"Edward Mooney's Lost Intimacy in American Thought proceeds in a lyrical mode, as though to exemplify, as well as to assert, that we can be redeemed from the quiet desperation that underlies modernity, and much of contemporary philosophy. He joins Stanley Cavell in attempting to undo the repression of voice and of particularity in our intellectual consideration of philosophy and literature. Mooney, in every chapter, resists the de-humanization of the humanities. He investigates, elaborates, elucidates, and aligns himself with a group of thinkers and writers who can help provide us a basis for such resistance - including, besides Cavell, Kierkegaard, Thoreau, Wittgenstein, J. Glenn Gray and Hannah Arendt. Most especially, he finds inspiration in the neglected American philosopher Henry Bugbee, and reintroduces him into our contemporary conversation about the humanities. Mooney's discussions of literary texts, for example by Dostoevsky and Henry James, exemplify the complementarity of literature and philosophy, and in his argument for the necessity of an autobiographical basis in philosophy, he generously shares his own such basis. He continues Kierkegaard's project of reminding us what it is to be a human being. This is a book to be savored." -- Stanley Bates, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Middlebury College, VT, USA.
