Vincent Rochelle

Let us consider the puzzle that emerges from the following principles: (A) Grief is fitting only if the lost individual was previously loved by the one who experiences the grief; (B) In the context of funerals, the grieving collective subject did not previously love the lost individual. This leads to the inference (C): If (A) and (B), then collective grief is not fitting. This article examines how a collective emotion can correspond to a group’s structural reality in a funereal context while lacking rational groundings.