
Contents
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1. Three Kinds of Experience of Meaning 1. Three Kinds of Experience of Meaning
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2. Making Sense, Purpose and Resonance, and Significance 2. Making Sense, Purpose and Resonance, and Significance
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Making Sense Making Sense
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Purpose and Resonance Purpose and Resonance
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Significance Significance
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3. Is There a Unity to Experiences of Meaning? 3. Is There a Unity to Experiences of Meaning?
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4. Conclusion 4. Conclusion
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References References
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21 The Experience of Meaning
Get accessAntti Kauppinen is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Helsinki. His publications include ‘Meaningfulness and Time’ (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2012), ‘Meaning and Happiness’ (Philosophical Topics, 2013), and ‘Against Seizing the Day’ (Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, 2021).
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Published:20 April 2022
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Abstract
Recently, psychologists have started to distinguish between three kinds of experience of meaning. Drawing on philosophical as well as empirical literature, the author of this chapter argues that the experience of one’s own life making sense involves a sense of narrative justification, so that not just any kind of intelligibility suffices; the experience of purpose includes enthusiastic future-directed motivation against the background of a global sort of hopefulness, or the resonance of what one does right now with one’s values; and finally, the experience of significance consists primarily of feelings of pride and fulfilment, which construe one’s own actions as making a positive difference to the world or as mattering to someone who matters to one. Mutually exclusive philosophical views of what makes lives meaningful could all be simultaneously correct about the fittingness of these different kinds of experience.
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