[PhilosophyEvents] "Loneliness and Emotional Resonance": Kaitlyn Creasy (CSUSB), Friday, December 5

[Dan Hicks]

Hello philosophers and friends of philosophy!

Next week (after Thanksgiving) we’ll be having TWO talks by Kaitlyn Creasy of CSU San Bernardino. The Thursday talk is meant for the general public, and will be in UC Merced on Main (1635 M Street) with free street and lot parking nearby. Friday’s talk is for an academic audience (including students!) and will be on campus in COB 129.

As usual, both talks are free and open to the public. If you’re a student at another school or community college faculty, contact me and I can subsidize your parking for the Friday talk.

Kaitlyn Creasy (CSU San Bernardino)
How to be Lonely
UC Merced on Main: 1635 M Street
Thursday, December 4, 6-7pm

Everyone experiences loneliness at some time or other. Even so, some of the situations in which we find ourselves lonely can surprise us. While we might expect to feel lonely in a room full of strangers, for example, we typically don't expect to feel lonely in the presence of loved ones. To make better sense of the wide variety of circumstances in which loneliness may arise, I begin by exploring several distinct causes of loneliness with the help of concrete (including real-life) examples. Then, after reflecting on the features of human existence to which loneliness calls our attention, I will suggest that loneliness, although painful, may have positive potential. As an experience that can reveal what and who matters to us, loneliness may offer opportunities for self-knowledge and meaningful personal transformation, depending on how we relate to it.

Kaitlyn Creasy (CSU San Bernardino)
Loneliness and Emotional Resonance
COB 129
Friday, December 5, 3:30-5pm

Loneliness is a painful feeling that arises when our desires for recognition or connection are not fulfilled (or are perceived to be unfulfilled). But there are many forms of meaningful recognition and countless forms of connection that we may need or desire, not all of which can be offered even by those who love and appreciate us.

Building on my work on the importance of particular recognition and affirmation for assuaging loneliness, in this talk I explore what I call deep forms of recognition, affirmation, and personal connection, forms that necessarily involve emotional engagement or experiences of emotional resonance. I then contend that these deep forms of recognition, affirmation, and connection, when present, play a distinctive role in the amelioration of loneliness: they allow the individual to feel more at home in her world, in part by allowing her to make (shared) sense of it. Finally, I show that attending to certain of the conditions that make these forms of recognition, affirmation, and connection possible-e.g., shared forms of life and complementary sensibilities between individuals helps us make sense of cases of loneliness tied to the presence or absence of particular empirical others.

[Kaity Creasy Talk 2 Poster.jpeg][Kaitlyn Creasy.png]
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Dan Hicks
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Philosophy
University of California, Merced

Pronouns: they/them/their

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