The Priority of the Other: Thinking and Living Beyond the Self

ISBN-13: 9780199759309 / Angielski / Twarda / 2013 / 256 str.

Mark Philip Freeman

Opis

Contemporary psychology - as well as our own self-understanding - remains largely ego-centric in focus, with the self being seen as the primary source of meaning and value. According to Mark Freeman, this perspective is belied by much of our experience. Working from this basic premise, he proposes that we adopt a more "ex-centric" perspective, one that affirms the priority of the Other in shaping human experience. In doing so, he offers nothing less than a radical reorientation of our most basic ways of making sense of the human condition.

In speaking of the "Other," Freeman refers not only to other people, but also to those non-human "others" - for instance, nature, art, God - that take us beyond the ego and bring us closer to the world. In speaking of the Other's priority, he insists that there is much in life that "comes before us." By thinking and living the priority of the Other, we can therefore become better attuned to both the world beyond us and the world within.

At the heart of Freeman's perspective are two fundamental ideas. The first is that the Other is the primary source of meaning, inspiration, and existential nourishment. The second is that it is the primary source of our ethical energies, and that being responsive and responsible to the world beyond us is a defining feature of our humanity. There is a tragic side to Freeman's story, however. Enraptured though we may be by the Other, we frequently encounter it in a state of distraction and fail to receive the nourishment and inspiration it can provide. And responsive and responsible though we may be, it is perilously easy to retreat inward, to the needy ego. The challenge, therefore, is to break the spell of the "ordinary oblivion" that characterizes much of everyday life. The Priority of the Other can help us rise to the occasion.

Recenzje

Mark Freeman sets a frame for a poetics of the other with passion and deep conviction. This work is grounded in the postmodern challenge of the core notion of the self that has been the underpinning of the discipline of psychology... The power of The Priority of the Other is that it presents a positive and provocative summons to awaken to the other. It is a summons desperately needed in a world out-of-balance with ego orientation rather than person orientation... Mark Freeman's work is of critical importance to anyone daring to wrestle with the unbouded question of how we can co-construct a world that is inclusive, just and peaceful.

O autorze

Professor of Psychology, Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society, College of the Holy Cross