Abstract Philosophers once dismissed questions about meaning in life as conceptually confused. Only language and related phenomena, it was thought, can have meaning; thus, to ask about the meaning of life is to misapply the concept. Recent work by Susan Wolf, Thaddeus Metz, Aaron Smuts, and others has brought new attention and respectability to the topic. However, while talk of life meaning is no longer considered nonsense, most theorists continue to assume that such talk has nothing to do with meaning in the ‘sign’ sense that applies to language. In this paper I argue that this assumption is not well justified and that reflection on the example of Sherlock Holmes's life can help us to see why.

中文翻译：

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生命意义和符号意义

摘要哲学家曾经在概念上混淆了关于生命意义的问题。人们认为，只有语言和相关现象才有意义。因此，询问生命的意义就是错误地使用了这个概念。Susan Wolf，Thaddeus Metz，Aaron Smuts和其他人的最新工作为该主题带来了新的关注和尊重。但是，尽管不再谈论人生意义了，但大多数理论家仍然认为，这种谈论与适用于语言的“符号”意义无关。在本文中，我认为这种假设没有充分的道理，而对福尔摩斯一生的例子进行反思可以帮助我们了解原因。