Intimacy and aloneness : a Multi-Volume Study in Philosophical Psychology

477 Pages·2·3.227 MB·English

by  McGraw, John G

INTIMACY AND ISOLATION
VIBS
Volume 221
Robert Ginsberg
Founding Editor
Leonidas Donskis
Executive Editor
Associate Editors
G. John M. Abbarno Steven V. Hicks
George Allan Richard T. Hull
Gerhold K. Becker Michael Krausz
Raymond Angelo Belliotti Olli Loukola
Kenneth A. Bryson Mark Letteri
C. Stephen Byrum Vincent L. Luizzi
Robert A. Delfino Adrianne McEvoy
Rem B. Edwards J.D. Mininger
Malcolm D. Evans Peter A. Redpath
Daniel B. Gallagher Arleen L. F. Salles
Roland Faber John R. Shook
Andrew Fitz-Gibbon Eddy Souffrant
Francesc Forn i Argimon Tuija Takala
William C. Gay Emil Višňovský
Dane R. Gordon Anne Waters
J. Everet Green James R. Watson
Heta Aleksandra Gylling John R. Welch
Matti Häyry Thomas Woods
Brian G. Henning
a volume in
Philosophy and Psychology
PAP
Mark Letteri, Editor
INTIMACY AND ALONENESS
A Multi-Volume Study in Philosophical Psychology
Volume One
INTIMACY AND ISOLATION
John G. McGraw
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2010
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ISBN: 978-90-420-3139-5
E-Book ISBN: 978-90-420-3140-1
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2010
Printed in the Netherlands
Philosophy and Psychology
(PAP)

Mark Letteri
Editor

Other Titles in POP

Fernand Vial. The Unconscious in Philosophy, and French and European
Literature. 2009. VIBS 203

Amihud Gilead. Necessity and Truthful Fictions. 2009. VIBS 202

Mark Letteri. Heidegger and the Question of Psychology. 2009. VIBS 200

Steven M. Rosen. Dimensions of Apeiron. 2004. VIBS 154

Christine M. Koggel, Allannah Furlong, and Charles Levin, eds. Confidential
Relationships. 2003. VIBS 141

Sandra A. Wawrytko, ed. The Problem of Evil. 2000. VIBS 90

Amihud Gilead. Saving Possibilities. 1999. VIBS 80

Jon Mills and Janusz A. Polanowski. The Ontology of Prejudice. 1997. VIBS 58
CONTENTS

EDITORIAL FOREWORD BY MARK LETTERI xi

PREFACE xiii

ONE Introduction 1

1. Philosophical Anthropology and Psychology 1
2. SCRAM: Five American Social Illnesses 3
3. Loneliness: Conceptualizations and Classifications 4
4. Humanism 6
5. Personality Abnormalities: Definitions and Divisions 9
6. Personality Paradigms: Categorical and Dimensional 12

TWO States of Aloneness: Notions and Numbers 17

1. Introduction 17
2. Loneliness and Aloneliness 17
3. Loneliness: Alonism and Lonism 23
4. Solitude 27
5. Reclusion 35
6. Seclusion 37
7. Isolation 43
8. Desolation 49
9. Solipsism 51

THREE Loneliness: Definitions, Divisions, and Properties 59

1. An Affliction Pedestrian and Profound 59
2. A Negative Aloneness 60
3. An Absence of Pleasure and Presence of Pain 63
4. A Diversified Ill and Illness 66
5. The Lack of Intimate Unions 68
6. Lack of Personations 70
7. Panpsychism and Animism 72
8. Social Provisions and Benevolence 79
9. Person and Species, Atomism and Monism 84
10. The Dionysian and Apollonian Archetypes 86
11. Intimacy: Needs and Metaneeds 88
12. Unwanted Oneliness 92
13. Oneliness as Hell 97
14. Cognitive Discrepancy and Social Needs Models 100
15. Duration and Depth of Loneliness 101

FOUR Loneliness: Forms and Modalities 107

1. Introduction 107
2. An Alternate Classification 149
viii INTIMACY AND ISOLATION
3. Spatial Modalities 152
4. Loneliness Modalities 154

FIVE Loneliness: The Unwanted Absence of Meaning/Intimacy 171

1. Introduction 171
2. Intimacy: Form and Content 171
3. Intimacy and Motivations 173
4. Relationships, Social Exchange Theory, and SCRAM 185
5. Social Exchange Theory and Intimacy 194
6. Equity Theory and Relationships 198
7. Relationships: Equality and Equity 201
8. The Equity of Justice and Love 203
9. Love, Justice, and Loneliness 208

SIX Love: The Paradigm of Meaning/Intimacy 215

1. Introduction 215
2. Love, Philosophy, and Science 215
3. The Supreme Human and Divine Power 218
4. Love and Hatred 221
5. The Passions and the Paragon of Passion 230
6. The Art of the Heart and the Master Art of Life 234
7. Love: Deliverance from Loneliness 241
8. The Risk of Loving and Being Loved 245
9. Love and Death 249
10. The Ultimate in (Inter)Subjectivity 251
11. A World of Mystery and Singularity 255
12. The Fear of Love and of Subjects Becoming Objects 262
13. The Intimate World of Persons 264
14. The Most Unifying and Enlightening Cognition 268
15. Types of Love and Virtue 270

SEVEN Intimacy: Classifications 273

1. Introduction 273
2. Private and Public 273
3. Altruism versus Greed 275
4. Greed versus Generosity 278
5. Generosity and Loneliness 282
6. Pseudo-Altruism and Egoism 287
7. Intimacy: Descriptive and Prescriptive 297
8. Intimacy and Gender 298
9. Loneliness and Gender 301
10. Personality Orientations and Loneliness 305
11. Intimacy: Horizontal and Vertical, Said and Unsaid,
Having and Be-Having 307

EIGHT Intimacy and Social Networks 311
1. Introduction 311
Contents ix
2. The Connection Continuum 311
3. Connection Benefits 312
4. Loneliness: Lack of Social Network Density 315
5. The Decline of American Social Support Systems 319
6. The Diminution of American Friendship 323
7. The Increase in Imitation Intimacy 330
8. The Spurious Intimacy of Addictions 337

NINE Loneliness and Freedom 349

1. Introduction 349
2. Self-Determinism 349
3. Determinism 351
4. Indeterminism 352
5. The Existence of Freedom: Arguments Pro and Con 354
6. Determinism: Soft (Freedom) and Hard (Necessitarianism) 358
7. Freedom and Authenticity 362
8. Determinism: Classifications 366
9. (In)Determinism and Loneliness 369
10. Freedom and Loneliness: A Sartrean Interpretation 371
11. Loneliness and Volition 382

TEN Loneliness: Revelation and Research 385

1. Admitting and Altering Loneliness 385
2. Alteration of Personal Traits 385
3. Altering the Traits of the Lonely 387
4. Altering Diverse Types of Loneliness 390
5. Loneliness and Mental Illness 392
6. Loneliness and the Mental Trait Disorders of Personality 394
7. Loneliness in America 398
8. Resistance to Admitting Loneliness 400
9. The Inadmissibility of Loneliness by the Clinically Ill 404
10. The Inadmissibility of Loneliness by Clinicians 408
11. Opponents of the Study of Loneliness: Objectivism
and Scientism 410
12. Proponents of the Study of Loneliness: Phenomenology
and Existentialism 415
13. Loneliness in Psychology, Literature, and Philosophy 417
14. Conclusion 420

WORKS CITED 421

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 435

NAME INDEX 437

SUBJECT INDEX 463
EDITORIAL FOREWORD

I am pleased to introduce John McGraw’s Intimacy and Isolation, the first por-
tion of his multi-volume Intimacy and Aloneness, on the topic of loneliness.
His sustained attention to this issue offers many novel perspectives and unveils
the complexities of this seemingly simple phenomenon. McGraw’s work
forces us to confront the inexorability of loneliness in the human condition.
McGraw grounds his arguments and explorations in psychological re-
search and contemporary culture as well as in traditional philosophy, so read-
ers of various stripes will find purchase. He connects loneliness to salient
social and political forms of our time, and argues that increasingly pointed
individualism and related elements in the North American ethos exacerbate
the problem of loneliness. McGraw directs us to restorative ways of living,
free of the cult of impersonality and dissociation.
McGraw’s second volume, Personality Disorders and Aloneness, will
soon appear in this series. These two volumes will stand as a unique and
comprehensive treatment of an issue of fundamental importance that we too
often overlook or consider only in a facile manner. His efforts here demand
our attention.
Mark Letteri
Philosophy and Psychology Series Editor