The Question of Meaning

In this penetrating study of the concept of meaning, Gerhard Sauter shows that -- contrary to popular belief -- the human quest for meaning is a relatively recent development, arising only after the deconstruction of metaphysics at the end of the nineteenth century. Since then, people have continually sought after the meaning of history, the meaning of their labors, their sufferings, their lives. In an attempt to construct new areas of orientation, meaning has become a dominant term in hermeneutics, in philosophy of language, in psychology, in sociology, in social theory, and in all domains influenced by them, including politics.

In former times the term meaning related to statements that could be proven as either true or false, while the term sense marked the ability to perceive reality and to respond to it. In this careful and elaborate analysis of the history of the term meaning, Sauter reevaluates the differences and the connections between meaning and sense in the context of an age that has jettisoned its own metaphysical moorings. Sauter interprets biblical references to meaning -- in Job and Ecclesiastes, for example -- and compares them with modern concepts of the term. He probes beyond the quest for meaning to ask what the quest itself means, and questions whether the modern quest for meaning in fact weakens our perceptions of everyday reality. His conclusions lead to a new kind of quest: an intellectual and spiritual adventure to discover sense encountering contingent reality.