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.
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.
Encounters
James G. Hart described that encounters with limit situations unsettle individuals, break them out of their
inauthentic
Authenticity or authentic may refer to:
* Authentication, the act of confirming the truth of an attribute
Arts and entertainment
* Authenticity in art, ways in which a work of art or an artistic performance may be considered authentic
Music
* ...
identifications, remove them from the social bond, and force them to come alive and find new ways of communicating. They can be compared to the similarly generative experience of the sense of bewilderment in
Zen.
Hans-Georg Gadamer considered the limit situation to provide a revelatory encounter with the
other; while facing the
anxiety arising from the foreknowledge of death can equally prove a growth opportunity arising from a limit situation.
Psychoanalytic frame
Psychoanalysis can be seen as a structured limit situation, the psychoanalytic framework in particular providing an experience of finality and limits that can empower growth.
Third world politics
Paulo Freire adapted the existential notion of limit situation to the
Third World, seeing the constraints of underdevelopment as a limit situation on humanity, but also as a possible frontier point for increasing (in overcoming) one's human stature.
[J. Irwin, ''Paulo Freire's Philosophy of Education'' (2012) ]
See also
References
Bibliography
* Richardson A. & Bowden J. (1993) ''The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology'' London; Westminster John Knox Press
Existentialism
Ontology
20th-century philosophy
Continental philosophy
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