Philosophy Lecture: Camil Golub

The Syracuse University Department of Philosophy is pleased to welcome Camil Golub (Rutgers). Golub will deliver a talk entitled, “Grief and meaning.”

Abstract: Grief after the loss of a loved one often involves profound experiences of meaninglessness rooted in the absence of the deceased. And yet most people recover from this crisis of meaning triggered by loss fairly quickly. Can we explain this return to a meaningful life in a way that does not reveal anything problematic about our rationality, or about the depth and importance of our relationship to the person who died? I propose an answer centered on the idea that we can find meaning in the loss of a loved one by understanding how that loss has shaped who we are, or how it fits into a broader story about the world, without attributing value in any substantive sense to the loss. Thus, making sense of a loss through narratives can rationally support the recovery of meaningfulness in grief even if the evaluative facts about that loss remain the same, and without any troubling consequences regarding our relationship to the deceased.