The Dogma of Meaning

By Héctor Martínez Sanz

"In The Dogma of Meaning, H ctor Mart nez argues that Western philosophy, since Plato and Aristotle, has developed around the existential demand that if life has value, then it must have meaning. Its meaning is its value. This demand for meaning, as a uniquely human demand, has remained unquestioned throughout the history of philosophy due to the linguistic bias of thought: a prejudice of a philosophy that begins by thinking with words and ends by taking words and their meanings (sense) as the very object of its philosophizing. It is a philosophy that began by asking about reality, deviated when attempting to explain reality, and ultimately came to believe that the meaning of the linguistic discourse with which it explains reality is the answer to the original question. Explanation and meaning have since been linked as substitutes for reality, because whenever we speak of reality we use words and their meanings, which we seek for consolation. Meaning has only been questioned in its various named manifestations (religious, anthropocentric, scientific...), but the demand for meaning, which arises from the fear of death, has endured. The author counters this demand with a vitalist attitude that affirms the value of life in itself, without displacing its foundation beyond life and the present moment in which it unfolds. Throughout this short essay, while invoking well-known figures (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Marx, Bergson, Heidegger), Mart nez grounds his reflection primarily in lesser-known or marginal thinkers such as Peter Wessel Zapffe, Georges Canguilhem, Ayn Rand, Giorgio Colli, R diger Safranski, and E. M. Cioran

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08VYLP3G3
• ISBN13: 9798705701049
• Release Date: February 2021
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 84 Pages
• Weight: 0.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.0" x 8.0"