published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

In this essay I defend a skeptical thesis about the meaning of life: I argue that a meaningful life is impossible. I begin by examining the attempts of several philosophers to dismiss questions of the possibility of a meaningful life as either senseless or having an affirmative answer so obvious that serious philosophical scrutiny is rendered pointless. These philosophers, I argue, offer no conclusive arguments. I proceed to consider some skeptical arguments about the meaning of life. Although these arguments are suggestive, I maintain that they are undeveloped at crucial points, and thus unconvincing. To defend my skeptical thesis, I develop an account of a necessary condition for a meaningful life. I argue that in order for a person to have a meaningful life, he must be engaged in some activity of sufficient importance so that failure in that activity would constitute a good reason for feeling a painful retrospective attitude which I call remorse. I argue that one is justified in feeling remorse, in my sense, only when one fails in the attempt to realize some desire for a categorical good, that is, a desire for something which is good independently of how one happens to feel about it. I argue that we lack good reason for thinking that such justification exists. It follows that we lack good reason for feeling what I call remorse and thus for believing we might have a meaningful life.

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Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xxvi, 286 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 266-286).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 194-207). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Philosophy / Master / Master of Philosophy

Since Plato's time, there have been attempts to show that the generally altruistic way of life is superior to the totally selfish way of life. Drawing upon the conclusions of philosophers and social psychologists, I argue that it is better to have a fairly moral character than a totally selfish one. I first argue that it is possible to have genuinely altruistic motivations (rather than disguised selfish motivations). I then show that both the altruistic and the selfish way of life are genuine choices for rational beings. Next I argue that the nature of values is such that they require reinforcement from others in order for us to verify that what we believe to be values are indeed values. I further argue that values are unattainable for the totally selfish person. Subsequently, I point out that values are necessary for an agent to have a meaningful life, and very likely necessary for a human to be able to have a sense of self. Since most people desire to have a meaningful life and a sense of self, I argue that the benefits possible to the fairly moral person outweigh the benefits possible to the totally selfish one, even if the latter can disguise her selfishness completely.

This thesis is a study of the theory of meaning developed by the seventeenth century Indian Naiyāyika philosopher Gadādhara Bhaṭṭācārya. It has four chapters and an appendix. In chapter 1, I highlight some of the problems about meaning and reference thematised by the Indian philosophical tradition during its 'classical' period (third century B.C.E. to seventh century C.E). The work of the earliest grammarians proved very influential We tend to associate the name of the grammarian Vyddi with the origins of the study of singular reference in classical India, and I look at his theory, the problems it faced, and the innovations of early Nyāya, Mimāṃsā and grammarian authors. In the second chapter, I discuss Gadādhara's analysis of the semantics of nominal stems, his construction of a 'two-component' theory of meaning, and his criticisms of the work of earlier Navya-Naiyāyikas, especially Vardhamāna and Raghunātha. The main theme of this debate concerns the failure of a realist or referential theory of meaning to serve as a complete theory of meaning, one which recognises both the intensional and the context-invariant elements in the meaning of nominal expressions. The third chapter deals with Gadādhara's theory of anaphoric pronouns. I argue in particular that Gadādhara's use of a two-component meaning theory enables him to construct a theory ofpronouns which significantly improves on the proposals of earlier Navya-Nyāya authors. In the fourth chapter, I discuss the epistemological dimension to the Nyāya conception of language; the Nyāya doctrine that linguistic competence consists in the knowledge of a compositional meaning theory; the role of convention in the Nyāya theory, and their thesis that conventions are grounded in the authority of the name-giver. I have added an appendix in which I examine the technical language by means of which Gadādhara is able to give his arguments great precision. I show that this language can be translated into a certain fragment of quantified first-order predicate logic.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1992. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [261]-267).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-219).