No Orthopathy without Orthoaesthesis: On the Necessity of Negative Effort

Theologians have become increasingly attentive to the role emotion and experience must play in theological reflection. Several thinkers have recently done so by appropriating and developing Jon Sobrino’s understanding of orthopathy, or "right affect." A close examination of these efforts,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Duns, Ryan G. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press 2024
In: Harvard theological review
Year: 2024, Volume: 117, Issue: 2, Pages: 317-341
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Sobrino, Jon 1938- / James, William 1842-1910 / Weil, Simone 1909-1943 / Murdoch, Iris 1919-1999 / Dogmatics / Regulation of emotions / Aesthetics
RelBib Classification:AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
CB Christian life; spirituality
NBA Dogmatics
Further subjects:B Spiritual Exercises
B Iris Murdoch
B William James
B negative effort
B Orthopathy
B Simone Weil
B orthoaesthesis
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Summary:Theologians have become increasingly attentive to the role emotion and experience must play in theological reflection. Several thinkers have recently done so by appropriating and developing Jon Sobrino’s understanding of orthopathy, or "right affect." A close examination of these efforts, however, reveals inconsistencies in the way the category is understood and deployed. This article redresses these inconsistencies by complementing orthopathy with orthoaesthesis, or "right perception." The article opens by considering various appeals to orthopathy before suggesting how William James’s theory of emotion might provide the category with clarifying content. The second stage engages Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch as practitioners of orthoaesthesis. Special attention is given to Murdoch’s "techniques" aimed at transforming how practitioners perceive reality. With Murdoch’s guidance, the article contends that orthopathy is ineluctably bound to and not possible without orthoaesthesis. The article concludes with a constructive proposal to show how orthoaesthesis-orthopathy contributes to a Christian theological anthropology.
ISSN:1475-4517
Contains:Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0017816024000117