Negative Anthropology and Human Flourishing. Suffering as an Affective Indicator

Abstract

This paper proposes to integrate the question of the good life through a negative anthropology approach. Rather than relying on a substantive account of human nature, it takes suffering as a privileged entry point for analysing the conditions that enable or hinder human flourishing. Drawing on contemporary critical theory, suffering is interpreted as an affective indicator of frustrated anthropological needs, whose epistemic status is increasingly neutralized by processes of individualization and medicalization. The paper advances the hypothesis that a significant part of contemporary distress can be understood in terms of disembodiment, conceived as a weakening of the lived relation between subject and world. By integrating phenomenology, philosophical anthropology, and psychology, the paper argues that suffering, far from being merely an obstacle, constitutes a key resource for critically interrogating the conditions of a meaningful human life.