Dissertation

My dissertation focuses critical attention on 3 main areas: (1) a number of underlying assumptions shared by most contemporary philosophical work on meaning in life, which I try to excavate & make clear; (2) the underlying philosophical methodology that drives the acceptance of the assumptions mentioned in (1); and (3) working to develop rehabilitate some aspects of meaning which are currently undertheorized: purpose & belonging.

Following some recent work by Cheshire Calhoun & James Tartaglia, I try to excavate some underlying assumptions about the nature of meaning, as well as some common methodological commitments, shared by many theorists working on meaning. I argue that these assumptions & methodological commitments tend to push theorizing about meaning in certain misleading and unprofitable directions. At the same time, certain aspects of meaning which are central to both the empirical psychological literature & colloquial thinking about meaning (e.g. by non-philosophers) are pushed to the margins or out of the picture entirely—namely, purpose & belonging.

Having established the case for the above, I try to show that both purpose & belonging are central aspects of meaning, ones philosophers ignore to their peril. I work to develop a novel account of meaning-as-purpose, excavate some important aspects of belonging, and show how purpose is connected to belonging through the idea of social roles & Korsgaardian practical identities. It turns out that ‘being part of something’ (that is, belonging) is partly determinative of purpose, insofar as we inhabit social roles that partly determine who we are, our social function as part of a community.

Beyond this, I also try to consider connections between belonging & purpose and: political philosophy, experiences of meaninglessness & depression, the fundamentally relational dimension of human life, insofar as we are always already embedded in a web of social relationships, communities, commitments, and so on. I here draw on work by Matthew Ratcliffe, Sam Scheffler, Jonathan Lear, among others.

Other Research

In work related to this project, though not part of the dissertation proper, I hope to eventually explore the ethical & political dimensions of meaning, such as the possibility of meaning-based harms (harms aimed directly at what is meaningful in our lives, as well as our capacity to live meaningfully); connections with the Rawlsian tradition regarding resources such as time and their role in enabling meaningful living; the politics of equal opportunity as it relates to having opportunities to live (and work) meaningfully; and questions about technology, social media, content creators and their role in promoting or undermining meaningful living, especially as it relates to life in a world dominated by neoliberal capitalism.