Rediscover the philosophy of care: From the accumulation to the person to taking care of the possibilities1

Careful is an essential element of each civil consortium, The degree of development of a mature society is recognized not so much by its ability to do or create but in its ability to take care of others. Also in the hypothesis of the best of possible worlds in which wars have finally been abolished, poverty and diseases, the imperative to the treatment remains unchanged within that human component, too human but also happily human that allows us to keep us authentic.

- Church news -

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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Authenticity as a waste of time. Summer time is that propitious moment to rediscover the most genuine sense "of the self".

And this not only as a psychological reality comprising the awareness and perception that an individual has of himself but just as an ontological subject that reflects and memory on his own being. Summer is that appropriate time to recover on one's humanity, It is not a time of inertia or laziness as for a long time has been considered but it is a time when the consciousness enriches and deepens.

It is precisely of the human being, indeed, formulate questions and ask questions that touch their essence. Our ancient fathers of thought had noticed that each of us is capable of philosophize on one's existence: on being and on getting there.

This research path It can only concern individual and daily choices, the situations that oppose the objections and to which a sense must be made, Up to the contemplation without judgment of that good and that evil with which every man is stabbed and which makes him so unique and rare enough to characterize him within a tension towards the truth, between torment and grace. It should be recognized that today we want more and more rarely philosophize on ourselves and on the world that surrounds us and this is objectively and philosophically evil. We consider all this as a loss of useless time and privilege easy strategies and solutions - last minute - falling into that sin of modern man who is identifiable in an inauthentic existence.

When I am not able to determine myself, others will take my place and do it for me, together with all those realities that the modern world has in this regard: fall asleep the critical conscience to live a continuous present made of a compulsive succession of events that leave me passive and sadly pleased spectator.

Philosophical thought allows us to put a brake To this swirling whirlwind of events, It is capable of distinguishing between truths and authenticity and is precisely in the authenticity that we see the individual in his being ontological more deeply, in keeping himself faithful to himself and therefore to his own human nature. In some ways, man's authenticity is knowing how to be consistent in that search for truth and meaning.

Martin Heidegger, He reproaches the risk of falling into non -authenticity for the many duties, obligations and commitments in which he lives and who move him away from himself and from others. We all have too much to worry about being and existing, to be there and to exist in the life of others.

The authentic man, who is capable of chasing the truth of his own being, loves slowness, which is a bit that ability to know how to waste time to be able to then find it not in a quantitative but qualitative sense. And an unpopular logic today that of losing to earn and if we think about the most important things of man's life seem to be constantly at a loss to be able to work properly, To grow and develop harmoniously.

I happen to aim to add spouses to me aimed at In tired, these two simple questions are tired: «How long you dedicate to your husband/wife?»; “How long you can cut yourself in your day to be together?»The answer is almost always the same, except small variants: “Father we don't have time, We are too busy, We are too busy ". These responses are the signal of a personal and couple authenticity that is suffering, of a being who is no longer.

The same speech we can do it in different areas: between children and parents, Among friends and work colleagues. Even within the Church, the need for authenticity touches the person of consecrated and faithful. The non -authenticity of being is like rust that corrodes the humanity of each with the risk of becoming so part of it that it is then difficult to distinguish it from what is authentic. It is only in the authenticity that I allow myself to be and to be there, to know myself and the other. It is not the things to hurry that they determined me, They are not the roles with which I present myself in the world that identify me or what others load me on the shoulders through a thousand expectations.

The authentic ontological subject which contains the truth of myself and the same that allows me to know and dialogue with the truth of the other, But to do this you need to be able to waste time, walk slowness, which is the real form of memory as Milan Kundera wrote. Knowing philosophize of our ancient fathers included all this, whose profit consisted above all in a waste of time that was able to cure and look after the person.

Care as the possibility of being and being there. We are all in need of care, Just as we can all be the active subjects of a cure. The cure is not only a prerogative of the weak and fragiles but is part of every being in the world, in the awareness of not being able to live as an absolute to itself.

The myth of man who "He must never ask" ― regardless of his being male or female - it is precisely a mirage of the ideology of well -being, of those who presume that they can do themselves alone, A Promethean myth of absolute that we have seen shipwreck with the pandemic event of a few years ago that has put this way of seeing the modern man as an invincible and master of himself. Careful is an essential element of each civil consortium, The degree of development of a mature society is recognized not so much by its ability to do or create but in its ability to take care of others. Also in the hypothesis of the best of possible worlds in which wars have finally been abolished, poverty and diseases, the imperative to the treatment remains unchanged within that human component, too human but also happily human that allows us to keep us authentic. An example is the evocative image of Anchise brought in her arms by her son Enea that ancient mythology has identified as an icon of the virtue of pity - preceding and anticipating the piety Christian - and which includes and contains duty, devotion and affection, all characteristics that we find in the care of others here enclosed in the authenticity of a relationship between father and son.

Perhaps it is necessary to return to rediscover a philosophy of care In order to subsequently process an effective ethics of the treatment: The awareness of wasting time knowing that "having care means taking you to heart, worry with concern " (cf. L. Mortari, Philosophy of care, Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milan 2015), Just as the gesture of Aeneas suggests. The one who taking care of the old father, After the defeat of Troy, It is mutually kept by him in that narrow of the Penati, The protective deities of the family, In the hands of the old parent.

Because these calls? Why know philosophize It allows us to read and interpret the present that surrounds us by fleeing the non -authenticity and distortion of the truth of being who resides as eventuality for every man. We all remember the cases of recent news of Laura Santi and Don Matteo Balzano, Well they are these two lives broken by suicide that make a duty to know how to stop and interrogate about the importance that every man has and on the care that every man deserves to have. Questions can only be formulated in front of these two lives that are no longer, Not to seek easy consolations and unnecessary responsibilities but to underline once again as we often prefer to sit on the deception of non -authenticity that on the tiring loss of time that cure involves.

When a civil society abandon itself in illusion to normalize and regulate the suicide of a man - also intended as an Eutanasic choice - based on justifications that are part of despotic and capricious circumstances or to an unnecessary necessity, Well we are at the top of the non -authenticity of man and therefore at the end of his inhumanization and the denial of his ontological being, anti-man par excellence. M. Heidegger spoke of "taking care of the possibilities" (cf. Heidegger, Signplace, (1967), Adelphi, Milan 2002, p. 21), meaning how man has the opportunity to suck and achieve the best possible life form, realizing that capacitivity of his being who is not limited to existing alone but is characterized by a planning, from a broader becoming of existence: "Being in getting there". And this is precisely becoming wider than existence, The authentic care that the modern world must know how to rediscover as an element of civilization and humanization in the face of the danger of the denial of being that sees suicide as a tolerable and severe disease as a fatality from which it is no longer possible to go out.

The possibility of aspireing and making a better possible form This is what man allows the man to be able to be in any context and situation of his existence, opening doors that until then seemed closed, Overcoming apparently insurmountable obstacles. Knowing how to recognize each other united to the other moves the courage to promote large possibilities of humanization, of responsibility, of encouragement and support of one's authentic identity.

Let's try again at philosophize And we imagine several areas where each of us also lives and works. Perhaps certain situations that appear to us difficult or desperate are characterized not so much by malice, from envy or blind fate but by the lack of knowing how to take care and feel the subject of a caring and careful cure. How can we make us bearers of that being in having within a situation of terminal disease or of oppression and mortal despair that empties of every sense? In other words, what responsibility we have in front of these more or less expressed care needs, more or less conscious and aware? The care of assigning us is above all gratuity and ardently desire to waste time and to compromise with the other with respect, without pretending to be domain or imposition. The cure requires courage that nowadays more than ever is expressed as a political act in the original sense of the term.

Go c. Tronto, one of the most authoritative voices in contemporary reflection on the philosophy of care, He underlines how this represents one of the basic practices for a good democratic coexistence and for non -ideological social justice and this is true but not yet sufficiently understood because still relegated to circumscribed areas such as family ones, private or confessional.

Let's remember this and we return to philosophize and to think that behind the apparently pitiful proposals of euthanasia and easy emotion for those who have left us with an extreme gesture, There is the option of care that allows us to "repair our world so as to be able to live in the best possible way", that world that includes everything: our bodies, Our personal identities, our environment. (cf. B. Fisher, J.C. Tronto, Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring, in e. Abel, M. Nelon, Circles of Care, SUNY Press, Albania 1990, p. 40).

Sanluri, 18 August 2025

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1 Article freely taken from the quadrimestrral of practical philosophy Sophia's key, N.27 year x Giuseo 2025, cf.. Articles by Elisa Giraud and Chiara Frezza.

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