Hegelian Philosophy as a Bridge Between Subjective and Objective Accounts of Human Suffering

Purpose: Research on suffering has been dominated by the healthcare, religious and philosophical perspectives which are based on a narrow perspective of individual subjectivity and well-being, with the social context largely neglected. This paper aims to complement this inadequacy by highlighting the unique contributions of Hegel's anthropological-philosophical perspective in bridging the gap between individual subjectivity, that is, personal experience, and the objective collective human entity, that is, the social reality, in the discussions on suffering. This in turn can generate concrete measures especially targeting at the concrete reality, that is, institutions, social structures and public policy. This is especially true for Caring Science because suffering and its alleviation are core notions in this discipline. Method: In this project, the conceptual, textual, and comparative analyses on the major and latest healthcare, philosophical and religious literature were conducted. The Hegelian perspective was proposed as the ideal foundation for research on suffering. It is because despite Hegel never explicitly accounted for suffering in any of his works, suffering surfaces in many occasions in his works describing Spirit's unfolding itself characterized by negation, contradiction and suffering. Given this, the Hegelian perspective offers abundant theoretical resources for re-conceptualizing suffering. Findings: Evidence from Hegel's various works on different realms of life which include individual psychology, interpersonal relationships, family, and morality converges that suffering is caused by contradictions or gaps between individual subjectivity and the objective reality. Physical suffering is caused by diseases and mental disorders such as dementia, and are part of nature. Conclusion: The conclusion is that the Hegelian perspective can effectively serve as a conceptual bridge for the lack of consideration on the intimate links between individual subjectivity and the objective reality in extant research and discussions on suffering. The contributions of Hegel's philosophy lie in his closely-knitted nexus connecting human subjectivity and the objective reality operated by dialectic.