Abstract

Several authors have recently argued that intelligibility, rather than value, constitutes life’s meaning. In this paper I criticize the intelligibility view by offering examples of cases in which intelligibility and meaningfulness rates do not coincide. I show this for both meaning in life and meaning of life; under both naturalist and supernaturalist assumptions; and in ways relevant to subjectivists, objectivists, and hybridists. I show why the value view is not, in fact, vulnerable to several putative counterexamples to it, and I explain why, if value rather than intelligibility constitutes meaningfulness, there are so many cases in which intelligibility and meaningfulness rates do coincide. Finally, I explain why various arguments for the intelligibility view fail to show that it is advantageous to the value view.

摘要

最近有几位作者认为，生命的意义是可理解性，而不是价值。在本文中，我通过提供可懂度和有意义率不一致的案例来批评可懂度观点。我显示此两种意义的生命和意义的生活; 在自然主义和超自然主义假设下；以及与主观主义者、客观主义者和混合主义者相关的方式。我展示了为什么价值观实际上并不容易受到几个假定的反例的影响，并且我解释了为什么，如果价值而不是可理解性构成了意义，那么在很多情况下，可理解性和意义率确实是一致的。最后，我解释了为什么可理解性观点的各种论点未能表明它对价值观点有利。