Eros and Anxiety

Abstract

AbstractRecent philosophical interest in “transformative experiences” is largely motivated by L. A. Paul’s arguments that such experiences challenge our hopes to live up to an ideal she believes is upheld within western, wealthy cultures. If these experiences reveal information to us about the world and ourselves that is in principle unavailable to us before we undergo them, it seems that there is no hope for us to be “rational”, “authentic” and “autonomous” masters of our own lives. Supposing that Paul is right about this, how concerned should we be? Here, I challenge the ideal of rational “self-realization” that guides Paul’s project, and which must be granted in order to motivate the problem purportedly generated by experiences that drastically change what we want and what we know.