A Philosophy of Belonging: Persons, Politics, Cosmos
James Greenaway offers a philosophical guide to understanding, affirming, and valuing the significance of belonging across personal, political, and historical dimensions of existence.

A sense of belonging is one of the most meaningful experiences of anyone’s life. Inversely, the discovery that one does not belong can be one of the most upsetting experiences. In A Philosophy of Belonging, Greenaway treats the notion of belonging as an intrinsically philosophical one. After all, belonging raises intense questions of personal self-understanding, identity, mortality, and longing; it confronts interpersonal, sociopolitical, and historical problems; and it probes our relationship with both the knowable world and transcendent mystery. Experiences of alienation, exclusion, and despair become conspicuous only because we are already moved by a primordial desire to belong.

Greenaway presents a hermeneutical framework that brings the intelligibility of belonging into focus and discusses the works of various representative thinkers in light of this hermeneutic. The study is divided into two main parts, “Presence” and “Communion.” In the first, Greenaway considers the abiding presence of the cosmos as the context of personhood and the world, followed by the presence of persons to themselves and others by way of consciousness and embodiment, culminating in a discussion of the unrestricted horizon of meaning that love makes present in persons. In the second part, belonging in community is explored as a crucial type of communion that is both politically and historically structured. Moreover, communion has direction and a quality of sacredness that offers itself for consideration. Greenaway concludes with a discussion of the consequences of refusing presence and communion, and what is involved in the repudiation of belonging.

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A Philosophy of Belonging: Persons, Politics, Cosmos
James Greenaway offers a philosophical guide to understanding, affirming, and valuing the significance of belonging across personal, political, and historical dimensions of existence.

A sense of belonging is one of the most meaningful experiences of anyone’s life. Inversely, the discovery that one does not belong can be one of the most upsetting experiences. In A Philosophy of Belonging, Greenaway treats the notion of belonging as an intrinsically philosophical one. After all, belonging raises intense questions of personal self-understanding, identity, mortality, and longing; it confronts interpersonal, sociopolitical, and historical problems; and it probes our relationship with both the knowable world and transcendent mystery. Experiences of alienation, exclusion, and despair become conspicuous only because we are already moved by a primordial desire to belong.

Greenaway presents a hermeneutical framework that brings the intelligibility of belonging into focus and discusses the works of various representative thinkers in light of this hermeneutic. The study is divided into two main parts, “Presence” and “Communion.” In the first, Greenaway considers the abiding presence of the cosmos as the context of personhood and the world, followed by the presence of persons to themselves and others by way of consciousness and embodiment, culminating in a discussion of the unrestricted horizon of meaning that love makes present in persons. In the second part, belonging in community is explored as a crucial type of communion that is both politically and historically structured. Moreover, communion has direction and a quality of sacredness that offers itself for consideration. Greenaway concludes with a discussion of the consequences of refusing presence and communion, and what is involved in the repudiation of belonging.

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A Philosophy of Belonging: Persons, Politics, Cosmos

A Philosophy of Belonging: Persons, Politics, Cosmos

by James Greenaway
A Philosophy of Belonging: Persons, Politics, Cosmos

A Philosophy of Belonging: Persons, Politics, Cosmos

by James Greenaway

Hardcover

$125.00 
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Overview

James Greenaway offers a philosophical guide to understanding, affirming, and valuing the significance of belonging across personal, political, and historical dimensions of existence.

A sense of belonging is one of the most meaningful experiences of anyone’s life. Inversely, the discovery that one does not belong can be one of the most upsetting experiences. In A Philosophy of Belonging, Greenaway treats the notion of belonging as an intrinsically philosophical one. After all, belonging raises intense questions of personal self-understanding, identity, mortality, and longing; it confronts interpersonal, sociopolitical, and historical problems; and it probes our relationship with both the knowable world and transcendent mystery. Experiences of alienation, exclusion, and despair become conspicuous only because we are already moved by a primordial desire to belong.

Greenaway presents a hermeneutical framework that brings the intelligibility of belonging into focus and discusses the works of various representative thinkers in light of this hermeneutic. The study is divided into two main parts, “Presence” and “Communion.” In the first, Greenaway considers the abiding presence of the cosmos as the context of personhood and the world, followed by the presence of persons to themselves and others by way of consciousness and embodiment, culminating in a discussion of the unrestricted horizon of meaning that love makes present in persons. In the second part, belonging in community is explored as a crucial type of communion that is both politically and historically structured. Moreover, communion has direction and a quality of sacredness that offers itself for consideration. Greenaway concludes with a discussion of the consequences of refusing presence and communion, and what is involved in the repudiation of belonging.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780268206017
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Publication date: 08/15/2023
Series: The Beginning and the Beyond of Politics
Pages: 338
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

James Greenaway is the San José-Lonergan Chair in Catholic Philosophy at St. Mary’s University. He is the author of The Differentiation of Authority: The Medieval Turn Toward Existence.

Read an Excerpt

Everyone belongs somewhere or to someone. We know that we belong to places and to times, and we know that we belong to other people and to our communities. Indeed, they belong to us too. We buy or inherit or are gifted things and artifacts. We may even have a sense that we have found our niche in the great scheme of things, especially when things are going well for us. But even if that sounds like empty-headed mysticism, and even if we feel as though we don’t belong anywhere and to anyone, then at the very least there are ways in which we can think about how we belong to ourselves. In this book, we set out to explore the meaning of belonging, allowing for the probability that much about belonging remains beyond our powers of exploration. Involved in every inquiry is the personal concern that our own belonging has for us. It is no mere academic issue to love one’s children, to support one’s nation in an international sports tournament, to be moved to the bottom of one’s soul at the plight of innocent people suffering in a distant place or time, or to seek the forgiveness of neighbor or God or one’s own self after a gross act of inauthenticity, recklessness, or destruction. A cursory glance at the book’s table of contents reveals just how expansive the meaning of belonging is, and how bound up it is with one’s very existence.

However, we need to be careful since the concern with belonging has been co-opted by various partisans across the political spectrum at different times. After the ideological horrors of the twentieth century, our eyes are wide open. Nor are we naïve about the dangers that factions pose much closer to our own day and to our own polities. As a result, suspicion hangs over the very topic of belonging. After all, belonging to a particular group often involves a deliberate choice not to belong to some other group. For many, it is not clear how belonging could mean anything other than narrow-minded prejudice, or how belonging could avoid becoming a means of inequitably excluding others for the sake of the favored in-group. Yet, there is much more at stake than the political or cultural movements of the day. What is at stake in belonging is the subject of our study.

Let us briefly refer to the etymological derivation of the verb, “to belong.” We note that while one can overestimate the value of etymology, one can underestimate it too. Etymology often uncovers subtle lines of meaning that have been operative in our thinking and discourse for a long time. It excavates the original core of meaning in the particular term, and its continuing adequacy as a term today indicates not only the endurance of that core, but its course of development that proves instructive. The verb “to belong” is linked to the Old English word gelang. This word, gelang, suggests what we already recognize in our most fulfilling relationships. Firstly, the root word, langian, means “together with” or “at hand.” Thus, the -long in our modern word “belong”—derived from langian—bears an original meaning of relatedness, a sense of fitting, a proximity to what is right or good or proper. Secondly, the be- in “belong” does not derive from the verb “to be,” but is, rather, a modern linguistic rendition of the ge- in gelang. Ge- is an Old English intensifying prefix attached to the root word. Thus, be- intensifies the sense of relatedness in -long into being really related or being very fitted to what is proper and good. Indeed, the be- in belonging is evocative of what is at stake in belonging, in finding “a fit.” Etymologically speaking, when we genuinely belong, when we find that we are really related to what is right, we experience something like “the perfect fit,” a relation worthy of our time and effort, or even of our entire life. The term “belonging” then suggests a grasp of this sense of perfection as a fit suited to us.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Philosophy and Belonging

2. A Hermeneutic of Belonging

Presence

3. Of the Cosmos

4. By Way of Consciousness and the Flesh

5. In Love

Communion

6. Communitas

7. Political Goods, Political Communitas

8. Sacramentality

Epilogue: Unbelonging: The Refusal of Presence and Communion

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