Stirred by Your Presence
Stirred by Your Presence

Summary/Abstract: Traces of you reach me through my senses. But without wondering in your presence, I cannot see you. For beings of sense and meaning such as ourselves, being stirred by another’s presence opens wondering. The implications of such claims are striking for what perception involves, for being in touch with another, and for good relationships. The paper proceeds as a series of “strobes,” from an ancient Greek word for whirling. Turning quickly about, words enact being stirred into won-dering, interspersed with visual glimpses, a photographic series. Building on recent work by the author, the paper draws on Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology; Daniel R. Schein feld, Karen M. Haigh, and Sandra J.P. Scheinfeld’s early childhood edu-cational theory, and a phrase by Martha C. Nussbaum describing the intentionalityof wondering. This is deepened by attention to what the phenomenological traditioncalls “passive synthesis,” and what the author, following F.W.J. Schelling, has called“positive anxiety,” the soul’s excitement around the possibility of sense and meaning.

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