Touch: Recovering Our Most Vital Sense

212 Pages·2021·7.08 MB·English

by  Richard Kearney

Touch
NO LIMITS
NO LIMITS
Edited by Costica Bradatan
The most important questions in life haunt us with a sense of
boundlessness: there is no one right way to think about them
or an exclusive place to look for answers. Philosophers and
prophets, poets and scholars, scientists and artists— all are right
in their quest for clarity and meaning. We care about these issues
not simply in themselves but for ourselves— for us. To make
sense of them is to understand who we are better. No Limits
brings together creative thinkers who delight in the pleasure
of intellectual hunting, wherever the hunt may take them and
whatever critical boundaries they have to trample as they go. And
in so doing they prove that such searching is not just rewarding
but also transformative. There are no limits to knowledge and
self- knowledge— just as there are none to self- fashioning.
Mark C. Taylor, Intervolution: Smart Bodies Smart Things
Tom Lutz, Aimlessness
Touch
Richard Kearney

RECOVERING OUR
MOST VITAL SENSE
Columbia University Press
New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup . columbia . edu
Copyright © 2021 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Kearney, Richard, author.
Title: Touch : recovering our most vital sense / Richard Kearney.
Description: New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2021] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020025084 (print) | LCCN 2020025085 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780231199520 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231199537
(trade paperback) | ISBN 9780231553179 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Touch. | Social interaction.
Classification: LCC BF275 .K43 2021 (print) | LCC BF275 (ebook) |
DDC 152.1/82—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025084
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025085
Columbia University Press books are printed
on permanent and durable acid- free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design: Lisa Hamm
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Are We Losing Our Senses? 1
1. Coming to Our Senses: Tact, Savvy, Flair, Insight, Sound 9
2. Philosophies of Touch: From Aristotle to Phenomenology 33
3. Tales of the Wounded Healer 61
4. Healing Touch: Therapies of Trauma and Recovery 85
5. Reclaiming Touch in the Age of Excarnation 113
Coda: Touch and the Coronavirus 133
Notes 141
Index 197

Acknowledgments
I
have many friends, colleagues, and family I wish to
thank. I am deeply grateful to the following for their
close readings and astute comments on different drafts of
the text— Fanny Howe, Brian Treanor, John Manoussakis,
Sheila Gallagher, Redmond O’Hanlon, Patrick Hederman,
Simon Sleeman, James Taylor, and Matt Clemente. I am
also grateful to my Boston College assistants, Peter Klapes,
William Hendel, Urwa Hameed, Sarah Horton, and Noah
Valdez, for their help with formatting, proofing, and per-
missions. And finally a special thanks to various members
of my family— especially my brother Michael, for provid-
ing me with key insights into the myths of Chiron and
Asclepius, and my wife, Anne, and daughters, Simone and
Sarah, for their visual illustrations. It seemed particularly
relevant for a book on touch that their ink drawings were
done by hand.
I would also like to add a heartfelt word of gratitude to
my wonderful editors at Columbia University Press— Wendy
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Lochner, Costica Bradatan, Susan Pensak, and Lowell Frye.
It was a pleasure to collaborate with them from beginning
to end, and I am deeply grateful for their support, guidance,
and patience as we worked through the multiple drafts and
revisions of the text.
viii
Touch