The Long Path to Nearness: A Contribution to a Corporeal Philosophy of Communication and the Groundwork for an Ethics of Relief

"In this carefully crafted volume, Professor Ramsey provides the reader with a thoughtful and provocative investigation of pivotal issues at the crossroads of the disciplines of philosophy and the communication sciences. The interpretive analysis and argumentation throughout the text propels one through the details of the corporeal philosophy of communication concluding with a philosophically imaginative and quite original perspective on the discourse and practice of the ethical." -- Calvin O. Schrag, George Ade Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Purdue University THE LONG PATH TO NEARNESS takes its place among the recent interdisciplinary work being done at the intersection of philosophy and communication studies. Bringing together Reichian psychoanalysis, the utopian Marxism of Ernst Bloch, and a rigorous phenomenology of communication following Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, Ramsey argues that studies of corporeality are a necessary component of a philosophy of communicative praxis directed toward ethical concerns. Arguing for a return to the body to address questions of ethics, Ramsey demonstrates that the communicative disclosure of worldly possibilities arises out of the conjuction of physical and hermeneutical capabilities of bodies and the material potentiality of situations. It is against this backdrop, which includes a detailed description of communicative praxis in a world destined by technology, that Ramsey develops the groundwork for an "ethics of relief." This study will be of interest to students of Philosophy and Communication Studies, as well as those in Cultural Studies and Sociology, who address theoretical issues concerning discourse, the body, and ethics.