Ralph Carlos E.

Roberto

UNDERSTANDING SELF-DONATION THROUGH TENDER AFFECTIVITY IN

DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND’S PHILOSOPHY [I removed the.]
Keywords: Self-Donation, Tender Affectivity, Heart, Ethics.

Transcendence is a part of the focus of the Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Philosophy.

[This is the movement of every individual towards what is important in itself.] [Von
Hildebrand calls this value.]1Every value has a corresponding act. [What act?] Every man
possesses a unique character that enables him to grasp values. However, acting out the
capacity to grasp values and make a response [to] them is the basis of realizing the moral
values of man. A kind of correspondence to value which is self-donation (hingabe).
[Where did get this description? Better present it as DvH presents it. Avoid inventing.]
Many has the shallow connotation of what self-donation is. Few of people understand it
as literally giving the self, which has impact to the one who offers and the one who
receives. [What do you mean when you say literal?] Giving the self may means to
correspond to the call of necessity which implies of having no such affectivity. The self
has a unique characteristic which is rightly to be preserved. Hence, this problem needs to
be understood more as to have a deep knowledge coupled by responses. There are many
types of responses in the philosophy of Dietrich von Hildebrand. One of it is affective
responses, which must share in man’s freedom also must possess the requirements for
embodying moral values, that was the ground for tender affectivity. This shows that a
person who is able to “[be] moved” such as in gratitude, in contrition, tears of joy which
in this type of affectivity includes the capacity for a self-sacrificing or self-surrendering
in which the heart was being involved.
Thus, the researcher saw the need to [understand] the notion of self-donation through
the tender affectivity in able to arrive to the real essence of said notion. In addition, the
purpose of this paper is to present the ground of self-donation that to be understood
through the Dietrich von Hildebrand’s philosophy of the heart in relation to the tender
affectivity. This study will help [us/the reader] to understood what is the proper drive in
being self- donating to others. With this, the researcher would like to solve the problem
of how can self-donation be understood through tender affectivity in Dietrich von
Hildebrand’s philosophy as the main problem. The sub-problems are (1) What is self-
donation in Dietrich von Hildebrand’s philosophy? (2) What is Dietrich von Hildebrand’s
notion of tender affectivity? (3) How can self-donation be related to tender affectivity?

1 Dietrich von Hildebrand, Ethics (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press), 280.