Devotion and the Opacity of Grief

Grief is typically an epistemically opaque experience, such that the character of any given grief episode cannot be predicted in advance. We might wish otherwise, on the grounds that were grief not epistemically opaque, we could bring to bear extant knowledge about grief to mitigate or eliminate the suffering associated with it. Surprisingly, we should be glad that grief is epistemically opaque. For were it not, the devotion that lends much of our central personal relationships their importance would be undermined.