Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in After discourse on 22/12/2020, available online: https://www.routledge.com/After-Discourse-Things-Affects-Ethics/Olsen-Burstrom-DeSilvey-Petursdottir/p/book/9780367190484
Accepted author manuscript, 398 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSN › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review
}
TY - CHAP
T1 - Touching Tactfully
T2 - The impossible community
AU - Introna, Lucas
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in After discourse on 22/12/2020, available online: https://www.routledge.com/After-Discourse-Things-Affects-Ethics/Olsen-Burstrom-DeSilvey-Petursdottir/p/book/9780367190484
PY - 2020/12/22
Y1 - 2020/12/22
N2 - Whenever and wherever we find ourselves, we are already a being-in-the-world, in the very midst of it, surrounded by other things. In being confronted by these others we are confronted with a question of how to be with the other. Specifically, we are confronted with the question of ethics. Ethics, in this sense, is not understood in normative terms, but instead as radical exposure—as being exposed to, and confronted with, the reality of all things. In being confronted, I become aware of my responsibility—of the need to respond. How do I respond to the more-than-human other with whom I have almost nothing in common? In this chapter, I suggest that part of the answer to this question lies in touch, or rather, in touching tactfully. In developing this argument, I draw on the work of Lingis, Nancy, and Derrida on the notion of touch—specifically, what Derrida calls the law of tact. Touching, in the manner Derrida suggests, is knowing how to touch without touching too much—indeed, where touching is already too much. I will explore this ‘law of tact’ in terms of how it might be an impossible possibility to enact an ethics of things.
AB - Whenever and wherever we find ourselves, we are already a being-in-the-world, in the very midst of it, surrounded by other things. In being confronted by these others we are confronted with a question of how to be with the other. Specifically, we are confronted with the question of ethics. Ethics, in this sense, is not understood in normative terms, but instead as radical exposure—as being exposed to, and confronted with, the reality of all things. In being confronted, I become aware of my responsibility—of the need to respond. How do I respond to the more-than-human other with whom I have almost nothing in common? In this chapter, I suggest that part of the answer to this question lies in touch, or rather, in touching tactfully. In developing this argument, I draw on the work of Lingis, Nancy, and Derrida on the notion of touch—specifically, what Derrida calls the law of tact. Touching, in the manner Derrida suggests, is knowing how to touch without touching too much—indeed, where touching is already too much. I will explore this ‘law of tact’ in terms of how it might be an impossible possibility to enact an ethics of things.
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
SN - 9780367190484
SN - 9780367190460
T3 - Routledge Archaeologies of the Contemporary World
SP - 207
EP - 218
BT - After discourse
A2 - Bjørnar, Olsen
A2 - Burström, Mats
A2 - DeSilvey, Caitlin
A2 - Pétursdóttir, Þóra
PB - Routledge
CY - Abingdon, Oxon
ER -