Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Source Publication
Harvard Theological Review
Source ISSN
0017-8160
Original Item ID
DOI: 10.1017/S0017816024000117
Abstract
Theologians have become increasingly attentive to the role emotion and experience must play in theological reflection. Several thinkers have recently done so by appropriating and developing Jon Sobrino’s understanding of orthopathy, or “right affect.” A close examination of these efforts, however, reveals inconsistencies in the way the category is understood and deployed. This article redresses these inconsistencies by complementing orthopathy with orthoaesthesis, or “right perception.” The article opens by considering various appeals to orthopathy before suggesting how William James’s theory of emotion might provide the category with clarifying content. The second stage engages Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch as practitioners of orthoaesthesis. Special attention is given to Murdoch’s “techniques” aimed at transforming how practitioners perceive reality. With Murdoch’s guidance, the article contends that orthopathy is ineluctably bound to and not possible without orthoaesthesis. The article concludes with a constructive proposal to show how orthoaesthesis-orthopathy contributes to a Christian theological anthropology.
Recommended Citation
Duns, Ryan G., "No Orthopathy without Orthoaesthesis: On the Necessity of Negative Effort" (2024). Theology Faculty Research and Publications. 908.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/theo_fac/908
ADA Accessible Version
Comments
Accepted version. Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 117, No. 2 (2024): 317-341. DOI. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used with permission.