What Do We Mean When We Talk about Meaning?

In What Do We Mean When We Talk About Meaning?, Steven Cassedy tells the story of "meaning." The word began by denoting "signifying" and "intending," but came to acquire a broad array of sub-definitions. The book begins with the early Christian thinkers who believed meaning could be "read" from the world as if it were holy scripture, then moves into the philosophers who adapted this notion and eventually the
romantic-era Germans that coined "the meaning of life," a phrase that later traveled to Great Britain, the United States, and Russia. The book also extends into the twentieth century, when "meaning" acquired its greatest power in the realms of religion, psychotherapy, and self-help, all of which helped it to accumulate the fluidity and ambiguity it still
displays today.