Abstract:

We are divided in ourselves between two fundamentally different forms of experience. In the experience of “intimacy,” the differentiation that we typically presume of self from other and of fact from value is not operative; such intimacy is distinctive of the formative experience of children. This formative experience, however, precisely gives rise to the experience of “economy,” the experience, that is, of discrete subjects who work upon an alien world. Our challenge is to live in a way that acknowledges both forms of experience without resorting to the authoritative terms of either. Overall, I will argue that money, which is roughly the collectively recognized medium for recognizing the universality of exchange value, in principle misrepresents the lived nature of value. Hence, the more money defines our frame of reference (“economy”), the more the non-universalizable values that are essential to our existence (“intimacy”) are effaced.

About the Speaker:

John Russon is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph in Canada. He has published extensively on topics in phneomenology, German Idealism and ancient philosophy. His recent books include *Human Experience: Philosophy, Neurosis and the Elements of Everyday Life* and *Bearing Witness to Epiphany: Persons, Things and the Nature of Erotic Life.*