There is a distinction to be made between western (typically British) analytical philosophy and what is often referred to as continental philosophy. The former is characterised by 'a search for truth', the latter by 'a search for meaning'.
The search for truth concerns finding out what happens to be the case; what there is. Sometimes, it also concerns the problem of how one can be sure about what we think we know. In response to this point, it should be noted that there is always something provisional about our knowledge because there is always something provisional about the data upon which that knowledge is based. We can never be absolutely certain about its veracity. Although this may result from human error, there is a more insidious side. That is, our inability to have complete knowledge of all that is effecting a situation. For example, we all know – or think we know – that water boils at 100°C, but if we were to accurately measure the temperature of the water boiling in our kettles we would probably see that the temperature was not exactly 100°C. Other factors, such as air pressure, influence the temperature at which water boils. No experiment, how ever constructed, can guarantee to have taken account of all such factors. There might always be an 'unknown unknown' lurking somewhere. So the search for truth is not strictly achievable in the sense that it can never be complete.
The search for meaning is different in kind. It is a search for the message that is signified by something; what is denoted or what is connoted within a given situation as it currently appears to us - not as it actually is.
From my own perspective, 'meaning' does not necessarily imply only that which is metaphysical or abstract. Meaning, I would like to suggest, can take a physical form. Given the way the bones, joints and muscles in the hand are arranged means that certain movements are possible and others are not. The physical nature of these structures has consequences for the body of which they are part and the world in which they operate. Had humans evolved to have a different number of fingers – or even, to have hooves at the ends of our limbs and perhaps have remained four-legged creatures – then certainly our built environment would be very different to what it is now; our cities and machines as extensions to our mind and what we can do with our imaginations would have had to accommodate we can do with our bodies.
Here, I am using meaning in a way that is not entirely the same as the way in which others engaged in continental philosophy use it. I am stretching my use of the word meaning to encompass consequence, but I am doing so knowingly and deliberately. Looking at the anatomical arrangements of the structures within the hand does signify, at least to a trained observer, what the hand, as a whole, is capable of performing. Thus, consequence is not just something observable resulting from certain actions, but something that can be interpreted from a careful study of physical objects.
In this sense we can think of the body as a biological text waiting to be read. What we need is to be able to read it. We already have a number of ways of doing this. Bodies are understood by biological scientists in certain ways and by social scientists in other ways. There may be ways open to one or other, or both, that have yet to be explored. I lean towards biological interpretations, but such interpretations are certainly not complete. Biology has a certain prescribed way of observing and explaining the world. There are certain things it can and cannot explore or comment upon. However, there is scope for a search for meaning as well as a search for truth in biological science.