The Jewel Of Suffering- On The Way To Compassion (original) (raw)
Related papers
In: Compassion and Forgiveness (Edited by Edward Alam), 2013
"This paper explores how compassion can lead to emotionally purifying experiences from a philosophic-anthropological perspective. My hypothesis is that compassion via catharsis can result in forgiveness, provided that an adequate understanding of or for compassion is employed. The investigation begins by briefly dealing with the etymology of compassion by comparing Greek, Latin, English, and German related terms. The second section focuses on Aristotle!s understanding of compassion. According to his Poetics and his Politics, compassion in the context of Art implies therapeutic values. The third and the fourth sections elucidate Arthur Schopenhauer!s account on compassion and that of Friedrich Nietzsche respectively. While for Schopenhauer, compassion is an important value for the foundation of Ethics; Nietzsche contrastingly holds that compassion rather multiplies misery. A fifth part attempts to synthesize these different standpoints on compassion and tries to elucidate how compassion via catharsis may lead to forgiveness."
Budapest International Research and Critics Institute (BIRCI-Journal): Humanities and Social Sciences
The concept of suffering is as old as human history. Efforts to reduce and eliminate suffering have been done in various ways. One of them is compassion, which is an effort to reduce and eliminate the suffering of others. The purpose of this study is to describe the manifestations of compassion that are present in daily life and to understand the process of how acts of compassion are born. A qualitative phenomenological approach was chosen using reflections on life experiences of 1066 participants (Men = 392, Women = 674, range of age 12-65 years) who lived in Jakarta, Indonesia. The results of the study revealed that he manifestations of compassion in daily life can be grouped into two major parts, namely tangible compassion and intangible compassion. Tangible compassion consists of financial support, material goods, helping behavior, and involvement in social activities. While intangible compassion consists of emotional support, companion support, informational support, spiritual ...
In the Face of Another's Suffering: Passion, Thought, and Action in Compassion
In the Face of Another's Suffering: Passion, Thought, and Action in Compassion, 2022
This book sets out to philosophically explore the following questions: What is compassion? What does it tell us about the relationship between the rational and irrational in man? What role does it have in the flourishing life? To answer, it begins by discussing Aristotle’s account of compassion, followed by Thomas Aquinas, Martha Nussbaum, Kristján Kristjánsson, and Diana Fritz Cates. The wide range of authors and the focus on emotion and virtue allows one to build a solid picture of compassion as perfective of the human person, as the good response to suffering, and as certainly key in human flourishing. The presentation of each author features a thorough discussion of each one’s notion of emotion and virtue, highlighting similarities, differences, strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis the others. Each philosophical anthropological framework is in turn used to understand each author’s take on compassion and the ethical potential envisioned for it. The choice of classical and contemporary accounts allows one to grasp the shift from compassion as a noteworthy “good emotion” (as per the original Aristotelian account) to compassion as an important virtue for relational moral excellence. Choosing to be compassionate disposes us to help other individuals flourish in a truly human way, and also enables us to take steps towards a society and culture where all—even the weakest—can flourish. This book will be of interest to academics from both philosophy and psychology, compassion researchers and trainers, and character educators.
This paper is a discussion of the emotion of compassion or pity, and the corresponding virtue. It begins by placing the emotion of compassion in the moral conceptual landscape, and then moves to reject the currently dominant view, a version of Aristotelianism developed by Martha Nussbaum, in favour of a non-cognitive conception of compassion as a feeling. An alternative neo-Aristotelian account is then outlined. The relation of the virtue of compassion to other virtues is plotted, and some doubts sown about its practical significance.
Kyprianidou, Ε. (2019) (ed. & introduction). The Art of Compassion
Kyprianidou, Ε. (2019) (ed. & introduction). The Art of Compassion. Athens: Nissos Publications [contributors: Joanna Bourke, Eleni Filippachi, Kostas Ioannides, Amber J. Porter, Samantha Mitschke, Aris Sarafianos, Dimitra Makriniotis].
Compassion is present in everyday life and discussions; references to the emotion caused by the perception of another person’s suffering and misfortune appear in the mass media, in political campaigns and in a wide range of academic studies. This volume aims to examine the nature of compassion and discuss its role for aesthetic experience by exploring a number of questions related to this emotion. These questions include: What is the role of compassion in the Western public discourse? How does compassion differ from other emotions, such as empathy, sympathy or pity? In what ways did Ancient Greeks and Romans understand the concept of compassion? What is the place of compassion in illness narratives and medical care? How is empathy and compassion involved in our engagement with works of art? Can we appeal to the arts for the development of compassion? The contributors to this volume draw on a variety of disciplines in order to give an overview of the emotion of compassion and its role for aesthetic experience.
[Preprint] Conclusion: In the Face of Another's Suffering
2022
Compassion can integrate our affectivity, perception, intellect, and will such that we seek and actualize certain goods when confronted with the reality of another’s suffering. We present a final broad integration about compassion following this three-part structure: the initial emotional response, the perfection of the response, and the achievement of the goods of compassion. We see that choosing to be compassionate disposes us to help other individuals flourish in a truly human way, and also enables us to take steps towards a society and culture where all—even the weakest—can flourish.
[Preprint] Introduction, In the Face of Another's Suffering
2022
What is compassion? What does it tell us about the relationship of the rational and irrational in man? Can it be virtuous? That is, can it play a role in the good life for the human person? These are the questions this book seeks to illuminate. To better understand compassion, it pays to compare and contrast various philosophical accounts of it, to try and draw out a more unified picture. [Excerpt from Introduction. Published Book - In the Face of Another's Suffering: Passion, Thought, and Action in Compassion. EDUSC 2022. ]
Self-transcendence through shared suffering: An intersubjective theory of compassion
The value of compassion has often been appraised in terms of its benefits to the recipient, or its contribution to civil society. Less attention has been paid to the positive effect it may have upon the protagonists themselves, partly because compassion ostensibly appears to involve mainly dysphoric emotions (i.e., sharing another’s suffering). However, driven by the question of why traditions such as Buddhism and Christianity esteem compassion so highly, in this article, a theory of compassion is proposed that focuses on its transformative potential. In particular, I argue that compassion inherently involves a process of self-transcendence, enabling people to enter into an intersubjective state of selfhood. Drawing on Buddhist and Christian ideas, I then suggest that this intersubjective state is not only an antidote to the protagonists’ own suffering, but can accelerate their psychospiritual development. Thus, the article offers a new perspective on compassion that allows us to fully appreciate its transpersonal and transformative potential.
Creative Suffering and the Wounded Healer
It is frequently acknowledged that, despite Jung's disclaimers concerning the mutually exclusive boundaries between empirical science and metaphysics, analytical psychology does have important theological ramifications. Christian theology has been a historical antecedent to modern psychology, and can continue to be of relevance in this field through the scholarly exploration of its anthropological teachings in a contemporary academic and pastoral context. The primary purpose of this study is to outline a metatheoretical approach to discuss the interface between analytical psychology and Christian theology. As a secondary theme, it attempts to formulate, investigate and explore a theoretical rationale for adopting a depth-psychological approach to working with countertransference dynamics in both psychotherapy and spiritual direction, by including and valuing the spiritual dimension of experience. The concept of ‘creative suffering’ is utilized as a way of describing the process through which personal suffering, when experienced creatively, becomes more than the isolated pathological source of the therapist’s private emotional wounds, being transformed to provide the main psychological background through which deep healing of the client's own trauma may occur on a personal and transpersonal level. It is, therefore, argued that creative use of the countertransference implies ongoing, active reflection by the therapist on the meaning and purpose of personal suffering, as occurs in some spiritual disciplines. This practice is adumbrated through a framework of conceptualisation derived from Orthodox Christian spirituality, employing the Jungian archetype of the ‘Wounded Healer’ in parallel to theological claims concerning the suffering of Jesus Christ, and the broader significance of suffering and evil in Christian theology. Parallels, similarities and differences between religious and psychological imagery and concepts are suggested throughout, which may prompt further exploration of areas of convergence and divergence between analytical psychology and Christian theology in particular, and between psychology and religion in general.