Forgiveness
FORGIVENESS
QUESTIONS…
(Is there a ‘logical paradoxy’ of forgiveness?) x2
(To what extent, if any, can one forgive someone over whom one has an unequal authority?)
(is forgiveness possible?)
READING ONE
Forgiveness – Aurel Kolnai…
Forgiveness is pre-eminently an ethical subject, and a paper written about it cannot help being a paper in ethics. It may well be properly philosophical, conceptual and analytical, as he intended his works to be.
In fact he intended it to be chiefly logical in nature: with the central question he discusses being not how far and in what sense forgiveness is commendable or perhaps objectionable, but whether, and if so in what manner is it logically possible at all.
Delimination of the concept…
Forgiveness most basically refers to a context of “interpersonal” relations, in the narrower sense of relations between two parties “on a footing of equality,” neither of them being the other’s “superior” or having “authority” over him. It presupposes an affront, injury, transgression, trespassing or offence committed by one person against the other and consequently the other’s readiness or refusal to “forgive” him.
This is not of course to exclude the possibility that the two parties could in some respects be unequal or that either of them could in some sense stand for certain collective interests or points of view. But he steers clear of such complications, and that is what he means by restricting himself to an interpersonal context.
For clarity’s sake call the supposed offender I.e. the party who inflicts a wrong, “Ralph”, and the one who is or feels “wronged” and feels inclined or reluctant to forgive, “Fred.”
Hurting, Wrongdoing and “Wronging”
In biblical language we hear a great deal about its being commendable to forgive “our enemies,” “those who trespass against us,” and “sinners,” as if these things meant one and the same thing. Yet the three concepts have sharply different meanings, though of course in
QUESTIONS…
(Is there a ‘logical paradoxy’ of forgiveness?) x2
(To what extent, if any, can one forgive someone over whom one has an unequal authority?)
(is forgiveness possible?)
READING ONE
Forgiveness – Aurel Kolnai…
Forgiveness is pre-eminently an ethical subject, and a paper written about it cannot help being a paper in ethics. It may well be properly philosophical, conceptual and analytical, as he intended his works to be.
In fact he intended it to be chiefly logical in nature: with the central question he discusses being not how far and in what sense forgiveness is commendable or perhaps objectionable, but whether, and if so in what manner is it logically possible at all.
Delimination of the concept…
Forgiveness most basically refers to a context of “interpersonal” relations, in the narrower sense of relations between two parties “on a footing of equality,” neither of them being the other’s “superior” or having “authority” over him. It presupposes an affront, injury, transgression, trespassing or offence committed by one person against the other and consequently the other’s readiness or refusal to “forgive” him.
This is not of course to exclude the possibility that the two parties could in some respects be unequal or that either of them could in some sense stand for certain collective interests or points of view. But he steers clear of such complications, and that is what he means by restricting himself to an interpersonal context.
For clarity’s sake call the supposed offender I.e. the party who inflicts a wrong, “Ralph”, and the one who is or feels “wronged” and feels inclined or reluctant to forgive, “Fred.”
Hurting, Wrongdoing and “Wronging”
In biblical language we hear a great deal about its being commendable to forgive “our enemies,” “those who trespass against us,” and “sinners,” as if these things meant one and the same thing. Yet the three concepts have sharply different meanings, though of course in