Abstract

CARRANZA BUCIO, Octavio. Reflections on pain, suffering and self-existence. Med. ética [online]. 2021, vol.32, n.2, pp.443-481.  Epub Aug 14, 2023. ISSN 2594-2166.  https://doi.org/10.36105/mye.2021v32n2.03.

In this work, an approximate analysis is made of the phenomenological hermeneutic study of pain in the face of one’s own life. Its objective is to visualize the pain as determinant in the opening to the existence of the being, of the being-there, in the Heideggerian perspective. It exposes the experience of painful life as a factual experience of living in oneself, and the ethical conflict posed by otherness: the difficulty of understanding the pain of others from their own experience of pain. This ethical conflict appears in the conscience of the doctor when this one assumes the commitment to go beyond the instrumental aid and tries to see the suffering of the patient from the reality of the other like itself. The hypothesis that underlies this analysis is that suffering from pain opens the way to one’s own existence; however, it highlights the obstacle to understanding the other. It is concluded by ratifying the idea that pain has an existential character (Martin Heidegger’s term).

Keywords : factuality; existential; experience; ethical conflict.