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Meaning and Aging: Humanist Perspectives (Studies in Humanism and Atheism)
by Anja Machielse Joachim DuyndamThe main objective of this book is to add, from a humanist perspective, new interdisciplinary insights and research results to the current academic debate on aging. The collection aims to enhance and complement the predominantly biomedical and sociological debates and provide a more comprehensive and highly topical view on aging and old age. By purveying a meaning-in-life perspective to the current debate we want to enrich and to deepen the research on aging, thus aspiring to an ideal of meaningful aging. The starting point of this book is a humanistic meaning frame for addressing basic needs of a meaningful existence, such as having goals in life, a sense of self-worth, connectedness with others, moral justification, a certain degree of understanding (comprehensibility), direction and influence with a view to cohesion in life, and not in the least place: (living) pleasure or excitement. Taken together, the essays show that experiencing a meaningful life contributes to one’s mentalresilience, conceived as the ability to realize a humane individuality (autonomy) in thinking and acting in situations of adversity and vulnerability, particularly those faced by older people.
Meaning and Analysis: New Essays on Grice
by Klaus PetrusThe anthology 'Meaning and Analysis' addresses the key topics of H. Paul Grice's philosophy of language, such as rationality, non-natural meaning, communicative actions, conversational implicatures, the semantics-pragmatics distinction and recent debates concerning minimalist versus contextualist semantics.
Meaning and Argument: An Introduction to Logic Through Language
by Ernest Lepore Sam CummingMeaning and Argument is a popular introduction to philosophy of logic and philosophy of language. Offers a distinctive philosophical, rather than mathematical, approach to logic Concentrates on symbolization and works out all the technical logic with truth tables instead of derivations Incorporates the insights of half a century's work in philosophy and linguistics on anaphora by Peter Geach, Gareth Evans, Hans Kamp, and Irene Heim among others Contains numerous exercises and a corresponding answer key An extensive appendix allows readers to explore subjects that go beyond what is usually covered in an introductory logic course Updated edition includes over a dozen new problem sets and revisions throughout Features an accompanying website at http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/~logic/MeaningArgument.html
Meaning and Authenticity
by Brian J. BramanThe language of self-fulfillment, self-realization, and self-actualization (in short, 'authenticity') has become common in contemporary culture. The desire to be 'authentic' is implicitly a desire to shape one's self in accordance with an ideal, and the concern for what it means to be authentic is, in many ways, the modern form of the ancient question "what is the life of excellence?" However, this notion of authenticity has its critics, Christopher Lasch, for instance, who equates it with a form of narcissism and Theodor Adorno who views it as a glorification of privatism.Brian J. Braman argues that, despite criticisms, it is possible to speak about human authenticity as something that addresses contemporary concerns as well as the ancient preoccupation with the nature of the good life. He refers to the theories of Bernard Lonergan and Charles Taylor, thinkers who placed a high value on the search for human authenticity. Lonergan discusses authenticity in terms of a three-fold conversion with intellectual, moral, and religious implications while Taylor views it as a rich, vibrant, and important addition to conversations about what it means to be human.Meaning and Authenticity presents an engaging dialogue between two thinkers, both of whom maintain that there is a normative conception of authentic human life that overcomes moral relativism, narcissism, privatism, and the collapse of the public self.
Meaning and Embodiment: Human Corporeity in Hegel's Anthropology
by Nicholas MowadMeaning and Embodiment provides a detailed study of Hegel's anthropology to examine the place of corporeity or embodiment in human life, identity, and experience. In Hegel's view, to be human means in part to produce one's own spiritual embodiment in culture and habits. Whereas for animals nature only has meaning relative to biological drives, humans experience meaning in a way that transcends these limits, and which allows for aesthetic appreciation of beauty and sublimity, nihilistic feelings of meaninglessness, and the complex and different systems of symbolic speech and action characterizing language and culture. By elucidating the different forms of embodiment, Nicholas Mowad shows how for Hegel we are embodied in several different ways at once: as extended, subject to physical-chemical forces, living, and human. Many difficult problems in philosophy and everyday experience come down to using the right concept of embodiment. Mowad traces Hegel's account through the growth and development of the body, gender and racial difference, cycles of sleep and waking, and sensibility and mental illness.
Meaning and Humour
by Andrew GoatlyHow are humorous meanings generated and interpreted? Understanding a joke involves knowledge of the language code (a matter mostly of semantics) and background knowledge necessary for making the inferences to get the joke (a matter of pragmatics). This book introduces and critiques a wide range of semantic and pragmatic theories in relation to humour, such as systemic functional linguistics, speech acts, politeness and relevance theory, emphasising not only conceptual but also interpersonal and textual meanings. Exploiting recent corpus-based research, it suggests that much humour can be accounted for by the overriding of lexical priming. Each chapter's discussion topics and suggestions for further reading encourage a critical approach to semantic and pragmatic theory. Written by an experienced lecturer on the linguistics of the English language, this is an entertaining and user-friendly textbook for advanced students of semantics, pragmatics and humour studies.
Meaning and Interpretation: Wittgenstein, Henry James, and Literary Knowledge
by G. L. Hagberg'What is the meaning of a word?' In this thought-provoking book, Hagberg demonstrates how this question—which initiated Wittgenstein's later work in the philosophy of language—is significant for our understanding not only of linguistic meaning but of the meaning of works of art and literature as well.
Meaning and Justification. An Internalist Theory of Meaning (Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science #59)
by Gabriele UsbertiThis volume develops a theory of meaning and a semantics for both mathematical and empirical sentences inspired to Chomsky’s internalism, namely to a view of semantics as the study of the relations of language not with external reality but with internal, or mental, reality. In the first part a theoretical notion of justification for a sentence A is defined, by induction on the complexity of A; intuitively, justifications are conceived as cognitive states of a particular kind. The main source of inspiration for this part is Heyting’s explanation of the intuitionistic meaning of logical constants.In the second part the theory is applied to the solution of several foundational problems in the theory of meaning and epistemology, such as Frege’s puzzle, Mates’ puzzle about synonymy, the paradox of analysis, Kripke’s puzzle about belief, the de re/de dicto distinction, the specific/non-specific distinction, Gettier’s problems, the paradox of knowability, and the characterization of truth. On a more general philosophical level, throughout the book the author develops a tight critique of the neo-verificationism of Dummett, Prawitz and Martin-Löf, and defends a mentalist interpretation of intuitionism.
Meaning and Medicine: A Reader in the Philosophy of Health Care (Reflective Bioethics Ser.)
by Hilde Lindemann NelsonA chief aim of this resource is to rekindle interest in seeing health care not solely as a set of practices so problematic as to require ethical analysis by philosophers and other scholars, but as a field whose scrutiny is richly rewarding for the traditional concerns of philosophy.
Meaning and Metaphysical Necessity (Routledge Studies in Metaphysics)
by Tristan Grøtvedt HazeThis book is about the idea that some true statements would have been true no matter how the world had turned out, while others could have been false. It develops and defends a version of the idea that we tell the difference between these two types of truths in part by reflecting on the meanings of words. It has often been thought that modal issues—issues about possibility and necessity—are related to issues about meaning. In this book, the author defends the view that the analysis of meaning is not just a preliminary to answering modal questions in philosophy; it is not merely that before we can find out whether something is possible, we need to get clear on what we are talking about. Rather, clarity about meaning often brings with it answers to modal questions. In service of this view, the author analyzes the notion of necessity and develops ideas about linguistic meaning, applying them to several puzzles and problems in philosophy of language. Meaning and Metaphysical Necessity will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic.
Meaning and Structure: Structuralism of (Post)Analytic Philosophers (Ashgate New Critical Thinking in Philosophy)
by Jaroslav PeregrinIn Meaning and Structure, Peregrin argues that recent and contemporary (post)analytic philosophy, as developed by Quine, Davidson, Sellars and their followers, is largely structuralistic in the very sense in which structuralism was originally tabled by Ferdinand de Saussure. The author reconstructs de Saussure's view of language, linking it to modern formal logic and mathematics, and reveals close analogies between its constitutive principles and the principles informing the holistic and neopragmatistic view of language put forward by Quine and his followers. Peregrin also indicates how this view of language can be made compatible with what is usually called 'formal semantics'. Drawing on both the Saussurean tradition and recent developments in analytic philosophy of language, this book offers a unique study of the ways in which the concept of meaning can be seen as consisting in the concept of structure.
Meaning and the Moral Sciences (Routledge Revivals)
by Hilary PutnamFirst published in 1978, this reissue presents a seminal philosophical work by professor Putnam, in which he puts forward a conception of knowledge which makes ethics, practical knowledge and non-mathematic parts of the social sciences just as much parts of 'knowledge' as the sciences themselves. He also rejects the idea that knowledge can be demarcated from non-knowledge by the fact that the former alone adheres to 'the scientific method'. The first part of the book consists of Professor Putnam's John Locke lectures, delivered at the University of Oxford in 1976, offering a detailed examination of a 'physicalist' theory of reference against a background of the works of Tarski, Carnap, Popper, Hempel and Kant. The analysis then extends to notions of truth, the character of linguistic enquiry and social scientific enquiry in general, interconnecting with the great metaphysical problem of realism, the nature of language and reference, and the character of ourselves.
Meaning and Truth in African Philosophy: Doing African Philosophy with Language (Philosophical Studies Series #135)
by Grivas Muchineripi KayangeThis book offers a new way of doing African philosophy by building on an analysis of the way people talk. The author bases his investigation on the belief that traditional African philosophy is hidden in expressions used in ordinary language. As a result, he argues that people are engaging in a philosophical activity when they use expressions such as taboos, proverbs, idioms, riddles, and metaphors. The analysis investigates proverbs using the ordinary language approach and Speech Act theory. Next, the author looks at taboos using counterfactual logic, which studies the meaning of taboo expressions by departing from a consideration of their structure and use. He argues that the study of these figurative expressions using the counterfactual framework offers a particular understanding of African philosophy and belief systems. The study also investigates issues of meaning and rationality departing from a study on riddles, explores conceptual metaphors used in conceptualizing the notion of politics in modern African political thought, and examines language and marginalization of women and people with disabilities. The book differs from other works in African philosophy in the sense that it does not claim that Africans have a philosophy as is commonly done in most studies. Rather, it reflects and unfolds philosophical elements in ordinary language use. The book also builds African Conception of beauty and truth through the study of language.
Meaning and Value in a Secular Age
by Paul Kurtz Nathan BuppThe secular age has confronted human beings with a fundamental challenge. While the naturalistic worldview rooted in science has persuasively shown that traditional religious conceptions of the universe are unsustainable, it has so far offered no compelling secular narratives to replace the religious narratives so entrenched in civilization. In the absence of religion, how do thoughtful contemporary individuals find meaning in a secular world? This book argues for a new approach called eupraxsophy, a term first coined in 1988 to characterize a secular orientation to life that stands in contrast to religion. Derived from three ancient Greek roots, eupraxsophy literally means "good practice and wisdom." Drawing upon philosophy, science, and ethics, eupraxsophy provides a thoroughly secular moral vision, which respects the place of human values in the context of the natural world and presents an empirically responsible yet hopeful picture of the human situation and the cosmos in which we abide. For the first time, Paul Kurtz's key writings about the theory and practice of eupraxsophy are together in one volume. Written with eloquence and scope, these incisive essays show how Kurtz's brand of humanism moves above and beyond the current "new atheism." Eupraxsophy successfully bridges the cultural divide between science and value and provides a genuine and constructive alternative to religion. With an informative introduction, this book places the concept of eupraxsophy in historical perspective and shows why it is critically important, and relevant, today.
Meaning In The Age Of Social Media
by Ganaele LangloisThe search for meaning is an essential human activity. It is not just about agreeing on some definitions about the world, objects, and people; it is an ethical process of opening up to find new possibilities. Langlois uses case studies of social media platforms (including Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon) to revisit traditional conceptions of meaning.
Meaning in Dialogue
by James TraffordThis book argues for a view in which processes of dialogue and interaction are taken to be foundational to reasoning, logic, and meaning. This is both a continuation, and a substantial modification, of an inferentialist approach to logic. As such, the book not only provides a critical introduction to the inferentialist view, but it also provides an argument that this shift in perspective has deep and foundational consequences for how we understand the nature of logic and its relationship with meaning and reasoning. This has been upheld by several technical results, including, for example a novel approach to logical paradox and logical revision, and an account of the internal justification of logical rules. The book shows that inferentialism is greatly strengthened, such that it can answer the most stringent criticisms of the view. This leads to a view of logic that emphasizes the dynamics of reasoning, provides a novel account of the justification and normativity of logical rules, thus leading to a new, attractive approach to the foundations of logic. The book addresses readers interested in philosophy of language, philosophical and mathematical logic, theories of reasoning, and also those who actively engage in current debates involving, for example, logical revision, and the relationship between logic and reasoning, from advanced undergraduates, to professional philosophers, mathematicians, and linguists.
Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History, Traced through the Works of Burckhardt, Marx, Hegel, Proudhon, Comte, Condorcet, Turgot, Voltaire, Vico, Bossuet, Joachim, Augustine, Orosius, and The Bible
by Karl LöwithModern man sees with one eye of faith and one eye of reason. Consequently, his view of history is confused. For centuries, the history of the Western world has been viewed from the Christian or classical standpoint—from a deep faith in the Kingdom of God or a belief in recurrent and eternal life-cycles. The modern mind, however, is neither Christian nor pagan—and its interpretations of history are Christian in derivation and anti-Christian in result. To develop this theory, Karl Löwith—beginning with the more accessible philosophies of history in the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries and working back to the Bible—analyzes the writings of outstanding historians both in antiquity and in Christian times. "A book of distinction and great importance. . . . The author is a master of philosophical interpretation, and each of his terse and substantial chapters has the balance of a work of art."—Helmut Kuhn, Journal of Philosophy
Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (The University Center for Human Values Series #40)
by Susan WolfA fresh reflection on what makes life meaningfulMost people, including philosophers, tend to classify human motives as falling into one of two categories: the egoistic or the altruistic, the self-interested or the moral. According to Susan Wolf, however, much of what motivates us does not comfortably fit into this scheme. Often we act neither for our own sake nor out of duty or an impersonal concern for the world. Rather, we act out of love for objects that we rightly perceive as worthy of love—and it is these actions that give meaning to our lives. Wolf makes a compelling case that, along with happiness and morality, this kind of meaningfulness constitutes a distinctive dimension of a good life. Written in a lively and engaging style, and full of provocative examples, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters is a profound and original reflection on a subject of permanent human concern.
Meaning in Life, Volume 2: The Pursuit of Love (The Irving Singer Library)
by Irving SingerAn acclaimed philosopher offers a systematic mapping of the various facets of love.In his widely acclaimed trilogy The Nature of Love, Irving Singer traced the development of the concept of love in history and literature from the Greeks to the twentieth century. In this second volume of his Meaning in Life trilogy, Singer returns to the subject of his earlier work, exploring a different approach. Without denying his previous emphasis on the role of imagination and creativity, in this book Singer investigates the ability of them both to make one's life meaningful. A “systematic mapping” of the various facets of love (including sexual love, love in society, and religious love), The Pursuit of Love is an extended essay that offers Singer's own philosophical and psychological theory of love.Rich in insight into literature, the history of ideas, and the complexities of our being, The Pursuit of Love is a thought-provoking inquiry into fundamental aspects of all human relationships.
Meaning in the Arts
by Louis Arnaud ReidFirst published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Meaning in the Metropolis: Toward an Urban Existentialism
by Shane EptingThis book will benefit readers by revealing how urban existence is a multifaceted affair that, once examined, will forever change the way they think about their place in the city and what it means to live in one.Engaging in urban existentialism requires interrogating the idea of “The City,” delving into the facets of its conception. The lights, sounds, exquisite buildings, art, culture, and, most importantly, the endless possibilities entice people. They are where your wildest dreams of love, success, and happiness can come true. Yet, reality can stymie those aspirations. However, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. The reason is that many urban places, as hypercompetitive networks of socio-material arrangements, test you at every turn. They mold urban dwellers into adaptable beings who can survive the torment of traffic, bad weather, displeasing persons, and grueling work—all before lunch. Despite such complexity, what we want is probably simple: people to love, to be loved, a safe place to call home, good food, acceptance of oneself, and the ability to pursue a fulfilling existence through work and recreation. Like cities, nothing is that simple. Examining the built environment reveals competing interests between several stakeholder groups, and how each person relates to others remains at the center of such an enterprise. Questioning one’s place among others is at the heart of this book, and it can help you find meaning in the metropolis.Meaning in the Metropolis will interest philosophers, graduate students, maverick urban planners, and city lovers looking for meaning in the places they call home.
Meaning Is Everywhere: Language, Artificial Intelligence, Society
by Prashant ParikhMeaning Is Everywhere sketches a theory of meaning from the ground up—with potentially profound consequences. In a sweeping narrative that arcs from the origins of meaning through the emergence of present-day science and technology, Prashant Parikh offers a fresh perspective on some of the most significant challenges and opportunities of the contemporary world, including the promise of AI, relief from scarcity and polarization, and the possibility of at least partial utopias.
The Meaning of Belief: Religion from an Atheist’s Point of View
by Tim CraneCurrent debate about religion seems to be going nowhere. Atheists persist with their arguments, many plausible and some unanswerable, but they make no impact on believers. Defenders of religion find atheists equally unwilling to cede ground. Noting that religion is not what atheists think it is, Tim Crane offers a way out of this stalemate.
The Meaning of Criticality in Education Research: Reflecting on Critical Pedagogy (Palgrave Studies in Education Research Methods)
by Ashley Simpson Fred DervinThis book explores, and problematizes, what it means to be ‘critical’ in education research. Drawing together chapters from diverse global perspectives, this volume aims to stimulate dialogue about possible meanings of criticality in education research. In doing so, they question why criticality has become such an essential part of education, and what researchers expect of it. The book opens up and contests some of the deficiencies of criticality in education research: ultimately it is not a global term, but often creates a false binary between East and West. Offering an alternative trajectory to educational narratives surrounding criticality, this book will be of interest and value to scholars of critical pedagogy and comparative education.
The Meaning of Good: A Dialogue (Routledge Revivals: Collected Works of G. Lowes Dickinson)
by G. Lowes DickinsonFirst published in 1937, this book presents itself as a philosophic dialogue, starting with the diversity of men’s ideas about Good. In the first part, it considers the creation and criteria of Good and its relation to truth, pleasure and happiness. In the second part, the book examines some kinds of Good, pointing out their defects and limitations, and suggesting the character of Good which we might hold to be perfect. The topic of the book is treated both philosophically and practically making it intriguing reading.