Interpersonal connection

Mind and Language 39 (2):162-178 (2024)
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Abstract

We are social animals that seek to connect with others of our kind. This common thought stands in need of elaboration. In this article, I argue for three theses. First, that we pursue certain forms of communicative interaction for their own sake insofar as they are ways of connecting with another. Second, that interpersonal connection is a metaphysically primitive emotional relation which resists reductive analysis in terms of the states of individuals. And finally, that our desire for interpersonal connection has a strong claim to being explanatorily and normatively prior to our desires for mutual-attachment, interpersonal belonging and approbation.

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James Laing
University of Oxford

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References found in this work

A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1958 - Philosophical Quarterly 8 (33):379-380.
The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity.Charles Taylor - 2016 - Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Empathy and the Value of Humane Understanding.Olivia Bailey - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (1):50-65.
Logic and Conversation.H. Paul Grice - 1989 - In Herbert Paul Grice, Studies in the way of words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 22-40.

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