“Pinch me” – we ask to make sure that we are not in a dream, of all human feelings, choosing pain as a measure of reality. But paradoxically, it is pain that is not objective: it is not directed at any object in the external world. This is what distinguishes it from all other senses. Sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell – they all tell us about what is happening outside of ourselves. And pain makes us focus on our body.
“Pinch me” – we ask to make sure that we are not in a dream, of all human feelings, choosing pain as a measure of reality. But paradoxically, it is pain that is not objective: it is not directed at any object in the external world. This is what distinguishes it from all other senses. Sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell – they all tell us about what is happening outside of ourselves. And pain makes us focus on our body. And the stronger it is, the more we are occupied with our body, the more we become it, at the same time losing interest in the rest of the world, and in some cases even an idea about it. Pain is something that can deprive us of our humanity. Isn’t that why we are afraid and try to avoid not only pain, but even the thought of it? A professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo undertakes a daring study of this problem and also shows its other side: in modern society, the attempt to avoid pain leads to “predatory exploitation of oneself”, happiness becomes a duty, and “dependence and vulnerability are increasingly associated with shame, with the demonstration of which something shameful that it is impossible not only to show, but in general to have.
PROGRESS-TRADITION, 240 p.