Abstract

In order to tackle the question of a meaningful life, the author is firstly concerned with how verbal expressions become meaningful. The meaning of a verbal expression consists in giving reasons for convictions, actions, and emotive attitudes. The giving and taking of reasons implies a permanent self-assurance of our own actions, our own convictions, and our own emotive attitudes. We assure ourselves of the meaning of life by weighing and exchanging reasons. Reasons never express merely subjective preferences or epistemic states. Therefore, they always refer to something objective.