Post by dave on Apr 8, 2013 21:31:53 GMT -5
Another good article from New York Times "The Stone" column.
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The Stone April 7, 2013,
The Light at the End of Suffering
By PEG O'CONNOR
The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.
How much more can I take?
This question has been at the root of the human experience for as long as we have been able to record it, if not longer. It was the lament of Job — or at least one of them — and is asked with no less frequency today, in response to circumstances ranging from devastating loss and grief to the typical hardships of a trying job or a long winter.
William James’s ‘sick souls’ were more likely to experience the ‘acute fever’ of religious belief.
But where is that actual point at which a person “breaks” or comes to believe not only that her life is devoid of value or meaning, but that the world is, too? The truth is that most people really do not want to ascertain just how much more they can suffer. A vast majority of people would look askance at someone who really wanted to experiment with her limits for suffering. But what if we are to treat it as a genuine question? In some of my recent work in the area of addiction and philosophy, I’ve found that many active addicts of all sorts confront that limit every day, in ways that those fortunate enough to be free of addiction may never know. For some of them, the process of reaching that limit becomes an opportunity to effect radical transformation of their lives.
A broader understanding of this concept can be found in the work of William James, whose famous work, “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” provides significant insight about the limits of misery and its transformative potential. “Varieties” is product of lectures James delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902. His focus is the experiences of individuals “for whom religion exists not as a dull habit, but as an acute fever.” By “religion,” James does not mean religious institutions and their long entrenched theological debates, but rather something more akin to an individual spiritual state, which may or may not include belief in a god.
James was uniquely suited to deliver these lectures. He was a physician, philosopher and a psychologist before the field of psychology was part of academe, and someone with a deep, abiding interest in psychic events.
Continue at:
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/the-light-at-the-end-of-suffering/?src=me&ref=general
The Stone April 7, 2013,
The Light at the End of Suffering
By PEG O'CONNOR
The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.
How much more can I take?
This question has been at the root of the human experience for as long as we have been able to record it, if not longer. It was the lament of Job — or at least one of them — and is asked with no less frequency today, in response to circumstances ranging from devastating loss and grief to the typical hardships of a trying job or a long winter.
William James’s ‘sick souls’ were more likely to experience the ‘acute fever’ of religious belief.
But where is that actual point at which a person “breaks” or comes to believe not only that her life is devoid of value or meaning, but that the world is, too? The truth is that most people really do not want to ascertain just how much more they can suffer. A vast majority of people would look askance at someone who really wanted to experiment with her limits for suffering. But what if we are to treat it as a genuine question? In some of my recent work in the area of addiction and philosophy, I’ve found that many active addicts of all sorts confront that limit every day, in ways that those fortunate enough to be free of addiction may never know. For some of them, the process of reaching that limit becomes an opportunity to effect radical transformation of their lives.
A broader understanding of this concept can be found in the work of William James, whose famous work, “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” provides significant insight about the limits of misery and its transformative potential. “Varieties” is product of lectures James delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 1901 and 1902. His focus is the experiences of individuals “for whom religion exists not as a dull habit, but as an acute fever.” By “religion,” James does not mean religious institutions and their long entrenched theological debates, but rather something more akin to an individual spiritual state, which may or may not include belief in a god.
James was uniquely suited to deliver these lectures. He was a physician, philosopher and a psychologist before the field of psychology was part of academe, and someone with a deep, abiding interest in psychic events.
Continue at:
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/the-light-at-the-end-of-suffering/?src=me&ref=general
