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The Meaning and the Experience of Suffering: A Historian’s Perspective

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Perspectives on Human Suffering

Abstract

‘Suffering’ could, in the past more often than now, mean ‘bearing’, enduring. Indeed it could be conceived as a positive experience, even, for Romantic artists, a creative one. Changes in attitude have accompanied advances in medical science. Has suffering been alleviated or prolonged? Historians cannot enter the minds of others. They still write of those who suffered in war or in the torture chamber. Memory offers a kind of redemption.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. New Zealand Asia Institute, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Nicholas Tarling

Authors
  1. Nicholas Tarling
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Correspondence to Nicholas Tarling .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , School of Philosophy - Private Bag 41, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 7001, Tasmania, Australia

    Jeff Malpas

  2. , School of Philosophy - Private Bag 41, University of Tasmania, Hobart, 7001, Tasmania, Australia

    Norelle Lickiss

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Tarling, N. (2012). The Meaning and the Experience of Suffering: A Historian’s Perspective. In: Malpas, J., Lickiss, N. (eds) Perspectives on Human Suffering. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2795-3_10

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