Loving and Knowing* is the working title of a book in which I go on a double quest to find out more about what knowing is and what loving is. Or rather: what we do in our loving relations and in our knowing relations. I think these questions need to be posed together, in order to get better answers to each of them, and also to get better at both loving and knowing.

One of the motivations behind this work is to contribute to a human science of mind – one that can explain the kinds of knowing that until now have fallen outside of the remit of cognitive science. These include: how we learn to trust; the ways in which intimate relationships as well as societal norms and institutions influence how we know; art; thinking; relating.

For the people reading this who know about enaction and enactive thinking, what this project aims to do is to deepen of the ideas of sense-making and participatory sense-making.

Papers:
Loving and knowing: Reflections for an engaged epistemology, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 19/08/2019 (online first, doi: 10.1007/s11097-019-09634-5)

Candiotto L & De Jaegher H (2021) Love In-Between. The Journal of Ethics, DOI: 10.1007/s10892-020-09357-9

De Jaegher H (2021, online first) Seeing and inviting participation in autistic interactions. Transcultural Psychiatry.doi:10.1177/13634615211009627

Di Paolo, E. A. and De Jaegher, H. (2021). Enactive ethics: Difference becoming participation. Topoi. doi:10.1007/s11245-021-09766-x.

Book (in Flemish):

De Jaegher H (2018) Denken over liefde hoeft geen schrik aan te jagen. Antwerp, BE, Letterwerk (this review in English captures the work quite well)

*Videos of me introducing the topic: