Emily Hughes

Recent prominent philosophical work has proposed that grief’s formal object— that which all instances of grief are directed towards, and which distinguishes grief from other emotions—is the loss of significant life possibilities. This article challenges the ‘lost possibilities’ account by examining cases of grief where possibilities are experienced as being different, disenfranchised, or diminished prior to the loss. We argue that individuals relate to possibilities differently, as exemplified by Autistic grievers; that among marginalized grievers, such as LGBTQIA+ individuals, possibilities can be experienced asinauthentic or damaging, complicating one’s sense of loss; and that the depth of one’s grief does not always correspond to the extent of the futural possibilities lost, as illustrated by elderly grievers. Some of the most profound grief is suffered by those who have few possibilities to lose. We argue that accommodating these cases requires either adopting such an expansive notion of ‘possibility’ that the approach risks becoming uninformative, or abandoning the claim that lost possibilities are grief’s formal object and thus necessary to grief.

This article sets out a phenomenological account of mourning as a ground attunement and proposes that an in-depth analysis of this phenomenon is central to understanding the complex nature of all grief experiences. To support this claim, we begin by highlighting the inherent twofold structure of grief, which encompasses both an ontological and an ontic sense of loss. The ontic sense of loss refers to what is typically associated with grief—the particular loss of a significant relation within a person’s lifeworld. The ontological sense of loss, by contrast, designates a more generalized sense of loss, reflecting the negative grounds of human existence as marked by loss through the existential conditions of vulnerability, transience, and finitude. Building on this distinction, we explore how mourning functions as a ground attunement reflecting the ontological sense of loss. Finally, we illustrate the significance of recognizing mourning as a ground attunement for the analysis of experiences of loss. First, we demonstrate its role as a background attunement in all experiences of loss. Second, we focus on two cases in which mourning becomes foregrounded in experience: (a) mourning one’s own death and (b) ecological mourning. In the concluding remarks, we further reflect on the fundamental role of mourning as not only constitutive of mattering and caring, but maybe even as, as several authors have suggested, a driver for culture itself.

In this article, we propose that the concept of consolation is a necessary part of the existential register needed to respond to human suffering in situations that cannot be changed or helped. While “consolatio” as a concept has a long and diverse history in Western thinking, it is today perceived as hopelessly unmodern and is either reduced to an aspect of affect regulation or seen as contradicting basic values such as autonomy, self-determination, actionability, and technical rationality. Contrary to this attitude, we argue that consolation is an indispensable existential category that constitutes our most adequate response to the groundless foundations of our being, such as finitude and vulnerability. In developing this perspective, we propose a phenomenological analysis of the structure of consolation as an experience of unburdening the weight of existence and suggest five specific modalities through which consolation, understood in these terms, can be achieved. Finally, we open the question of an ethics of consolation and suggest that the imperative of consolation can be discussed in terms of our shared vulnerabilities.

Taking the narrative conception of self as my point of departure, the aim of this article is to critically evaluate the literature on impaired narrative ability and an impoverished sense of self in Autism, and to reorient these debates in light of emergent interpretations of Autistic embodiment. First, I consider the literature suggesting Autistic people demonstrate deficits in configuring symbolic, durational and intentional narratives and the implication that Autistic people lack self-other differentiation and a coherent sense of self. Second, with recourse to literary and rhetorical criticism in neurodiversity studies, I examine claims that this literature positions Autistic subjectivity as an unknowable excess and Autistic people as unreliable narrators of experiences that are, in essence, unnarratable. Third, I evaluate the importance and limitations of the literature on hermeneutical injustice in attempting to dismantle this positioning, and argue that, in privileging symbolic forms of signification, this research risks misrecognising Autism as a deficient rather than divergent form of being. Fourth, I examine recent developments in process philosophy, ecological psychology, enactivism, and critical phenomenology, which reconceptualise Autistic embodiment as a different way of being in the world, that gives rise to different ways of signifying the self. In closing, I consider how Autistic perceptual signification can be seen to give rise to an ecological sense of self that, far from being impoverished, reflects the complexity and heterogeneity of pre-reflective lived experience itself.

In the bereavement literature grief trajectories have for the most part been conceptualized according to linear time: whilst non-pathological grief is understood as being time-delimited, it is characteristic of pathological grief that it is persistent and protracted. In the diagnostic frameworks this is represented by the ‘duration criterion’ and the stipulation that grief can be considered pathological if it endures in a sustained way for 6 months or more in the ICD-11 and 12 months or more in the forthcoming DSM-5-TR. Whilst agreeing that temporality is fundamental in the interpretation of different grief trajectories, I argue in this chapter that there is nevertheless a fundamental disconnect between the linear time used to conceptualize grief trajectories in the bereavement literature and the non-linear time through which grief is experienced, particularly as it concerns the ongoing relationship between the living and the dead. Drawing upon data from a questionnaire study recently conducted with colleagues at the University of York, the aim of this chapter is to give an alternative conception of the grief process according to the non-linear time of recurrence. Not only does recurrence help us to better understand the process by which the bereaved repeatedly confronts and then gradually reconfigures the loss of a loved one in an ongoing and dynamic way but, I argue, it gives us the means through which to conceptualize how this relationship might be sustained as a continuing bond in and over time. Given the increasing emphasis on the significance of continuing bonds in the bereavement literature, understanding how it is that they unfold in time is an important step.

This book reconstructs Heidegger’s philosophy of time by reading his work with and against a series of key interlocutors that he nominates as being central to his own critical history of time. In doing so, it explains what makes time of such significance for Heidegger and argues that Heidegger can contribute to contemporary debates in the philosophy of time. Time is a central concern for Heidegger, yet his thinking on the subject is fragmented, making it difficult to grasp its depth, complexity, and promise. Heidegger traces out a history that focuses on the conceptualisations of time put forward by Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Kant, Hegel, Bergson, and Husserl—an “alternative history of time” that challenges how time has been defined and studied within both philosophy and the sciences. This book explores what happens when we take seriously Heidegger’s claim that these seven figures are essential to any understanding of time, setting out what this can tell us about existence, possibility, and philosophy as a historical discipline. Heidegger’s Alternative History of Time will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on Heidegger, phenomenology, the philosophy of time, and the history of philosophy.

In phenomenological conceptions of anorexia, disordered eating practices have predominantly been interpreted according to disturbances of embodied intersubjectivity, demonstrated in feelings such as shame and disgust, a sense that one is extraneous to one's own body, and a heightened reliance upon the gaze of the other (Fuchs, 2022; Gaete & Fuchs, 2016; Legrand, 2010; Legrand & Briend, 2015; Stanghellini et al., 2012; Stanghellini et al., 2015). Through these alterations to the lived body, it is theorized that the body-as-subject becomes increasingly objectified, defined in its alterity as a body-for-others to the extent that one becomes alienated from oneself, from others, and from the world.Building on these... Read More.

Survivors of trauma commonly report feeling as though a part of themselves has died. This article provides a theoretical interpretation of this phenomenon, drawing on Waldenfels' notion of the split self. We argue that trauma gives rise to an explicit tension between the lived and corporeal body which is so profoundly distressing that it can be experienced by survivors as the death of part of oneself. We explore the ways in which this is manifest in the posttraumatic phenomena of dissociation; indescribability; and the fragmentation and repetition of time. Acknowledging that the traumatic loss of part of oneself involves significant grief, we then consider whether the bereavement literature might be helpfully applied. We focus specifically upon the continuing bonds model, which emphasizes an ongoing and meaningful relationship with the deceased through an active process of memorializing. In considering how this might be appropriated to the death of the self in trauma, we suggest that the development of an intrapersonal relationship between parts lost and living might, over time, offer a unique way in which to adapt to loss and approach the future.

In this review essay, I take up a critical analysis of three recently published monographs in Heidegger-Nietzsche scholarship. Whilst their projects are diverse, I suggest that Winkler, Parra and Armitage are each fundamentally concerned with the critique of the Cartesian subject in Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche and attempt to varying extents to ground this problematization of subjectivity in the phenomenon of time. Nevertheless, whilst each emphasises the importance of time in understanding both Heidegger’s and Nietzsche’s critique of the subject, it is surprising that they either underplay or misappropriate the significance of eternal recurrence, the temporal phenomenon which Heidegger defines as Nietzsche’s “thought of thoughts.” After engaging each account, my aim is to then consider how they might be critically re-framed in light of Heidegger’s interpretation of eternal recurrence which, I suggest, is fundamental to understanding Heidegger’s engagement with Nietzsche, as well as his own philosophical project more broadly.

When a loved one dies, it is common for the bereaved to feel profoundly lonely, disconnected from the world with the sense that they no longer belong. In philosophy, this experience of ‘loss and loneliness’ has been interpreted according to both a loss of possibilities and a loss of the past. But it is unclear how these interpretations apply to the distinctive way in which loss and loneliness manifest in old age. Drawing on the phenomenological analyses of old age given by de Beauvoir and Améry, I consider how the diminishment of the capacity for projection and recollection complicate recent interpretations of loss and loneliness, whilst nevertheless reinforcing the conclusion that in old age subjectivity is necessarily impoverished. Developing a critical stance on de Beauvoir and Améry’s underlying conception of subjectivity, I turn to Levinas in considering whether or not there is a way to reimagine subjectivity such that the estrangement and alienation of older adults might be ameliorated rather than exacerbated. Grounded in the passive body-in-itself rather than the self-transcending capacity of the body-for-itself, I suggest it becomes possible to reconceptualise the experience of loss and loneliness in old age; both in terms of what is lost and what needs to be restored if older adults are to be helped to find themselves at home in the world in the midst of, and indeed because of, manifold loss.

Boredom is an affective experience that can involve pervasive feelings of meaninglessness, emptiness, restlessness, frustration, weariness and indifference, as well as the slowing down of time. An increasing focus of research in many disciplines, interest in boredom has been intensified by the recent Covid-19 pandemic, where social distancing measures have induced both a widespread loss of meaning and a significant disturbance of temporal experience. This article explores the philosophical significance of this aversive experience of ‘pandemic boredom.’ Using Heidegger’s work as a unique vantage point, this article draws on survey data collected by researchers in an ongoing project titled ‘Experiences of Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic’ to give an original phenomenological interpretation of the meaninglessness and monotony of pandemic boredom. On a Heideggerian interpretation, pandemic boredom involves either a situative confrontation with relative meaninglessness that upholds our absorption in the everyday world, or an existential confrontation with absolute meaninglessness that forces us to take up the question of our existence. Arguing that boredom during the pandemic makes this distinction difficult to sustain, I consider some of the ways in which pandemic boredom might be seen to expose and then exceed the distinctive methodological limitations of Heidegger’s philosophical interpretation of boredom.

Disturbances to one's sense of self, the feeling that one has ‘lost a part of oneself’ or that one ‘no longer feels like oneself,’ are frequently recounted throughout the bereavement literature. Engaging Allan Køster's important contribution to this issue, this article reinforces his suggestion that, by rupturing the existential texture of self-familiarity, bereavement can result in experiences of estrangement that can be meaningfully understood according to the concept of self-alienation. Nevertheless, I suggest that whilst Køster's relational interpretation of alienation as the withdrawal of heteronomy can be applied to the experience of world-collapse in bereavement, what sets bereavement apart from other limit situations is the fact that it involves an intersubjective relation between the living and the dead. In contrast to Køster, therefore, I suggest that the experience of self-alienation that is distinctive to bereavement results from the fact that the bereaved is exposed to, and co-opted by, the absolute alterity of death itself.

Introduction: The experience of disconnection is common in first-person accounts of grief. One way in which this feeling of estrangement can manifest is through the splintering apart of the time of the mourner and the time of the world. Supplementing and extending Thomas Fuchs' influential idea of temporal desynchronization, my aim in this article is to give an account of the heterogeneous ways in which grief can disturb time. Method: I organize these manifold experiences of temporal disruption according to a method of "depth analysis": a phenomenological interpretation of temporal desynchronization that tracks the increasing disconnect between the mourner and the world as it manifests in time. In so doing, I draw on a wide range of descriptive first-person responses to the question "Has your experience of time changed in any way?" - included as part of an online questionnaire on the emotional experience of grief conducted recently with colleagues at the University of York. I then stratify these according to a mild, moderate, and profound level of disruption. Results: Before setting out the results of this analysis, I give a background account of Fuchs' interpretation of temporal desynchronization in phenomenological psychopathology more generally and in grief specifically. In my results, I then supplement and extend his interpretation by setting out my phenomenological depth analysis of the increasing disconnect between the time of the mourner and the time of the world, as demonstrated by the questionnaire data. As I argue, such a fine-grained account is an important step in understanding the way time can shape the meaning and significance of different grief experiences. Following this, in my discussion, I demonstrate how a depth approach might be helpful in differentiating between temporal disturbances in a range of affective disorders and give an illustrative comparison of grief and depression. Conclusion: In conclusion, I reflect briefly on what grief might reveal about the depth and complexity of temporal experience itself. In so doing, I consider how the radical disruptions to time in grief might transform the mourner's experience of time irreversibly but in a way that enables a renewed connection to both their deceased loved one and the world from which they have become estranged.

Melancholia is an attunement of despair and despondency that can involve radical disruptions to temporal experience. In this article, I extrapolate from the existing analyses of melancholic time to examine some of the important existential implications of these temporal disruptions. In particular, I focus on the way in which the desynchronization of melancholic time can complicate the melancholic’s relation to death and, consequently, to the meaning and significance of their life. Drawing on Heidegger’s distinction between death and demise, I argue that melancholic time leaves the melancholic in an impossible state of existing, where they are both unable to live and unable to die. Turning to the role of the physician, I consider the significant role that clinical interventions might have in resynchronizing the melancholic with time and examine these ideas further through a case study on physician-assisted suicide. In so doing, I demonstrate that the desynchronization of melancholic time should indeed be understood as a matter of life and death.

In “Melancholia, temporal disruption, and the torment of being both unable to live and unable to die”, I discuss the way in which the temporal desynchronization of melancholia can disrupt the melancholic’s relation to their own death and, on a Heideggerian interpretation, the meaning and significance of their life. In their thoughtful commentaries, Kevin Aho and Gareth Owen draw out some important points for further elaboration and clarification, the most pressing of which invoke Heidegger’s interpretation of time and the radical temporalities of fundamental attunements. As Aho anticipates, this is the conception of time that underpins my interpretation of melancholia and, because this is important...

Schizophrenia involves significant disturbances to inter-subjective experience, the complex nature of which have become an increasingly important area for research in the philosophy of psychiatry. In “Schizophrenia as a Problem of Other Minds,”, Brighupati Singh offers a thought-provoking contribution to this trajectory by engaging Stanley Cavell’s idea of skepticism: the recognition that ordinary life is inherently fragile, and that the affective attunement between self and other is something that can be undone. Through detailed ethnographic and literary studies, primarily undertaken in the Department of Psychiatry at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, Singh demonstrates how patients with...