Abstract

Nozick claims that the quest for the meaning of life entails a relational account of meaning. I defend his claim and show that the meaning of life is not one value among many but rather represents the connectedness of all aspects of human life. The meaning of life is a transcending of our limits towards value. This account leads Nozick to a theistic conclusion: the ultimate meaning of life can be only something that has no further meaning and is its meaning, namely the Unlimited. The paper starts by discussing Nozick’s definition of meaning as a relational dimension of reality. I underscore the difference between his approach and other approaches to the meaning of life, and then I examine the relation between meaning and value. The second part analyzes the various modes of life’s meaning as they emerge from the use of “meaning” in everyday language. I end with the discussion of the self-relationality of the Unlimited, which grounds the relationality of meaning.