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St Bede The Venerable Philosophy Essay

Paper Type: Free Essay Subject: Philosophy
Wordcount: 2040 words Published: 1st Jan 2015

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Otherwise known as The Venerable Bede, he was considered a doctor to the doctrines of the church. In The Ecclesiastical History of England he tried to draft an overview of his personal life. He lived in a time when people like him were considered semi-deity and were not expected to show their real characters either in text or in actions. In the last chapter he writes ¿½From that time I have spent the whole of my life within that monastery, devoting all my pains to the study of the Scriptures, and amid the observance of monastic discipline and the daily charge of singing in the Church, it has been ever my delight to learn or teach or write.¿½

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His concept of pain in this context is one of an action that can be turned positive. He says that he out all his pains and devoted all his time. This is to suggest that he chose to forego his own pain and trouble and focus on what really mattered to him. He suggested that pain was a controllable feeling; it did not have to be negative as it could be turned into something positive such as studying the Word of God.

The song of Roland was written sometime in the middle Ages in France by an author whose identity has always been the source of controversy. It has however been consensus that the authors name might have been Turoldus. The poem is based on the Battle of Roncevaux, where Roland, nephew to Charlemagne, died while in battle. In the poem, he writes ¿½He has learned much who knows the pain of struggle.¿½(Line 2524).

In this particular line, the author describes pain as a teacher of sorts. While he does not seem to view not learning through pain as useless, he implies that only he who has suffered to gain what he has achieved actually knows the worth of the lessons learnt. The implication of this is that pain is not entirely negative in its effects; it has some positive parts such as lessons. Whether one chooses to recognize this as enough lessons is a personal choice.

St. Bede and Turoldus agree about the ability of pain to be harnessed into something positive. The latter uses it as a way to achieve his goal to learn scripture, while the latter implies that only one who has struggled and felt the pain actually knows how much there is to learn. S. Bede provides the application of the concept about pain; Turoldus puts the same thing in a stanza.

Reformation 1500-1650

The Reformation arose in 1517 when Martin Luther penned his 95 Views which condemned the prosperity and venality of the church, and many other Catholic beliefs together with the organization of the papal office and the trust that in adding to faith in Christ good works were also needed for salvation. Luther depicted on the principles of previous church opponents like the Bohemian Jan Hus and John Wycliffe. Luther’s opinions finally concluded in his expulsion from the Catholic Church and the establishment of a church grounded on his teachings: the Lutheran Church, which turn out to be the mainstream religion in northern Germany. Other activists arose, and their supporters became known as Protestants. Apart from the martin Luther other writers in this period were.

In the 95 views he wrote ¿½For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.” The gravity of his doctrine was captured in this few words. All his collisions with the Catholic Church seem to have been centered of the fact that the church had a status quo mentality, they were afraid to let the new radical ideas flow freely. Martin Luther here suggests that the worst pain one can cause to himself and to others is the pain of not allowing the free flow of new ideas. This shows the cohesive and changing nature of pain, it has the ability to either halt or activate transformations.

William Shakespeare

Considered the most expressive writer of his time, the playwright managed to pen some of the greatest and most memorable lines on love and pain.

In The Tempest he wrote:

¿½A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,

we bid be quiet when we hear it cry;

But were we burdened with like weight of pain,

as much or more we should ourselves complain.¿½

In this one stanza, he summarized most of what pain represented in those days. He also highlighted its physical nature and weight and its ability to drag one down when he or she was hurt by the struggles of life.

Martin Luther viewed the burden of pain as a great derailment for development; Shakespeare on the other hand, views it as somewhat of an epitome of the worst thing in life. It is the basis of the calm nature of the soul, and we should build emotions upon it.

The Age of Reason & Revival 1648-1799

This is the era in which great changes happened with reference to balance of power among the clergy, monarch and the noble. With the fall of the feudal system the noble in the community lost their power and the church was headed by a monarch.

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon was one of the major figures in the natural philosophy field and in the area of scientific methodology in the period of change. He was a lawyer, a Member of Parliament, and Queen’s Counsel, Bacon penned on inquiries of law, state and religion, as well as on modern politics; but he also printed manuscripts in which he ventured on possible origins of society, and he considered inquiries of morals even in his research on natural philosophy. He adopted the thought that wits should be the main way of perception.

He struggled to overcome scholarly barriers and the inflexible thinking of scholars in his age and of previous i.e. He not only criticized Plato, but also humanists and resurgence students.

When Bacon presented his new methodical structure of disciplines in Advancement of Learning, he continued his fight with tradition, primarily with classical ancient times, rebuffing the book knowledge of the humanists, on the basis that they ¿½hunt more after words than matter¿½ , He wrote ¿½Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.¿½ His implication here was that pain was the direct opposite of celebration. Where he would give his real friends a reason to smile, he would attack his sham friend and cause the pain. This implies that pain is physical and emotional; it can be used to cause damage to people we do not like, or those who have taken the low path against us.

Ren¿½ Descartes

He is well-known for having made a significant link amid geometry and algebra, which allowed for the resolution of geometrical problems as algebraic equations. He also promoted a different view of matter, which allowed for the accounting of bodily phenomena using mechanical explanations. However, he is mostly famed for having written a relatively short work, ¿½Meditations de Prima Philosophic¿½ Meditations on First Philosophy, put out in 1641, where he delivers a philosophical basis for the opportunity of the sciences.

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He wrote ¿½[I]n approaching fire I feel heat, and in approaching it a little too near I even feel pain [and] there is . . . no reason in this which could persuade me that there is in the fire something resembling this heat any more than there is something resembling the pain; all that I have any reason to believe from this is that there is something in it, whatever it may be, which excites in me these sensations of heat or pain.¿½( http://www.wutsamada.com/alma/modern/descart.htm)

What he meant to depict was the nature of pain as a exult of deliberate action. He uses the concept of the fire to show how one causes the other and overwhelms it to the point where one cannot tell the difference between the two.

His philosophy agrees with Bacon¿½s. Their opinions on the nature of pain are intertwined because one cannot know how else to treat those who pretend to be his friends and yet they are a sham without having to intertwine it with other emotions.

Modern Age of Progress 1800-1918 CE

Friedrich Schleiermacher

He wrote ¿½the stammer of pain is somebody else¿½s pain.¿½ He intended to pass the message that pauses in someone¿½s pain are inherently depictions of someone else¿½s pain. Where our pain stops another begins. This concept of pain suggests that it exists like energy, transforming from one being to the other, causing harm and multiplying, or appearing to.

This period can also be credited for precipitating the occurrence of the First World War by which each power was trying to beat the other by accumulating colonies in the new land and weaker powers were uniting with others in order to be stronger. The fight for power amongst other factors is a cause for occurrence of the First World War.

Albert Schweitzer

The modern age writer wrote ¿½whoever is spared personal pain must feel him called to help in diminishing the pain of others.¿½ This weighty line shows a concept of pain that no other writer before him had noticed. The compassion and unity that getting one¿½s life back from pain should be enough to make others see the need to help others. This chain would be endless, and if ignited and the fire maintained, the whole world would have less misery.

This two authors approach the same issue in two different ways. The former shows the undying negative nature of pain, that however much we try and heal or rescue ourselves from it, it is a losing battle and nothing can save us from its undying nature. The latter opens the possibility of having a world with less misery by having everyone whose troubles have been alleviated to help others.

Pain in nursing practice

Pain is a very important concept when it comes to nursing practice. There are many definitions of pain when examining it from a nursing perspective. According to the international association for the study of pain, “Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (http://www.csun.edu/~meh20426/ELNECdefinitionPain.pdf ).This definition examine pain in both a physical and emotional sense.

Furthermore, in the book Pain: Clinical Manual by McCaffery&Pasero pain is defined as ” more than a change in the nervous system, but is also reflective of the patient’s past pain experiences and the meaning of the pain. They further describe “Pain is whatever the person says it is, experienced whenever they say they are experiencing it” (McCaffery&Pasero, 1999). In this specific definition pain is viewed as a subjective form. In certain situations patients may not be able to report their pain therefore family members can make that decision for them. In addition, during end of life care pain is considered to be when the patient is in any discomfort until proven otherwise. The concept of pain here is reliant on others and objective measures such as discomfort.

Understanding pain is critical in the nursing profession. Being able to identify when a patient is experiencing pain and treat accordingly can improve the patients overall outcome. In examination how pain is viewed throughout the old and new testaments as well as throughout church history enables the healthcare provider to develop a more complete understanding of the patient¿½s experience of pain.

The concept of understanding that pain is both physical and emotional is very applicable in everyday nursing duties. Patients might dhow knows signs of physical pain, while they are suffering emotional anguish underneath. This spiritual concept would help to reach out to more than just the physical healing; it would provide an avenue to know when to add the Word of God and its healing powers as a part of the process of taking care of the patient.

All the others in the different segments of Christian History have several convergences, Desiccates, Clement, and Bacon all agree that pain is physical and can be felt by all. They also agree that it has an undying nature and cannot be completely eradicated. Alfred adds that while we cannot make pain disappear, we can at least reduce that o others the way ours is reduced.

 

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