The Ontological and Axiological Foundations of the Meaning of Human Life in Nicolai Hartmann's Philosophy

Abstract

The subject of this article is Nicolai Hartmann's conception of the ontological and axiological foundations of the meaning of human life. Referring to both Hartmann's major and minor, I analyze his conception of human meaning in the dimension of individual life and in the historical dimension. I begin my discussion with a brief overview of Hartmann's relation to the earlier metaphysics of meaning. Then, I focus on identifying the ontological foundations of meaning. In this section, I specifically present Hartmann’s understanding of the laws of real being, his critique of ontological monism, and, of particular importance, his critique of teleological monism. I also reconstruct the most important elements of Hartmann’s conception of man as a spiritual being, comprising the personal spirit of the objective spirit and the objectified spirit. Another point of consideration is the question of the axiological basis of meaning. For Hartmann, humans construct their specific position in the world by introducing axiological criteria and axiological points of view into the real world. As Hartmann argues, man is the intermediary between ideal values and the real world. The final point of consideration is the problem of historical meaning.