Self and Sense in a Natural World
Self and Sense in a Natural World

Summary/Abstract: A subject is a being who has a life to lead. In this paper, I explore the array ofresources that are available to us (i.e., Westerners at the turn of the millennium) toarticulate and assess our lives. Specifically, I shall reflect on the impact that suchmatters may have on our naturalist conviction that the world ultimately consists of acausal network where notions such as sense and value have no direct bearing. Sometend to assume that an implication of our naturalist world-view is that the notions ofsense and value are inevitably relative to the subject’s desires and inclinations. Thisis, however, a line of reasoning that I would like to resist. For I am convinced that thisapproach unnecessarily restricts the number of resources to which we can legitimatelyappeal in order to lead our lives. This restriction will turn out to be quite seriousbecause, as we shall see, it dramatically distorts our perception of the relevance thatsocial ties may have in the life of a subject, as well as the conditions under which ahuman life may escape the absurd.

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