Philosophical approaches to vulnerability [LPHIB332]

Learning outcomes

To enable students to familiarise themselves with this concept and to understand its meaning and the issues at stake, using philosophical texts from all periods that have directly or indirectly raised questions related to the concept of vulnerability.

Objectives

The main aim of the teaching unit is to help students understand the meaning and value of the notion of vulnerability by exploring the ways in which philosophers, from antiquity to the present day, have thought about and approached it. The aim is to shed light on the meaning of this concept, using a variety of philosophical readings, and to understand whether and how vulnerability is a normal condition of everyone's existence. The denial of vulnerability, one's own and that of others, is also an unavoidable constant of all existence. The aim is to understand why this situation arises and how, on the contrary, the acceptance of vulnerability, one's own and that of others, represents a considerable asset for the construction of solid and fruitful links, even in cases where these are and must remain asymmetrical.

Content

Welcoming vulnerability is an increasingly common attitude today. Just look at the outpouring of solidarity when it comes to "helping" those who have been made very vulnerable by disasters, war, accidents and distress of all kinds. Generally speaking, we can also see how much the living conditions of the sick, the elderly and people with disabilities have improved over the last few decades, enabling the most vulnerable to lead a much 'better' life than they did fifty or a hundred years ago. Theories of Care, which the course will take into account, as well as the Law, have mobilised to guarantee vulnerable people help and protection. But does this really mean that we have learned to welcome vulnerability and that we are ready to accept it as an inescapable part of our ordinary lives and as a cornerstone on which to build our humanity and our societies? The aim of the course is to explore these questions and to see what might change in our daily lives and in our societies if vulnerability were accepted as a 'normal' dimension of everyone's existence.

Table of contents

The table of contents of the course will be posted on the webcampus.

Exercises description

none