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Misplaced Source, Under Sub-Section Meaning

All right, first off, I'm a new user, so go easy on me.

I noticed that the citation that lists Jack Abaza, The Definitive Answer to the Meaning of Life (2023), mischaracterizes his book in the following quote:

"Actions and policies can have meaning in relation to the goal they serve. Fields like religion and spirituality are interested in the meaning of life, which is about finding a purpose in life or the significance of existence in general."

The author has made it clear between pages 9–10 that he does not think that "the meaning of life" and "the purpose of life" are equivalent, and he offers the example of the game of volleyball where the difference between both phrases is like the difference between knowing what the leathery volleyball is for (i.e., the purpose of life) and knowing what it is (i.e., the meaning of life), and, furthermore, there cannot be a "what-for'ness" for life without a "what-aboutness" of life; if the answer remains to be seen what life means, then, according to Abaza, it's question begging to discuss life's purpose.

So, the entry mischaracterizes Abaza's, but, moreover, there's also the issue of "religion and spirituality," which Abaza is strongly against with respect to the discussion of the meaning of life. He devoted a whole chapter, dubbed Deux Ex Machina (chapter 3, 37–56), arguing that answers from religions about the meaning of life don't actually tell us anything about the meaning of life, and he made it clear from the page cited in Wikipedia (32) that he believes that literal meaning (or semantics, which he devotes chapter 6, 100–129, to explaining) is the "meaning" referenced in "the meaning of life," making his theory semantics-based.

N.B., Abaza wrote on the very first page of his book, in chapter 1, "I aim to solve the meaning of life in the English language indisputably."

I'm not too experienced with editing pages and am very hesitant, so if one wants the points, feel free to use my "summary" of his work. (Yes, I read the book; cross-reference everything I said.)

On the side, The Meaning of Life should be updated as well, since that page hasn't included a section yet on ThePedantKing (talk) 17:14, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Just to continue my thought because something wrong happened.

The Wikipage on the meaning of life above could use a new section on language and semantics. Abaza is so far the only author who discusses these subjects with intensity and academic rigour. ThePedantKing (talk) 17:15, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello ThePedantKing and welcome to Wikipedia! The passage from our article talks about the contrast between linguistic and non-linguistic meaning. This is exactly what Abaza 2023 discusses by interpreting how different researchers characterize this contrast. The quoted page in Abaza 2023 does not explicitly cover the part about religion and spirituality. This is supported by the other references to the passage in our article.

If you are interested in more academic sources on the meaning of "meaning of life", you could try [1] and [2]. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:04, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate your reply, and thanks for welcoming me. (You're perhaps the first to do so.) Bear with me because this is important and requires exactly the length of my response to explain, and I put a lot of time and thought in my replies. So, please don't speed-read it.

You're right that the paragraph where the passage occurs contrasts linguistic and non-linguistic meaning. But what's wrong (terribly wrong, to put it mildly) is the part of the paragraph about the meaning of life, i.e., being a focus of religion and spirituality, that cites at the end of it Abaza's book (the underlining is intended for emphasis). He is vehemently against religion and adamantly opposed to any and all non-linguistic interpretations of the meaning of life. (If you have read his book too [apparently, I now have to emphasize the "from cover to cover" part on Wikipedia because another user informed me that reading a book's cover or a Google preview of the book suffices, including the use of ad hominem "reasoning," and judging the quality of the source by whether it's from Penguin Random House or not, among other things], you'd understand just how opposed he would be to having it cited right next to a sentence that makes it seem as if he's in agreement with it.) Do you understand how ill-fitting the below quote...

"Fields like religion and spirituality are interested in the meaning of life, which is about finding a purpose in life or the significance of existence in general"

... is with a book that is adamant about a near-exclusive linguistic method for solving the meaning of life? One doesn't have to be particularly astute to observe on the page this article cited (i.e., 32) that Abaza wrote:

“Cottingham has in no way established his claim credibly; the practice of rituals, meditations, and prayers, he had in mind for “religious discourse” does not prove the meaning of life cannot be fully put into words, much less be its source of meaning.” (my emphasis)

Anyone who didn't speed-read this page would've understood that the author is saying that religious and spiritual activities are neither sufficient nor necessary for the meaning of life. (For context, John Cottingham is among the most prolific and famous names [he was a former Aristotelian Society president] in the area of Christianity cum [pronounced "coom"] the-meaning-of-life philosophy, with seven papers and a book written there, and Abaza devoted about five per cent of his book criticizing him.)

But I'm surprised this article cites p. 32 of all pages; apart from the use of mentioning where Abaza distinguishes between physical and abstract sciences (by using the family of sciences of linguistics as his example), this is among the intellectually tamest remarks Abaza has to say about spirituality and religion concerning the meaning of life (i.e., the "non-linguistic" aspect Jack speaks about). Much of his book discusses linguistics, semantics, and how to apply linguistic reasoning in great detail with impressive clarity.

What I would've suggested instead of p. 32 is the first section of his fifth chapter (his commentary on non-linguistic/"anti-linguists," as he calls them), where he strongly criticizes Kai Nielsen, Joshua Seachris, and R.W. Hepburn for arguing for the dismissal of the literal interpretation in favour of the non-literal interpretation of the meaning of life; he uses the expository part of his fifth chapter (section I) to draw parallels between these anti-linguists and King Sigismund, during his speech at the Council of Constance (before he became emperor); according to an account of the event, the king misused a Latin word during his speech, and when a grammarian corrected him about the neuter/feminine distinction, Sigismund basically said, "I am king, I can change the rules if I want to" (mirroring, as Abaza argued, philosophers' eagerness to ignore what a phrase/question means [i.e., the meaning of life/what is the meaning of life?] when it doesn't suit them), and that's when the grammarian famously reported Caesar non est supra grammaticos; "the king isn't above grammar," and neither are philosophers who deliberately break semantic/grammar rules when it doesn't suit them.

If you want help improving that passage that cites Abaza, let me know. I could easily expand this section to include those who take things non-literally, qua the meaning of life, and those who do, which is so far just Abaza. ThePedantKing (talk) 16:31, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I replaced Abaza 2023 with an alternative source. I hope this solves your concern. Generally speaking, having a sentence and adding a reference to a page in a book does not mean that everything its author has written fully agrees with the sentence. It just means that the specific page supports a claim made in the sentence.

The topic of the different meanings of the expression "meaning of life" is a minor issue in the context of the wide field of semantics. It can be discussed in more detail in articles on more narrow topics but there is no need to expand on it here. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:25, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

If you had moved him up to the second sentence of the paragraph, about "how signs are interpreted and what information they contain," you'd have been closer to what he actually discusses in 114–115, and he is one of the closest matches to that subject, so correcting a mis-reference (basically putting him next to a sentence that he was denying that it could be true, i.e., rituals/religion being sufficient/necessary for significance/purpose), by removing it marginally improves the article, rather than enrichening it with what he discussed. What you did is fine.

Cottingham is an excellent choice on the topic of spirituality, religion, and finding purpose or significance (he equivocates between the two quite a bit, especially in On the Meaning of Life [2003]). Seachris' encyclopedia entry is somewhat apt; had it been his papers, you'd be citing his "narrative" philosophy, which has almost nothing to do with spirituality, religion, and much less semantics. A little more can be said about the non-linguistic-versus-linguistic debate on semantics, which I'll want to add when I have time because this would improve the article tremendously. Cheers. ThePedantKing (talk) 13:16, 19 September 2024 (UTC)