Limit situation
A limit situation (German: Grenzsituation) is any of certain situations in which a human being is said to have differing experiences from those arising from ordinary situations.<ref>Richardson and Bowden (1993), p334</ref>
The concept was developed by Karl Jaspers, who considered fright, guilt, finality and suffering as some of the key limit situations arising in everyday life.<ref>T, Fuchs ed, Karl Jasper's Philosophy and Psychopathology (2013) p.. 48</ref>
Encounters
James G. Hart described that encounters with limit situations unsettle individuals, break them out of their inauthentic identifications, remove them from the social bond, and force them to come alive and find new ways of communicating.<ref>J. Hart, Who One Is (2009) p. 11-3 and p. 309</ref> They can be compared to the similarly generative experience of the sense of bewilderment in Zen.<ref>P. Wolfe, Laden Choirs (2015) p. 11</ref> Hans-Georg Gadamer considered the limit situation to provide a revelatory encounter with the other;<ref>M. Portocarrera et al eds., Hermeneutic Rationality (2012) p. 147</ref> while facing the anxiety arising from the foreknowledge of death can equally prove a growth opportunity arising from a limit situation.<ref>I. Tammmelo, Justice and Doubt (2013) p. 386</ref>
Psychoanalytic frame
Psychoanalysis can be seen as a structured limit situation,<ref>G. Gutting ed., The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (CUP 2007) p. 325</ref> the psychoanalytic framework in particular providing an experience of finality and limits that can empower growth.<ref>D. Smith, Hidden Conversations (1991) p. 189</ref>
Third world politics
In his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire adapted the existential notion of limit situations<ref>Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) p. 71 (Penguin Books, 1972)</ref> to the Third World,<ref>Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) p. 75 (Penguin Books, 1972)</ref> seeing the constraints of underdevelopment as a limit situation on humanity,<ref>R. Rivera, A Study of Liberation Discourse (2004) p. 32</ref> but also as a possible frontier point for increasing (in overcoming) one's human stature.<ref>J. Irwin, Paulo Freire's Philosophy of Education (2012) </ref>
See also
References
Bibliography
- Richardson A. & Bowden J. (1993) The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology London; Westminster John Knox Press
