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36The Sense of Life – Jean-Luc Nancy and Emmanuel LévinasJournal of the British Society for Phenomenology 47 (4): 347-361. 2016.ABSTRACTMetaphysics has long been regarded as providing meaning to the world. Subsequent progressive replacement attempts of this narrative by a scientific approach have generally led to a view of life as being void of meaning. However, this has not affected the quest for meaning or for an understanding of this meaning, despite an increasing societal neglect of the importance of its pursuit. This article aims to contribute to a philosophical understanding of the sense of life in the world, drawi…Read more
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19Why It Definitely Matters How We Encounter NatureEnvironmental Ethics 31 (3): 279-296. 2009.Our natural environment is in a lamentable state, notwithstanding today’s increasing ecological awareness. One cause frequently cited is our diminished perception of and relation to nature on ontological grounds. None of the alternative visions offered to date has been considered to really challenge the prevailing detached utilitarian and empirical framework. However, continued attempts on various levels are needed to rearticulate and reinvigorate the currently dormant and neglected plurality of…Read more
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12What Kind of Relation is There between Ethics and the Surpassing?Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 10 311-316. 2008.This paper describes the relation between the surpassing and ethics. It first describes how we re-think the surpassing. We divide it into a non-reflective and a reflective level. Next we link it to ethics. The point we want to make is that in order for something to be ethical it needs a surpassing element. Yet not all surpassing elements lead to ethics. Therefore, we will first delineate the surpassing.
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16Comment on Martin Drenthen's Article, 'Ecological Restoration and Place Attachment: Emplacing Non-Places?'Environmental Values 22 (1): 7-16. 2013.I analyse Drenthen's article 'Ecological restoration and place attachment: emplacing non-places?' (Environmental Values 18(3): 285-312), focusing in particular on his use of the notions of 'appropriation' and 'estrangement' from the perspective of meaningfulness. I show that, for deeper meaningfulness as place attachment, within the appropriable there is always a tension with the non-appropriable; there is a successful connection between both. Estrangement and loss of meaning occur the moment th…Read more
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14Reflections on Meaningfulness and its Social RelevanceKritike 4 (1): 138-149. 2010.Philosophers who write about the meaning of life are few nowadays. Thesubject has lost its attractiveness. Perceived from a viewpoint of logical positivism or language philosophy, the whole issue of meaningfulness seems rather pointless. It is often considered to be related to metaphysics, making it less suitable for philosophical inquiry. The topic of meaningfulness seems too intangible. Indeed, the few philosophers that have embarked on examining meaningfulness have proven to be well aware of …Read more
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9Meaningfulness, Volunteering and Being Moved: The Event of Wit(h)nessingFoundations of Science 21 (2): 283-300. 2016.This paper draws on an in-depth phenomenological analysis of some interviews taken from volunteers, inviting them to reflect on their lived experiences of meaningfulness in the context of volunteering and citizenship. It is found that while some testimonies reinforce the standard conceptions of meaningfulness, other testimonies vary from it. The main challenge of this contribution consists in phenomenologically describing this alternative picture of meaningfulness, depicted as the event of wit(h…Read more
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16The Self as Inseparable Separation: Deepening the Starting Position for Our Relation with the EnvironmentLevinas Studies 9 203-225. 2014.
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16Introduction. Meaningfulness, Volunteers, CitizenshipFoundations of Science 21 (2): 237-251. 2016.This introductory article starts by describing the genesis of this special issue and the interconnection of its topics. The editors offer a variety of reading entries into the key-note articles and responses. The article reconstructs the research interests underpinning the idea of integrating meaningfulness, volunteers and citizenship. It highlights the explicit interdisciplinary design of the special issue, and shows how the key-note authors, and their respondents, weave connections between mea…Read more
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1Reflections on MeaningfulnessKritike 4 (1): 138-149. 2010.Philosophers who write about the meaning of life are few nowadays. Thesubject has lost its attractiveness. Perceived from a viewpoint of logical positivism or language philosophy, the whole issue of meaningfulness seems rather pointless. It is often considered to be related to metaphysics, making it less suitable for philosophical inquiry. The topic of meaningfulness seems too intangible. Indeed, the few philosophers that have embarked on examining meaningfulness have proven to be well aware of …Read more
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65The globe of globalizationKritike 5 (2): 10-25. 2011.The starting question in this article is: what does globalization mean philosophically? What matters for this article, is not inasmuch the content of the politico-moral claims or the ideological scope of worldviews as described by sociological and political sciences in the process of globalization, but rather a philosophical horizon that exceeds everyday political reality. This stems from a point of view that the debate on globalization and its alternatives is still too often protruded by ideolo…Read more
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11If meaningfulness is not always fulfilling, why then does it matter?Meta: Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and Practical Philosophy 6 (2): 484-505. 2014.We start from a quandary in the field of meaningfulness introduced by Susan Wolf, who attempts to make clear why meaning in life would matter. In common sense terms, fulfilment is considered to play a main role in the conceptualisation of meaningfulness. While initially taking this also for granted Wolf gradually comprehends that fulfilment is not the overall reason why meaning in life matters. She leaves however open the paramount question of what would make it then so particular. In this artic…Read more
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Worldviews, Science and Us: Bridging Knowledge and Its Implications for Our Perspectives of the World (edited book)World Scientific. 2011.
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117Reflecting on the Meaning of LifePhilosophy in the Contemporary World 16 (2): 22-31. 2009.The question of the meaning and meaningfulness of life is neglected by philosophers today. Meaning is implicitly assumed to be associated with individual choices and preferences. This article argues that meaningfulness works in another way as well, when something provokes meaningfulness. One of the consequences of this vision is that there may well be implicit "standards" for meaning. Certain benchmarks for meaning-references concerned with our "being-in-the-world"-have not been explored fully e…Read more
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16Being-with: Response to Mikael Lindtfelt and Roger BurggraeveFoundations of Science 21 (2): 311-314. 2016.This final comment provides, a theoretical framework on how to conceive the self as presented in the key-note paper ‘Meaningfulness, volunteering and being moved. The event of witnessing’. This is deemed requisite to achieve a full understanding of how depth in meaningfulness comes about.
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33Meaningfulness, Volunteering and Being Moved: The Event of WitnessingFoundations of Science 21 (2): 283-300. 2016.This paper draws on an in-depth phenomenological analysis of some interviews taken from volunteers, inviting them to reflect on their lived experiences of meaningfulness in the context of volunteering and citizenship. It is found that while some testimonies reinforce the standard conceptions of meaningfulness, other testimonies vary from it. The main challenge of this contribution consists in phenomenologically describing this alternative picture of meaningfulness, depicted as the event of witne…Read more