Discover the meaning of life through emotion and exploration

Key questions answered:

Q: What is the “geographical model of meaning in life”?
A: It is a conceptual framework that proposes that the meaning of life is not fixed, but emerges as individuals explore their lives with different emotional attitudes and states, such as navigating a touch to touch.

Q: What is different from this model from traditional philosophical approaches?
A: Instead of discussing whether the meaning is subjective or objective, the model sees meaning as a dynamic experience shaped by our emotional commitment to life, treating cheerful and tragic experiences as part of the same significant landscape.

Q: Why does the mood play such a crucial role in this theory?
A: The mood acts as a perceptual lens, influencing how we interpret the experiences and if they feel significant or empty, essentially guiding the way we discover the value of life in real time.

Summary: A new philosophical theory proposes that the meaning of life is not something static, but something that we feel as we advance through life with different emotional positions. Nicknamed the “geographical model of meaning in life”, this concept compares our search for meaning with a blind person who investigates the space with a cane, the measurement emerges through that same exploration.

The mood and emotion color how we experience and interpret life, shaping the “geography” of the meaning moment to moment. The model unites philosophy, psychology and phenomenology, offering a new and bold way of understanding how we find significant life.

Key facts:

Exploratory Framework: The meaning of life is formed by the way we explore it emotionally and actively. Unified experiences: positive and negative moments contribute to the meaning of life.

Source: University of Waseda

Psychological and philosophical studies have long demonstrated that a person’s subjective states and emotions have a significant impact on how they experience “meaning in life.”

The philosopher Matthew Ratcliffe said that the mood of a person operates vividly in the context of perception and plays an important role in how they understand the meaning of their life.

Also in psychology, there have been empirical studies that investigate how mood affects the perception of the meaning of life. Meanwhile, phenomenology has revealed that the experience lived in the first person of the body deeply influences the way we perceive the world.

In the adjacent fields, concepts such as the objective, the application and the ENAX (average) one after another have been proposed. These concepts focus on how human physical interactions with the world influence and form the way humans perceive and understand their environment.

In a recent study, Professor Masahiro Morioka, of the Faculty of Human Sciences of the University of Waseda, aimed to apply that same mechanism, not only to the perception of the external world, but also to the perception of “meaning in life.”

The results of this research were published online in Philosophia on June 4, 2025.

The present study is a conceptual and theoretical investigation on the nature of “meaning in life.” In the philosophy of the meaning of life to date, scholars have often discussed whether meaning in life is purely subjective, that is, life has meaning if the individual believes yes; Purely objective, that is, life has meaning regardless of what the individual thinks; or a hybrid of the two.

However, this study neglects those discussions and instead examines how “meaning in life” develops between a person who tries to live their life and the life they try to live, and how the person experiences that meaning.

As a result, the study proposes a “geographical model of meaning in life”, an active exploration model. Applied to the perception of the meaning of life, this model suggests that the way in which a person explores his life, with specific attitudes and commitments, eliminates several responses from life itself.

These answers can take the form of real or potential experiences of the importance or misery of life. In other words, the value of life emerges, both positively and negatively, as a different type of geographical configuration that form human experience.

This study proposes that we understand “meaning in life” as a geographical configuration that corresponds to the exploration acts of the person and their attitude towards life.

The remarkable definition according to Morioka is: “The geographical model of meaning in life is the whole set of patterns of combinations of lived experiences of the value of living a life that is experienced being activated by my action of investigating my life here and now, and this action is similar to the action of a blind person who investigates his way with a cane.

“This survey can be carried out with several attitudes or commitments towards life, such as positive, negative, reluctant, etc.

In many ways, this work marks a paradigm shift: it treats significant and tragic experiences as parts of the same experimental landscape and explores “meaning in life” as a perceptual experience of that complex geography.

This change was possible thanks to the introduction of a phenomenological methodology in the philosophy of the meaning of life, which could serve as a bridge between philosophy and psychology, opening the door to a more productive interdisciplinary collaboration.

In particular, psychology has developed quantitative and qualitative scales to measure how people feel their lives are significant. These existing approaches vary widely, but the “geographical model” proposed in this study addresses the experience of the meaning of life from a completely different angle. You can offer new ideas for psychology and related fields.

With the eyes put in the future, Morioka comments: “My next goal is to integrate this study with other ongoing approaches in the philosophy of the meaning of life: namely, the solipsist approach of meaning in life and the liberation and memory approach.

“Through such an integration, its objective is to build a new and systematic framework within the philosophy of the meaning of life.”

On this research news of Neurophilosophy and Psychology

Author: Armand Aponte
Source: University of Waseda
Contact: Armand Aponte – University of Waseda
Image: The image is accredited to Neuroscience News

Original research: open access.
“A phenomenological approach to the philosophy of meaning in life” of Masahiro Morioka. Philosophy

Abstract

A phenomenological approach to the philosophy of meaning in life

In this document he introduced two phenomenological ideas, the possibility and enhancement, to the philosophical discussion of meaning in life.

I also analyze how our attitude or commitment to life is related to our experience of meaning in life.

In times of difficulty, if a person is determined to survive, his life may seem hopeful, but if he sinks in the depths of despair, his life may seem insignificant and worthless.

This shows that the lived experience of the value of life, as seen from the inside, changes significantly corresponding to the attitude or commitment to his life here and now.

I extend this line of analysis to other possible experiences of meaning in life and I propose that all patterns of such experiences should be considered as a kind of subjective geography.

Through this research, its objective is to illustrate what type of contribution can phenomenology do to the philosophy of meaning in life.