What do you think?
Rate this book
No Limits
Touch: Recovering Our Most Vital Sense
Our existence is increasingly lived at a distance. As we move from flesh to image, we are in danger of losing touch with each other and ourselves. How can we combine the physical with the virtual, our embodied experience with our global connectivity? How can we come back to our senses?
Richard Kearney offers a timely call for the cultivation of the basic human need to touch and be touched. He argues that touch is our most primordial sense, foundational to our individual and common selves. Kearney explores the role of touch, from ancient wisdom traditions to modern therapies. He demonstrates that a fundamental aspect of touch is interdependence, its inherently reciprocal nature, which offers a crucial corrective to our fixation with control. Making the case for the complementarity of touch and technology, this book is a passionate plea to recover a tangible sense of community and the joys of life with others.
Richard Kearney offers a timely call for the cultivation of the basic human need to touch and be touched. He argues that touch is our most primordial sense, foundational to our individual and common selves. Kearney explores the role of touch, from ancient wisdom traditions to modern therapies. He demonstrates that a fundamental aspect of touch is interdependence, its inherently reciprocal nature, which offers a crucial corrective to our fixation with control. Making the case for the complementarity of touch and technology, this book is a passionate plea to recover a tangible sense of community and the joys of life with others.
- GenresPhilosophy
216 pages, Paperback
Published February 23, 2021
18 people are currently reading
139 people want to read
About the author
Richard Kearney
93 books74 followersRichard Kearney is the Charles Seelig professor of philosophy at Boston College and has taught at many universities including University College Dublin, the Sorbonne, and the University of Nice.
He studied at Glenstal Abbey under the Benedictines until 1972, and was a 1st Class Honours graduate in Philosophy in the Bachelor of Arts graduate class of 1975 in UCD. He completed an M.A. at McGill University with Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, and a PhD with Paul Ricœur at University of Paris X: Nanterre. He corresponded with Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida and other French philosophers of the era. He was also active in the Irish, British, and French media as a host for various television and radio programs on literary and philosophical themes. His work focuses on the philosophy of the narrative imagination, hermeneutics and phenomenology.
He studied at Glenstal Abbey under the Benedictines until 1972, and was a 1st Class Honours graduate in Philosophy in the Bachelor of Arts graduate class of 1975 in UCD. He completed an M.A. at McGill University with Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, and a PhD with Paul Ricœur at University of Paris X: Nanterre. He corresponded with Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida and other French philosophers of the era. He was also active in the Irish, British, and French media as a host for various television and radio programs on literary and philosophical themes. His work focuses on the philosophy of the narrative imagination, hermeneutics and phenomenology.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 18, 2020
Touch: Recovering Our Most Vital Sense by Richard Kearney is a nice addition to the No Limits series. He examines the sense of touch and its importance to human beings, from pleasure to healing and simply our being in the world.
The books in this series tend to be short and to the point yet, to get the most from them, one needs to try not to read them too quickly. This volume is no exception, though for me there was one section that almost made me skip/skim several pages. In fairness, those same pages may well be what speaks most deeply to another reader, so it is not a flaw so much as missed connection between what the book is supposedly doing there and what it in fact did to this one particular reader. But otherwise, I found the discussions and rationale quite interesting.
The part that I could have done without, or at least have it done in a more even-handed manner, is part of the chapter on the Wounded Healer. Kearney cites several examples from antiquity, Greek and Roman mythology, then beats us over the head with a much too long excursion into Christian mythology while giving short bits about other traditions and mythologies and excluding, for the most part, Eastern tradition. I think the Christian example is every bit as important as the others, but not to the exclusion or expense of the other traditions and mythology. If you're going to cite mythology, then don't give one that much more space than the others just because it happens to be a mythology you still believe in in spite of all evidence to the contrary. But, for those subscribing to that mythology, this will likely be a positive section for them. I found it repetitive and at the expense of other equally important and valid examples.
His discussion of how we are at risk of "losing touch" with each other and, frankly, with ourselves, is compelling. It fell down when for a couple paragraphs at the end the "solution" seems to be variations on the theme of "enjoy what you do virtually but also put the technology down and enjoy the real world as well." Really? That is the best you have? Of course it makes sense, but for those who have never really done without their technology, that is like telling an alcoholic "just enjoy a periodic drink but also enjoy times without alcohol." Great in theory, impossible in practice.
I know it sounds like I didn't like this book, and that is not the case. Take out (or reduce) several repetitive pages and make a better suggestion in that one paragraph and I would have had only positive things to say. I'd say 135 or so positive pages out of about 140 makes the book a success.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
The books in this series tend to be short and to the point yet, to get the most from them, one needs to try not to read them too quickly. This volume is no exception, though for me there was one section that almost made me skip/skim several pages. In fairness, those same pages may well be what speaks most deeply to another reader, so it is not a flaw so much as missed connection between what the book is supposedly doing there and what it in fact did to this one particular reader. But otherwise, I found the discussions and rationale quite interesting.
The part that I could have done without, or at least have it done in a more even-handed manner, is part of the chapter on the Wounded Healer. Kearney cites several examples from antiquity, Greek and Roman mythology, then beats us over the head with a much too long excursion into Christian mythology while giving short bits about other traditions and mythologies and excluding, for the most part, Eastern tradition. I think the Christian example is every bit as important as the others, but not to the exclusion or expense of the other traditions and mythology. If you're going to cite mythology, then don't give one that much more space than the others just because it happens to be a mythology you still believe in in spite of all evidence to the contrary. But, for those subscribing to that mythology, this will likely be a positive section for them. I found it repetitive and at the expense of other equally important and valid examples.
His discussion of how we are at risk of "losing touch" with each other and, frankly, with ourselves, is compelling. It fell down when for a couple paragraphs at the end the "solution" seems to be variations on the theme of "enjoy what you do virtually but also put the technology down and enjoy the real world as well." Really? That is the best you have? Of course it makes sense, but for those who have never really done without their technology, that is like telling an alcoholic "just enjoy a periodic drink but also enjoy times without alcohol." Great in theory, impossible in practice.
I know it sounds like I didn't like this book, and that is not the case. Take out (or reduce) several repetitive pages and make a better suggestion in that one paragraph and I would have had only positive things to say. I'd say 135 or so positive pages out of about 140 makes the book a success.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
November 21, 2023
Wow! What an incredible little book on touch. I loved it. It’s so insightful.
“Sight, sound, smell, and taste can become narrowly one way, once separated from tact, and it is possible to arrange our perceptual environment so that we can see without being seen, hear without being heard, smell without being scented, taste without being tasted—but we can never touch without being touched in return…” (p.16).
“Sight, sound, smell, and taste can become narrowly one way, once separated from tact, and it is possible to arrange our perceptual environment so that we can see without being seen, hear without being heard, smell without being scented, taste without being tasted—but we can never touch without being touched in return…” (p.16).
March 20, 2021
A nice short read about a sensation I don't think much about (touch), but perhaps should. Kearney expands touch in multiple directions: it's a double sensation in which one can touch and also be touched, it can be intrusive or inviting and thus sheds light on a sort of inter-subjectivity, it underlines all our senses in a way we can be "in touch with" the world. Someone "touchy" might be over sensitive to stimulus while someone "touchy-feely" is someone who is overly intimate. Kearney makes the argument that touch has been disregarded as a lower sensation because our modern western society obsesses with the optical. And it's the optical way of looking at things, where one is detached and lacks double-sensation, which has contributed to modern loneliness as well as the treatment of loneliness with medication. Kearney hints at the idea that the sensation of touch and being in touch with one's own body may act heal better than current diagnosed methods.
August 21, 2025
“In all of this, Hermes the Greek messenger hovers.”
Politics took a keer right around the time I was cued up to read this, in July, 2025. We the American people were struggling to decide how much time to spend thinking about sexually extravagant financiers of surveillance technology (since persons had actually appeared to be punished while rich). And all the while there was suddenly a deal made with the EU. And NATO and everyone took the wind right out of our sails. We thought we had something to be competitively angry about when in the end it was more corporately socialized escapism of responsibility. More of the richest forms of hegemonic cooperation.
Oh yeah and Trump said something mean about babies probably.
And I love babys!
...
Does this review go here?
Touch. Ah yes. I will read more Richard Kearney since I love his philosophy. I swear I'll focus better next time.
Politics took a keer right around the time I was cued up to read this, in July, 2025. We the American people were struggling to decide how much time to spend thinking about sexually extravagant financiers of surveillance technology (since persons had actually appeared to be punished while rich). And all the while there was suddenly a deal made with the EU. And NATO and everyone took the wind right out of our sails. We thought we had something to be competitively angry about when in the end it was more corporately socialized escapism of responsibility. More of the richest forms of hegemonic cooperation.
Oh yeah and Trump said something mean about babies probably.
And I love babys!
...
Does this review go here?
Touch. Ah yes. I will read more Richard Kearney since I love his philosophy. I swear I'll focus better next time.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews