Tianyao YUN « From the Meaningless to the Meaningful : Towards a Phenomenology of Situated Meaningfulness »

Thèse de doctorat en philosophie, réalisée sous la co-direction de M. Jean-Michel ROY (ENS de Lyon) et de M. Zhenhua YU (East China Normal University)

Composition du jury

• Paul CLAVIER, professeur des universités, Université de Lorraine, rapporteur et examinateur
• Vincent GERARD, professeur des universités, Université Clermont Auvergne, rapporteur et examinateur
• Sebastien GANDON, professeur des universités, Université Clermont Auvergne, examinateur
• CHENG Sumei, Professeure, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, examinatrice (en visioconférence)
• CAI Wenjing, professeure, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, examinatrice (en visioconférence)
• Jean-Michel ROY, Professeur des universités, ENS de Lyon, directeur de thèse
• YU Zhenhua, professeur, East China Normal University, cotuteur de thèse (en visioconférence)

Pour des raisons d’organisation et de sécurité, je vous serais reconnaissant de bien vouloir me confirmer votre présence par retour de mail à tianyao.yun[at]ens-lyon.fr. (Vous pouvez également me contacter si vous préférez suivre la soutenance en visioconférence.)

Résumé

This study investigates the essential structure and fundamental conditions of human experiences of meaningfulness. It focuses on a specific kind of meaning : purposive-evaluative meaning, which concerns our sense that an entity, action, fact, event, individual life, or the world as a whole is valuable, purposeful, and intelligible. Methodologically, the study adopts a via negativa approach : it examines various experiences of meaninglessness—that is, experiences marked by the absence, lack, or loss of meaning—in order to uncover the underlying structure of the experience of meaningfulness. In terms of scope, the study classifies meaninglessness into three categories : everyday, universal, and cosmological.
The analysis of everyday experiences of meaninglessness focuses on four types of absurdity and three types of boredom. It reveals that an action is experienced as meaningless when it fails to be grasped as fitting its anticipated purpose, when its purpose is perceived as not worth pursuing, or when its purpose is not regarded as the most worth pursuing at a given moment—all of which are determined by the concrete and structured situation in which the subject finds himself.
Universal meaninglessness is examined through an interpretation of Heidegger’s analyses of profound boredom and angst. Both are marked by a distinctive ambiguity : while all determinate actions or entities appear meaningless, the indeterminate situation as a whole still manifests as rich with potential meaning. It calls upon the subject to attend to this meaning and to develop it from a state of indeterminacy into articulated form. The senses of universal valuelessness and universal unintelligibility arise from the subject’s escape from the radical indeterminacy of the situation and its calling—a situation we refer to as a primordial situation.

Cosmological meaninglessness is analyzed through a critical reading of Nietzsche’s account of nihilism as a psychological state, as well as Camus’s and Nagel’s respective analyses of metaphysical absurdity. These experiences of meaninglessness are ultimately rooted in de-situated practical reflection : a mode of reflection unbounded by any specific demand of a concrete situation, and which, as a result, tends to perpetuate itself to the point where all meaning collapses. Such reflection is structurally self-conflicting : while it sustains the awareness that nothing is worth pursuing, it is itself still being pursued, thereby contradicting its own constitutive aim, namely, to guide the subject toward rational and meaningful action.
Across these analyses, situatedness emerges as the fundamental condition for the experience of meaningfulness. The final part of this thesis seeks to positively demonstrate this conclusion by examining two basic kinds of situation. In the case of structured situations, meaningfulness is grounded in the subject’s active response—through action or practical reasoning—to the motivational circumstances he encounters, guided by an implicit or explicit grasp of the relevant capability circumstances and conditional circumstances, which together determine what the subject can do and what costs and risks may be involved. In the case of primordial situations, meaningfulness is grounded in the subject’s attentive engagement with the situation, and arises from his exploratory actions aimed at articulating the situation’s pregnant meaning, transforming its indeterminate richness into dete rminate meaningfulness.
This investigation ultimately concludes that it is only through complete, non-evasive engagement with one’s ever-changing situation that an action, entity, event, fact, environment, existence, or the world as a whole is disclosed as meaningful.

Cette étude examine la structure essentielle et les conditions fondamentales des expériences humaines liées au sens. Elle se concentre sur un type spécifique de sens : le sens intentionnel-évaluatif, qui concerne notre perception qu’une entité, une action, un fait, un événement, une vie individuelle ou le monde dans son ensemble est précieux, utile et intelligible. Sur le plan méthodologique, l’étude adopte une approche via negativa : elle examine diverses expériences d’absence de sens, c’est-à-dire des expériences marquées par l’absence, le manque ou la perte de sens, afin de mettre au jour la structure sous-jacente de l’expérience du sens. En termes de portée, l’étude classe l’absence de sens en trois catégories : quotidienne, universelle et cosmologique.