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Pragmatism and the Phenomenology of Suffering: Remarks on Antitheodicy, Detachment, and Embodied Subjectivity

Pihlström, Sami

Phänomenologische Forschungen, Bd. 2019 (2019), Iss. 2: S. 13–30

1 Citations (CrossRef)

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Bibliografische Daten

Pihlström, Sami

Cited By

  1. Argumentos anticirenaicos en el programa cultural de la <i>República</i> de Platón

    Mársico, Claudia

    Revista de filosofía DIÁNOIA, Bd. 64 (2019), Heft 83 S.3

    https://doi.org/10.22201/iifs.18704913e.2019.83.1716 [Citations: 1]

Abstract

This essay compares Emmanuel Levinas’s phenomenological examination of the ”excess” of suffering to William James’s pragmatism, arguing that both thinkers develop an ”antitheodicist” criticism of theodicist attempts to render suffering meaningful. Their antitheodicism is ultimately based on their phenomenological recognition of the embodied character of human subjectivity and of suffering. The relation between involvement and detachment is then investigated as an issue concerning our ethically appropriate ways of attending to others’ suffering. These notions are also illuminated by some literary references.