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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.3069
igaa057.3069
Abstracts
Session 7635 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Meaning and Late-Life Vulnerability: A Philosophical Practice-Based Approach
Laceulle Hanne  
University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, Netherlands
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”838 838
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
The quest for meaning constitutes one of the fundamental human existential motivations. At first glance, late life vulnerability appears to pose a threat to meaningfulness. Sources of meaning associated with certain activities or relations may seem less accessible once vulnerabilities, caused by social losses or diminishing health, start to dominate people’s daily life experience. On the other hand, some theorists have argued that it is particularly in the confrontation with our human vulnerability that the need for meaningfulness is most urgently felt. This paper presents a philosophical-conceptual exploration of meaning as a dynamic, context-dependent social practice. Contrasting theoretical approaches that analyse meaningfulness and/or meaninglessness in terms of the presence or absence of certain components or qualities, a practice-based approach enhances our sensivitity for concrete ways in which people manage to find or create meaning in situations of vulnerability, thereby integrating this vulnerability in their life narratives and sense of self.