from another center (...) of orientation than that of the ego agens and its proclivity to bring transcendences within reach, thereby freeing oneself to a degree from the fundamental anxiety and revealing the uniqueness of oneself and others, who are no longer subjected to working’s pragmatic imperatives. (shrink)

This article discusses the resurgence of the term ‘patriarchy’ in digital culture and reflects on the everyday online meanings of the term in distinction to academic theorisations. In the 1960s–1980s, feminists theorised patriarchy as the systematic oppression of women, with differing approaches to how it worked. Criticisms that the concept was unable to account for intersectional experiences of oppression, alongside the ‘turn to culture’, resulted in a fall from academic grace. However, ‘patriarchy’ has found new life through Internet memes (humorous, (...) mutational images that circulate widely on social media). This article aims to investigate the resurgence of the term ‘patriarchy’ in digital culture. Based on an analysis of memes with the phrase ‘patriarchy’ and ‘smash the patriarchy’, we identify how patriarchy memes are used by two different online communities (feminists and anti-feminists) and consider what this means for the ongoing usefulness of the concept of patriarchy. We argue that, whilst performing important community-forming work, using the term is a risky strategy for feminists for two reasons: first, because memes are by their nature brief, there is little opportunity to address intersections of oppression; secondly, the underlying logic of feminism is omitted in favour of brevity, leaving it exposed to being undermined by the more mainstream logic of masculinism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Meaning of “Aristotelianism” in Medieval Moral and Political ThoughtCary J. NedermanI. “Aristotelian” and “Aristotelianism” are words that students of medieval ideas use constantly and almost inescapably. 1 The widespread usage of these terms by scholars in turn reflects the popularity of Aristotle’s thought itself during the Latin Middle Ages: Aristotle provided many of the raw materials with which educated Christians of the Middle Ages built up the (...) edifice of medieval thought. From 1100 it was difficult to receive a good education in Europe without reading at least some Aristotle, along with authors such as Boethius and Cicero who were heavily indebted to the Philosopher’s teachings. After 1200 no university-trained cleric was likely to be wholly unfamiliar with the essential characteristics of the Aristotelian world-view. 2 Thus, Aristotelianism constituted an indispensable common currency of intellectual intercourse during the Middle Ages.Yet at the same time medieval Aristotelianism could never be all-embracing or complete. Given the centrality of Christian religion to medieval Latin thought, it was effectively impossible for Western thinkers to accept basic tenets of Aristotle’s philosophy, such as the nature of the soul, the powers of God, and the source of ultimate human happiness. 3 In view of the [End Page 563] incompatibility of primary Aristotelian and Christian doctrines, no author in medieval Europe could faithfully or safely espouse an unalloyed Aristotelianism.The “Aristotelianism” of the Middle Ages thus possesses something of a paradoxical quality: it is everywhere and yet nowhere. Such uncertainty about the precise meaning and appropriate application of the ascriptions “Aristotelian” and “Aristotelianism” has led some intellectual historians to raise fundamental questions about the validity of these classifications. In a provocative article on the interpretation of “Aristotelianism” in medieval and Renaissance natural philosophy, Edward Grant poses this problem quite pointedly: “What criteria have to be met for one to be considered, say an Aristotelian...? Can such criteria even be formulated? Is there an essence of Aristotelianism... that might provide a means of determining who is, and who is not, a legitimate member of [this group?]” 4 Grant’s own attempts to solve this problem are geared to the particular circumstances of medieval cosmology and physics, fields in which the Aristotelian paradigm entered Latin thought rapidly and reigned unchallenged for three centuries. 5 Consequently, his solutions do not generalize well to other areas of philosophical discourse, such as moral and political philosophy, which experienced rather different processes of Aristotelian transmission and reception.It may therefore be fruitful to examine more carefully the meaning of Aristotelianism as applied specifically to the fields of ethics and politics, and indeed to question whether (or in what ways) the ascription of an Aristotelian outlook to medieval moral and political thought is warranted. In particular I propose to consider the two standard definitions of “Aristotelianism” that have emerged from the literature on the moral and political ideas of the Latin Middle Ages: a strict, essentialist account which holds that Aristotelianism requires endorsement of some salient core of Aristotelian writing or doctrine; and a looser approach which maintains that mere citation of Aristotle’s work or adoption of his language is sufficient to earn the label “Aristotelian” for a medieval text or thinker. While both of these conceptions of Aristotelianism enjoy certain distinct merits, each ultimately proves inadequate to cope with the complexities of the use of Aristotle’s moral and political ideas and texts during the Middle Ages.Does the failure of attempts to define “Aristotelianism” coherently mean that the term itself is a spurious or irrelevant category for the analysis of medieval ethics and political philosophy? I shall ultimately argue that it is possible to identify a coherent meaning of Aristotelianism in the political and moral realms that avoids the shortcomings associated with previous interpretations. Specifically, I claim that the medieval “Aristotelian” tradition is [End Page 564] held together by a particular organization of and orientation towards the kind of knowledge necessary for achieving human good in its moral and political dimensions. Stated succinctly, Aristotelianism posits the practical quality of the study of ethics and politics and hence the value of such knowledge insofar as it guides action. In my view the Aristotelianism... (shrink)

The Meaning of Evil is one of the most profound yet accessible books written on this immensely important, (and never more timely) topic. Deeply immersed in the highest traditions of realist philosophy and theology, Journet addresses the truly important issues surrouding the nature of evil and the burning questions demanded of us by its existence and (on occasion) seeming dominance in our world. Topics addressed include: definitions of evil throughout history; the actual forms of evil?including the two forms of (...) evil in man; and the inescapeable questions: ?Does evil come from God?? ?Is God responsible for Sin?? and ?What is God bound to do in his infinit goodness? as a consequence? Journet also discusses the temptation to suicide and the right attitude toward evil; and, finally, why the existence of evil actually proves, not disproves, the existence of an all-good God.This republication of "The Meaning of Evil" (first published in English in 1963) also contains, as an extended introduction, a major re-assessment of Journet and his impressive corpus of work, as well as a theoretical treatment of Journet?s concept of evil in the universe and as an ever-present element in the human condition. (shrink)

In this paper, I will analyze how the conceptualization of the term ‘Basqueness’, and the meaning of ‘being Basque’, have been instrumental in determining the way in which citizens of the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC) have chosen to identify themselves. What it means to be Basque has experienced a significant evolution from its ethnic and linguistic origins to being a matter of feeling and doing; however, the way Basque citizens felt about Basqueness, and what actions participated in Basqueness, was (...) substantially influenced by the climate of political polarization, the appropriation by nationalism of Basque symbols and features and the violence of terrorist organization ETA, as well as the justification of its crimes. Working from the semantic theory of Brandomian inferentialism, I want to show how these factors functioned as inferential relations that constituted the meaning of Basqueness. As these inferences changed with the dissolution of ETA and the easing of political polarization, what it means to be Basque has subsequently changed its meaning, which might contribute to explaining why in recent years an increasing number of people in the BAC have incorporated Basqueness into their mixed or liminal identities. (shrink)

The work defines the sigh as a type of breath expressing or communicating specific physical or mental internal states. To investigate the meanings of the sigh, the paper presents analyses of written and oral corpora, finding out that it may express different emotions like boredom or frustration, but also positive meanings like self-encouragement; then it focuses on the use of sighs in political debates. Finally a perception study shows participants’ agreement on the meanings of sighs in terms of valence (...) and arousal. These results lay the bases for future studies to set a clearer distinction between sighs and other vocalisations as well as other effects on its meaning caused by the combination with other body signals like rolling eyes or shaking head. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to develop several implications which can be drawn from two twentieth century reflections on sexuality. It situates the meaning of human sexuality in relation to the notions of expression, Symbolic consciousness, Bodilessness, Intersubjectivity, Rationality, And finitude; through a comparison and contrast of the works of freud and merleau-Ponty. Both thinkers are viewed as philosophical mythologists who see sexuality as a peculiarly revelatory and representative feature of human existence as a whole. The article concludes (...) with a reflection on the significance human sexuality might have for philosophy's own self-Understanding. (shrink)

In this paper we try to crack one of the hardest and most intriguing chestnuts in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics and to identify the meaning of the celebrated Singaporean particle lah — the hallmark of Singapore English. In pursuing this goal, we investigate the use of lah and seek to identify its meaning by trying to find a paraphrase in ordinary language which would be substitutable for lah in any context. In doing so, we try to enter (...) the speakers’ minds, and as John Locke urged in his pioneering work on particles, “observe nicely” the speakers’ “postures of the mind in discoursing”. At the same time, we offer a general model for the investigation of discourse markers and show how the methodology based on the “NSM” semantic theory allows the analyst to link pragmatics, via semantics, with the study of cognition. (shrink)

Introduction. The rapid dynamics of the present world results in its complication and construction. Reality turns out to be woven from many quote fragments, representing a collage that a person creates and comprehends through the prism of various texts. Constantly transformable forms come to the fore and, as a result, there exists a plurality of meanings. Models of the world are continuously generated, replacing the actual reality with a multi- tude of spectacular simulacra. The search for ways to comprehend reality (...) through the identification of markers of its transformations is noted, and under- standing becomes the basis of ontology and one of the dominants of consciousness in the last quarter of the 20th and first quarter of the 21st centuries. Signs and symbols of subculture, determined by the context of culture and presented by various means, become one of the markers of the social reality transformations. The purpose of the study is to show the markers of the transformation of the total communication society. Methods. Methodological framework is in G. Gadamer’s hermeneutic approach and the provi- sions of M. Halliday’s social semiotics to coding/de- coding the meanings of operators-markers of social transformations. In addition, other methods were used in the work - methods of analogy, analysis and synthesis. Fragments of the study devoted to the study of chanson as a creolized text required the use of a systematic method. Scientific novelty of the research. The authors re- vealed the specificity of the chanson as a creolized text and present understanding of the subculture as a marker of the social reality transformations, which is manifested by sign-symbolic forms of con- tinuously generated creolized texts, thanks to the technique and technologies of communication. Results. Markers of social reality transformations represent them in the format of creolized texts. What is broadcast in them is filled with a person and, consequently, his responsibility for their con- tent is growing. Semiotic methodology based on the synthesis of the intellectual capital of hermeneutics and linguistics makes it possible for us to consider them as a product of human sign-symbolic activity and decode the content. Conclusions. The specificity of human existence is determined by the existence of a person in the lin- guistic aspect of the world around him - the world is given by language, which involves the search for meaning and understanding of the world. Thinking and language are ontologically connected: mean- ing is expressed by linguistic means. Although the nature of the markers of social reality transforma- tions is different, nevertheless, it is presented and framed as a text, the understanding of which is one of the ways to comprehend social reality. (shrink)

This study focuses on the experimental and philosophical analysis of the meaning of life in death situation, according to Wittgenstein’s way of life and sayings during the war. The method of extraction and analysis of information is grounded theory. For this purpose, Wittgenstein’s writings such as his letters and memories, and other’s texts about his life and his internal moods were analyzed. After analyzing the collected information and categorizing them in frames of open codes, axial codes, etc. we recognized (...) that Wittgenstein's point of view in death situation was supernatural God-centered. By reading Tolstoy gospel and Dostoyevsky's works, Wittgenstein has reached a kind of religious awakening in that period of his life. But before and after the war period he had a naturalistic point of view toward the meaning of life, in which moral values are in the core. (shrink)

The chapter first discusses the general meaning of a 'doctrine of method' in Kant’s work, as well as the specific goals of the Doctrine of Method of the second Critique. The central section, then, focuses on the notion of 'receptivity to morality', which here has a central role and a quite distinct meaning. I argue that Kant’s main point in his account of how to 'make objective practical reason subjectively practical' (5:151) is that one ought to lead (...) the individual agent to become aware of his own dignity as a moral being. In Kant’s view, recognition of this point is relevant to the overall aim of the second Critique – to show that pure reason is practical – and of moral theory itself. The task of the Doctrine of Method is to show how it is possible to make agents aware of their basic moral capacities, and through that awareness to instil genuine moral dispositions. Accordingly, the Doctrine of Method is the completion of the Critique, confirming the conclusions of the Analytic through the common use of pure practical reason and connecting them with the experience of every moral agent. (shrink)

Hermeneutics approaches the meaning of life quite uniquely: it grasps the intrinsic intelligibility of life by employing a universal concept of meaning, applicable to all phenomena. While other conceptions identify the meaning of life with values or scopes, hermeneutics starts from a grass-roots work on the meanings that are embedded at every level of reality. In this paper, I analyze this approach, especially focusing on Husserl, Heidegger, and Gadamer. First, I outline Husserl’s philosophy of meaning (...) as developed in response to the crisis of meaning. Second, I discuss Heidegger’s concept of meaning and his understanding of life as self-movement. Third, I analyze Gadamer’s concept of common sense and his idea of hermeneutic mediation that conveys the meaning of life itself. (shrink)