James Laing

ABSTRACT We are social animals that seek to live a life that is, in some sense, shared with others. But what exactly do we want in wanting to live a shared life? First, I seek to show that this question is not as straightforward as it might initially appear. Second, I present an answer to this question, which makes reference to the thought that we have a need for an irreducibly relational form of emotional experience, which I call “interpersonal connection.” Third, and finally, I draw upon this answer to identify the harm implicated in the experience of loneliness.

In this paper I provide an elaboration and defence of the claim that joint attention is an essentially communicative relation (‘The Communication Claim’). The Communication Claim is typically advanced with the aim of providing an informative characterisation of what makes joint attention ‘truly joint’ in a way that is not committed to an overly-intellectualistic characterisation of joint attention in early infancy. I argue that existing interpretations of the communication claim fail to live up to this ambition insofar as they succumb either to the charge of over-intellectualism or the charge of under-informativeness. I then argue that this dilemma can be avoided if the communicative relation at play in joint attention is understood minimally, as a form of perceptual interaction that is grounded in our power to capture and direct the attention of others.

In this article, I consider the prospects for ‘Naturalism’, the view that our nature as social animals precludes us from being able to cultivate a state of indifference to social esteem. Despite its philosophical interest and intuitive appeal, Naturalism has received little in the way of detailed philosophical elaboration. Drawing on work by Bernard Williams, I develop a version of Naturalism which prioritises the idea that human beings characteristically have a natural commitment to a life lived in community with others, and that it is this commitment which precludes us from being able to intentionally cultivate indifference to social esteem.

We are social animals that seek to connect with others of our kind. This common thought stands in need of elaboration. In this article, I argue for three theses. First, that we pursue certain forms of communicative interaction for their own sake insofar as they are ways of connecting with another. Second, that interpersonal connection is a metaphysically primitive emotional relation which resists reductive analysis in terms of the states of individuals. And finally, that our desire for interpersonal connection has a strong claim to being explanatorily and normatively prior to our desires for mutual-attachment, interpersonal belonging and approbation.

In this paper, I argue that we face a challenge in understanding the relationship between the ‘value-oriented’ and ‘other-oriented’ dimensions of shame. On the one hand, an emphasis on shame's value-oriented dimension leads naturally to ‘The Self-Evaluation View’, an account which faces a challenge in explaining shame's other-oriented dimension. This is liable to push us towards ‘The Social Evaluation View’. However The Social Evaluation View faces the opposite challenge of convincingly accommodating shame's ‘value-oriented’ dimension. After rejecting one attempt to chart a middle course between these extremes, I argue that progress can be made if we reject the widespread assumption that the other-oriented dimension of shame is best understood primarily terms of our concern with the way we appear to others. Instead, I outline an account which treats shame as manifesting our desire primarily for interpersonal connection and which elucidates the property of shamefulness in terms of merited avoidance.

How should we understand the special way in which two people are connected when they make eye contact? In this paper, I argue that existing accounts of eye contact —Peacocke’s Reductive Approach and Eilan’s Second Person Approach— are unsatisfactory. In doing so, I make a case for thinking that the source of this dissatisfaction and the path forward can be identified by reflecting on our tendency to describe eye contact on the model of touch. On this basis, I outline a ‘Transactional Approach’ to eye contact.