Touch, tact and swerve: Three new concepts for the doctoral process, inspired by Jean-Luc Nancy’s ontology

Doctoral study can be emotionally and psychologically challenging for students and supervisors. They can feel lost in the process, isolated and emotionally drained. It might be tempting for the supervisor to downplay such difficulties to protect the student. In this paper we argue that such challenges can be pedagogically developmental and ought to be acknowledged. This paper introduces three philosophical concepts: touch, tact and swerve. They are concerned with human intentionality in practical contexts and enable us to accomplish two things. Firstly, conceptualise the fluid, dynamic interplay of thoughts, emotions and psychological states in doctoral supervision; secondly, generate new tools for analysing the doctoral process. Our concepts are derived from Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophy, particularly his influential text Corpus (1992/2008). Nancy’s work is contextualised by two of his key philosophical influences, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Their ideas, especially towardness and de-severence (Heidegger) and de-centred sense (Merleau-Ponty) provide valuable context for the explanations of touch, tact and swerve. The authors conducted a piece of research into doctoral supervisors’ experiences. The data illustrate the emotional and psychological challenges of being a supervisor and our concepts enable us to theorise their pedagogic potential, demonstrating ‘real world’ impact.