Papers by Roni Naor Hofri
Philosophies, Jan 9, 2024
When looking for an account that explains how pain changes consciousness, one finds that most stu... more When looking for an account that explains how pain changes consciousness, one finds that most studies in the phenomenology of pain focus either on the outcome of the change, or on how it affects the self, as a conscious object, and the self's experiences in the world of objects. This paper focuses on the mechanism of consciousness, exploring the nature of the change that pain creates in consciousness and how exactly that change occurs. The paper provides a systematic, phenomenological inquiry in three phases: one identifies three essential attributes of consciousness, another identifies three essential attributes of pain, and a third analyses the outcome of the integration between both sets of attributes. The paper demonstrates how the change wrought by pain on the self, as a conscious object, allows the self to breach its boundaries as an object, and experience being a non-object, even if only in part and temporarily.
Philosophies, 2024
When looking for an account that explains how pain changes consciousness, one finds that most stu... more When looking for an account that explains how pain changes consciousness, one finds that most studies in the phenomenology of pain focus either on the outcome of the change, or on how it affects the self, as a conscious object, and the self’s experiences in the world of objects. This paper focuses on the mechanism of consciousness, exploring the nature of the change that pain creates in consciousness and how exactly that change occurs. The paper provides a systematic, phenomenological inquiry in three phases: one identifies three essential attributes of consciousness, another identifies three essential attributes of pain, and a third analyses the outcome of the integration between both sets of attributes. The paper demonstrates how the change wrought by pain on the self, as a conscious object, allows the self to breach its boundaries as an object, and experience being a non-object, even if only in part and temporarily.
Sophia
This paper shows how self-inflicted pain enabled the expression of love for God among Christian m... more This paper shows how self-inflicted pain enabled the expression of love for God among Christian monastic flagellant ascetics in medieval central Europe. As scholars have shown, being in a state of pain leads to a change in or a destruction of language, an essential attribute of the self. I argue that this transformation allows the self to transcend its boundaries as a conscious object, even if only in part, in a limited manner and temporarily, thereby enabling the expression of love for God, a non-object. To substantiate my argument, I show that the self's transcendence of its boundaries as a conscious object and its consequent experience of being a nonobject enable the imitation of God: not solely in the sense of imitatio Christi, of the physical and visual representations of God incarnate in the flesh of His son Christ, but also in the sense of the self's experience of being a non-object, just like God, the telos of the self's love.
Sophia (Springer), 2023
This paper shows how self-inflicted pain enabled the expression of love for God among Christian m... more This paper shows how self-inflicted pain enabled the expression of love for God among Christian monastic flagellant ascetics in medieval central Europe. As scholars have shown, being in a state of pain leads to a change in or a destruction of language, an essential attribute of the self. I argue that this transformation allows the self to transcend its boundaries as a conscious object, even if only in part, in a limited manner and temporarily, thereby enabling the expression of love for God, a non-object. To substantiate my argument, I show that the self's transcendence of its boundaries as a conscious object and its consequent experience of being a nonobject enable the imitation of God: not solely in the sense of imitatio Christi, of the physical and visual representations of God incarnate in the flesh of His son Christ, but also in the sense of the self's experience of being a non-object, just like God, the telos of the self's love.
MEMSA Journal, 2022
This paper explains how pain becomes an expression of love for God. More precisely, it shows how ... more This paper explains how pain becomes an expression of love for God. More precisely, it shows how self-inflicted painful acts changed the epistemic boundaries of the self, enabling the expression of love for God, among Christian monastic flagellant ascetics in medieval central Europe. Many scholars have shown that pain changes time-awareness, leading to a different experience of time. I argue that the change in time-awareness wrought by pain leads to a breach in the epistemic boundaries of the self as a conscious object. This breach enables the self to experience being a non-object, even if only in part, in a limited manner and for a short time. Based on a philosophical, phenomenological analysis of ascetics' selfinflicted painful acts, I show how their pain enabled the expression of love-a human emotion always directed towards an object-towards what is not human and not an object, God. This love was expressed in imitatio Christi, imitation of the physical and visual representations of God incarnated in the flesh of His son Christ, as well as in the experience of being a non-object, like God, the telos of the self's love.
Religions, 2021
The paper identifies the measure of pain monastic Christian ascetics in medieval central Europe i... more The paper identifies the measure of pain monastic Christian ascetics in medieval central Europe inflicted on themselves to express the right measure of love for God. I ask whether the measure of pain had significance; whether a ratio existed between the measure of pain ascetics experienced and the measure of love they expressed; how self-inflicted painful acts enabled the epistemic achievement of expressing the right measure of love for God; what made the right measure such; and what was the difference between ascetics and martyrs regarding the measures of pain and love respectively. Providing answers to these questions, unaddressed in existing studies, is the main contribution of this paper. While addressing them, I present a new category, the category of measure , for philosophical analysis of the old religious phenomenon under discussion. This category allows me to demonstrate that the measure of pain had significance and that there was an adequacy ratio between the measure of pain monastic ascetics experienced and the measure of love they expressed. It also lets me argue that the right measure of pain for expressing their love for God, following His example, was the exposure of blood, regardless of its quantity.
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Papers by Roni Naor Hofri