Humanising research: the cares that drive researchers

Abstract

This article reflects on the provenance of “research” in Heideggerian “care,” and the nature of care as a complex of “cares” (interests/passions). We become researchers because care (concern for the future) fundamentally characterises our being. While care ensures that research becomes a never-ending “hermeneutic circle,” this only compromises research results if we remain unaware of its nature and uncritical of its effects. To specify its nature I identify particular cares (interests/passions) by means of Habermas’ account of the technical, practical/ethical, and emancipatory interests motivating research. Using Lacanian psychoanalytical theory I then map the multiple conflicting notions within each area of interest in terms of three future-orientated passions: “nihilism”, “narcissism” and “altruism”. The aim of this synthesis is an adequately complex framework for reflecting on our research passion.