Book Section
This chapter identifies two contrasting methodological reductions utilized in philosophical scepticism: withdrawal/doubt [R–]; immersion/attention [R+]. Moving toward a feminist ethics grounded in phenomenological scepticism, Aumiller explores how reduction relates to experiences of personal and global uncertainty such as a pandemic. Reduction involves our entire embodied being, challenging how we are fundamentally in touch with the world. How we respond to being disrupted makes all the difference.
Keywords: Scepticism; Phenomenology; Ethics; Touch; Uncertainty; Disruption; Epochē
Title
Haptic Reductions
Subtitle
A Sceptic’s Guide for Responding to the Touch of Crisis
Author(s)
Rachel Aumiller
Identifier
Description
This chapter identifies two contrasting methodological reductions utilized in philosophical scepticism: withdrawal/doubt [R–]; immersion/attention [R+]. Moving toward a feminist ethics grounded in phenomenological scepticism, Aumiller explores how reduction relates to experiences of personal and global uncertainty such as a pandemic. Reduction involves our entire embodied being, challenging how we are fundamentally in touch with the world. How we respond to being disrupted makes all the difference.
Is Part Of
Place
Berlin
Publisher
ICI Berlin Press
Date
11 October 2022
Subject
Scepticism
Phenomenology
Ethics
Touch
Uncertainty
Disruption
Epochē
Rights
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Language
en-GB
page start
39
page end
61
Source
The Case for Reduction, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Jakob Schillinger, Cultural Inquiry, 25 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2022), pp. 39–61

References

  • Andersen, Hanna, ‘The History of Reductionism versus Holistic Approaches to Scientific Research’, Endeavour, 25.4 (2001), pp. 153–56 <https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-9327(00)01387-9>
  • Apuleius, Apologia; Florida; De deo Socratis, trans. by Christopher P. Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017) <https://doi.org/10.4159/DLCL.apuleius-de_deo_socratis.2017>
  • Augustine, Soliloquies: Augustine’s Inner Dialogue, trans. by Kim Paffenroth (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000)
  • Augustine, Confessions, trans. by Garry Wills (New York: Penguin, 2006)
  • Aumiller, Rachel, ‘Sensation and Hesitation: Haptic Scepticism as the Ethics of Touching’, A Touch of Doubt: On Haptic Scepticism, ed. by Rachel Aumiller (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2020), pp. 3–29 <https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176-002>
  • Beauvoir, Simone de, The Ethics of Ambiguity, trans. by Bernard Frechtman (Los Angeles: Open Road, 2015)
  • Derrida, Jacques, On Touching — Jean-Luc Nancy, trans. by Christine Irizarry (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005)
  • Descartes, René, Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. by John Cottingham (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2017)
  • Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. by R. D. Hicks, 2 vols, Loeb Classical Series (London: Heinemann, 1925; repr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972)
  • Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. by Joan Stambaugh (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010)
  • Husserl, Edmund, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution, trans. by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989)
  • Kolenc, Bara, ‘Skepticism’s Cure for the Plague of Mind’, Women in Philosophy, Blog of the American Philosophical Association (9 September 2020) <https://blog.apaonline.org/2020/09/09/skepticisms-cure-for-the-plague-of-mind/> [accessed 11 June 2022]
  • Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, The Visible and the Invisible, trans. by Alphonso Lingis (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968)
  • Nancy, Jean-Luc, Noli me tangere: On the Raising of the Body, trans. by Sarah Clift, Pascale-Anne Brault, and Michael Naas (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008)
  • Plato, Symposium, trans. by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1989)
  • Plato, Phaedrus, trans. by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1995)
  • Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism, trans. by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)

Cite as: Rachel Aumiller, ‘Haptic Reductions: A Sceptic’s Guide for Responding to the Touch of Crisis’, in The Case for Reduction, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Jakob Schillinger, Cultural Inquiry, 25 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2022), pp. 39-61 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-25_03>