What Do We Mean When We Talk about Meaning?

225 Pages·2022·1.709 MB·English

by  Steven Cassedy

What Do We Mean When We Talk
About Meaning?

What Do We Mean
When We Talk
About Meaning?
STEVEN CASSEDY
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Names: Cassedy, Steven, author.
Title: What do we mean when we talk about meaning? / Steven Cassedy.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021045022 (print) | LCCN 2021045023 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190936907 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190936914 |
ISBN 9780190936921 (epub) | ISBN 9780190936938
Subjects: LCSH: Meaning (Philosophy) |
Meaning (Philosophy)—Religious aspects—Christianity.
Classification: LCC B105.M 4 C38 2022 (print) |
LCC B105.M 4 (ebook) | DDC 121/.68—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021045022
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021045023
DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780190936907.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
For Patrice, Mike, Meghan, Liam, Isaac, Eva, Peter, and
Sophia, who fill me with love, pride, and awe

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: This Ambiguous, Ubiquitous Word 1
1. The Ancient World Got Along Without It Until the Rise of
Christianity 11
2. Christianity, Scripture, and “Reading” the World, from
Augustine to Bishop Berkeley 24
3. Idealism and Romanticism: From the Language of Nature
to the Meaning of Life (or the World) 43
4. Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson Bring the
“Mystery of Existence” and the “Sense of Life” to the
English- Speaking World 74
5. Two Russian Titans Weigh In 94
6. Paul Tillich: Bridge to the Twentieth Century and the
“Age of Anxiety” 119
7. Meaning in the Age of Anxiety and Well Beyond 130
8. Meaning Goes Clinical, Therapeutic, and Popular 141
9. Meaning Bridges the Secular and the Sacred 163
Conclusion: The Marvel of Meaning 183
Notes 187
Index 205

Acknowledgments
Thanks to Patrice, the love of my life, for her invaluable help.
Thanks to Theo Calderara, my editor at Oxford University Press, for his
help, from the moment I first inquired about my project to its publication.
Thanks also (in no particular order) to Richard Elliott Friedman, University
of Georgia; the late David Goodblatt, olev ha- sholem, UC San Diego; Tim
Cassedy, Southern Methodist University; James Tartaglia, Keele University;
Emily Esfahani Smith, Washington DC; William Breitbart, Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center, NY; William Fitzgerald, King’s College London;
Julia Mebane, Indiana University; Anthony T. Edwards, UC San Diego;
Robert Cancel, UC San Diego; Donna Cancel, San Diego; William Propp, UC
San Diego; Richard Spinello, Boston College; Mark Massa, Boston College;
Liam Bergin, Boston College; Christian Danz, Vienna University; Todd
Kontje, UC San Diego; William Arctander O’Brien, UC San Diego; Anthony
Grafton, Princeton University; Eric Watkins, UC San Diego; Clinton Tolley,
UC San Diego; Anders Engberg-P edersen, University of Southern Denmark;
Robert H. Abzug, University of Texas, Austin; Alastair Hannay, University
of Oslo, Norway; Andrew Finstuen, Boise State University; Rabbi Simon
Jacobson, Meaningful Life Center, Brooklyn, NY; Seth Lerer, UC San Diego;
Stephen D. Cox, “The Other” (Steve), UC San Diego; Alexandra Popoff,
Canada; Inessa Medzhibovskaya, New School, NYC; Beth Holmgren,
Duke University; Irina Paperno, UC Berkeley; Alain J.-J . Cohen, UC San
Diego; Barbara L. Fredrickson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill;
Alexander Batthyány, International Academy for Philosophy, Principality of
Liechtenstein; Timothy Pytell, California State University, San Bernardino;
Robert P. Ebert, Princeton University; Christoph Fehige, Saarland University,
Saarbrücken, Germany; Edward Mendelson, Columbia University; Gordon
Marino, St. Olaf College; Rabbi Ed Feinstein, Valley Beth Shalom, Encino,
CA; Daniel Gardner, MD, San Diego; Matthew Zetumer, MD, San Diego;
Henry E. Allison, Boston University; Page duBois, UC San Diego; Alan
Jacobs, Baylor University; Martin Leiner, Friedrich- Schiller- Universität
Jena, Germany; Eric Brandt, University of Virginia Press.