1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910734882603321

Autore

Pihlström Sami

Titolo

Critical Distance: Ethical and Literary Engagements with Detachment, Isolation, and Otherness / / by Sami Pihlström, Sari Kivistö

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer Nature Switzerland : , : Imprint : Springer, , 2023

ISBN

9783031355615

303135561X

Edizione

[1st ed. 2023.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (110 pages)

Collana

SpringerBriefs in Philosophy, , 2211-4556

Altri autori (Persone)

KivistöSari

Disciplina

302.01

Soggetti

Comparative literature

Religion - Philosophy

Literature - History and criticism

Ethics

Comparative Literature

Philosophy of Religion

Literary Criticism

Moral Philosophy and Applied Ethics

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 - Against the Empathetic Fallacy: On the Seriousness of the Moral Point of View -- Chapter 2 - Pain and the Other, and the Otherness of Pain -- Chapter 3 - Silence as Distance -- Chapter 4 - Distancing, the Pandemic, and Our Tragic Condition -- Chapter 5 - The Limits of Sense and Transcendental Melancholy in the Philosophy of Love -- Chapter 6 - Conclusion -- References -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

This book engages with such themes by means of five case studies. In this text, the authors argue that no ethically appropriate relation to other human beings is possible unless we treat the other as genuinely other. They reveal reasons to be critical of various attempts, many of them popular in our contemporary (Western) culture, to encourage deeper attachment to and immersion into others’ lives and experiences. They defend the significance of the distance between human beings



and are to a certain degree writing against various cultural trends of our times in this book, criticizing the use of, e.g., the concept of empathy and related concepts in academic as well as more popular ethical contexts, across a range of issues from the nature of ethical duty to the philosophy of love. The chapters offer non-technical philosophy and cultural criticism through selected perspectives on the scale or continuum between closeness and distance. These case studies appeal to students and researchers; they explore different aspects of ethically significant relations between human beings. They show that we also have to be able to abstract from the concrete other in such relations, living in the normative and rational sphere of ethical duty.