The meaning(s) of life : a contemporary perspective between Nietzsche Sartre & Nancy

Abstract

What is the meaning of life? This philosophical question is as old as human existence itself, and has received especial attention in the secular Western world since the 19th century and Friedrich Nietzsche's polemical proclamation of the 'death of god'. This study enquires into the possibility of a meaningful human life in this increasingly secular and globalized world, which follows in the wake of the death of god and the demise of traditional transcendental sources of human meaning. This study does so through recourse to the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Nietzsche's proto-existentialist philosophy raises the problem of nihilism to the forefront of our existential and philosophical concern, and urges those following in his legacy to confront the menacing threat of meaninglessness facing human beings after the death of god. Following in the immediate aftermath of Nietzsche's thought, the early 20th century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre takes up the existentialist reigns from Nietzsche and conceives an individualist phenomenological ontology of human meaning. Sartre offers contemporary humanity a possible means-to-meaning(s) by virtue of a fundamental freedom fettered to an unmitigated personal responsibility on the part of each individual to render their own lives meaningful here and now. However, Sartre's ontological account subscribes strictly to the individual or subjective dimension of meaning, and does not adequately account for the possibility that meaning might be made in concert with other human individuals. In this regard, the contemporary thought of Jean-Luc Nancy is employed in order to address the social dimension of human meaning(s). Specifically, through Nancy's philosophy of meaning as 'sense' and existence as 'singular plural', one might be given to understand that meaning is a pursuit that is carried out throughout this world between human beings who are always already sharing in meaning(s) owing to their immediate worldly existence. This study positions itself between the philosophies of Nietzsche, Sartre, and Nancy, so as to arrive at a contemporary perspective on the meaning(s) of human existence in both an individual and social sense, thus allowing us to see that human life today can indeed be thought of as meaningful.