The Search for Meaning

Full Title: The Search for Meaning: A Short History
Author / Editor: Dennis Ford
Publisher: University of California Press, 2007

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Review © Metapsychology Vol. 12, No. 1
Reviewer: Bob Lane

When I was a student at the University of California one of my favorite professors was Douwe Stuurman, who taught continental literature and existentialism to large crowds of people. Some in the classes were free speech, anti-war, meaning-seeking hippies, while others were more conservative students from philosophy or literature departments who were there to observe a master lecturer at work. There were always a few nuns in the classes, easily identified because of their traditional uniforms. (Stuurman claimed they were spying on him.)

It was a time of political crisis and the threat and reality of war. God was dead, we were told, and with the demise came . . . came what? Could there be anything but an age of anxiety? Could we humans find purpose in a cold unfeeling universe that pretty obviously didn't care about us? Was angst and alienation our destiny? Did anything matter?

Stuurman's answer to the seemingly deep question "what is the meaning of life?" was that the question was meaningless. The question was badly formed. For one thing "meaning" is, as I. A. Richards had taught us, hopelessly vague. We use the word in everyday language in many ways:

'…if you see what I mean.'
'…if you take my meaning.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'I always say what I mean.'
'"Retromingent" means "pissing backwards".'
'I didn't really mean it.'
'I meant to write.'
'A green light means "go"'
'What is the meaning of life?'
'Health means everything.'
'His look was full of meaning.
'What's the dictionary meaning of "meaning"?'

Dennis Ford in The Search for Meaning: A Short History wants to investigate the meaning of life question by looking at several different "world views" in an attempt to … to what? To survey ways that people have employed to find a transcendent and meaningful answer to the big question? To evaluate these ways? To advocate for The Way?

His book begins, "Does life have meaning?" and "How could we go on living if we were to admit that life is utterly meaningless?" (The brilliant opening of Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus, "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and this is suicide"  resonates in the background.)  Ford goes on to suggest that when we take that question seriously, when it hits us with its full existential force, we are driven to find an answer in order to ward off suicidal anxiety and angst. His book then offers us a history of attempts at answers to this overriding question of meaning. These answers include myth, philosophy, science, postmodernism, pragmatism, archetypal psychology, metaphysics, and naturalism. His book, he tells us, is a search for meaning and not a search for God. Ford devotes a chapter to each of these "world views" in order to show the various answers offered to the deep "meaning of life" questions.

Preface: When Meaning Becomes a Question

1. Introduction

PART I. CLASSICAL SOURCES OF MEANING

2. Myth and Meaning

3. Philosophy and Meaning

4. Science and Meaning

5. Postmodernism and Meaning

PART II. CONTEMPORARY SOURCES OF MEANING

6. Pragmatism and Meaning

7. Archetypal Psychology and Meaning

8. Metaphysics and Meaning

9. Naturalism and Meaning

10. Conclusion

Ford's discussion of these eight "ways" is informed, intelligent and interesting. His discussion of myth is excellent and he shows how in the history of ideas we humans went from myth to philosophy (of a certain kind) to science.

It is difficult to classify this book. Perhaps one way to give the potential reader some sense of the book is to say what it is not. It is not a philosophy text. It is not a self-help book. It does not present arguments for the way to find meaning. It is not a book about the meaning of meaning. In fact, one criticism I have of the book is that it fails to distinguish between meaning and purpose; in fact, Ford seems to think that they are interchangeable, but, of course, words have meaning and people have purposes. A second criticism is that although he mentions Camus on several occasions, he doesn't really understand Camus. Ford writes (255) "Albert Camus was correct in saying that we finally live without appeal, but in saying that, Camus failed to emphasize the pleasures of enjoying intrinsically fulfilling experiences, experiences, that is, that need neither justification nor explanation." But, in fact, Camus is quite clear in his solution to the "one truly serious philosophical problem" and that is that life can have value without having meaning.

Professor Stuurman used to describe the books by the "new theologians" of the time as having a pattern where the writer spent the first two-thirds of the book describing carefully the absurdity of the world and the death of God, and then in the last third re-introducing God by a trick of redefinition. Ford writes in his conclusion (255), "Just as doubt rests on a foundation of faith, so meaninglessness rests on a foundation of meaning." [emphasis in the original]

© 2007 Bob Lane

Bob Lane is a retired teacher of literature and philosophy who is an Honorary Research Associate at Malaspina University-College in Canada.

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