Man’s helpless condition

Abstract

In Marí­a Zambrano's thought pain and sufering appear as the origins of the human soul. Astonishment was not man's only state of mind that made him come out of himself but, also, something more serious: awe. It is from this condition that we are born into the world and from where the pulse of philosophical thought is nourished. From this persepective this is the reason why Aristotelian astonishment is defined as the result of a painful experience. A moment of deep solitude must preceed the question. The observation of pain, of sufering and of endurance impel the author of the need of creating a theoretical work which leads us to the search of what she calls the origins of man. It should be pointed out that Marí­a Zambrano does not seek to elaborate an explanation of pain under any instrumental principle that presupposes that, once conceptualized, this could be manipulated, transformed, or even better, eliminated. Sufering is a human condition and pushes it toward the action of its own transcendence, to confront the continuous mediations with which it elaborates the construction of itself.