Individuation and Suffering

The aim of this research-project is to address the complex issue of the relationship between individuation and suffering and to deal with possible ways of minimizing a compulsive and destructive construction of identity which has lead only to historical catastrophes and ravaged human dignity. The result of this should be a new definition of subjectivity (neither as transcendental, nor as logical, dialectical or even phenomenological). Four conceptions are to be analyzed: 1. Gottfried Leibniz` ontotheological exposition of the interaction between the divine intellect (the unity) and human beings (the diversity) in the form of a theodicy - in which the suffering of imperfect beings is transmuted in a contribution to God`s self-realization (through the harmony of creation). 2. Arthur Schopenhauer`s metaphysics of the will and his innovative exposition of the problem of suffering (as a constitutive trait of the conditio humana - and therefore to be surpassed). In this case, suffering can only be vanquished through a qualitative spring over the limits of the human condition, which only a soteriological doctrine based on eastern thought can guarantee. 3. Theodor W. Adorno`s exploration of non-identity leads among other things to a controversial approach to the moral question. This approach can only be of relevance when the situation "after Auschwitz" is born in mind as an epochal problem and the question revolves around developing a moral conception without any metaphysical foundation. Here, the main task is a continuous thinking of the inexistent place of non-identity in the historical and social totality. 4. Johann B. Metz`s idea of another type of theodicy (anti- onto-theological, if the terminus be allowed) as a possible way of thinking about a primal repression in the Western Christian tradition. Metz refers to the "Jewish spirit" before Hellenism as having been drastically eradicated from the roots of western culture, leaving an empty space. It is in this empty space of abysmal suffering that Christian theology must redefine itself critically, and as a result of this the concept of "compassion" gains a decisive relevance. The relation between Ontotheology (as the production a logical and harmonic order), Metaphysics of the Will (as the refutation of any sense a priori in our existence and as the demand of another sort of soteriology), Negative Dialectics (as a thematisation of non-identity and the impossibility of rescuing it as such) and Christian Theology (as a way of surpassing the barriers which hinder philosophy to find a way of thinking the absolutely heterogene) should prove to be a very fruitful one, not only in drawing conclusions as to what suffering and its relationship to individuation are, but also in dealing with the question of the search for a criterion which ensures a specific kind of world-openness - all this without repressing the effects of the indescribable catastrophes which have left a permanent wound in Western culture.