Phenomenologies of loneliness: alone without you, alone without an us

Abstract

Loneliness is not simply characterised by a lack of other people in one’s environment or lifeworld, but by a lack of specific forms of relationship, connection or belonging. In this paper I connect the conversation about different types of loneliness with debates happening in the philosophy of intersubjectivity, specifically the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Philosophers of intersubjectivity tend to characterise experiences of direct encounter as having a second-personal ‘I-thou’ quality. By contrast, experiences of belonging tend to be characterised by first-person plural ‘we’ structures. In this paper I will compare and contrast some of the different phenomenological qualities that come with the absence or poverty of these two types of intersubjective structure respectively. These different types of loneliness are characterised by different phenomenological properties, but also by (the absence of) specific interpersonal and social structures. I argue that the absence of these different interpersonal structures respectively gives rise to loneliness as the experience of being unseen and loneliness as the experience of not-being-at-home. This is significant for loneliness studies, as understanding and combating loneliness is consequently likely to take variegated rather than homogeneous forms. This is particularly significant for a psychosocial approach to loneliness which seeks to understand, hold together and integrate both the structural features of loneliness (in this case the relevant interpersonal and social structures) and the lived experience of individuals and groups (in this case the phenomenology of loneliness).