UH Hilo philosophy professor Chris Lauer examines the concept of intimacy in new book
An important contribution to the burgeoning field of the ethics of recognition, Intimacy: A Dialectical Study examines the contradictions inherent in the very concept of intimacy.
By Susan Enright/UH Hilo Stories.
Christopher Lauer, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, has a new book coming out this spring. Intimacy: A Dialectical Study (2016, Bloomsbury Academic) is the first of three planned books on recognition, divided according to the three main ways that recognition is pursued: intimacy, value, and solidarity. The hypothesis of Lauer’s new book tests (“and stretches past the breaking point,” says Lauer) that everyone 1) wants to be close to someone, 2) wants to have a value, and 3) seeks to understand herself as a participant in a broader community.
Lauer’s area of expertise is in Western philosophy, specializing in ethics—specifically, he works on examining ethical demands and obligations and the ways in which they are based on a universal human need for recognition. His first book, The Suspension of Reason in Hegel and Schelling (2010, Continuum Press) examined the work of two early nineteenth-century German philosophers who were perhaps the two most ambitious philosophers in history.
“It showed that even at this high point of philosophical arrogance, there was a recognition that there are some things reason can’t accomplish,” Lauer explains. “Indeed, our lives are richer when we learn to suspend reason even as we reserve a central place for it in our lives.”
Examining intimacy
Intimacy: A Dialectical Study is Lauer’s second published book and at this point his most important scholarly contribution. It takes the methodological lessons Lauer learned from Hegel and Schelling (as well as Simone de Beavoir, who Lauer says is just as central to his thinking) and applies them to intimate relations.
From the publisher’s description:
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.
“The term ʻlove’ has so many meanings in English that I found it more productive to sidestep it and focus on the more determinate term ʻintimacy,’” Lauer says, “but I’m speaking to much of what we mean when we talk of love. The book develops an insight already found in Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus 2,400 years ago: The most basic reason why we both do good and ought to do good is that everyone wants to be loved.”
An unthinkable concept
When asked if he’s ever been surprised by his findings, the philosophy professor answers that philosophical research is generally quite different from other kinds of research found in the social sciences. There’s no single way to do philosophy today, or even a dominant philosophical method, and Lauer says he can’t speak for all philosophers, but “it’s rare that we find ourselves poring over tables of data when a surprise suddenly pops up.”
“When we are surprised, it’s usually when we’re following the path of another philosopher—‘I didn’t expect her to say that!'” Lauer explains. “Instead, writing a philosophy book is more like a years-long process of gathering one’s thoughts. In the same way that you sometimes need to stop and gather yourself when fighting with a loved one—that is, to step back from the swirling chaos of charges, counterattacks, and brute facts in order to reassess what’s going on and what really matters—philosophers develop long projects through a continuing process of disturbing and collecting their thoughts. The difference is that we actively seek out new and disruptive thoughts, which we then try to work back into a new and cohesive whole.”
Thus, he says, he can’t exactly say he was surprised by the direction his research took, but it nevertheless will likely surprise many readers that he finds intimacy to be “an unthinkable concept.”
“We can all think of some moments or experiences that we find particularly intimate, like laughing or getting engaged or stroking a sick child’s hair, but not only can we not find anything that unites all of these experiences; we can’t even say what makes any one of them intimate without supposing a definition of intimacy that turns out to be contradictory.”
For example, as examined in the second chapter of the new book, physically touching someone in a loving way would seem to be an obvious example of intimacy. But when people try to articulate what’s intimate about touching someone else, it quickly becomes apparent that the experience of touching is never shared equally by both partners. Unless they are participating in some common activity, their respective experiences of touching do more to isolate them from one another than to bring them together.
“Of course, there are many ways that partners seek to make their touches more intimate, but these run into other problems that I go into at length in the book,” Lauer says. “The book moves from one attempt at intimacy to the next, at each point showing how each fails to secure the kind of intimacy it was looking for.”
The book is schedule for a February 25, 2016 release.
“If things continue to progress smoothly, then perhaps a Valentine’s Day release can be scheduled,” he muses.
Bio
Lauer arrived at UH Hilo in 2011. Previously he was a visiting assistant professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is tenure-track at UH Hilo and is former chair of the philosophy department. He received his doctor of philosophy from Penn State University.
Lauer is currently working on the second book of his “Recognition” trilogy, entitled Value: A Dialectical Study. He says he expects the value book to be nearly twice as long as the intimacy book, since it will have to cover huge topics like debt, money, respect, and individuality. Changing things up slightly, the third book will be called Solidarity: A Narrative Study.
Story by Susan Enright, a public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
