Online research in philosophy

This reflection considers my dawning realization that Zapatista insurgency reflects not only opposition to racist devaluation of the cultures of indigenous peoplesbut more fundamentally a struggle to overcome spiritual deracination. I contest two basic assumptions of much contemporary social theory: that race and deracination are entirely socio-cultural phenomena and that the central role played by dialogical accord in Zapatista communities can be understood without a spiritual conception of human existence. I propose that only a spiritual understanding of these three pivotal (...) issues—race, deracination, and dialogue (or accord)—aptly captures the core intuitions that inform Zapatista insurgency. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore loneliness as a primordial call to find accord with the self that, as Kierkegaard claims, is born of spirit. I put Kierkegaard’s Anti-Climacan formula, “the more consciousness, the more self,” to work by examining lamentation over loss of the innocent days of youth as symptomatic of primordial loneliness. In loneliness, I argue, we confound loss of naivete (a developmental change) with loss of innocence (a spiritual failing). While each person is fated to lose naivete, no (...) person loses innocence by developmental necessity. Each person loses innocence by his or her own hand in freedom. (shrink)

Ramsey Eric Ramsey, The Long Path to Nearness: A Contribution to a Corporeal Philosophy of Communication and the Groundwork for an Ethics of Relief (reviewed by Patricia Huntington).