Afterwords and Thanks

The book is not a goal that has been reached, not even a preliminary one. It itself must be answered for, instead of it carrying itself or being carried by others of its kind. This responsibility happens in everyday life [Franz Rosenzweig, The New Thinking, 1999, p. 100].

When it was declared that the ethical is the ultimate horizon of philosophy, a current was made to flow backwards [Jean-Luc Marion, as cited in Malka, 2006, p. 276].

An author rarely has the chance, one year after sending off a book (Orange, 2011), to add the inevitable afterthoughts, the needed qualifications, or even the recent learnings. In this unusual instance, Joye Weisel-Barth, book review editor for this journal, and Judy Pickles, my astute and gracious reviewer, have invited me to do just that, and I am truly grateful. Pickles has not only understood my project (Orange, 2011) well, but has kicked its tires just enough to expand and question its edges. Its incompleteness becomes for her not so much a reason to find fault, as an

opportunity for her own creative thinking. She explains, for example, what it would be reasonable for me to have meant by saying that understanding requires work of patients, too, demonstrating in the process exactly how the hermeneutics of trust works out in practice. One assumes that the other's puzzling or incomplete expression makes sense, and goes on to work together to make sense of it. When I read someone who approaches the writing of colleagues in this spirit, I think how fortunate her patients must be.

The Afterwords

Probably the greatest difficulty with this book (Orange, 2011), which Judy addresses and others have pointed out to me as well, is that polarities can easily become polarizing. The chasm between intent and effect widens and sometimes injures. The hermeneutics of trust intends to unite people, to create solidarity. But the effect of my pointing out our historical tendencies to shame, blame, and unmask our patients and each other c