Intimacy and Alienation puts forward the author's unique paradigm for psychotherapy and counselling based on the assumption that each patient has suffered a disruption of the `self', and that the goal of the therapist is to identify and work with that disruption. Using many clinical illustrations, and drawing on self psychology, attachment therapy and theories of trauma, Russell Meares looks at the nature of self and how it develops, before going on to explore the form and feeling of experience (...) when self is disrupted in a traumatic way, and focusing on ways towards the restoration of the self. Written in an accessible style from the author's singular perspective, Intimacy and Alienation will appeal to professionals in the fields of psychotherapy, counseling, social work and psychiatry, as well as to students and the lay reader. (shrink)

In this article, I urge that mainstream discussions of abortion are dissatisfying in large part because they proceed in polite abstraction from the distinctive circumstances and meanings of gestation. Such discussions, in fact, apply to abortion conceptual tools that were designed on the premiss that people are physically demarcated, even as gestation is marked by a thorough-going intertwinement. We cannot fully appreciate what is normatively at stake with legally forcing continued gestation, or again how to discuss moral responsibilities to continue (...) gestating, until we appreciate in their own terms the goods and evils distinctive of gestational connection. To underscore the need to explore further the meanings of gestation, I provide two examples of the difference it might make to legal and moral discussions of abortion if we appreciate more fully that gestation is an intimacy. (shrink)

Lyric poetry is often associated with expression of the personal. For instance, the work of the so-called “confessional” poets, such as Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, is often thought to reveal inmost thoughts and feelings of the poetic voice through first personal expression. The lyric poem, with its use of personal pronouns and singularity of voice, appears to invite the reader to experience the unfolding of the words as the intimate expression of another.Intimacy itself is associated with attention to (...) another and is thought to play a role in feeling sympathy and empathy. As John Gibson comments, “Empathy makes possible an especially intimate and powerful form of identification. It underwrites our capacity...... (shrink)

Intimacy: From Transformation to Transmutation The paper reflects the historical and current dynamism of the concept of intimacy. Besides differences between scientific disciplines in understanding what the substance of intimacy is, the recent discourse on change in intimacy has been dominated by the transformation theme introduced by Anthony Giddens (1992). Led by reflections of Richard Sennett (1986) the author draws attention to the opposite aspect of change in intimacy—the change in content, or the "transmutation" of (...) intimacy. Transmutation of intimacy—the substitution of the satisfaction of intimate needs with identity creation—not only contests the very essence of intimacy, but also constitutes a significant challenge for the project of intimate citizenship (Plummer 2003). (shrink)

This article explores notions of intimacy in the caring context. The aspects discussed are: privacy and intimacy; intimacy as emotional and/or physical closeness; intimacy as touch; sexual intimacy and normal ageing; sexual intimacy and patients suffering from dementia; and intimacy as trust. Examples are given and problems are identified, with reflection on the attitude and behaviour of the carer. It is suggested that when trying to make moral decisions in concrete situations it is (...) imperative that the carer is aware of the values upon which his or her own thinking is based. It is argued that the guiding principle should be the moral assumption that the carer’s responsibility can never be interpreted as a right to disregard the wishes of the patient. Hence, the key word in daily care is ‘respect’. (shrink)

“To consent to love or be loved,” said Merleau-Ponty, “is to consent also to influence someone else, to decide to a certain extent on behalf of the other.” This essay explicates that idea through a meditation on intimacy. I propose, first, that, on Merleau-Ponty’s account, we are always transgressing into each other’s experience, whether we are strangers or familiars; I call this “ontological intimacy.” Concrete experiences of intimacy are based upon this ontological intimacy, and can take (...) place at two levels: (1) at-this-moment (such that we can experience intimacy even with strangers, by sharing a momentary but extra-ordinary mutual recognition) and (2) in shared interpersonal institutions, or habitual, enduring, and co-enacted visions of who we are, how to live, and what matters. Through particular examples of dynamics within these layers of intimacy (drawing upon work by Berne and by Russon), I claim that we are always, inevitably, imposing an “unfreedom” upon our intimate others. Freedom, then, can only develop from within and by virtue of this “unfreedom.” Thus, what distinguishes empowering or emancipating relationships from oppressive ones is not the removal of transgressive normative social forces; it is rather the particular character of those transgressive forces. Some transgressions upon others’ experience—some forms of “unfreedom”—will tend to promote freedom; others will tend to hinder it. This amounts to a call for promoting agency and freedom not only through critical analysis of public institutions, practices and discourses, but also through critical insight into and transformation of our most private and intimate relationships. (shrink)

In the West, mainstream bioethicists tend to appreciate intimate relationships as a hindrance to individual autonomy. Scholars have even argued against approaching a mother to donate a kidney to save the life of her child; the request, they claim, is too manipulative and, thereby, violates her autonomy. For Chinese bioethicists, such a moral analysis is absurd. The intimate relationship between mother and child establishes strong mutual obligations. It creates mutual moral responsibilities that often require sacrifices for each other. This paper (...) argues that while aiding others is a moral duty, helping one’s family is a much stronger duty and poses no threat to one’s autonomy. For Confucianism, empathetic intimate feelings, the heart and mind of ren, rest at the root of morality. It requires that we, as moral beings, assume duties to relieve the suffering of others. The more intimate the relationship the stronger the obligation to assist. The family is a closely knitted moral community. Family members often share living resources, mutual experiences, and a sense of identity. Family members act as a social unit, and, ordinarily, mutual obligations among members have priority over duties to those outside of the family. For Confucian bioethics, family-based consent to medical treatment is regarded as natural and reasonable. Family-based decision making is a taken-for-granted norm of social life. While close family members have priority, Confucianism extends such obligations outward toward members of the extended family and the society at large. There is a general principle of gradation of love, which reflects different degrees of personal intimacy and, therefore, of moral obligation. In this fashion, Confucianism seeks to treat the whole of society as one extended family. Hence, in bioethics, mutual responsibility and family-based consent are regarded as basic principles. Through a series of case discussions, this paper illustrates that atomistic individual-based autonomy offers but a poor response to bioethical issues. (shrink)

The introduction to this special issue addresses the production of intimacy in the labour of research. It explores the sensory, emotional and affective relations which form an integral, if often invisible, part of the process through which researchers engage with, produce, understand and translate `research'. The article argues that these processes inform the making of knowledge, shape power relations and enable or constrain the practical negotiation of ethical problems. These issues are not, however, often foregrounded in debates on methods (...) or methodology and are frequently erased from researchers' own accounts of their work. The article explores some of the possible reasons for this, which include institutional and cultural conventions of academic practice, the historical legacies with which disciplines often struggle, and the difficult issues and decisions that individual researchers face as they try to negotiate the relations between scholarly research and personal relationships across time, and between scholarly research and, for example, creativity, fiction, or sensationalism. The article concludes with a review of the main themes in the special issue, focusing in particular on the ways in which the contributors use the concept of intimacy to challenge the boundaries between creativity and analysis; spatial and temporal proximity and distance; freedom and censorship; subjects and objects. (shrink)

An important contribution to the burgeoning field of the ethics of recognition, this book examines the contradictions inherent in the very concept of intimacy. Working with a wide variety of philosophical and literary sources, it warns against measuring our relationships against ideal standards, since there is no consummate form of intimacy. After analyzing ten major ways that we aim to establish intimacy with one another, including gift-giving, touching, and fetishes, the book concludes that each fails on its (...) own terms, since intimacy wants something that is impossible. The very concept of intimacy is a superlative one; it aims not just for closeness, but for a closeness beyond closeness. Nevertheless, far from a pessimistic diagnosis of the human condition, this is a meditation on how to live intimately in a world in which intimacy is impossible. Rather than contenting itself with a deconstructive approach, it proposes to treat intimacy dialectically. For all its contradictions, it shows intimacy is central to how we understand ourselves and our relations to others. (shrink)

This article investigates the hypothesis that greater human-livestock intimacy can deter cruelty and mitigate suffering in the industrial production of animals for human consumption. The history of industrial agriculture in North America is one of increasingly utilitarian, profit-based, and technologically mediated relationships between humans and the animals they raise and kill for food. Under what circumstances is the physical and emotional distance between producers, consumers, and consumed animals an impetus toward uncaring and irresponsible relationships? Do even intimate interspecies encounters (...) in livestock production involve cruelty and suffering? This article addresses these questions and evaluates reform options by attending to both the localized arrangements and systemic structures of industrial livestock production. Finally, it proposes a risk-mapping strategy to assess the plausibility of caring intimacies in livestock production. (shrink)

Intimacy and sexuality expressed by nursing home residents with dementia remains an ethically sensitive issue for care facilities, nursing staff and family members. Dealing with residents’ sexual longings and behaviour is extremely difficult, putting a burden on the caregivers as well as on the residents themselves and their relatives. The parties in question often do not know how to react when residents express themselves sexually. The overall aim of this article is to provide a number of clinical-ethical considerations addressing (...) the following question: ‘How can expressions of intimacy and sexuality by residents with dementia be dealt with in an ethically responsible way?’ The considerations formulated are based on two cornerstones: the current literature on older peoples’ experiences regarding intimacy and sexuality after the onset of dementia, and an anthropological-ethical framework addressing four fundamental pillars of human existence namely the decentred self, human embodiment, being-in-the-world and being-with-others. The resulting considerations are oriented toward the individual sphere, the partnership sphere, and the institutional sphere. The continuous interaction between these spheres leads to orientations that both empower the residents in question and respect the complex network of relationships that surrounds them. (shrink)

Friendship arguably offers itself as the freest of all human associations. A weakness of cultural prescription opens a terrain in which intimacy can be lived in a trust relationship that personifies equality, justice and respect. Friendship’s ‘relational freedom’ enables the mutual development of selves; it is generative. Therein lies ‘the beauty of friendship’, as Agnes Heller has reminded us. But the freedom of intimacy is limited. Embedded in a society that attributes different repertoires of intimacy to women (...) and men and privileges male homosociality, friendship’s freedom is curtailed. Especially cross-sex friendships continue to show evidence of persisting tensions. ‘Erotic friendships’ that seek to realize sexual intimacy but eschew the commitments of coupledom continue to face normative-practical challenges. In this paper, I view central aspects of heterosexual intimacy through the small world of intimate friendship, a prism that refracts gendered tensions in the world at large. (shrink)

V. 1. Intimacy and isolation -- v. 2. Personality disorders and aloneness.

Many parents cite intimacy as one of their reasons for deciding to educate at home. It seems intuitively obvious that home education is conducive to intimacy because of the increased time families spend together. Yet what is not clear is whether intimacy can provide justification for one’s decision to home educate. To see whether this is so, we introduce the concept of ‘attentive parenting’, which encompasses a set of family characteristics, and we examine whether and under what (...) conditions attentive parents risk loss of intimacy by sending their children to school; or, alternatively, whether they can avoid this risk by educating children at home. What we will determine is whether families who exhibit the specified characteristics are prima facie justified in educating their children at home under the conditions of interest. We argue that, for attentive parents, home education not only promotes greater intimacy, but also provides insurance against the loss of intimacy that may occur under certain conditions when children attend schools. (shrink)

Intimacy, Admirability, and Virtue: An Examination of Michael Slote's View Virtues, according to Michael Slote, are our inner traits or dispositions. Slote defends "balanced caring" as an admirable character trait. He believes that caring more for intimates than others is admirable. A virtuous person attains balanced caring between intimates and others. This account of virtue conceived "balanced caring" as "fundamentally admirable" and it is the basic virtue. All other virtues, such as honesty, kindness, generosity, truthfulness, and so forth, are (...) "derivatively admirable". This paper examines Slote's view and argues that Slote should explore the opposite situation because his idea of "balanced caring" and "admirability" is so vague and misleading. In contrast to his ideas, a reverse formulation that is caring for others more than for intimates seems plausible. (shrink)

The article tells the story of the rise and fall of the organic store Yggdrasill in Iceland. That story features humble founders, caring customers, dedicated staff, as well as anonymous investment funds, and it describes the conversion of organics from a niche market to mainstream consumption. Through an ethnographic account of everyday life at the organic store, the article analyzes how intimacy within the modern food chain is established through emotional practices. Staff and customers share feelings of reciprocity, not (...) only towards organic producers, but also towards each other through acts of selling and buying organic products, forming intimate attachment and creating trust to counter the fears and anonymity of the modern food chain. Drawing on theories of affect and emotional practices and combining ethnography with narrative analysis, the article explores the role of emotions and how the doing of emotions makes organic food consumption meaningful within the industrial food system. (shrink)

The Revisions Task Force of the Ethics Committee of the American Psychological Association (APA) has proposed that prohibition of sexual intimacies with clients after termination of therapeutic relationships be made an explicit part of the new code. This decision was based on much careful deliberation and input from various individuals and groups. This article supports the proposed change and provides a rationale based on emerging theoretical positions and research findings regarding risks to clients, risks to professionals, and risks to the (...) various mental health professions. The revision would read, "Psychologists do not engage in sexual intimacies with current or former psychotherapy clients" (see "Ethical Principles Revised", 1990). (shrink)

How can I know something? How can I convince someone of the rightness of my position? How does reality function? What is artistic creativity? What is the role of the state? It is well known that people from various cultures give dissimilar answers to such philosophical questions. After three decades in the cross-cultural study of ideas and values, Thomas Kasulis found that culture influences not only the answers to these questions, but often how one arrives at the answers. In generalizing (...) cultural difference, Kasulis identifies two kinds of orientation: intimacy and integrity. Both determine how we think about relations among people and among things, and each is reasonable, effective, and consistent. Yet the two are so incompatible in their basic assumptions that they cannot successfully engage each other. Cultural difference extends beyond nations. Cultural identities crystallize in relation to religion, occupation, race, gender, class. Rather than attempt to transcend cultural difference, Kasulis urges a deeper awareness of its roots by moving beyond mere cultural relativism toward a cultural bi-orientationality that will allow us to adapt ourselves to different cultural contexts as the situation demands. Wonderfully clear and unburdened by jargon, Intimacy or Integrity is accessible to readers from a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. By analyzing the synergy between thought and culture, it increases our understanding of cultural difference and guides us in developing strategies for dealing with orientations different from our own. (shrink)

Analyzes popular music's aesthetics, production, marketing, and consumption toward articulating a clearer understanding of how intimacy is constructed, mediated, and perceived in and through music.

The hope for intimacy lies deep within us all. That moment of feeling uniquely understood, the antidote to isolation, is what gives us value, validation and self-belief. But as Ziyad Marar shows in this fascinating and engaging study, intimacy is a tricky business. The prevalence of social media, for example, is a sign of our desire for human connection, yet is a symptom of how little we truly achieve it. Often confused with love, intimacy is in many (...) ways more important. Marar's investigation and celebration of this elusive but profound human experience shows how intimacy is central to a life well lived. But how do we spot the real thing? Marar helpfully identifies a key set of ingredients - reciprocity, conspiracy, heightened emotion, kindness - that when brought together enable the strongest experiences of intimacy. Without these four characteristics in the mix we are experiencing something less, or something else. Drawing on a wide range of sources - from key thinkers, as well as telling examples from familiar films and novels - Marar illustrates the subtlety and intricacies of intimacy and shows how closely it is bound up with notions of trust, control, risk and our own insecurities. Intimacy, argues Marar, is a necessary component of a fulfilled life. Yet we should not take for granted that we know what it is and how to get it. A better understanding of this powerful experience and the many barriers to achieving it may just help us to brave the search for it. For anyone bold enough to do so, which should be all of us, Intimacy is required reading. (shrink)

Epistemological pluralism is a recognized feature of nursing knowledge, which embraces both objective, scientific knowledge and situated knowledge that include subjective experience, values and affect, and is encountered in relationship. While there is a lively literature about describing and validating the need for pluralism in nursing's knowledge base, there has been less discussion of how to work with and across different kinds of knowing that are used in practice. In this paper, I describe Kasulis’ heuristic framework for understanding more clearly (...) what is entailed in different kinds of knowledge, and what some of their advantages and disadvantages might be. The framework was created by Thomas Kasulis, an American scholar of Japanese philosophy who identified broad orientations in Asian and Western philosophies that he characterized as ‘intimacy’ and ‘integrity’, respectively. Kasulis emphasized that his framework is a heuristic, a tool for making distinctions more clearly between different styles of thinking, that can manifest not only between cultural traditions from different parts of the world, but also between subcultures within one of the dominant orientations. He breaks his two orientations down by five distinguishing categories of objectivity, relating, affect, embodiment and transparency. In this paper, each category is described and discussed in relation to aspects of nursing knowledge. Looking at different epistemological viewpoints in this way helps to clarify their differences, and to explain the difficulty of reading across them, when they entail basic assumptions that are not commensurable with each other. Kasulis’ framework offers a new way of reading across viewpoints commonly seen in the epistemological pluralism of nursing. It is a tool that can sharpen critical discernment about what is at stake, what can be gained, and what might get missed while operating in either the intimacy or integrity orientation. (shrink)

What could ground normative restrictions concerning cultural appropriation which are not grounded by independent considerations such as property rights or harm? We propose that such restrictions can be grounded by considerations of intimacy. Consider the familiar phenomenon of interpersonal intimacy. Certain aspects of personal life and interpersonal relationships are afforded various protections in virtue of being intimate. We argue that an analogous phenomenon exists at the level of large groups. In many cases, members of a group engage in (...) shared practices that contribute to a sense of common identity, such as wearing certain hair or clothing styles or performing a certain style of music. Participation in such practices can generate relations of group intimacy, which can ground certain prerogatives in much the same way that interpersonal intimacy can. One such prerogative is making what we call an appropriation claim. An appropriation claim is a request from a group member that non-members refrain from appropriating a given element of the group’s culture. Ignoring appropriation claims can constitute a breach of intimacy. But, we argue, just as for the prerogatives of interpersonal intimacy, in many cases there is no prior fact of the matter about whether the appropriation of a given cultural practice constitutes a breach of intimacy. It depends on what the group decides together. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Empathy, Intimacy, Attention, and Meditation:An IntroductionSandra Costen KunzOn October 31, 2008, at the American Academy of Religion's annual meeting, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies sponsored a well-attended afternoon session titled "Cognitive Science, Religious Practices, and Human Development: Buddhist and Christian Perspectives." This issue of Buddhist-Christian Studies contains three of the papers presented: Wesley J. Wildman's "Cognitive Error and Contemplative Practices: The Cultivation of Discernment in Mind and Heart," (...) Noreen Herzfeld's "'Your Cell Will Teach You Everything': Old Wisdom, Modern Science, and the Art of Attention," and Robert Aitken's "'Who Hears?' A Zen Buddhist Perspective."Each paper addresses in some way the connections between meditation and accurate perception. Wildman traces how cognitive errors rooted in innate perceptual biases give rise to mistaken beliefs and self-defeating behaviors. He highlights various ways religious practices both promote and ameliorate common cognitive errors. He claims some meditation practices are particularly effective in amelioration. While Wildman's paper gives detailed attention to various types of cognitive errors and ways to curb them, Herzfeld's and Aitken's papers have, in some ways, a broader focus. Both include material that suggests that meditation can clear, sharpen, and steady the overall perceptual lens though which humans interpret and construct all of their relationships. (Most contemporary neuroscience assumes that "what" is perceived is the relationship between the perceiver and the "object" of perception.) Herzfeld cites research suggesting that "empathy" is one socially beneficial characteristic of the "focused, close attention" developed by the solitary meditation practices of the Christian Desert Fathers. Aitken claims that Zen practice develops the attentiveness needed to perceive the "intimacy" between the perceiver and what is perceived.I suspect that the neurophysiology of attention behind Herzfeld's "empathy" and Aitken's "intimacy" is profoundly similar. Aitken, comparing Zen's emphasis on experiencing intimacy with Tibetan Buddhism's emphasis on developing compassion, points out that "Compassion by etymology is 'suffering with others'—the realization of social intimacy." "Compassion" is derived from Latin, while Herzfeld's [End Page 55] "empathy" is derived from Greek. Both express the "suffering with others" Aitken identifies with social intimacy.I will first review the ways each paper connects attention-based perception with meditation, and then consider more carefully the common ground shared by Herzfeld's "empathy" and Aitken's "intimacy," suggesting it may lie (in part) in ways socially activist Christian and Zen traditions have drawn upon the cosmological assumptions embedded in the core texts of Zen and Christian traditions. I will close by proposing a topic for further study based on Wildman's claim that religious traditions have fostered a wider variety of meditation practices that have broader benefits than secular meditation programs that teach "nonreligious" adaptations of religious practices.A Review of the Three PapersWildman teaches theology, philosophy, and religion and directs a PhD program in science, philosophy, and religion. His paper reviews seven types of cognitive errors grounded in neurologically based "cognitive and perceptual tendencies." While in life-threatening situations these tendencies can aid survival, they do so at the cost of day-to-day "mistaken beliefs" and "self-defeating behavior." Drawing on Thomas Gilovich's typology, Wildman reviews three types of errors based in pattern recognition skills gone awry, three types based in "social and motivational" factors, and then adds a seventh type: "self-defeating behaviors." He next reviews five potentials for detecting and ameliorating such errors and explores how three "techniques for mitigating cognitive error"—meditation practices, psychotherapy, and rigorous intellectual training—draw on these five potentials.Citing Jean Kristeller's multidomain model of meditation effects, Wildman notes the "significant empirical evidence" in "relevant research studies" that various meditation practices can mitigate a variety of cognitive errors. He reviews research that suggests that neuroplasticity (the potential for structural brain change that affects function) is a lifelong possibility, including studies by Richard Davidson, Antoine Lutz, and others involved in the Mind and Life Institute's efforts to demonstrate the brain-changing effects of Buddhist meditation. Wildman cautions: "The longitudinal studies of meditation needed to settle the question of whether meditation produces neurologically detectable changes in brain structure or function are only just now under way." But... (shrink)

The 2012 film The Sessions tells the story of a man with polio who loses his virginity by undergoing Surrogate Partner Therapy (SPT). In light of ensuing controversy surrounding the legal and moral status of SPT, this article uses Norman Daniels’ framework of fair equality of opportunity in health to argue that SPT is a legitimate form of treatment for sexual dysfunctions and should be evaluated alongside other such treatments. I begin by showing how sexual dysfunctions constitute deviations in normal (...) species functioning. I then show that sexual capacities are a matter of fair equality of opportunity because they affect the ability to cultivate the sexual intimacy that is crucial for forming a family and often necessary for maintaining a healthy one. Recognizing that some might object to SPT as a form of prostitution, I proceed by showing how the treatment might avoid some of the objections raised against prostitution, and conclude by affirming that societies committed to fair equality of opportunity in health should work to make SPT legal and safe. (shrink)

Disgust and Intimacy The aim of the paper is to present the results of preliminary research into the relation between disgust and intimacy. The authors apply current psychological conceptions of the emotions relating to social behaviour, primarily the theory of disgust associated with Paul Rozin, Jonathan Haidt and Clark McCauley. The research was conducted in a community of students living in student halls in Bratislava. The authors argue that social relationships may influence expressions of core disgust and the (...) animal-nature disgust that is considered to be an earlier stage in the evolutionary development of this emotion. More specifically, people's representations of feelings of disgust towards elicitors linked to certain persons are conditioned by the social categories those persons belong to and the socio-cultural schemas distributed in the given environment. (shrink)

This article analyses the ambiguous intimacies generated by the competition that permeates desire in Lisa Aschan’s She Monkeys (2011). The article argues that in a new corpus of films about adolescence, the queerness of lesbian desire is evoked as a series of affects outside of figurative norms. Desire meets and is confused with other affects such as envy and disgust, all of which attach, sometimes simultaneously, to objects that do not always seem to recognise or permit them. Slow and languid (...) scenes reveal desire’s potential but rarely its achievement. The article explores the erotic potential of those intimacies that reside in the spaces between bodies, asking what happens to that potential when it is generated but immediately contained by the negotiations of control. In dialogue with psychoanalytic work on the ambivalent relations between desire, envy, attachment and idealisation, the article advances a reading of an affective mode of filmmaking that is saturated with desire but not defined by desire’s labelling. (shrink)

This paper aims to show a possible path to address the introduction of intimate digital technologies through a phenomenological and postphenomenological perspective in relation to Japanese and Chinese contexts. Digital technologies are becoming intimate, and, in Japan and China, there are already many advanced digital technologies that provide digital companions for love relationships. Phenomenology has extensive research on how love relationships and intimacy shape the subjects. At the same time, postphenomenology provides a sound framework on how technologies shape the (...) values and meanings we have. Thus, this paper introduces two digital technologies in Japan and China (_Love Plus_ and _XiaoIce_ chatbot), and it analyses according to the elements proposed by phenomenology and postphenomenology. In conclusion, this paper shows how digital companions like _Love Plus_ and _XiaoIce_ chatbot change who we are and the values and meanings we have according to the phenomenological and postphenomenological framework. These entities might not be human, but they shape who we are as human beings and the meanings and value we give to love. (shrink)

This essay responds to four critics of Friends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics and Culture: Diana Fritz Cates, Eric Gregory, Ross Moret, and Atalia Omer. Focusing on the book’s organizing concepts of intimacy and alterity, engagement with empirical sources, discussion of Augustine’s thought, and attention to moral psychology and political morality, these interlocutors take up various strands in the book’s argument and extend them into metaethical, normative, and metadisciplinary domains. The author organizes his response under three rubrics: (...) Metaethics and Personal Relationships; Political Morality; and Multidisciplinary Horizons. (shrink)

Why is it more violating to grab a stranger’s thigh or stroke their face than it is to grab their forearm? Why is it worse to read someone’s dream journal without permission than it is to read their bird watching field notes? Why are gestation mandates so incredibly intrusive? Intimacy is key to understanding these cases, and to explaining many of our most stringent rights. -/- I present two ways of thinking about intimacy, Relationship-First Accounts and the Intimate (...) Zones Account. I argue that only the Intimate Zones Account lets us cohesively understand intimacy’s importance, and the scope of our intimate rights. I characterize our intimate zones as meeting the Hiddenness and Importance Conditions. A feature’s meeting these conditions makes it a locus of special vulnerability by which our persons can be fundamentally altered. This special vulnerability explains why our duties to respect the intimate boundaries of others are so strict. (shrink)

How can I know something? How can I convince someone of the rightness of my position? How does reality function? What is artistic creativity? What is the role of the state? It is well known that people from various cultures give dissimilar answers to such philosophical questions. After three decades in the cross-cultural study of ideas and values, Thomas Kasulis found that culture influences not only the answers to these questions, but often how one arrives at the answers. In generalizing (...) cultural difference, Kasulis identifies two kinds of orientation: intimacy and integrity. Both determine how we think about relations among people and among things, and each is reasonable, effective, and consistent. Yet the two are so incompatible in their basic assumptions that they cannot successfully engage each other. Cultural difference extends beyond nations. Cultural identities crystallize in relation to religion, occupation, race, gender, class. Rather than attempt to transcend cultural difference, Kasulis urges a deeper awareness of its roots by moving beyond mere cultural relativism toward a cultural bi-orientationality that will allow us to adapt ourselves to different cultural contexts as the situation demands. Wonderfully clear and unburdened by jargon, Intimacy or Integrity is accessible to readers from a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. By analyzing the synergy between thought and culture, it increases our understanding of cultural difference and guides us in developing strategies for dealing with orientations different from our own. (shrink)

A review of the literature in philosophy in the past 20 years indicates that relatively little has been written on the connection between friendship, intimacy and humor. This article is intended to begin to address the neglect of this topic among philosophers by focusing on some interesting aspects of the relationship between friendship, intimacy and humor. The author begins his analysis by examining the different types of friendships while highlighting the characteristics of the particular kind of friendship that (...) involves intimacy. The second part of this article discusses the concept of intimacy, which has not received much attention among philosophers. Next, the author takes a close look at the issue of humor while distinguishing it from both joking and laughter. He then moves to the heart of this article, which focuses on the question of: how can humor enhance intimacy in friendship? In the final part of this article, the author briefly outlines some educational implications that can be gleaned from the analysis of the relationship between friendship, intimacy and humor. (shrink)

The problem of horrendous evil is the problem of reconciling the existence of horrendous evils with the existence of a God that is nevertheless good to individuals. A solution to the problem along the lines of that proposed by Morilyn McCord Adams resolves the problem by appeal to various sorts of intimacy with God on the part of the participants in horrendous evils. One half of the problem concerns the victims of horrendous evils. A second half of the problem (...) of horrendous evil is the same problem for those perpetrators of horrendous evils who also potentially have their lives defeated. The present paper argues not only that the intimacy such an overall strategy appeals to fails to solve the first half of the problem, but also that it makes no progress at all on the second half. (shrink)

From the Supreme Court to the bedroom, privacy is an intensely contested interest in our everyday lives and privacy law. Some people appeal to privacy to protect such critical areas as abortion, sexuality, and personal information. Yet, privacy skeptics argue that there is no such thing as a right to privacy. I argue that we cannot abandon the concept of privacy. If we wish to avoid extending this elusive concept to cover too much of our lives or shrinking it to (...) cover too little, we must come to understand it. After exploring the privacy arguments of philosophers and constitutional and tort privacy law, I argue for a new definition of privacy and an explanation of its value that clarifies and resolves many of our conflicts. Privacy is critical because it allows us to protect a realm in which we can have intimate relations with others. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.2 (2004) 105-115 [Access article in PDF] Intimacy and Monumentality in Chandigarh, North India: Le Corbusier's Capitol Complex and Nek Chand Saini's Rock Garden Sharon Irish School of Architecture University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Chandigarh's Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India, by Vikramaditya Prakash. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002, 179pp., $35.00 cloth. The seventh century poet and philosopher Dharmakirti wrote (...) of the path we each must make: No one behind, no one ahead, The path the ancients cleared has closed. And the other path, everyone's path, easy and wide, goes nowhere. I am alone and find my way.1The image in Figure 1 shows the bottom of a concrete ramp that angles back upon itself as it connects two levels of the government complex in Chandigarh and ends in a grassy hillside that has several dirt paths cutting across it. The concrete ramp begins just to the left of Le Corbusier's Assembly Hall (Figure 2). What I hope is evident from just two images is the contrast between the curving, unplanned path that pedestrians have made as they leave the bottom of the ramp, and the axial, monumental path implicit in the organization of the large concrete plaza in front of the Assembly Hall. One is informal and intimate because of the many footprints that have worn away the grass; the other is formal and monumental in its carefully controlled framing of a sculptural presence. They are two very different paths, offering different rewards as we wander upon them.As Vikramaditya Prakash's book, Chandigarh's Le Corbusier, emphasizes, the Capitol Complex derived from Le Corbusier's personal mythology, transmogrified somewhat by the site, the politics, and the climate. Le Corbusier "considered it the true mission of modern architecture to reestablish the aesthetic and poetic forms necessary for the liberation and deliverance of...modern man."2 Le Corbusier's monumentalism, then, was imposed on Chandigarh's landscape and the inhabitants with the assumption that he knew best what architecture was appropriate for "liberation." While there are many aspects of his designs to appreciate and admire, his buildings only indirectly address the visitor, preferring uncanny to intimate relationships.3 [End Page 105] Click for larger viewFigure 1 The bottom of the ramp leading into a path toward the Trench of Consideration, Capitol Complex, Chandigarh. Photo by the author. Click for larger viewFigure 2 Façade of the Assembly Building, Le Corbusier, 1953-61, Chandigarh. Photo by the author. [End Page 106]For six months in 1999, I lived in Chandigarh within a few blocks of Le Corbusier's government complex and another compelling place, the nearby and unrelated Rock Garden. While the paths at the Government Complex are, for the most part, empty, those in the Rock Garden are not and provide chances for intimate interactions that are only hinted at underneath Le Corbusier's concrete ramp. Poignant informality in Le Corbusier's government sector exists in areas that were never completed according to plan.4 Its predominant monumentality provides a useful contrast to the intimate spaces of the Rock Garden.In the 1950s, two men, Le Corbusier and Nek Chand Saini, began two very different projects within a kilometer of each other in Chandigarh. Le Corbusier's Capitol Complex started in the very highest government circles with Prime Minister Jawaharwal Nehru: the plan was to build a new state capital for a newly divided Punjab in a newly independent India. In architectural history, Chandigarh is well known and well studied due to its planning and design. Nek Chand's Rock Garden (under construction since 1958, and open to the public since 1976) began as an illegal private project by one man to give form to his imagination. This essay is my impressionistic response to these two projects.Monumental buildings often function powerfully as icons or as proud isolated structures. Visited on ceremonial occasions, they can provide visually compelling backdrops to large-scale... (shrink)

(from the jacket) This book addresses the richness and depth of our personal relationships, especially those moments when we come to see ourselves and the other person in a new way. In such moments, Halling argues that we realize that however much we are influenced by heredity and upbringing, we are also agents with the capacity for openness and transcendence. Drawing upon qualitative research and stories, Halling discusses everyday experiences of surprise, including breakthroughs in relationships, disillusionment, and forgiveness, and emphasizes (...) the power of discovering another person's point of view. Halling demonstrates how the approach of phenomenological psychology allows us to do justice to human existence and especially to our capacity for transcendence and intimacy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

: This essay seeks to contribute to our understanding of William James's ethics by reexamining a classic text—The Varieties of Religious Experience—that is not usually read in an ethical light. It shows that James develops an ethics of human flourishing in Varieties, which he grounds in a "piecemeal supernaturalist" cosmology and account of human nature. It also shows that, under the terms of James's view, religious and ethical issues are fundamentally interconnected, and leading a religious life is a necessary (though (...) not a sufficient) condition of maximal human flourishing. Overall, I show that for James the highest degree of human flourishing can be achieved only through the experience of metaphysical intimacy, or the self's harmonious relationship or unification with "a wider self.". (shrink)

Intimacy and the public sphere have typically been conceptualized dichotomously both in scholarly and popular accounts. Problematizing this approach, I argue that considering ‘intimacy’ and ‘public’ solely as dichotomous entities unduly limits the scope of research on intimacy. In making this case, I interpret classic social theory from the works of Simmel and Habermas. Both accounts of transformations in modernity describe the emergence of a sphere of intimacy as a corollary of these transformations, i.e. not as (...) clearly opposed to but intricately related to the emergence of the public sphere. I reflect on the implications of these insights for contemporary studies of intimacy by applying them to the example of wedding ceremonies with the aim to explain a transition from a conspicuously ‘public’ performance to a hybrid public/private event which has now come to include experiences of intimacy supported by mediated publics. (shrink)

Information about celebrities is abundant in media, including bits of information about marginal events that appear in gossip columns; a media genre not sufficiently studied. This article analyzes Israeli national gossip columns in an attempt to identify stylistic and linguistic ways columnists frame information as confidential and personal. It is argued that the use of discursive strategies creates an illusion of intimacy between the reader and the column, inviting readers to participate in a deciphering game. Columnists engage readers by (...) creative use of pronouns, reported speech, use of coda and lexical inventions intended to criticize and poke fun at celebrities. The analysis traces the origins of this specific discourse in Israeli modes of communication. (shrink)

Las redes sociales contribuyen a la expansión del espacio biográfico y a la ampliación de la esfera de las intimidades públicas. Distintas personas que padecen depresión, un diagnóstico históricamente portador de estigmas que conduce a la vergüenza y al ocultamiento de esta condición, emplean las tecnologías digitales para compartir estas experiencias íntimas a un extenso público. Este artículo indaga cuáles son las finalidades de salir del armario de la depresión en las redes sociales. El objetivo es describir y analizar narrativas (...) biográficas de personas que padecen y/o padecieron depresión y residen en Argentina. Concretamente, aborda el repertorio de motivaciones e intereses de hacer públicas experiencias consideradas íntimas por parte de figuras mediáticas, YouTubers y personas sin un perfil público en videos de YouTube. A partir del método biográfico en su vertiente de relatos de vida, se analiza un corpus de 37 videos audiovisuales disponibles en YouTube desde 2018 hasta 2024. En base a estos documentos biográficos, se elaboran categorías que distinguen una pluralidad de motivaciones e intereses asociados a publicar las experiencias personales de depresión. Dentro de esta multiplicidad de formas, que son complementarias, identificamos un arco que comprende desde la transformación del propio sujeto, pasando por formas de ayudar y aconsejar a otras personas, hasta comunitarizar el sufrimiento. Este artículo busca realizar una contribución sociológica al estudio de las transformaciones de las intimidades públicas, con especial énfasis en las narrativas contemporáneas sobre experiencias de depresión en internet. (shrink)

This article explores the relations among and between intimacy, psychotherapeutic relationships and moral advice. The article concludes that a psychotherapeutic relationship is not usefully explained in terms of intimacy. Instead, a psychiatric relationship is a form of moral advice, and it is this dimension of a psychotherapeutic relationship as a form of moral advice that poses a natural limit to the confidentiality necessary for engaging in psychotherapy.

Background To investigate attitudes of staff, residents and family members in long-term care towards sex and intimacy among older adults, specifically the extent to which they conceptualise sex and intimacy as a need, a right, a privilege or as a component of overall well-being. Methods The present study was a part of a two-arm mixed-methods cross-sectional study using a concurrent triangulation design. A validated survey tool was developed; 433 staff surveys were collected from 35 facilities across the country. (...) Interviews were conducted with 75 staff, residents and family members. Results It was common for staff, residents and family members to talk about intimacy and sexuality in terms of rights and needs. As well as using the language of needs and rights, it was common for participants to use terms related to well-being, such as fun, happiness or being miserable. One participant in particular described receiving intimate touch as a ‘kind of care’—a particularly useful way of framing the conversation. Conclusion While staff, residents and family frequently used the familiar language of needs and rights to discuss access to intimate touch, they also used the language of well-being and care. Reframing the conversation in this way serves a useful purpose: it shifts the focus from simply meeting minimum obligations to a salutogenic approach—one that focuses on caring for the whole person in order to improve overall well-being and quality of life. No data are available. (shrink)

The achievement of self-consciousness in Hegel’s Phenomenology hinges on establishing a relationship with another self-conscious being. How this is accomplished, and even that it is accomplished in Hegel’s text, are topics of dispute and misunderstanding in the literature. I show how Hegel argues for this intersubjective origin of self-consciousness, first, by comparing Hegel’s analysis of lord and bondsman to Sartre’s analysis of intimacy. Second, I focus on two in-terpretive challenges. First, I argue that the staking of life comes from (...) an other-oriented epistemological relation, and not simply from an im-mediate concern with dominating the other. Second, contrary to many interpretations which see the bondsman’s development arising out of an isolated activity merely between himself and the products of his labor, I argue that the slave’s ability to gain knowledge of himself as a self is only possible by establishing a relationship with the lord. This point is essential because, if readings of the bondsman’s development as isolated from the lord are correct, then Hegel has in fact not succeeded in showing that self-consciousness only develops out of intersubjective recognition. (shrink)

This paper introduces a novel narrative centered around the liquidity and viscosity inherent in interactions with digital technologies through digital intimacy. Traditional approaches to studying digital technologies are often “dry,” “detached,” and “clean,” overlooking the materiality of human-technology interactions, particularly the role of bodily fluids. In postphenomenology, subjects, technologies, and objects are treated as distinct entities with clear boundaries, even if they affect each other. However, this approach ignores the continuous material exchanges that blur these boundaries, such as the (...) bodily fluids involved in digital intimacy. By focusing on the “dirty” materiality of these interactions, this paper aims to use the discourse on digital intimacy to challenge the prevailing narrative in postphenomenology that treats bodies and technologies as separate, clearly defined entities. Instead, it acknowledges these interactions’ sticky, fluid, and porous nature, offering a different understanding of how digital technologies shape our lives. This perspective not only opens up new avenues for research but also invites a rethinking of the way we conceptualize the presence of “solid” digital devices around us, and it introduces sexual connotations in the context of digital technologies in general. For these reasons, it makes digital intimacy an essential element of the relations with digital technologies. (shrink)