Does anything have actual meaning?

Dante's Devise

I've been reading up on the philosophy of language recently & it brought back to mind a comment my friend made in reference to meaning in language in terms of society "that nothing we've based our lives on has any meaning".

In the field of phsycology, supposedly, there is a consensus that in society nothing has any meaning such as laws, morals & pretty much all ideals ever concieved due to language being our method of communication, in a sense that one persons' meaning of a word is different to anothers'. So, in fact, laws stated don't actually mean anything along with the morals we've been taught or any other ideas we've ever been shown by others.

So everything I've been brought up to believe is in actual truth nonsense, and, hence, anything I want to believe in is meaningless. For the sake of my sanity I just choose to ignore this idea, but I'm curious to know what anyone has to share on this matter.

Mark Hamill

Dante's Devise wrote:

In the field of phsycology, supposedly, there is a consensus that in society nothing has any meaning such as laws, morals & pretty much all ideals ever concieved due to language being our method of communication, in a sense that one persons' meaning of a word is different to anothers'.

Well, if one persons meaning of a word/phrase is always different to everyone elses, then its not a case that that word/phrase is meaningless, quite the opposite in fact, it means a whole lot of different things to different people. When you think about it, if the universe is infinite then the number of all possible meanings is infinite, so therefore anything (and i mean anything) can and does mean everything.

Spectator#1

As far as I'm concerned, this:

Dante's Devise wrote:

So everything I've been brought up to believe is in actual truth nonsense, and, hence, anything I want to believe in is meaningless.

is the best reason to think that this:

nothing we've based our lives on has any meaning

is of very little use at all intellectually. The very fact that you were able to understand your friend when he said it, think about it, and then communicate it to us on this forum should be able to tell you that there is not, actually, a radical cleavage between the meanings we understand each word to have. The distinction between sense and reference is a good one to point out here, there is a right and a wrong way to use a word to refer, it's not quite so relativistic as you seem to suggest.

Intuition tells me that there is a meaning to my life, I can reflect upon my actions, I perceive myself as able to exercise autonomy and to make my mark upon the world and the people on it as I see fit, within reason. Thus, I endow my life with meaning by the very act of reflecting on it, feeling it, making decisions and experiencing their consequences. I also endow the world I inhabit with meanings significant only to my individual experiences, but I still live in the same world as every other person.

Recognising this cleavage is fundamental to understanding other people in life but I don't think it reduces the world to solopsistic meaninglessness at all. We can make grand statements like 'there is no meaning' and fool ourselves that it's true but it won't add anything to our self-knowledge whatsoever, life will remain the same only we'll have reduced our capacity for understanding it considerably.

For this reason, I think there is very little to be derived from making statements like that.

Red Hand

Think the OP is referring to language, Spectator and the fact that we need words to describe any word, whether that be through speech, written language or gesture/picture, which seems to be meaningless, considering that each of these words will need more words to describe them and the concept they convey.

I guess you approach infinity if you really try to describe something?

I'm reading Wittgenstein and a little Derrida at the moment relating to speech/language which is difficult but interesting.

Spectator#1

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote:

Think the OP is referring to language, Spectator and the fact that we need words to describe any word, whether that be through speech, written language or gesture/picture, which seems to be meaningless, considering that each of these words will need more words to describe them and the concept they convey.

I guess you approach infinity if you really try to describe something?

Hi Jeremiah, thanks for the reply. I know that he was talking about language. However, he was inducing that because it is difficult to understand how the language we use carries meaning, then everything that we could possibly think or communicate is also meaningless. Look at these quotes:

Dante's Devise wrote:

"we've based our lives on has any meaning".

....

In the field of phsycology, supposedly, there is a consensus that in society nothing has any meaning such as laws, morals & pretty much all ideals ever concieved due to language being our method of communication, in a sense that one persons' meaning of a word is different to anothers'. So, in fact, laws stated don't actually mean anything along with the morals we've been taught or any other ideas we've ever been shown by others.

....

So everything I've been brought up to believe is in actual truth nonsense, and, hence, anything I want to believe in is meaningless.

I'm sure you'll agree, he's not just talking about language there. I was just saying that the study of language is all very interesting, and so is the socio-psychological thesis that society is constructed entirely by normativity and consensus of some sort or another, but it would be ridiculous to convince ourselves that, because we can't understand it fully, it doesn't mean that there is no such thing as meaning--linguistically or in general.

To do that would be tantamount to convincing yourself that you don't exist as far as I'm concerned. It's absolutely contrary to your experience. Common sense tells us that there is such a thing as meaningfulness--whether it be subjective or otherwise.

Scigaithris

Dante's Devise wrote:

I've been reading up on the philosophy of language recently & it brought back to mind a comment my friend made in reference to meaning in language in terms of society "that nothing we've based our lives on has any meaning".

Your encounter with language was meaningful? So much so that you elected to engage us in this discussion? Should you continue your readings on language, you might want to consider the opposite positions of Levi-Strauss and Jacques Derrida? Levi-Strauss thought that humans were more natural and content before the advent of written language (and the domination he contends comes with it by elitists), while Jacques Derrida deconstructed his research and argument, suggesting that written language has always been with us in some form or fashion, if only in rudimentary scratchings or pictographs. In any case, both would agree that writing conveyed meaning to those who expressed it, perhaps also expressed by you in your discussion of meaninglessness through it?