Thoughts on Pain. Friedrich Nietzsche and Human Suffering

• Scolari, Paolo ^[1]
  1. [1] Catholic University of the Sacred Heart

     Catholic University of the Sacred Heart

     Milán, Italia

     
• Localización: Azafea: revista de filosofía, ISSN 0213-3563, Nº. 22, 2020 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Filosofía del dolor), págs. 67-83
• Idioma: inglés
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Consideraciones sobre el dolor. Friedrich Nietzsche y el sufrimiento humano
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen
  • español

    En la filosofía de Friedrich Nietzsche es inseparable el tema autobiográfico de la enfermedad del problema filosófico del dolor. A la vez que reflexiona sobre la condición de la persona enferma, Nietzsche hace que el hombre oscile como un péndulo: lo define como el animal enfermo, como el más melancólico de los animales, pero también como el más bravo y más habituado al dolor, y como el animal más feliz, que sufre tan profundamente que debe inventar la risa. De modo paralelo a estos escritos antropológicos, Nietzsche denuncia enfáticamente los intentos desesperados, públicos y privados, que hace el hombe para remover el dolor de su propia existencia o para vivir como si nunca hubiese existido. Las hipócritas justificaciones, religiosas o seculares, de aquellos que encuentran un sentido absurdo en el sufrimiento, se encuentran con el comfort de la sociedad moderna (ciencia, política, religion), donde desesperadamente se toman riesgos para modelar una sociedad sin mal. Al cosiderar como crucial su experiencia personal con el dolor, Nietzsche desea experimentar hasta el punto en que resista el pensamiento y en la dirección que éste tome cada vez que se encuentra bajo la presión del mal. Sus investigaciones muestran cómo es imposible eliminar lo negativo de la existencia, pues constituye un necesario ingrediente sin el que las lágrimas significarían demasiada alegría y nunca se llegaría a la risa.

  • English

    In Nietzsche the autobiographical theme of disease has at its core the philosophical problem of pain. While he reflects daily on the actual condition of the ill person, Nietzsche oscillates the man like a pendulum. He defines him as ‘the most melancholic and most happy animal who suffers so profoundly that he must invent laughter’, as ‘the ill animal’ but also ‘the most courageous and most used to pain’. Nietzsche seems to be entertained no end by playing around with these definitions, almost as if he is making fun of Aristotle.

       It is in fact these two later quotations from the Genealogy that go on to construct the tracks on which his reflections on badness and suffering will move, marking out the area in which the decisive ‘match’ of the health of humanity is discussed. The first displays a Nietzsche who is always tranchant and blazing in its ability to conjure up the humanity of humans in few words. The highlight of the determinate article is original (‘the ill animal’) and shows that man is a unique animal who can define himself as being ill.  The second suggests the image of a human being who tolerates pain with courage, arriving, just thanks to this journey of pain, to embark on a voyage leading to internal transformation.

       Nietzsche’s lifelong illness was what prompted him to develop the philosophical problem of pain and its relationship with thought. Taking advantage of his condition as a constant sufferer, Nietzsche strived to understand which directions human thought is able to take whenever it is ‘subjected to the pressure of evil’. The first is a hypocritical direction, represented by man’s attempts to remove pain from his life. Nietzsche denounces all justifications made for the purpose of providing at all costs a meaning for suffering, and which converge with the modern welfare society that dares to fashion mankind ‘without evil’. The other direction, however, is that of those who are not afraid to listen to suffering. Reflecting on his own personal situation, Nietzsche outlines the traits of human beings who reach out towards the mystery of existence and, shaken by the experience of pain, come to abandon their certainties and adopt a more critical view of themselves.

       ‘Every man is a medical history’, recites a posthumous fragment. Certainly, Nietzsche himself is the first to notice ‘his own story is the story of an illness and also of a healing’ – and this is not only true for him but for everyone who experiences suffering up close. This experience of pain – so intimate that it seems difficult to express in words – does not cause one to be locked up inside of oneself but rather serves to introduce a discussion on one’s subjectivity and as an occasion for a moral adventure into the profundities of one’s existence.