Über den Schmerz: Heidegger – Jünger – Lenz
On Pain: Heidegger - Jünger - Lenz

Summary/Abstract: Physical pain is by definition not a matter of sharing. The only way to pass the solipsism of the own body is by getting to the source of the original phenomenon (Urphänomen) pain, before it has locked itself inside a mute and tortured singularity. The paper proposes a few examples of collective experiences which can lead to what could be called a “tragic” community. Within such a community, pain can be put into a discourse and be this way open for a simultaneous reception. Humans meet over their helplessness and finitude, their thinking about death and also the experience of art, in their worries about technics and the functioning of their work. These are also ways to overcome nihilism, a dangerous threshold (or “line”, with Jünger) whose passing results in existential pain. The way pain can be brought to speech in all these different contexts is shown here by a phenomenological analysis with means offered by Heidegger’s philosophy and is put into a dialogue with Siegfried Lenz’ essay Über den Schmerz and Ernst Jüngers homonymous work.

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