Suffering as Precarious Presence – a Husserlian Proposal

Abstract

Recent research on chronic pain has recognized the need to define the concept of pain-related suffering (Noe-Steinmüller et al., in review.). Svenaeus (2014) has proposed a definition of suffering as an alienating mood, which avoids important problems of previous definitions (e.g., Wade, 1996). However, it rests on a Sartrean phenomenology of pain experience, which fails to account for some fundamental aspects of pain. A Husserlian alternative to Sartre’s phenomenology of pain is introduced and it is argued that suffering is better defined as a precarious relationship to self and world, where the presence of neither can be taken for granted.