A serious look at a silly question (?) -- What is the meaning of life?
After living with the vice-president of the Texas Atheist Association for six months, I have been forced, yes, forced, to contemplate the value of certain grand, philosophical questions. My room-mate, who was an intolerable human being, was a scientific materialist. As such, he regarded many of the questions I put before him as, and I quote, “senseless”. Now, please don’t think that I’m dismissing all scientific materialists into a box. No. This isn’t what this is about. However, I think contextualising his belief system, one which I think he dogmatically adhered to, is of the utmost salience.
A classic, if trite, philosophical question has been mentioned in the title. Those of you whom love Douglas Adams will be, no doubt, shouting forty-two at the computer screen. Excellent, side-splitting sci-fi aside, I would like to examine this profound question from a linguistic perspective.
Being an English teacher, I have an obsession with language. Consequently, my favourite philosophers are linguists. Wittgenstein and Chomsky top my list; they do so because language is the tool of philosophy. Without it, we would not be able to explore the abstract nature of life. Meaning is conveyed through language – for me, it is the essence of philosophy.
So. Enough with the blathering context that inspired this humble analysis!
I will deconstruct the sentence and aim to analyse it as such. As words comprise language, each word’s definition, function and validity should be questioned as the parts constitute the whole. The grand, trite question begins with one of the five Ws: what. But what does “what” mean?!
It’s used every single day, perhaps billions of times. Yet if I asked you to define the word, could you do so, perfectly? I doubt it. And that’s no assault on your intelligence, or your intellect. This is because the word “what” can be utilised in a plethora of ways. It can be an interrogative pronoun, an adjective, an adverb, an interjection, a noun, a conjunction, it is used in idioms, and somewhat classically, it has been adopted in colloquial British English – mainly by the upper crust of society, to seek agreement (a fine party, what?). However, in the sentence, “What is the meaning of life?” ‘what’ is used as an interrogative pronoun. It is used interrogatively to inquire as to the worth, usefulness, force, or importance of something.
The word “is” has been utilised as a linking verb . It is not an auxiliary verb (however, just to confuse you, this is sometimes an ambiguous area in linguistics) in the context of this sentence. “Is” is used to relate the interrogative pronoun to the main noun, that’s for sure. “Is” is not used to assist a main verb, which seems incontrovertible.
What I find most interesting is the use of definite article. The use of “the” explicitly directs the question into a singular, narrow yet broad avenue. Unlike the indefinite articles “a” and “an”, “the” indicates that something specific, perhaps unique, may be able to be identified in the answer. Whether this is wise, well, I will tackle that point later.
The word “meaning” has various…meanings. Sorry, I just couldn’t resist that line. To be more mature about it, the word “meaning” has multiple definitions. Yet – yet! – in regard to the question above, I believe everyone should look at the second definition on ww.dictionary.com. The word “meaning”, within this context, means the end, purpose, or significance of something.
Penultimately, at least when analysing the individual units of language, that is to say words, the word “of” must be tackled. It is, of course, a preposition. Whilst teaching in Saudi Arabia, I always stressed the importance of prepositions to those who spoke English at a very basic level. Whilst there are many, many words within the English language, as they (mainly) indicate spatial relations, and there are only 150 prepositions in the English language. I am, however, digressing.
The word “of” is used in syntactic functions or semantic roles: the word isn’t used for spatial relations; it is, at least within this sentence, used to denote that “meaning” is a component part of “life”.
Lastly, we get to the word “life”. Now, that really is an interesting word. How do we define life? Scientifically, I guess. On Wikipedia, life is defined as: “Life (cf. biota) is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signalling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate. Biology is the science concerned with the study of life.”
But how do we define “life” in the context of the question? The context of the question presupposes human life, doesn’t it? Or does it transcend that – especially if one allows the premise: the true meaning of life encompasses an omniscient and omnipotent deity (if such a deity could be both). Does the question include all life, even that of a may fly?
And that’s just it. The question is too broad in one sense and too narrow in another. It is formed of too few words to allow one to answer it with any sense of credibility. The question is too narrow because of the definite article that is used. I think a better question is: what is a meaning of life? This question allows for an indefinite amount of answers, instead of one absolute answer. Yet the question is too broad because the answer that is desired should encapsulate everything. It is impossible to rectify the obtuse with the acute and that’s why all attempts to answer this grand, bland question are so unfulfilling.
Why do we strive for these absolute answers? Something within the human spirit yearns for knowledge but through the virtue of that self-same yearning we create unsolvable questions.
What really interests me is the fact that the question that inspired this answer does carry meaning. If someone asks you “what is the meaning of life?”, you know that they are searching for an answer. It may not be “the” answer, but perhaps striving to find one is what is really important.
The Philosophy Takeaway 'The Meaning of Life' Issue 29
