Recent Western thought has consistently emphasized the individualistic strand in our understanding of persons at the expense of the social strand. Thus, it is generally thought that persons are self-determining and automous, where these are understood to be capacities we exercise most fully on our own, apart from others, whose influence on us tends to undermine that automy. Love, Friendship, and the Self argues that we must reject a strongly individualistic conception of persons if we are to make sense of significant interpersonal relationships and the importance they can have in our lives. It presents a new account of love as intimate identification and of friendship as a kind of plural agency, in each case grounding and analyzing these tions in terms of interpersonal emotions. At the center of this account is an analysis of how our emotional connectedness with others is essential to our very capacities for automy and self-determination: we are rational and automous only because of and through our inherently social nature. By focusing on the role that relationships of love and friendship have both in the initial formation of our selves and in the on-going development and maturation of adult persons, Helm significantly alters our understanding of persons and the kind of psychology we persons have as moral and social beings.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10
0199642567
ISBN-13
9780199642564
eBay Product ID (ePID)
111628583
Product Key Features
Author
Bennett w. Helm
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Subject
Philosophy
Type
Textbook
Dimensions
Weight
498g
Height
235mm
Width
157mm
Additional Product Features
Place of Publication
Oxford
Spine
17mm
Content Note
Illustrations
Author Biography
Bennett W. Helm is Professor of Philosophy at Franklin & Marshall College, Pennsylvania. His philosophical interests center around understanding the place of emotions and caring in our concept of a person. His work has received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies.