The Significance of Suffering (original) (raw)
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THE SENSE OF SUFFERING* Better to suffer than to die: that is mankind's motto
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 1986
Medical practice is animated by the intention to cure; it aims to relieve the immense variety of sufferings to which human beings are subject in virtue of the conditions of their embodied existence. My purpose here is to demonstrate how a philosophical analysis of the formal structures and kinds of human suffering provides an essential foundation for determining certain ethical dimensions of the physician's relation to his suffering patient. Can paternalism in medical practice be justified by the aim of relieving suffering? What are the scope and limits of the patient's responsibility for his suffering, and what difference does this make in the physician's response to it? How is the suffering that medical treatment itself exacts in the name of cure to be justified? Such questions can be answered only by an analysis of the sense or value of suffering in human life.
Problems of Suffering. The Philosophical Perspective compressed (1)
International Journal of Religion and Culture, A Journal of the Association of the African Theologians, 2015
Abstract This work aims at looking at suffering and the problems of suffering from a philosophical perspective. Suffering or pain in a broad sense is an individual basic affective experience of unpleasant things and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm. It might be qualified as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity from mild to intolerable. The work has at the same time, looked at what causes suffering from the point of view of religion and cultural beliefs to back up the philosophical beliefs on this. The implications and or impacts of suffering on the sufferer and the society have been highlighted. Another interesting aspect of this work that is given attention to is the reason why suffering persists; whether God is unable to avert suffering in a world He created and then seek for ways it can be mitigated or eradicated. Also, suggestions are n1ade where necessary.
hurt, misery, sorrow, trouble, vexation, and a litany of other things. Essentially, Job is asking, "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive suffering?" Suffering as we know it was birthed from the original sin of man. When God discovered the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He laid a curse upon them: Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children … And unto Adam He said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life … (Gen. 3:16-17, KJV). The Hebrew word used here for "sorrow" is the word ʻetseb which signifies pain, hurt, toil, sorrow, labor, and hardship. 2 The curse of Adam is that of suffering. And yet, as image bearers of God, we are not alienated from His likeness due to suffering, in fact suffering is sine qua non to a Christian's Christlikeness. However, many philosophers from a variety of backgrounds have expounded upon the purpose that suffering serves, and it would do well to have an understanding of their arguments. For C.S. Lewis, the purpose of suffering is twofold: to produce divine humility within mankind and to break men of their will in order that they may submit said will unto God. "The first answer, then, to the question why our cure should be painful, is that to render back the will which we have so long claimed for our own, is in itself, wherever and however it is done, a grievous pain." 3 He notes that for mankind to surrender one's will, one's sense of selfgovernance, is all but impossible. When people are forced to surrender their will, they do not take it lightly. He goes on to say that "to surrender a self-will inflamed and swollen with years of usurpation is a kind of death. We all remember this self-will as it was in childhood: the bitter, prolonged rage at every thwarting, the burst of passionate tears, the black, Satanic wish to kill or 2
Suffering and the Emergence of Meaning in Life
2021
Philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists pose deep and difficult questions about pain and suffering and try to provide answers to these questions: What is pain? Is pain in the brain? Is there meaning in suffering? What makes pain unpleasant? This article provides a rich and wide-ranging exploration of these questions and offers important new insights into the philosophy of pain. To complement the author's reflection on pain, suffering and the emergence of meaning in life, he has gathered information about the said topic from various sources that could enrich the article and have reflected some concepts that help us understand the topic better.
This essay proposes a critical investigation of the notion of suffering as a premise and warning for the Social and Political domains. Drawing from the writings of the contemporary French philosophers Levinas, Marion, Ricœur and Blanchot, comprising a corpus I refer to as “The Ethics of Suffering”, it treats this issue in four stages of analysis: terminological, phenomenological, ethical and political. The phenomenological analysis first reveals the tension resulting from the double nature of “Suffering”, defined both as a feeling and a long lasting condition. This duality leads then to question our social ability to simply apply suffering based on the fact that it is widespread and known to all, showing that the lack of a permanent substance or single essence causes its political prevention or propagation to remain totally arbitrary. On this account, the positive outcome of the ethical and phenomenological investigations consists in offering a standard ground for bridging between individual and social suffering while sustaining the tension coming from its dual nature. At the same time, their definition of suffering as a basis for solidarity (suffering is always ‘suffering with the others’) while insisting on the solitary mode of torment reveals a problematic double bind. Taking up the work of Adi Ophir on the evil, the essay goes as far as showing how this double bind affects the political thought and action, when exposing its rather limited power of manipulating the human threshold and using suffering as a political instrument. The paper thus seeks to contribute to the social and political discussion by examining our ability to regulate our conduct in the public and the political spheres through the understanding of suffering and by examining whether we can actually protect ourselves and cope with the danger of controlling individuals through the control of their suffering.
What does it mean to suffer? How are we to understand the sufferings we undergo? Etymologically, to suffer signifies to undergo and endure. Is there a sense, a purpose to our sufferings or does the very passivity, which they etymologically imply, robs them of all inherent meaning? In this paper, I shall argue against this Levinasian interpretation. My claim will be that suffering, exhibits a meaning beyond meaning, one embodied in the unique singularity of our flesh. This uniqueness is, in fact, an interruption. It signifies the suspension of all systems of exchange, all attempts to render good for good and evil for evil. It is in terms of such suspension that suffering—particularly as found in selfless sacrifice—finds its “use.” This “use” involves the possibility of forgiveness.