Philosophy of Care: Joaquim Braga Mário Santiago de Carvalho Editors

Advancing Global Bioethics 16
Joaquim Braga
Mário Santiago de Carvalho Editors
Philosophy
of Care
New Approaches to Vulnerability,
Otherness and Therapy
Advancing Global Bioethics
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Joaquim Braga • Mário Santiago de Carvalho
Editors
Philosophy of Care
New Approaches to Vulnerability,
Otherness and Therapy
Editors
Joaquim Braga Mário Santiago de Carvalho
Departamento de Filosofia Departamento de Filosofia
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade Faculdade de Letras da Universidade
de Coimbra de Coimbra
Coimbra, Portugal Coimbra, Portugal
ISSN 2212-652X ISSN 2212-6538 (electronic)

Advancing Global Bioethics
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Introduction
The theoretical discourse on care remains, today as in the past, deeply focused on
medical interaction with human beings and on the ethical values that underlie health
institutions. Therefore, in several philosophical domains, healthcare ethics have
acquired increasing importance in the examination of moral values and their role in
guiding life in society. Controversial issues such as euthanasia emphasize the deci-
sion-making of the actors in the health system and their political counterparts.
However, the debate engendered by these high-profile cases does not exhaust the
broad spectrum of the philosophical concept of “care.”
If we start with the fundamental assumption that care practices, however small or
subtle, encompass vital connections with the world and with ourselves, then care
must be considered beyond the decision-making processes, particularly through
non-institutionalized social spheres. Our social life cannot be controlled, replaced,
or confined by political, judicial, or religious organizations. It also is supported by
our spontaneous daily ways of helping others, preserving the environment, prevent-
ing unwanted situations, and strengthening social ties and institutions.
This social spontaneity underscores the informal care practices that are provided
by the community outside of the family context and should be identified and
acknowledged as valid social responses. Care always must take into account the
possibilities of extension, integration, and social cohesion that cooperation and
mutuality are able to foster by decreasing indifference and distance among human
beings. Outside of formal care, there are spheres of action engaged in self-care and
the care of others, whose purposeful nature cannot be understood, reduced, or rele-
gated to institutionalized practices. Informal care practices are, above all, everyday
occurrences in the human and social dimensions that form empathy among people.
Without this empirical reference, which precedes institutionalized practices, it
would be difficult to build a broad view of the conditions that must be safeguarded
in the context of formal care in order to achieve a suitable balance between indi-
vidual rights and the common good.
In this volume, the issue of care is widely explored and debated by 24 authors
within a wide interdisciplinary spectrum, covering both philosophical and therapeu-
tic studies. The title of the volume – Philosophy of Care – aims to emphasize the
v
vi Introduction
historical, philosophical, and interdisciplinary dimensions of care. In an exploratory

nature of themes, the authors are observing society from a perspective of human
vulnerability determined by natural and man-made phenomena. The field of care
encompasses both people and their environment. A perception of social relation-
ships based on care sheds light on the effects of our behaviour in the world that we
share with each other.
In addition to theoretical purposes, this volume includes the involvement of phi-
losophy in the articulation of emerging social issues as well as the creation of
bridges among extra-philosophical epistemic domains. Currently, much of the dis-
cussions on care have focused on health systems and ethical guidance for the rela-
tionship between caregivers and care receivers. Although the authors in this volume
also focus on health, a philosophy of care must include theoretical approaches to the
concept of care. Therefore, the editors welcomed proposals in scientific fields that
implicitly and explicitly enter into dialogue with philosophical knowledge. These
chapters will contribute to forming and expanding the framework of care practices.
From a strictly theoretical point of view, it is intended to give expression to contexts
of vulnerability – such as those concerning violence, injustice and illness – and, on
the other hand, to consider, through the relational nature of the concept of care, the
possibilities of ethical, political, and social commitment of the Self to the Other.
With these dimensions in mind, this volume on care is divided into five parts:
vulnerability, economy, otherness, the self, and therapy.
The first part – Care and Vulnerability – portrays various theoretical approaches.
It acknowledges the vulnerable condition of human beings in the world that they
inhabit and share with others, which is a fundamental step in reinforcing the need
and awareness of their preservation. Vulnerability is not a negative anthropological
condition, riddled with irreparable alienation and elimination of the individual
sphere of each human being. Instead, vulnerability, in this volume, is conceived as
a primordial drive of openness to the Other, capable of simultaneously enhancing
and generating relational attributes at the core of the psychic lives of individuals.
Therefore, in this sense, “vulnerable” is not synonymous with “weak”, just as “car-
ing” does not mean only “healing”. Through our experience in the world, vulnera-
bility identifies and anticipates care and, thus, creates solidarity through empathy.
The second part of the volume – Care and the Economy – transcends the mere
domain of trade and markets. It also underlines the importance of examining the
influences of an economic view of reality on the practice and the idea of caring. The
pivotal question arises as to the theoretical possibilities of ethical care in relation to
economic activities. The vast subject matter covers aspects of the political constitu-
tion of societies and those preserving the well-being of individuals and their envi-
ronment. In this part, economics, politics, and ethics are intertwined, enhancing the
visibility of several problems that affect and concern contemporary life, such as the
challenge of climate change, the refugee crisis, and the populist drift of political
parties.
Introduction vii
The third part – Care and Otherness – covers a broad subject in its manifold
socio-cultural implications. Without otherness, it would be difficult to understand
the dialogical nature of caregiving practices and to assess effective convergence
with care requests. Care of others acknowledges the needs and vulnerability of the
individual. However, it also gives empirical expression in the relational sphere. The
main referenced thinkers in this part – Plato, Marcus Aurelius, the neo-Scholastic
theologian Francisco de Vitoria, and Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot –
write from the premise of the role of feelings shaping the Self and the Self’s rela-
tionship to the Other, even, for instance, in the specific case of Buddhism. A
historical-philosophical line of articulation and distinction can be drawn between
the ethics of virtue and the ethics of care.
The fourth part – Care and the Self – accepts in its multiple theoretical, social,
and cultural formulations that the philosophical idea of “individuation” cannot be
dissociated from that ancient Greek precept coined epimeleia heautou. Both are, to
some extent, parallel anthropological processes that intersect and interpenetrate –
sometimes intensifying themselves, sometimes weakening themselves – forming a
broader and clearer view of the development process of the subjective possibilities
of each human being. From the individual sphere of care and from the relational
sphere of the Other, in general, we find symmetrical behaviour. Although care of the
Self has been explored deeply, partly because of its relevance in the work of French
philosopher Michel Foucault, the chapters in this part add new and provocative
historical and philosophical elements for its understanding and research.
Finally, the fifth part – Care and Therapy – examines issues relevant to medical
care. This volume would be remiss if it did not take therapeutic care into account.
Practical and theoretical knowledge mutually influence each other. This highly spe-
cialized domain imparts a significant amount of the status that care is given in our
daily lives. Thus, in this last part, the previous themes of otherness and ipseity con-
verge systematically. Through the theoretical emphasis that is placed on the issue of
suffering – whether it concerns physical illnesses or those of the psychological and
psychiatric realm – the authors of these chapters show us the urgency of thinking
about therapeutic care practices in the light of a theory of intersubjectivity, where
the disease itself and its cure are understood within the communication processes
and not only as exclusively technical-scientific processes.
Readers of this volume will be given new ways to reflect systematically on many
of the current challenges facing our society. It can be said that the philosophical
questions expressed here already bear an effective link to the phenomena that soci-
ety tends to characterize as “problems” – which often remain buried in the immense
information flow and can no longer be upraised to a permanent reflective and critical
level. The subject of care allows us, conversely, to show how such phenomena that
express and enhance inhumanity can be concomitantly articulated in order to chal-
lenge and engage ethics and politics, as well as educational systems. Turning prob-
lems into questions is, in this sense, one of the ways to solve them, that is, one of the
roads to care.
viii Introduction
The editors of this book acknowledge the indispensable support of the Research
Unit Institute for Philosophical Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the
University of Coimbra, all authors for their dedication to this project, as well as
Springer for recognizing the importance of this work.
Coimbra, Portugal Joaquim Braga

Coimbra, Portugal Mário Santiago de Carvalho
September 2019
Contents
Part I Care and Vulnerability

1 Care: A New Arrival in the History of Philosophy?�� 3
Jean-Philippe Pierron
2 From an Anthropology of Vulnerability to the Ethics of Care�� 19
João Maria André
3 The Circles of Care: A Stoic Approach�� 39
M. Jorge de Carvalho
4 The Relation Between Care and Despair,
According to Kierkegaard�� 79
Luís Mendes
Part II Care and Economy

5 Care Ethics and the Economy�� 99
Virginia Held
6 Welfare, Care and Human Economy
in the Theory of Wilhelm Röpke�� 119
Jerónimo Molina Cano and Jesús A. Guillamón Ayala
7 Time, Space, and Care�� 129
Joaquim Braga
Part III Care and Otherness

8 (Mis)understanding ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς (care for virtue)
in Plato’s Euthydemus�� 143
Fábio Serranito
9 The Care of Others in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations �� 167
Hélder Telo
ix
x Contents
10 Care and Compassion: A Buddhist Contribution

to the Philosophy of Care�� 181
S. J. Thierry Meynard
11 Care in the Protection of the Patriarchal Family
According to Francisco de Vitoria’s ‘De Restitutione’ �� 189
Maria Camps
12 Care: A Virtue Among Virtues�� 195
José Beato
13 On Women: An Analysis About the Status of Women
in Denis Diderot’s Theory of Enlightenment�� 211
Fabiana Tamizari
Part IV Care and the Self

14 Care of the Self: The Opposition Between “Lover of Self”
(φίλος αὑτῷ) and “Excessive Love of Self”
(σφόδρα ἑαυτοῦ φιλία) in Plato’s Laws�� 227
Samuel Oliveira
15 Cura personalis: The Care of the Person
and the Roots of Jesuit Pedagogy �� 243
Cristiano Casalini
16 From Charity to the Care of the Self:
Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici�� 259
Simone Guidi
17 Philosophy of Care and the Bildungsroman:
Words and Facts in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre �� 275
Laura Madella
18 Care of Oneself and the Psychological Clinic:
Kierkegaardian Contributions�� 289
Myriam Moreira Protasio
Part V Care and Therapy

19 Acedia and Its Care�� 297
Cláudio Alexandre S. Carvalho
20 The Different Modalities Of Suffering,
from Paul Ricœur’s Text “Suffering Is Not the Pain”
and Its Relevance in Non-conventional Therapies�� 325
Catarina Rebelo
Contents xi
21 The Place of the Experience of Illness in the Understanding

of Disease: Medical Discourse and Subjectivity�� 333
Amanda Barros Pereira Palmeira and Rodrigo Barros Gewehr
22 Take Care of Your Mind: A Short Discussion
Between Clinical Hypnosis and Philosophy of Mind�� 347
Paulo Alexandre e Castro
Index�� 363
Part I
Care and Vulnerability
Chapter 1
Care: A New Arrival in the History
of Philosophy?
Jean-Philippe Pierron
Abstract The philosophy of care entertains a critical relation to the philosophical

tradition. It is characterized by contextualism, the precedence accorded to vulnera-
bility with respect to mastery, and a democratic claim against authoritarian dis-
courses. I will show the scope of this new arrival by developing first of all a
“pathetics” of care which accords due importance to feelings, imaginations, rela-
tionships, and vulnerability. I will then explore a “pragmatics” of care, which
emphasizes the centrality to care of language games, the role accorded to narratives
and to counter-narratives, and the play between narrative and experience. Finally, I
will present a “hermeneutics” of care which draws on a conflict of interpretations
with regard to the way in which care is thought. The philosophy of care may thereby
enter into discussion with the history of philosophy, whose concepts of agape, solic-
itude and attention may be seen to anticipate the concept of care.
Keywords Care · Pathetics · Pragmatics · Hermeneutics · Imagination · Caritas
Absent from philosophy dictionaries until extremely recently, nonexistent in the

traditional vocabulary of philosophy, and unknown to mainstream philosophical
genealogies (because it would appear to arise from the human and social sciences),
care would appear to be a new arrival, perhaps even one of the latest arrivals among
the concepts of contemporary philosophy. What conclusions may be drawn from
this? That philosophy, prior to the appearance of theories of care, thought about care
without knowing it, just as Molière’s Mr. Jourdain spoke in prose without realizing
he was doing so? That care is not philosophical? Or that it amounts to a semantic
The present article has been translated from the French by Henry Dicks.
J.-P. Pierron (*)

Département de Philosophie, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France
e-mail: jean-philippe.pierron@u-bourgogne.fr
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 3

Switzerland AG 2021
J. Braga, M. Santiago de Carvalho (eds.), Philosophy of Care, Advancing
Global Bioethics 16, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75478-5_1
4 J.-P. Pierron
renewal of the better known philosophical theme of “concern” (Heideggerian

Sorge)?1 And does the very idea of “roads to care” suggest an implicit teleology,
such that it would be possible to trace the philosophical descent of this disaffiliated
concept? And, if that is the case, is care not just the expression of yet another of the
many parricides littering the history of philosophy?
The ambition of newness attached to the philosophy of care is worthy of discus-
sion. This newness has in the first instance a chronological dimension. Contemporary
thinking about care stems from certain currents in North-American feminism,
which, at the end of the twentieth century, were concerned to give greater visibility
to care-workers, whose work was all-too-often underappreciated, by showing how
they ultimately hold the world together. This newness also has a lexical dimension,
the ambition of which is a semantic renewal of our thinking about relations by set-
ting up a new, untranslatable concept within the European vocabulary of philoso-
phy. Lastly, the newness is also conceptual, for care is demarcated conceptually
from the traditional themes of compassion, Sorge, caritas (charity), or agape. In this
respect, care joins up with the phenomenological thinking about “concern” (Sorge)
and the phenomenology of attention, another possible word for translating “care”.
This newness also requires us to consider how we interpret our historical situa-
tion. It suggests that care can also – as has been pointed out by the historian of
contemporary philosophy, Frédéric Worms – be thought of as a “moment” (2010),
just as there were previously moments of existence, or moments of structure. This
idea of a “moment of care” is both important and problematic. It is important
because it unifies the diversity of academic research and social movements that
apply a philosophy of care in various contexts: practices of relational care in the
fields of education, health, the environment, and, more generally, in the workplace;
the use of concepts and theory in philosophy and the human sciences; and the gen-
eral expectation that care may come to be seen as an opportunity to develop a new
anthropology, a new understanding of the human in terms of its vulnerability as a
living being. And yet it is problematic also because it is far from clear that care is as
new as all that. Indeed, can one not see it as the renewal of a theme as old as philoso-
phy itself, in the relations that philosophy entertains with medicine and with care,
understood here as a form of profound attention, for which Socrates remains the
emblem, and which consists in caring for the soul, an accompaniment to intimate
gestations and thus also a form of maieutics? In that case, care would be a topos
(topic point) of the history of philosophy, a renewal of the ancient idea of caring for
and exercising the self.
1
In English, “Sorge” is often translated as “care”. In French, by contrast, it is translated as “souci”,
the meaning of which is closer to the English “concern” or even “worry”. Generally speaking, the
closest French equivalent to “care” is “soin”. In order to respect these differences, “souci” has been
translated here as “concern”.
1 Care: A New Arrival in the History of Philosophy? 5
1.1 Care: An Engaged Philosophy
Philosophies of care aim to renew both the way one philosophizes and practical
philosophy. They do so by organizing a form of rupture with the history of philoso-
phy and by entertaining a critical relation to the philosophical tradition, whose his-
tory they propose to reinterpret, often in a polemical way.
As a form of rupture, the philosophy of care makes its appearance in the history
of philosophy by cultivating a sort of amnesia, or at least by not permitting one
immediately to establish filiations and genealogies in the history of ideas. This is
because care was first a movement of contest and a social demand arising from the
human and social sciences, rather than from philosophy itself. Like vulnerability,
care is not among the major concepts of the philosophical tradition, whereas the
concepts of concern, charity, agape, or solicitude are all clearly identified. Care also
cultivates amnesia in the sense that it suggests that caring had not been thought
about prior to the philosophy of “care”, but also in the sense that it deterritorializes
care, for the model for care is no longer healthcare but parental care or educational
care, even animal or environmental care. Care de-medicalizes caring and denatural-
izes it also, at least as far as gendered is concerned. The emergence of philosophies
of care in relation to feminist theory have worked at denaturalizing care, decon-
structing the equivalence between sex, gender, and care, which supposed care to be
an activity practised by women and, more generally, by invisible minorities (work-
ing classes, migrants from ethnic minorities, women). Lastly, it is worth noting that
the language of care has largely replaced that of charity, just as in a certain sense
that of health – in connection with that of care (even if care de-medicalizes caring) –
has, via a process of secularization, taken the place of that of salvation, which has
also led to the collapse – and possible reconfiguration – of the theological theme of
charity. The link – at least of homonymy if not of synonymy – between care and
caritas also warrants our attention. Caritas has long been suspected of being only a
form of compassionate and infantilizing “do-gooding”. And yet it is as if care
renewed the theme of charity, or perhaps rather was charity itself, but without the
caritas. The story of Amy recounted by Gilligan would replace the parable of the
Good Samaritan of the Gospels. What seems to be taking place – in the interpreta-
tive framework of advanced secularism – is the development of a critical posture
with respect to the dominating and antidemocratic character of charity, which pre-
sumes to know better than the other what they need, and therewith also an a priori
distrust of the presumed goodwill of all compassion.
From a critical perspective, the philosophies of care could make their own the
following idea of Marx: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in vari-
ous ways. The point, however, is to change it.” Philosophers of care harbour the
ambition of a profound reform, if not revolution, of social institutions, and these
philosophers have from the very beginning sought to fight for the concrete recogni-
tion of forms of life and care practices that have been side-lined or prevented (femi-
nist circles, racial minorities). Care, before being something one says, is something
one does. This makes possible rapprochements between the critical theory of the
6 J.-P. Pierron
Frankfurt School, the American tradition of Thoreau, which is attentive to the right
to contest, and the philosophies of care. The philosophies of care also renew the
relations between philosophy and the field. At a time of tense relations between
philosophy and the human sciences, they question what the field is for a philoso-
pher. If the field in philosophy is neither simply an illustration, nor a logical argu-
ment (the role of the counter-example), then it is the site of the redefinition of the
relations between the real and the rational. Thanks to the field, the philosophical
gesture of care is not that of an applied philosophy, but of an engaged philosophy.
Care is the name of this encounter between the real and the rational, conceived from
the outset as incomplete, as the space-time of an interpretation and an elaboration;
and it is this encounter that explains the interest born by these philosophies – and
this is something I will return to later – for narrative approaches. In their own way,
the philosophies of care assume a renewed encounter between philosophical dis-
course and experience. They do this by being open to learning from the field, by
being difficult to classify as either philosophy or social science, and by developing
methods and ways of working to describe and account for the practices of care, the
work of Gilligan being pioneering in this respect.
Care may be defined in terms of three criteria: (a) care is contextual and anti-
essentialist… The characterisation of care requires a great deal of attention to the
precise details of each situation (Tronto 2012: 35). This contextualism manifests
itself by an attention to the fine-grained description of care situations, as opposed to
an abstract universalism. Its discourse on method renews the relations between phi-
losophy and the field, giving an important place to the human and social sciences.
(b) care is relational and accepts that human beings, other beings, and the environ-
ment are interdependent (Tronto 2012: 32). In contrast with an emancipatory tradi-
tion which has put forward an exalted conception of autonomy, one which is
ashamed of dependency, the philosophy of care thinks about how autonomy can
occur in a relation of dependency. To this end, it recognizes the anteriority of rela-
tions of mutual caring, of the givers of care. It thus distances itself from such words
as mastery, control, and management, which are often unilateral and typical of an
autarkical autonomy, unaware of the mutual links that underpin it, but also of its
own vulnerability. (c) In human societies which would like to assume the equal
value of all human life, care needs to be democratic and inclusive (Tronto 2012:
36), and, as such, opposed to masculine domination. Care defends a democratic
claim against authoritarian discourses which use care-giving as a means to impose
their idea of goodness on others (the imposition of Christian ideals of charity by
colonisation) (Tronto 2012: 36). In doing so, care adopts a polemical stance with
respect to the history of ideas and an attitude of suspicion towards traditional ways
of philosophizing.
The preceding elements are well known. In order to singularize the philosophy
of care and to take stock of its theoretical and practical contributions, I propose to
emphasize three traits, which, while characteristic of care, also bring it into dialogue
with other philosophical traditions. I will develop first of all a “pathetics” of care,
which accords due importance to feelings, imaginations, relationships, and vulner-
ability. I will then explore a “pragmatics” of care, which emphasizes the extent to
which language games, the role accorded to narratives and to counter-narratives,

and the play between narrative and experience are central to care. Finally, I will
present a “hermeneutics” of care which draws on a conflict of interpretations regard-
ing the manner in which care is thought. The philosophy of care may thereby enter
into discussion with the history of philosophy, whose concepts of agape, solicitude
and attention may be seen to anticipate the concept of care. In this way, the arrival
of care in the history of philosophy may perhaps come to be seen not so much as a
misunderstanding, something irreconcilable with that history, or even a truncated
hermeneutics, but rather as a narrative reconfiguration of that history.
1.2 A Pathetics of Care
The philosophies of care, despite their diversity, all insist on the idea that the feeling
of being affected by the other, in a relation of caring about, is primordial. It is this
feeling that explains why care work takes place. It is present – and this is not neu-
tral – as the feeling of care givers. Giving through care involves much more than
what is described in the interactional framework of exchanges characteristic of the
homo economicus (economic animal) paradigm. Giving is not exchanging because
care involves so much more than just the provision of a service. Care, understood as
a politically relevant anthropological position, is thus very different from a Hobbes-
inspired anthropology which supposes a social epistemology based on an atomistic
approach to individuals. It provides a fundamental interpretation of our social intel-
ligence by thinking it, starting from a relational anthropology within which the con-
cept of vulnerability plays, as we will see, a strategic role. A pathetics of care
rethinks the balance between reason and feeling, argument and emotion in the spirit
of the tradition of Scottish philosophy, in order to allow a “different voice” to be
heard in the analysis, the description, and the support of the human world.
The ordinary language of care – caring for, taking care of, being caring – spells
out the reality of a practice that is both effective and affective, of a capacity to let
oneself be affected by the other, even to let oneself be hurt by the other. It also feeds
the suspicion that some people have about care. This suspicion may be that of mas-
culinist and paternalist derision which denigrates a care judged weak and “female”.
It’s symptomatic of a lack of mastery and control in the invisible practice of care
denounced by feminism. It may also be a suspicion, formulated in the manner of
moralists, which locates in the pathological feeling of compassion, or in an overly
sensitive temperament, the true motive of supposedly virtuous ethical consider-
ations. It may even be a Nietzschean suspicion, which would reveal care to be the
very opposite of great self-affirming health, namely the expression of a new edify-
ing discourse that expresses a morality of the weak and of resentment.
Beyond these doubts, to speak of a legitimate pathetics of care requires some
precaution. Such a pathetics of care is not a concession made to the pathological
dimension of impulses and good intentions. It is also not the expression of a profu-
sion of good intentions and a way of giving oneself over to the “natural” truth of
8 J.-P. Pierron
pathos (pathetic or passion), to its evident and necessary goodness.2 In any case,
care has often been attacked for being a saccharine apology for good intentions,
lacking any critical bite. In keeping with this, care has also continued to be natural-
ized, and thus seen as synonymous with sex and gender. The philosophies of care
reverse this sort of reasoning. They examine the genealogy that lies behind the rea-
sons and motives for this distrust of sentimentalism. In so doing, they bring to light
the discourses of domination that accompany this manifest derision of everyday
care, of gentleness, of delicateness, that is to say, all that without which the human
world would no longer hold together. To denaturalise care contributes to discover-
ing, under the claim to naturalness, the existence of a norm.
It is also important to be aware that a long philosophical tradition, which care has
contributed to rediscover, recognizes the importance of sentiments for the philoso-
phy of action. Whether that feeling is called passion, emotion, impulse or feelings,
the role of the sentiments in moral life has a rich genealogy, at least prior to being
crushed by rationalist approaches. In a certain way, that is to say, by breaking with
Piaget’s model of genetic psychology – as in Gilligan’s opposition to Kohlberg – the
philosophers of care return to and regenerate this tradition. They no longer practise
abstract, universal, and principle-based rationalism, the summit of practical reason.
In Gilligan’s studies of moral psychology, which led her to oppose Kohlberg’s eth-
ics of justice, she develops an ethics of solicitude which allows the voice of women
to be heard. This ethics of solicitude may be characterized by the concern to main-
tain links despite the presence of divergent interests and desires, by a commitment
with respect to the concrete needs of people, and by recognition of the important
role of the sentiments in informing the moral understanding of a situation. As far as
ethics is concerned, everything is informed by sentiments and these are no less per-
tinent than reason; that children have feelings does not mean feelings are childish.
Likewise, it is also important to recognize the important ethical role of the imagina-
tion (as opposed to fantasy) in moral considerations.
The concept of vulnerability plays a pivotal role in philosophies of care. It makes
possible another way of thinking about relations of dependency by inverting the
way vulnerability has traditionally been understood. Joan Tronto has even elevated
vulnerability to the status of flagship concept of her politics of care (Tronto 2009).
More generally, the concept of vulnerability plays a strategic role in the philoso-
phies of care. It belongs, along with others, to set of concepts that are together giv-
ing rise to a new constellation in the vocabulary of contemporary philosophy.
Vulnerability, from the Latin vulnus, meaning “injury” – which is not weakness,
fragility, or powerlessness – has often been thought as a sort of incompetence, a
form of shameful dependency. By concentrating on what vulnerability is, rather
than what it does, vulnerability has been seen as a defect, even a defeat. For care, by
2
It may perhaps be necessary here to take up the distinction proposed by Henri Maldiney (drawing
on Erwin Strauss) between the pathic, the pathological, and the pathetic, for it could potentially
spell out the ways in which feeling is more profound than perceiving, and thus also the ways in
which the profound attention characteristic of care may be grounded phenomenologically. It
would, however, be beyond the scope of the present article to follow this path here.
contrast, vulnerability is an openness, an exposure to the other (cf. Levinas), which

must not be confused with an over-exposure in which one is, as it were, taken over
by the other and by the idea of sacrifice, thus encouraging confusion between sacri-
ficing oneself and giving (oneself). From this perspective, care sets itself apart from
the great tradition of Enlightenment thought which, in order to overcome alienation,
underlined the importance of discourses of emancipation, but which, in doing so,
confused the possible deleterious effects of vulnerability (submission, alienation,
dependency, heteronomy) with its profound significance as an available openness.
Where vulnerability was previously a defect foreshadowing a defeat – being
injured by the other –, it has now become a disposition to enter into a relation with
the other. Philosophers of care see it as a capacity, even a relational skill used in the
activities of care givers. Care work (specialized education, nursing, childcare, ani-
mal care, etc.) draw on life experiences. The experience of vulnerability, recognized
in one’s own life, helps constitute the disposition through which one is present for
others, whether humans or non-humans. To accord such a place to vulnerability
calls for a renewal of the understanding of responsibility. One moves from the impu-
tation of responsibility, a being responsible for, to a being called to responsibility
by. Regarding this point, it is not a coincidence if the figure of the vulnerable infant
(the early born, the new-born, or the orphan) is present in the ethical and political
thought of Arendt, Jonas, and Levinas, and it could no doubt be brought into discus-
sion with the little girl, Amy, in Gilligan’s seminal text. Care represents a major
anthropological option. According to philosophers of care, what makes us human is
the capacity to let oneself be affected by the other, to enter into a relation. This affir-
mative moment of vulnerability makes it closer to a relation of availableness in an
encounter than to the fear of being injured. In this respect, philosophies of care are
much more than philosophies of medicine. Care, which is prior to all curing, identi-
fies a fundamental availableness that has not yet been appropriated in the expert and
technical discourses of care specialists. This is not because care refuses such dis-
courses but because it is prior to these discourses. Vulnerability, as originary avail-
ability, is a relational skill (taking care) before becoming a professional expertise
(caring for). Care involves a reconfiguration of the self in its relation to others, by
integrating into the heart of the self this availability to be affected by others. In this
respect, care involves also a recognition prior to all knowledge, which avoids reifi-
cation, and which opens one up to relations. Care is a lively availableness for rela-
tions arising from keeping one’s imagination open to and for one’s fellows, a state
of affairs that is well expressed in the stories about Amy recounted by Gilligan.
Nevertheless, the sentiment of being affected by the other, which is logically
prior in care work, cannot, in reality, be separated from that work. Care is not an
idea but a practice. This explains the following remarks of Tronto: Les processus du
care sont complexes; ils demandent de se soucier de (caring about), de prendre en
charge (caring for), de donner des soins (care giving) et de recevoir des soins (care
receiving). Ils requièrent aussi le raffinement de nombreuses qualités morales inclu-
ant l’attention, une réflexion profonde sur la responsabilité, la compétence dans le
care donné (care giving), et la bonne réponse apportée aussi bien à ceux qui
10 J.-P. Pierron
reçoivent le care (care receivers), qu’au processus effectif du care même (Tronto
2012: 31–32).
Tronto’s presentation of care is dialectical. On the one hand, there is a significant
continuity uniting the sentiment of letting oneself be affected by the other – without
that defining the limits of the other (human, non-human, environmental, etc.) – and
the desire both to care for and to give care. On the other hand, there is a profound
rupture, one which makes visible what was heretofore invisible, namely all the links
and relations of care that the paradigm of mastery, control, and neoliberal manage-
ment have kept secret and buried. The philosophy of care has shown that these links
are present on several levels: interpersonal (the psychologist, C. Gilligan), institu-
tional, in the interfaces of the private sphere and capitalism (the sociologist, Arlie
Hochshild), and at the level of responsibility for all the inhabitants of the human
world (the political theorist, Joan Tronto), but also of the non-human world or the
environment (Gilligan 2013a, b: 31–32). The challenge is to give life to all these
relation of care at all of these levels.
This pathic dimension of care explains why there exists such a great proximity,
even a mutual reinforcement between, aesthetic and ethical issues. This rapproche-
ment is in no way decorative or aestheticizing. The pathic dimension (in the phe-
nomenological sense of Strauss and Maldiney) of care underpins its pathetic scope,
bringing to light a form of pre-intentional communion of sentiments. It requires the
invention of a language, of methods, of an aesthetics capable of embracing contin-
gency, of following the singularity of an enduring life history which seeks its own
explanation of its normativity. There can be little doubt that, in the history of cin-
ema, the work of Charlie Chaplin was exemplary of this enterprise (Le Blanc 2014).
This state of affairs also explains the importance that care accords to narratives and
to literature, rectifying by means of the imagination a world that, as Walter Benjamin
observed, has become poor in stories and experiences. Paul Klee said of painting
that “it does not depict the visible, but that it makes visible”. In the same spirit, the
pathetics of care does not depict the visible links of mutual care that hold the world
together; it makes them visible. These links are ordinarily imperceptible or hidden,
because they are relations, and not itemizable, calculable activities. Care is not vis-
ible, except when absent or broken. The philosophies of care develop methods capa-
ble of rendering – in the same sense as one speaks of the “rendering” of a
painting – what Marcel Mauss called “the delicate essence of the social”. These
methods, which leave much room for listening, narrating, phenomenological inter-
viewing, develop a sensitive availability to what is given in the murmuring of mutual
attentions, to the moment when society “takes place” in the act of care. Through fine
descriptions, a recognition of what gets invented in experiential knowledge and in
the force of images, and a recognition of the role of the pathic, prior to the pathetic,
the philosophers of care accord an important role to the arts. In particular, they
accord an important role to poetry, to literature, or even to TV series, for they are
capable of making one sensitive to the singularity of a situation, and thus, so to
speak, if de-anaesthetizing. Dancing, playing, listening, as ways of taking care of
the world, thus come to acquire great meaning and scope. They make us sensitive,
not so we may control the world, but so we may inhabit it.
A subjective dialectic is attached to this pathic dimension of care. This dialectic

gives a relational and ethical dimension to the alternating asymmetries of which life
consists and which get neglected when we forget, reject, or even are ashamed of our
dependencies. By exploring the relational dimension of dependence, care no longer
necessarily sees it as a problem or a form of alienation. Care does not conceive of
dependence as an alienated liberty but as a sensitivity and imagination open to that
which calls for them. Existence consists of alternations between dependence and
independence. Whereas dependence is often thought of as accidental, contingent,
passing – childhood, illness, unemployment, old age –, a subjective dialectics sees
it from a much broader perspective. It makes dependence a form of being-in-the-
world, of existence. Experiences of dependence are ordinarily presented as moments
of collapse and fall which close our existence and imprison it. This is also how
vulnerable persons are perceived, managed, and controlled by a society that exalts
autonomy. But the multiplicity of situations of care, which make it possible to define
vulnerable situations or persons, is considered by care to belong to a more profound
unity: that of a fundamental vulnerability which gives existence its tonality and
which defines its relational and existential style. Circumstantial vulnerabilities are
an echo of a constitutive existential vulnerability. This latter gives rise to a certain
climate, a personal stylistics of being-in-the-world, with its intimate frailties and
cracks. There thus emerges a poetics of existence, one which maintains a shared
world. From this perspective, an experience of vulnerability occurs within a vulner-
able life, and in a “vulnerable world”.
1.3 A Pragmatics of Care
Care is not only an attentive disposition. It also implies effective measures, the pro-
vision of care services. Care gets spelled out and made explicit in practices. These
practices are also linguistic; relations between care, work, and language are from
being secondary. One may care for the words of care. Care is also something that is
communicated, or which, when mutilated, humiliated, or made invisible, gets
obstructed. One may think here of Walter Benjamin, who, contesting the impact of
instrumental rationality on the life world, insisted on the power of narratives, affirm-
ing that we have become impoverished in our experiences. To speak of a pragmatics
of care is to echo Anglo-Saxon philosophical traditions and their analyses of the
philosophy of language. In the Francophone context (Laugier 2010), for example,
the philosophical reception of care – a word that it has been deemed better not to
translate – provides the occasion for a renewed discussion between more phenom-
enologically and existentially oriented continental philosophy and more analyti-
cally oriented philosophies. In particular, the common reference to Wittgenstein’s
thinking about language games is potentially significant here.
A pragmatics of care pays attention to what care does to language, but also to
what language does to care. What care does to language is manifest in language
games, in the importance accorded to the fact of not translating the word into other
12 J.-P. Pierron
languages, in the way its semantic effects reconfigure philosophical conceptuality.

But a pragmatics of care insists also on what care does to language, on the way that
it gives a voice to care givers or care workers often prevented from expressing them-
selves. The first alienation in the workplace would appear to occur through lan-
guage. Care work, in addition to its invisibility, is often accompanied by the lack of
opportunity to speak out. The philosophies of care adopt as their own an idea that
Paul Ricoeur expressed as follows: “The link in our lives between speech and work
attests in the most evident manner to the tensions present between the dynamics of
personal existence and the painful movement of civilizations. (…) In the last analy-
sis, to speak of one’s work is to speak as a politician” (Ricoeur 2001). Caring for
language, taking care of words, protests when language, in its capacity to describe
and accompany care, is damaged. This damage may be due to the functionality of
instrumental reason, of which the acronym has become the symptom, or to the gov-
ernance by numbers of the neoliberal project, extended to the totality of the life-
world. Care, on the contrary, sees itself as working to support authentic narratives
that resist being crushed by the ideology of totalizing grand narratives (the market,
capital, globalization, etc.). A pragmatics of care does not suggest that care is only
language, when it is essentially a practice. But it delimits another territory for care.
One can, in practice, take care of language and of the words of care, including in its
political reach.
To get a clearer idea of the nature of this pragmatics of care, we will focus prin-
cipally on four its main traits visible in the analyses of Carol Gilligan in her seminal
book, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development
(Gilligan 2008). Philosophies of care have concentrated in particular on: the power
of language, including language acts; the importance of narration for establishing
the truth; a criticism of domination through language, notably as regards the links
between care and gender, in the name of justice; and the importance of testimony, in
expectation of a truly ethical communication.
The first decision of the philosophy of care consists in a coup de force occurring
in and to language, by means of an act of language. When, in a Francophone con-
text, one performatively refuses to translate “care”, a word whose meaning has the
particularity of oscillating between the attentive disposition to care and the effective
dispensation of care, it is in order to regain the initiative as regards the appropriate-
ness of words to express human experiences. Not to translate care has philosophical
significance. The ambition of this coup de force is a renewal that is both semantic
and critical. The concept of care is absent from the Vocabulaire européen des
Philosophies. Dictionnaire des intraduisibles, which appeared in 2004, even if there
is no reason to suppose that there will never be an entry under this name. One does
find the word “Sorge” or “care/concern” (souci) in Heidegger’s sense. But this entry
sets up a gap between Sorge, which speaks of the being of Dasein, a being whose
own being is a question for it, and ordinary care with its ethical overtones as found
in such expressions as “being concerned about something” (se faire du souci), the
meaning of which is close to care (soin). Sorge has an existential and ontological
reach, whereas “being concerned about something” (se faire du souci) has an ethical
reach, located on an ontic level. The choice made has thus been not to translate the
concept of care in French, whereas, and this is significant, English-language phi-

losophers translate Sorge by “care”. It is not hard to see all the possible confusions
that may arise from this circulation of concepts.
So why not translate “care”? Barbara Cassin notes that “to speak of untranslata-
bles does not imply that the terms in question… are not or cannot be translated – the
untranslatable is rather that which one never ceases (not) translating. But that sig-
nals to us that their translation, within one language or into another, is problematic,
to the point where a neologism or the attribution of a new meaning to an old word
may arise” (Cassin 2004: XVII-XVIII). So let us ask the question: what is problem-
atic in the translation of the word “care”? How might one go about translating it?
The scope of these questions is both relative to linguistic use and metaphorical.
From a linguistic point of view, not to translate brings into question the linguistic
habits that express care. One thinks of the use of the concept of care (soin), solici-
tude, compassion, or charity, as used, respectively, to de-medicalize care (soin), to
de-aestheticize and instead politicize care, to disentangle care from its dominating
and unilateral dimension, or to secularize care, thus distancing it from the religious
convictions and the compassionate motives present in the Christian conception of
care. Not to translate care is to engage in a language game, in the Wittgensteinian
sense. To bring play into language awakens our capacities of expression by displac-
ing ordinary uses. What care does to and makes of language may be seen as an
attempt to renew a traditional theme by means of a new word.3
From a more metaphorical point of view, it is rather a question of asking whether
care may also translate a renewal of relational, social and political practices. I will
return to this theme when discussing the hermeneutics of care.
Three linguistic experiences make it possible to speak of a pragmatics of care:
Narration, in the Name of a True Rendering of the Practices of Care In opposi-
tion to the mathematization of the world, which reduces human problems to theo-
retical questions and to a universalized and rational formulation of moral dilemmas,
the philosophies of care present a conflict of interpretations which deconstructs offi-
cial and stereotyped narratives. Amy (or the voice of care) does not conceive a
dilemma as a mathematical problem but rather as a narration of human relations,
whose effects extend over time (Gilligan 2008: 53). Narration accompanies the
truths of existence in opposition to an instrumental rationality that, as Benjamin
remarked, is poor in stories. This capacity of language and literature to follow expe-
riences and situations of great frailty in their finest details demonstrates the extent
to which narrations possess a methodical and critical scope. In this way, it is a ques-
tion of “inventing a narrative art in order to transmit a conception of human life as
lived in a reflexive manner” (Gilligan 2013a, b: 38.). Narrations are methods for
speaking of care and making it come alive. This is because the literary image gives
life to, in its singularity and its contingency, the imagination of our fellows, a llowing
3
One may also briefly observe that, in French, the word “care” in the work of C. Gilligan was first
of all translated by “sollicitude” (solicitude). In the second edition, however, it was no longer
translated, with the word “care” being left in English.
14 J.-P. Pierron
us to attend to the singularity of the situation it makes visible. Narrative is elevated

to the rank of a counter-narrative to the domination of abstract, quantitative and
uninvolved accounts. By encouraging the critical scope of the literary imagination,
what is at stake is the “discovery of new words and the creation of new methods”, to
put it like Virginia Woolf (Gilligan 2013a, b: 51). Care is in debt here to psycho-
analysis, which uses speech in a restorative manner and which brings together that
which is dissociated in and by free association, thus giving speech its flesh.4
Critique, in the Name of Justice The word of care is a word of critique. It aims to
reflect situations in which care is carried out, but also prevented, forbidden, the
object of practices of domination. It denounces and disentangles itself from official
narratives, naturalizing interpretations, and linguistic domination, of which one
concern is the feminization of language. Care recognizes the critical power of lan-
guage. In this respect, it is close to the contemporary analyses of critical theory
occurring around a renewal of the concept of recognition and its emancipatory
scope. In 1995, in “Hearing the difference: theorizing connection” (Gilligan 1995:
122), Gilligan puts forward a distinction between a feminine ethics of care, which
makes use of the idea of the natural solicitude of women by associating self-sacrifice
and concern for others, and a feminist ethic of care, thought of as a critical approach
that brings to light the mechanisms which favour the “invisibilisation” of care. The
latter makes it possible to analyse the ways in which we lose the capacity to care for
the other when relations of mutual caring are damaged.
Testimony, the Expectation of a Truly Ethical Communication By speaking of

testimony, as engaged in the act of care, it is not a question of another coup de force.
It is rather a matter of pointing out the linguistic dimension of care spelled out
explicitly in the expression “a different voice”. This vocal dimension is of great
importance here. Through the embodied dimension associated with the voice, a
moral path is opened up which is distinct from that of the dominant theories. Gilligan
observes: I was struck by the disparity between the voice of theory and the voices
heard in the field. The word “voice” was an obvious choice to describe what I
heard. It evoked the following questions: Who speaks to whom? In what body?
Telling what stories about relationships? In what societal and cultural contexts?
Generally speaking, psychologists do not use the word « voice », but I found it pref-
erable to that of “self” – more precise, less abstract. Both body and language, the
voice also has the advantage of anchoring psychology in biology and culture with-
out being reducible to one or other (Gilligan 2013a, b: 39–40). Voice accentuates a
description of moral action in the context of relations of dependencies and indepen-
dencies. Its ambition is also to reconfigure autonomy as relational autonomy,
through voice’s embodied character. Testimony has, in this context, a dimension of
openness, that of bearing witness to the moral potential of relations of dependence.
4
Similarly, a dialogue may also be opened with Ricoeur’s concept of narrative identity, which
would be worth being made explicit.
It is instructive to consider here Carol Gilligan et le témoignage de la “voix différ-

ente” (Carrau and Le Goff 2010: 39), which discovers in the words of Amy not only
a documentary resource (testimony as document or information), but also the vocal
testament of a potentiality.
By linking care, language, and testimony, this pragmatics of care thus puts for-
ward a firm thesis: The ethics of care, inasmuch as it is grounded in the voice and in
the relation to the other, is an ethics of resistance, essential to the functioning of a
global society (Gilligan 2013a, b: 36).
1.4 The Hermeneutics of Care
A hermeneutics of care is a critical hermeneutics. It makes use of a hermeneutics of

suspicion, in many respects salutary, which it applies to all those social and political
practices which support the obstruction of care (in the organisation of work, through
inattention to environmental or animal care, etc.). The philosophy hermeneutics of
care sets out its stall both in opposition to rival interpretations of care, but also in
discussion with one of care’s older meanings, “love of one’s neighbour” (from
which it distances itself). It brings into play a conflict of interpretations that is lin-
guistic, but also practical in that it relates to the role that practices of care are recog-
nized to hold in the social world. This hermeneutics of care unfolds in three different
directions: alienation, truth, and history.
Alienation As a form of critique, care denounces alienating forms of solicitude
which obstruct emancipation and recognition. It calls for a re-reading, through the
prism of care, of our ways of building a common world, society, and culture with
others, whether human or non-human. That is the meaning of Tronto’s well-known
proposals for and definition of care. Care is «a species of activity that includes
everything we do to maintain, contain, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in
it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves, and our environ-
ment» (Tronto 2009: 143). It demystifies and denounces situations in which a cari-
cature of care supports domination. This arises either by a hypertrophy of
well-meaning care, which imprisons by means of an overprotective compassion and
paternalism, or by an atrophy of care in the provision of care services in a neoliberal
context of governmentality and biopolitics (Michel Foucault 2004), which leads to
the obstruction of care, reducing care to functional service-provision. It is worth
recalling in this context Spinoza’s lesson about that lack of lucidity which consists
in taking our own fantasies for good care: things are not desirable because they are
good; they are good because we desire them. The hermeneutics of care is suspicious
of the initial naivety of care which it abandons in favour of a mastered naivety. In
the case of the former, the self-evident character of care supports the dominance of
a discourse of compassion that subjugates more than it assists.
16 J.-P. Pierron
This hermeneutics of suspicion criticizes the confusion of solicitude with sacri-

fice, showing that to give oneself is not to sacrifice oneself: Feminist care ethics
resists the postulate that to act for others is to sacrifice oneself and that to act for
oneself is to act at the expense of others. It corrects a feminine ethics of care by
recognizing that disinterestedness, far from being the quintessence of goodness, is
in reality morally problematic in that it implies abdicating one’s voice and fleeing
one’s responsibilities and relations (Gilligan 2013a, b: 44). This criticism of a cari-
cature of charity, or of a paternalist compassion making use of care, opens up the
possibility of rethinking the concepts of caritas and agape in a secular age, opening
it up to a mastered naivety. To be in contact with the other in care is not to exercise
a hold over them. To suspect a substituting mode of solicitude (cf. Heidegger) of
being a highhanded charitable hold over someone invites one to consider the ethical
and political fecundity of a solicitude which looks ahead. To think through this
alternative would amount to unmasking the mechanisms of domination, whether
voluntary or involuntary – naturalisation of roles, masculine domination, organisa-
tional violence, etc. – at work in care. Doing so politicizes care, enabling it to over-
come that democratic optimism which doesn’t want to recognize that violence is
part of human history (Merleau-Ponty 1996: 124–125), that violence insinuates
itself into care relations, and, as such, comes under the sway of what Merleau-Ponty
called the “maleficence of living among many” (maléfice de la vie à plusieurs).
Truth The will to care is not the same thing as its truth, because this will may
betray itself through compassionate domination. The same goes for expertise in
care, which is certainly not the last word in care. What is true care if it is not verifi-
able, traceable, priceable? The true test of alterity lies in the attention that care
brings to care practices. Care works towards the recognition of a type of sentiment-
driven relational knowledge that would nowadays be classified as a specific form of
experiential knowledge. As a bodily knowledge, it calls on us to think about how
care givers engage their corporeity and their affectivities in the very heart of their
work, whether as carer, farmer, healer, etc. It is not a question here of an expert
knowledge that takes the form of a technical prescription, but of a relational compe-
tence drawing on an ethical disposition. The principal act of care, which consists of
a relational knowledge present in the present, is not amenable to scientific verifica-
tion; it is a truth of existence. This is the difference between Joan Tronto and Ulrich
Beck. Tronto challenges risk head-on when talking of care, rejecting a risk society
that only sees the issues it faces in the rational terms of the expert, thus encouraging
us to believe we exert control over our problems, and to see sentiment-based
approaches as secondary and rationally intractable. Care does not under-estimate
the pernicious effectiveness of governing the world by norms, protocols, and vari-
ous impoverishments of language. It invents, by means of the role recognized to
engaged practice in what the sociologist, Pascale Molinier, calls the “recesses of
care” (recoins du soin), a form of resistance to future-oriented expertise. It leaves
room for the poetical and theoretical dimension of care, which allows care-givers to
exercise their creative inventiveness. It reconfigures the idea of knowledge, distanc-
ing itself from the domination of disengaged scientific knowledge and the primacy
it accords to expertise in the analysis and the description of the experience of care.
To this end, it articulates these latter forms of knowledge with experiential knowl-
edge, that it to say, with the practice-based expertize present in the bodies of the
actors of care. Care requires us to re-think the role of truth in knowledge by recog-
nizing the rightful importance of “knowing-how-to-feel” (savoir-sentir) involved in
the fragility of care relations. This knowing-how-to-feel must simultaneously be
cultivated, supported, but also recognized as precarious, for it may disappear at any
moment. This experience of fragility is made present in the various activities that
make the world inhabitable, from environmental protection and medical care to col-
laborative endeavours. These latter activities are not only appreciated for their origi-
nality, but also for their origin in relational support. This sentiment-based expertise
will thus involve – and here it draws on the resources of the imagination – a herme-
neutics of truth that is critical of instrumental rationality. Care gives back to instru-
mental rationality, in addition to its cognitive dimension, its full depth as a truth of
human existence and presence in the world. A politics of care will thus work to
support the conditions that allow these sentiment-based experiences to occur and
endure, without being obstructed. A relation may thus be envisaged between a poli-
tics of care and the critical theory of Axel Honneth, in its engagement in the struggle
for recognition.
History There may be a hermeneutics of care that is compromised in its critical

function and does not see the profound significance of solicitude. This compro-
mised hermeneutics would defend a sort of paradoxical rupture in the filiation
between the problematics of care and the philosophical traditions which have under-
lined the anteriority of the other with respect to whatever project one may have for
them. But should care be reduced to our contemporary moment? Or should it be
thought of as something which calls on us to reconfigure our reading of the history
of philosophy, especially its concepts that relate to the concern one has for vulner-
abilities, whether human, non-human, or ecological? Care or concern is one of the
high places where a human attitude is made concrete. One may put forward a reduc-
tive interpretation of this attitude, one that would unmask in the practices of care
and in their theorizations insidious relations of power and forms of governmentality
deriving from bio-power. These would occur in educational care, parental care,
medical care, or environmental care and would all fall under the general regime of
biopolitics, in Foucault’s sense of the word. Their watchword is administration,
which assimilates care to a management of bodies and of emotions, and which
unfolds either as the surveillance of self or other.
But one can also propose a creative interpretation of care. Such an interpretation
would look for opportunities to explore new possibilities, renewing our reading of
history, as well as of our cultural memory. Since we have no idea what a society or
a culture without care would be like, care plays the role of an “interpretant”. It
reconfigures the concept of maieutic care, the evangelical agape which may be
involved in care, but also the phenomenological concept of attention, thus re-
awakening the unfulfilled promises of these intellectual traditions, and requiring us
18 J.-P. Pierron
to consider how they may be acculturated. This renewal of reading is necessary if

we are to resists the unidimensionalisation of the world characteristic of liberal
society, which no longer leaves time for the slow processes of care, of attention, and
of the imagination. The nature of care is such that it expresses resistance to the vio-
lence involved in the unidimensionalisation of the world! The roads to care are long,
but they are not necessarily straight.
Bibliography
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des intraduisibles. Paris: Le Robert/Le Seuil.
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Paris: Gallimard, Seuil.
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120–127.
———. 2008. Une voix différente, Pour une éthique du care. Trans. Annick Kwiatek. Paris:
Champs/Essais.
———. 2013a. Désenclaver le care, Préface. In Contre l’indifférence des privilégiés, A quoi sert le
care? ed. C. Gilligan et al. Paris: Payot.
———. 2013b. Résister à l’injustice. In Contre l’indifférence des privilégiés, A quoi sert le care?
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Chapter 2
From an Anthropology of Vulnerability
to the Ethics of Care
João Maria André
Abstract In this text I start from the distinction between dualistic anthropologies
and unitary and integral anthropologies to inscribe as the basis of the ethics of care
the main characteristics of an anthropology of vulnerability in its most expressive
dimensions. Care emerges in this context as the core concept from which the con-
struction of a new ethics can be outlined. Some of the origins of this new ethics are
traced (Carol Gilligan) and some of its characteristics are listed and articulated with
Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s ethics of capabilities, Corine Pelluchon’s eth-
ics of consideration, and H. Rosa’s philosophy of resonance.
Keywords Anthropology of vulnerability · Ethics of care · Philosophy of

resonance · Ethics of capabilities · Ethics of consideration
Relationship and interaction practices among human beings, both in their physical,
bodily dimensions and in their psychic, mental, or spiritual dimensions, are, to a
large extent, ultimately determined by the anthropological conceptions that support
them. In this respect, with some more or less significant variations, two major mod-
els have conditioned the study of both human beings and the actions performed with
them or upon them. The first of these models was inspired by Cartesian dualism,
notably as argued for in Meditations (Descartes 1996c) or Treaty on Man (Descartes
1996d), since both Treaty on the Passions of the Soul (Descartes 1996e) and the
author’s correspondence with princess Elisabeth (Descartes 1996a) seem to be the
result of a different approach to that dualism, as I have shown elsewhere (André
1999a, b), in line with other authors (for example, Kambouchner 1995). Underlying
this model is the substantial dualism between res cogitans and res extensa, as two
autonomous substances whose difficult intercommunication is ensured by the
J. M. André (*)
Departamento de História, Estudos Europeus, Arqueologia e Artes, Institute for Philosophical
Studies (IEF), Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: jmandre@sapo.pt

Switzerland AG 2021
20 J. M. André
mysterious pineal gland, which translates into a relationship of objectivation with

the human body, subject to a mechanistic paradigm that is built on sub specie machi-
nae thought (Baruzzi 1973) and whose consequences are the duality between reason
and affection (where passions are defined as passions of the soul and understood as
an action of the body upon the soul), which resulted in the configuration of a techni-
cal, instrumental reason. This reason accedes the body and objectifies it in order to
dominate it, as part of the identification between knowledge and power so effec-
tively summarised in Descartes’ project for the sciences, through which men might
become “like masters and possessors of nature” (Descartes 1996b). On the other
hand, the whole process, marked by doubt and by the cogito, privileges the indi-
vidual dimension of the human subject, especially when epistemologically defined
by the rules laid down in Discourse on Method (Descartes 1996b), even if, ethically
and morally, generosity is given pride of place among other virtues and passions
(Descartes 1996e).
The second model finds inspiration in Spinoza’s monism, with its unitarian and
integrative anthropology, which, by uniting what Descartes had separated, returns
the human being to Nature and, through Nature, to God, the body to the mind, the
mind to the body, by defining the mind (a concept which Spinoza prefers to that of
soul) as the idea of body, and by interpreting affections and emotions (actions and
passions) as a variation of the will to live, of conatus, of human life drive and acting
power, which is essentially defined as desire. Affection is thus reintegrated into
reason, which can be defined as emotional reason within a liberation/salvation pro-
cess that is fulfilled in the intellectual love of God, the full affirmation of human
acting power (Espinosa 1989). Pedro Laín Entralgo, the Spanish physician and phi-
losopher, builds upon Spinoza’s anthropological model, and, with a clear influence
from Zubiri (1984), develops one of the most successful integrated approaches to,
on the one hand, the issue of the human being in the cosmos and, on the other, the
issue of the bodily within the psychic and the psychic within the bodily. This
approach resulted in an Anthropology of Medicine which provided a basis for
patient care that radically differs from western technoscience with its objectifying
and instrumental nature (Pereira 2002: 15–21), overcoming the dualism inherent in
the Cartesian cogito through the dense and profound, albeit apparently simple
answer to the question “What am I?”: “I am a body that says I” (Laín Entralgo 2003:
321). This claim extends subjectivity to corporeality while corporeality becomes the
support of subjectivity itself, in a reunion of the self with the body that marked the
onward march of twentieth century thought.
Faced with these two anthropological models of western thought, when we ask
ourselves what it is that calls dualism into question both as concerns Descartes’
thought and the tradition it generated, the answer must lie in the pathic condition of
the human being, in other words, in his/her vulnerability. Vulnerability impacts on
human beings as a whole, both as regards their physical, bodily dimension and their
psychic and spiritual dimensions. In pain as well as in passions body and spirit are
not separate, they are one and the same. This is why one also loves with one’s body
and suffers with one’s mind, which points to the existence of a pathic reason rather
than a pure reason in human beings (André 1999a, b), where thought and affection
2 From an Anthropology of Vulnerability to the Ethics of Care 21
intersect in the body that we are and with which we tell ourselves in the vicissitudes
of our identity.
I therefore believe that it will be impossible to characterise the different ethics of
care which offer themselves as potential answers to mankind’s present situation and
the problems that it raises without starting from an anthropology of vulnerability in
its fundamental features. That is exactly what I shall seek to do next, inferring from
its different dimensions the main aspects that determine our responses to vulnerabil-
ity. I will then identify the emergence of care as the reference of an ethics that
responds to situations of vulnerability. And, thirdly, I will try to establish a conver-
gence between the ethics of care and other theoretical frameworks that are likely to
lead to similar responses concerning contemporary societal issues, such as
C. Pelluchon’s ethics of consideration, H. Rosa’s philosophy of resonance, and
A. Sen and M. Nussbaum’s politics of capabilities. I will then conclude with the
reintegration of the ethics of care, in some of its practical modalities, into the unitar-
ian and integrative anthropology discussed in this short introduction.
1. We are daily confronted with countless situations of vulnerability which show
how, paradoxically, although the development of science and technology has cre-
ated an opportunity for progress in the relationship between human beings and
nature and between human beings and other human beings, there has been no
decrease in the number of situations of exposure that generate inequalities, frustra-
tion, and powerlessness, affecting both the inner balance of human beings and the
balance between human beings and the things and people that surround them. The
following are some among the very many possible examples of vulnerable or vul-
nerabilised beings: people who are ill, victims of domestic violence, the homeless,
the unemployed, refugees, victims of bullying, people with a substance use disor-
der, children at risk in de-structured families, ethnic or religious minorities, elderly
people, victims of harassment at the workplace, victims of natural disasters (earth-
quakes, floods, storms, hurricanes), victims of war and hunger, prostitutes, orphans,
prisoners and ex-prisoners, and institutionalised children. And, to go beyond a mere
anthropocentric perspective, we must add that animals and the environment include
other examples of vulnerability in daily life.
It is therefore important to define vulnerability in order to move safely further
and identify the key features of its corresponding anthropology. It should be borne
in mind that the word vulnerability comes from the Latin vulnus/vulneris, meaning
wound, which marks the concept of vulnerability with the element of fragility inher-
ent in the situation of one who is or can be wounded and with the pain or suffering
necessarily associated with a wound. This pain may be understood in a physical,
biological sense or it may apply to the inner being. In addition, account should also
be taken of the fact that, although there are beings who are more vulnerable than
others, and therefore need special attention, there are also beings whose vulnerabil-
ity has been activated by concrete situations, turning them into vulnerabilised
beings, that is, stricken by the “wound”. In these cases, preventive action does not
suffice, and a restorative approach, so aptly expressed by the concept of healing, is
called for.
22 J. M. André
Having established this, a tentative definition of human vulnerability (a concept

that may be extended to other types of, non-human, vulnerability) would be that it
is the exposure of a human being to what is external to it, within a relationship
marked by asymmetry (Soulet 2014: 27–31). Accordingly, the basis of an anthro-
pology of vulnerability is, naturally, the concept of relationship, in other words, the
relational dimension of human beings both with the world and with themselves also
(in some cases, exposure and fragilisation stem from one’s ideas about oneself,
one’s traumas and ghosts, phantasies and inner complexes). However, it should be
stressed that, in consequence of the nature of the other pole, the asymmetry that
characterizes these relationships is extremely important: there are beings who enjoy
a position of power (they have the power to do, to be, to smile, to speak, to be happy)
and there are beings who find themselves in a situation where that power is debili-
tated, which means an absence of both equality and reciprocity. This asymmetrical
relation generates a relation of dependence. Therefore, vulnerability also expresses
an unfavorable relationship with the world or with one’s context, which means that
the ability of human beings to cope with the challenges posed by their social or
physical surroundings is threatened (Soulet 2014: 31–33). Hence the need to
respond to the issue of vulnerability from a dual perspective: on the one hand, from
an ethical perspective, which translates into the personal investment we make when
we relate to others; on the other hand, from a political perspective, which has do
with our relationship with the natural or the social context, notably as regards pos-
sible solutions to those asymmetries within the public space and the space of
citizenship.
After this introduction and theoretical framework, we can now move on to a
presentation of what I believe are some of the most significant traits that character-
ise an anthropology of vulnerability (André 2016: 74–82).
I will start by highlighting the fact that, in situations of vulnerability, the relation-
ship with the ‘you’, which is constitutive of the personal being (Buber 1954; Pereira
1986; Kather 2007: 67–95), threatens to collapse in all dimensions of human life,
and human existence loses its dialogical dimension, which is built through commu-
nication, where mind and body, language and bodily expression play a key role.
The second characteristic relates to the fact that vulnerability threatens the iden-
tity of human beings, that is, the construction of our selves through interaction with
others (identity is always dialogical identity: Taylor 1994: 34). A vulnerable being
is therefore always a being whose identity is in the brink of becoming fragmented
or of being dissolved. However, identity is also built within one’s relationship with
oneself, and therefore through one’s narrative of oneself (Ricoeur 1990: 137–198).
This means that when one no longer interacts with the other, one is bound to lose
one’s relationship with oneself. The vulnerability inherent in building one’s identity
involves both the ideas and images of the mind and the ideas and images of the
body: our identity also depends on the way how we recognise ourselves in the body
that we are among the bodies that are beside us, on how we map ourselves in our
corporeal interaction with the world, on which the emergence of our consciousness
and the construction of our subjectivity also depend (Damásio 2000).
Third, I must add that vulnerability threatens the management of the time of
existence. On the one hand, it unbalances our relationship with the past, which
either becomes a blurred shadow or expands so out of proportion that it becomes
impossible to discern the present and the future. This means that we are made to live
in this overly expanded past with no room left for an immersion into the present,
which transforms the anxiety of time into an anxiety of longing. And this is the
disease of longing: experiencing longing as pain only, pain that refuses to let itself
be contaminated with joy. On the other hand, vulnerability upsets the balance of
one’s relationship with the future because the anxiety of the present or the longing
for the past do block one’s ability to invent oneself and project oneself onto the
future. Besides being what they were in the past and what they are in the present,
human beings are also hope, i.e., what they hope to become in the future (Bloch
1959), and losing the future also means losing hope, which again corresponds to
being locked inside time. Loss of hope is also loss of the promise: man is act and
promise (actuality and potentiality, as Aristotle and the classics said and Ricoeur
noted – Ricoeur 2013: 350–353), and to be vulnerabilised is to be unable to promise
and to commit, unable to ride on the wings of the wind, promising to leave for other
parts and other journeys.
Fourth, vulnerability threatens one’s ability to feel with one’s body, with one’s
skin, through one’s gestures. Indeed, we learn about ourselves and express our-
selves from early infancy in the face and hands of others and we learn about the
others through our eyes and our hands, because the body that we are is, in the full
meaning of the word, a semantic vector which continuously perceives meaning and
produces meaning (Le Breton 2002: 3–6; Goffman 1993: 34–43). Furthermore, we
learn about ourselves as beings who love and beings who are loved in our bodies; it
is in the body that we learn about ourselves as men and women, and it is in the body
and with the body that we learn about pleasure and pain. And, more importantly, we
learn about ourselves in our skin, because, while being the border between our-
selves and the world, the skin is also the bridge that provides contact with it, Didier
Anzieu’s relational mediator (Anzieu 1995: 62). In addition to that, we learn about
ourselves through our major limit-experiences, which are also experiences of the
body and in the body (Andrieu 2002: 145–168): the experience of our own illness
and the illness of our loved ones is an experience of the body and with the body, and
the experience of the death of our loved ones is the experience of the proximity and
the distance of bodies: although they are their bodies, it is no longer them in the
body that they used to be. In point of fact, in addition to being a bridge that leads
you to life, the body is also a bridge that leads you to death: loneliness, for example,
may be the onset of a leave-taking process of the body that may culminate in sui-
cide, which is the ultimate leave-taking of the body. Inattention to or neglect of the
body is therefore the most visible sign of detachment vis-à-vis life. Thence the
importance of valorising one’s relationship with one’s body: therapies for loneliness
can easily be taken for somatic therapies whereby someone begins to reconcile with
himself/herself only when they are able to reconcile with their body. If suicide is the
culmination of a process of leave-taking on the part of the body, reunion with the
24 J. M. André
body may be the beginning of a new life process for those who are taking leave of
their body.
In the fifth place, we must acknowledge the fact that vulnerability is intensified
by the loss of voice and speech: human existence first projects itself onto others
through the voice and through speech within the symbolic field of language. As
sounds issued by the body and received by the body, voice and speech are an inte-
gral part of the body which the human being is. But they also are the possibility of
the inscription of the symbolic, the opening up of the space of meaning and the
itinerary along its paths and its clearings. Being deprived of voice and speech
amounts to being deprived of oneself and of one’s ability to act, that is, existing in a
presence-absence mode (Le Blanc 2007: 233). Therefore, giving voice to those who
are in danger of losing it is, first and foremost, to be able to listen to them, to stimu-
late the event of dialogue, to let others speak, either slowly or in their fast-paced
way, tripping over the words and falling upon them, but always rising up again,
through speech. On the other hand, words respond to words, for the presence of the
body in words is also an intense presence: it does not suffice to let speak or to speak
in order to break the loneliness, but one needs to speak with the weight of words
(words too have weight) and listen to their weight, speak with the warmth of words
(words too become warm) and listen to their warmth, to discover the intimacy of
voice (the voice can reach places that are unreachable to the eye: one’s innermost
core), to feel the complicity of words and to strip words of the noise that leaves no
room for thought, for serene reception, for unravelling the choked voice of the other
amidst the sobs of their vulnerability.
For all the reasons invoked, we must be aware of the fact that in the perception
of its condition, be it a condition of illness or any other vulnerable condition, the
feeling of vulnerability has a biographical-existential dimension beyond its physical
dimension, and therefore, the characteristics identified in the pathic by Viktor von
Weizsäcker can be extended to vulnerable or vulnerabilised beings (Von Weizsäcker
1951: 274–306): the feeling of living a thwarted life, loss of the habitual reference
frameworks, loss of self-control, deep isolation, dependence on others, fear of
imminent death, change in one’s intimate awareness of time. This last aspect is par-
ticularly important because, as was mentioned above, a vulnerable being loses her/
his ability both to retain time and to project herself/himself in time (Benaroyo 2010:
26–27), that is, the past and the future are closed off and the normal exercise of
memory and imagination is inhibited.
In line with this anthropology of vulnerability three dimensions may be identi-
fied in vulnerability, giving rise to three different – albeit coordinatable – types of
responses within a therapeutic framework that involves a new response ethos con-
cerning vulnerable or vulnerabilised beings.
First and foremost, vulnerability has a biological dimension: it can be inherent to
a specific situation concerning the vulnerable person’s body or it can impact on his/
her biological processes. Vulnerability is thus anchored in our corporeality, the fact
that we are flesh in the world. This biological dimension is the basis on which the
other two dimensions stand:
–– a human existential dimension marked by the awareness of the vulnerable per-

son’s finitude, which defines his/her horizon of existence, the meaning of this
existence, and its gaps and fissures;
–– a social dimension, related to the social framework that intensifies it, or that
intensifies the situation of vulnerability, causing the disruption of one’s
relationship to others to trigger a chain of effects concerning the sociability of the
human being who experiences it.
These two dimensions combine and overlap in the social-existential duality
where “vulnerability refers exactly to the unique social and political composition of
both a human (indeed, an existential) issue and a social issue which have been
reevaluated” (Martucelli 2014: 43).
From these dimensions there emerges a triple axis that must determine interven-
tion in situations of vulnerability: first, this axis prescribes attention to others, which
is reflected in the concept of care; second, it shifts the focus to the vulnerable beings’
ability to act, their preservation and leveraging, or empowerment (which is about
their interiority as much as their corporeality); and thirdly, it also shifts towards
capacity for autonomy, or agency, that is, the ability to act autonomously, freely,
which includes regaining one’s freedom (Châtel 2014: 62–73).
2. One becomes aware of how difficult it is for traditional ethics to respond to the
fragilities inherent in human beings understood as vulnerable beings or experienc-
ing the life of a vulnerabilised being when, in order to define the most adequate
ethics, one starts from the anthropological bases provided by an anthropology of
vulnerability.
In the first place, eudemonistic ethics do not provide the necessary response
because they are based on the concept of happiness, and vulnerability is, first and
foremost, a threat to happiness, or happiness endangered. Secondly, neither are
purely deontological ethics, the ethics of duty, able to respond adequately: they are
based only on intention or good will, for attention to the vulnerable, and to the most
vulnerable among those who are vulnerable, requires that we cross the merely for-
mal boundaries of professional duty. On the other hand, and thirdly, neither can
purely teleological approaches, driven only by abstract aims and values such as
good without considering the specific, concrete situations in which human beings
live, provide an adequate response to the needs of vulnerable people, since there is
no such thing as abstract vulnerability – vulnerability is necessarily concrete and it
varies with each different case. In the fourth place, it should be noted that ethics
which are exclusively consequentialist, dedicated to the happiness of the highest
number of people and to quantifying income and expenditure, gains and losses,
majorities and minorities, are also unequipped to provide an adequate response to
situations of vulnerability. In the fifth place, notwithstanding the crucial importance
of the concept of justice, the ethics of justice appear to be insufficient, since their
horizon is exclusively universalistic, supposedly ensuring impartiality and equality.
For the ethics of justice, all human beings are identical, while the principle of vul-
nerability shows that all human beings are different.
26 J. M. André
As argued by Fabienne Brugère, “human beings are not just subjects of rights;
they are also subjects of needs whose life potency development is hampered”
(Brugère 2010: 74). This explains the gradual emergence, from different origins and
traditions, of an ethical position that is focused on care and is able to overcome
some of the ethical constraints mentioned above, even those of bioethics, which it
somehow precedes and complements.
Back in the 1980s, Carol Gilligan was the first to give a voice to care and the
ethics of care, through maybe from an excessively essentialist standpoint as a femi-
nist, as part of her research on the differences in the structuring of moral judgement
in boys and girls (Gilligan 1982); later, authors like Joan Tronto defined and
expanded the scope and characteristics of this ethics of care in a more comprehen-
sive manner (Tronto 2009); Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, the Portuguese author,
also helped define the field (Pintasilgo 2012). Philosophically, the ethics of care
approach may be said to be grounded in Chapter 6 of the first section of Being and
Time, Part I (Heidegger 2006: 180–230), where Heidegger defines care as the being
of Dasein and draws on Hyginus’ Fable 220 (in which Care moulds man out of clay,
Jove grants it spirit, and Earth gives him body, with Care being assigned the task of
keeping him alive). Other foundations can also be found both in Levinas’ Ontology
and Ethics of being as goodness (Levinas 1990: 340–343) or in the way how Paul
Ricoeur elaborates on the nature of solicitude in Soi-même comme un autre (Ricoeur
1990: 254–264).
Let me start with Joan Tronto and Berenice Fischer’s (1991: 40) definition of
care: “On the most general level, we suggest caring be viewed as a species activity
that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so
that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves,
and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-
sustaining web.” Note how care involves others, the environment and everything
that has to do with life, a good life, and how it is inscribed in the deepest levels of
our corporeality.
Starting from this definition, I would say that an ethics which is built around care
is complementary to an ethics of justice, although it attains such dimensions as the
latter is unable to even consider in their radical nature. The reason for this is that the
former ethics starts from practice and from concrete situations rather than abstract
concepts and theoretical principles of equality, and that it takes vulnerability as its
reference, which ultimately calls into question universality and equality. Vulnerability
shows that all beings are different and that the most vulnerable ones bear the mark
of radical difference; therefore, it does not suffice to invoke all that human beings
have a fair right to; rather, it must be emphasized that, as vulnerable beings, they
should in practice be entitled to many more rights than just the rights held by the
less vulnerable. The ethics of care thus calls for a new imperative: “To be a morally
good person requires, among other things, that the person strives to meet the
demands of caring that present themselves in his or her life.” (Tronto 1993: 126).
Joan Tronto proposes four key elements and phases in this ethics of care (Tronto
2009: 173–183): first, attentiveness (caring about); second, responsibility, which
corresponds to the ability of taking care of what is vulnerable, of being responsible
for it (taking care of); third, competence, in order to respond adequately to the need
for care, meeting the other’s need by providing the necessary care (caregiving);
fourth, responsiveness of the care receiver (care-receiving). The development of
these elements allows us to see how this ethics of care adequately responds to an
anthropology of vulnerability, while also considering the duties and competences
that can be developed by a deontological ethics as well as the imperative of justice
applied here in its concreteness rather than just viewed in its universality.
3. In many aspects and in many of their elements other ethics seem to con-
verge with the ethics of care as characterised above: the ethics of consideration,
recently formulated by Corine Pelluchon (2018), the philosophy of resonance, also
recently developed by Hartmut Rosa (2018a, b), and the ethics and politics of capa-
bilities, to which Martha Nussbaum (2012), engaging in dialogue with Amartya
Sen, has dedicated her attention.
3.1. In her Ethique de la considération, Corine Pelluchon begins by noting the
etymology of consideration: cum-sidus (sideris), which signifies an encounter with
a constellation of stars; while stella or astrum mean an isolated star, sidus means a
constellation. Now, this encounter with a constellation of stars, which requires
attention as a starting point, is complemented with wonder and appreciation of its
structure, order, beauty, and specificity.
In an updated reading of Bernard of Clairvaux’s thoughts on the subject (2010),
consideration may be defined as the ability to open oneself to the other and letting
oneself be touched by them, acknowledging their alterity, their difference, and their
dignity, and understanding one’s relationship with them, with the world, and with
life as a component of humanity. Thus, the dynamics of consideration include: (1st)
an hetero-referenced movement that de-centers us from the idea of the absolute
nature of our presence to ourselves; (2nd) a self-oriented movement of transforma-
tion of our inner subjectivity that calls for an awareness of personal finitude and the
definition of the self by means of its relationships rather than by its closure; and
(3rd) going beyond a mere theoretical or spiritual dimension in defining human
beings by including subjectivity in corporeality with the whole dimension of vul-
nerability that corporeality entails.
In line with Bernard of Clairvaux’s approach, consideration rests upon the virtue
of humility, which, in its etymology (humus), suggests communion with the earth of
those who see themselves as humble, and forms the basis not only of consideration
but of all virtues: it entails awareness of our finitude as well as of the finitude of
others and the world, and involves recognising the relational nature of all existence.
It possesses existential relevance, both theoretical and practica.
According to Pelluchon, the ethics of consideration is in the tradition of the dif-
ferent ethics of virtues (Pelluchon 2018: 63), not only those inspired by Plato or
Aristotle but also Cartesian and Spinozian ethics (Pelluchon 2018: 65–92).
Consideration, the author believes, can therefore be articulated with magnanimity,
generosity, and admiration as discussed by Descartes in his treatise Passions of the
Soul, as well as with Spinoza’s amor dei and the concept of the global joy of the
body and the soul (hilaritas) which it provides.
28 J. M. André
Revisiting a concept that I developed some years ago (André 1999a, b), it can be
argued that the ethics of consideration involves activating pathic reason, that is,
activating thinking that is not devoid of affection and is based on the experience and
awareness of our own vulnerability as a necessary step towards experiencing and
gaining awareness of other people’s vulnerability (“conceiving of subjectivity as
sensitiveness is to conceive of it as vulnerability” – Pelluchon 2018: 117) and con-
sequently, as a necessary step towards being open to others as the realm that tran-
scends us and requires from us a de-centering movement.
Hence, the path towards an ethics of consideration is transdescendence, a con-
cept which Pelluchon uses in place of transcendence (Pelluchon 2018: 99–103):
while transcendence leads to an ascending movement towards what is higher, the
concept of transdescendence, based on an experience of the incommensurable (not
necessarily theological or religious), leads us from this experience to a descent into
the common world and into nature, of which we form part, whether it be the world
of the other human beings, the world of animals and other living beings, or the
world of the planet wherein we move. Thus is care for oneself transformed into care
for others, based on the notion that “souffrir est un s’offrir” (“to suffer is to give
yourself” – Pelluchon 2018: 117).
The ethics of consideration thus postulates the practice of responsibility towards
others and towards life. However, since this responsibility is based on humility and
vulnerability, it is capable of resisting the temptation of domination through its ser-
vice dimension. This means that it does not instrumentalise others but is rather
practiced within a context of pity and empathy (Pelluchon 2018: 121–132).
The central category of the ethics of consideration, now seen from a political
standpoint is, in the wake of Hannah Arendt, that of natality, “translating both the
symbolic and political meaning of birth, which, given the links that connect us to
other generations and to our common world, is the scheme of the human condition”
(Pelluchon 2018: 142). Caring for newborns is therefore the paradigm of the ethics
of consideration (Pelluchon 2018: 148), and while it emphasizes both that which,
upon birth, emerges from the past and from the others among whom newborns
appear (to be inscribed in the realm of intersubjectivity), on the other hand it points
at the new that arises with newborns, at the unpredictability of what they mean, at
the promises which they carry and of which we become witnesses, keepers, and
thus, guarantors of the hope that they symbolize, the renovation of the world that
they herald, and the plural riches that they embody. Let me quote Corine Pelluchon
on birth and the newborn as key categories of the ethics of consideration: “We are
moved by this newborn who does not know the world into which he or she was born
and the world which does not yet know him or her, and we measure the indetermi-
nacy and the unpredictability that reside in the depths of each human being and also
restrict their freedom perceived as the power to take action and break with the past.
Natality means that all human beings, as they are born, are not only capable of
accomplishing new actions but also that they must do it. Newborns refer each one
of us to the fact that we must embrace our freedom, take action, and commit in the
world, instead of closing ourselves inside stereotyped behaviours” (Pelluchon 2018:
143). The contemplation of a newborn calls for the necessary consideration and care
to ensure that he or she is able to develop all of his/her potentialities. This nuclear
philosophical perspective on the newborn can be compared to the “fenomenologia
natalícia” (natal phenomenology) or “filosofia do berço” (cradle philosophy) dis-
cussed in one of Miguel Baptista Pereira’s later texts, inspired by Odo Marquard’s
claim that “Zukunft braucht Herkunft” (the future needs an origin) (Marquard
2015). In this regard, and in response to predatory globalization, Miguel Baptista
Pereira wrote: “Our being, other people’s being, and the being of the world manifest
themselves through the language that comes from the cradle, and therefore, this
linguistically mediated natal phenomenology is already an initial ontology that
must be developed in the history of each human being as being-in-the-world. To
educate oneself is to cultivate natal possibilities, to grow within this hopeful aware-
ness of reality towards a world based on solidarity, which urgently needs to come to
fruition.” (Pereira 2003: 37). According to Simone Weil (1966: 216), caring for
newborns calls for the practice of attentiveness as a simultaneously intellectual and
moral disposition which expresses availability to the world and to others, and thus
corresponds morally to humility and allows for the practice of transdescendence as
a way of accomplishing consideration and valorizing parrhesia (Pelluchon 2018:
212–214), that is, the art of free conversation with others as an ethics of the word
which simultaneously involves an ethics of listening.
A last note on consideration: besides being realised as an ethics, consideration is
also, and simultaneously, realised as an aesthetics (Pelluchon 2018: 223–242).
Drawing inspiration from Kant, this aesthetics of consideration is based on the free
play between understanding and sensibility, thus allowing for the intersection
between aesthetic judgement and moral judgement by means of the intersection
between the beautiful and the good, with repercussions on environmental ethics,
since the ethics and the aesthetics of consideration are prolonged into an ethics and
an aesthetics of the earth (Pelluchon 2018: 242–248), where self-appreciation is
realised as appreciation of the world and self-care is realised as care for the world.
To conclude these brief notes on the reinterpretation of the ethics of care from the
vantage point of an ethics of consideration, I would like to highlight the way how
this ethics is formed on the basis of a constellation of virtues, and, as Corine
Pelluchon argues, how it ultimately realises itself as a cartography: “it offers some
points of reference, indicating how we can position ourselves along a trajectory that
leads, if not to a good, happy life, at least to a degree of accomplishment and to
emancipation without which we would not be able to promote a fairer model of
development both for humans and non-humans, and re-orient economy” (Pelluchon
2018: 256).
3.2. The concept of resonance can also be articulated with the concerns and
conceptual model pertaining to the notions of care and consideration. This concept
was recently proposed by Hartmut Rosa, the Frankfurt School German philosopher
and sociologist, as a response to our late modernity.
According to the author, late modernity is characterized by the concept of accel-
eration, which expresses the appeal of growth and innovation (Rosa 2013). The
passion, or compulsion, for acceleration is a passion for the leap forward in order to
30 J. M. André
avoid falling, the continuous need for self-overcoming, the vertigo of time, without
this necessarily involving growth in the more traditional sense of the word, that is,
without it involving the notion of progress as a movement toward betterment. On
the other hand, the dynamic balance inherent in acceleration also triggers a crisis in
relationships: in our relationship with nature, as shown by the ecological crisis; in
our relationship with ourselves, as demonstrated by the explosion in the consump-
tion of psychotropic substances; and our relationship with others, as illustrated by
the difficulty we experience in assimilating beings and the world and in connecting
to them. Acceleration may be said to intensify the processes of psychological,
social, and natural alienation (Rosa 2014, 2018a: 200–211), to use Marx’s category.
However, all this happens within an environment dominated by visuality: vision is
what rules our lives and our contact with others, a phenomenon which becomes
obvious when we realise how undeniably important screens are in contemporary
society.
The antidote or the remedy for this alienating acceleration is not simply returning
to a slower pace, as if speed were the cause of all problems, but rather developing
the ability to resonate with the world, with time, with life, with others, and with
nature – using this music metaphor to express the leap that can be taken towards a
balanced, harmonious life. The concept of resonance, which etymologically refers
to an acoustic phenomenon, thus translates the inseparability between the I and the
world, the “original knot” where the possibility of a conversation and a debate of
questions and answers in a continuous dialogue emerges. As Hartmut Rosa puts it,
when I resonate, “I speak to the world and it responds to me” (Rosa 2018b).
Resonance thus expresses the ability to resonate with what surrounds us objectively,
feeling its repercussion on ourselves, hearing its many voices, and establishing both
a spiritual and a bodily relationship, which is also simultaneously subjective and
objective, with the world of others. In a literal, i.e., physical-acoustical sense, “the
concept of resonance describes a specific relationship between two bodies in which
the vibration of one of them generates the other’s ‘own activity’ (or own vibration)
[…] resonance is produced only when the vibration of a body produces the other
body’s own frequency.” (Rosa 2018a: 189). Transposing this notion into the realm
of psycho-social relationships, resonance may be said to be a strictly relational
notion which “describes a mode of being-in-the-world, that is, a specific type of
relationship between the subject and the world (on the basis of which they both take
shape). The key idea is that “when situated in a medium which is capable of vibrat-
ing (a resonance space), the two entities that form the relationship touch each other
in such a way as to emerge as two mutually responsive entities although speaking in
their own voices; in other words, two entities that resonate in mutual feedback”
(Rosa 2018a: 191).
According to Rosa, four criteria define the presence of resonance (Rosa 2018b:
48): first, affection, meaning the movement of being affected by an external stimu-
lus, be it a landscape, a speech, a piece of music, a gesture, a look; second, self-
efficacy, which is the dynamics of responding to affection: two people who resonate
communicate within a dynamics that was not previously planned, a dynamics gen-
erated by the very movement of affection and the successive ramifications into
which it unfolds; third, transformation, which translates the somewhat autopoietic

character of resonance: when I am ‘in resonance’ with someone else I let myself be
transformed by this relationship, and the new may emerge in resonant relational
states; fourth, unavailability, or elusiveness, in the sense that it is impossible to pre-
plan resonance: it cannot be predicted, controlled or ordered by previous decision,
being kairological in its emergence and free in its development.
In order to provide a clearer understanding of the ways how resonance may
occur, to those four criteria Hartmut Rosa adds a reference to the axes of resonance,
among which he highlights the following three: first, horizontal axes of resonance
(Rosa 2018a: 231–256), which involve encountering alterity and thus connect us
with, and relate us to, other human beings, as is the case of the axis of resonance that
connects an embryo and its mother, that should connect relatives within a family,
and politicians with those whom they represent (making resonance a promise of
democracy); second, vertical axes of resonance (Rosa 2018a: 295–349), present in
a reencounter with transcendent grandeur or beauty in a supernatural entity or in the
world itself, which provides an experience of incommensurability on which the eth-
ics of consideration also rests, and prevents vertical resonance from being restricted
to the realm of religious experience; third, diagonal axes of resonance (Rosa 2018a:
257–294), which presuppose the existence of a material object upon which one acts,
thus allowing for the establishment of a mediated resonance with other poles or
other realities. Art is the ultimate example of resonance along diagonal axes, as in
painting, sculpture, crafts; other spheres of diagonal resonance are education, labor,
sports, or consumption.
To understand the existential impact of resonance we must also consider the dif-
ferent contexts in which it may occur. It should be noted that resonance is not a mere
response to acceleration as when we take a break in our daily life, i.e., in leisure, the
time we dedicate to our hobbies, a suspension of time and normal life; it does occur
at the heart of our everyday life and its relationships, that is, in our jobs and in our
families, as well as in our permanent relationship with our own selves. Based on
this, resonance can generate an ethics that intersects with the ethics of consideration
and the ethics of care: resonance can be said to occur between teachers and their
students, between doctors or nurses and their patients, between spouses or friends,
between journalists and their readers, between employees and clients, between
social workers and immigrants or refugees, between employers or leaders of profes-
sional teams and their collaborators, etc. Here the concept of resonance can have
profound political and economic implications and eventually lead to ambitious
reforms concerning ways of life and of being in the world, in life, in economy, in
companies, in politics, and in the workplace.
We must also bear in mind that, although new in its literal formulation, this con-
cept of resonance is not new to its conceptual environment: it can be associated with
Lao-Tzu’s concept of harmony with the whole, with Aristotle’s concept of friend-
ship, with the Spinozian concept of love, with the concept of nature as found in
some of Rousseau’s writings, with the Marxist concept of de-alienated labor, with
Martin Buber’s concept of relationship or with Merleau-Ponty’s concept of
32 J. M. André
entrelacs, to mention but a few outstanding examples attesting to the articulation of

resonance with the tradition here implied (Duru 2018: 52–55).
3.3. Developed as an ethics of empowerment, Martha Nussbaum’s thoughts on
capabilities, in dialogue with Amartya Sen, can be viewed as complementary to the
ethics of care from both an ethical and a political standpoint. Indeed, in her book on
capabilities, published in 2011, the North-American philosopher characterizes the
capabilities approach as a more adequate perspective to respond to the issues raised
by the existence of excluded people.
Insofar as it approaches each person as an end, this capabilities-based (ethical
and political) perspective focuses on choice or freedom, is resolutely pluralistic as
regards value, and aims to correct injustices and social inequalities, an urgent task
for governments and public policy decision-makers. As an answer to the question
“what is each person able to do and to be?”, Nussbaum defines capabilities as “a set
of (usually interrelated) opportunities to choose and to act” (Nussbaum 2012:
3/2011: 21). They can be viewed as forms of freedom to attain different forms of
accomplishment, resulting from the combination of personal abilities and a politi-
cal, social, and economic environment that allows them to be achieved. Thus, the
anthropological basis for an ethics and a politics of capabilities is the conception of
human existence as a project and as relationship, in other words, as power or pos-
sibility, and as interaction. Based on this definition, Nussbaum introduces a distinc-
tion between internal capabilities (inherent in each person and her or his own
structure) and combined capabilities (stemming from the social, political, and eco-
nomic conditions for their realisation) which becomes a key element in the charac-
terisation of a politics of capabilities (Nussbaum 2012: 40–42/2011:20–23).
Nussbaum’s list of what she calls central capabilities (Nussbaum 2012:
55–57/2011:33–34) must also be mentioned here: life, bodily health and bodily
integrity, the senses, imagination and thoughts, emotions, practical reason, affilia-
tion, relating to other species and the natural world, play, and participating in the
construction of one’s environment, both political and material.
However, following my previous thoughts and the way I have characterised the
anthropology of vulnerability, to Nussbaum’s central capabilities I would add voice
and speech. Losing one’s voice, as Guillaume le Blanc claims, “cannot but produce
an extinction of the variations of self and of one’s own ability to act” (Le Blanc
2007: 233). An ethics and a politics of capabilities should concern itself with giving
a voice and an opportunity to speak to those who have been deprived of it, since
restoring his or her voice to somebody is to give them back their face, which
becomes invisible if the voice itself cannot be heard (Le Blanc 2007: 233). An ethics
of care naturally includes a clinic of the voice that empowers precarious people who
have lost their voice or whose voice has gradually been broken.
As Guillaume le Blanc argues, “Restoring the life forces shattered by precarious-
ness (…) thereby contributing to the emergence of a new psychic scene by way of a
restoration of the connection between a recitation of life and the arts of action, voice
and creative action, that is the major role of the clinic which, by de-conditioning the
word universe of people who live a precarious life, can contribute to reopen the firm
thread that re-connects the recitation of life to the arts of action, voice and creative
action” (Le Blanc 2007: 242–243).
Being able to use one’s voice and one’s words is associated with the ability to
listen: listening allows vulnerable beings or beings who are ill to produce a herme-
neutics of themselves (Pierron 2014:143–152) and, by doing it, to regain their abil-
ity to assert themselves. But listening is not only listening to voices or to words: it
is also listening to bodies and to gestures (Benaroyo 2010: 29). Listening enables
one to set up a social space that is shared within a relationship of care (Benaroyo
2010: 39). In the act of listening there erupts the narration that produces one’s per-
sonal “theatre of history” with its disruptions, its anticipations of the future, and the
dynamics of re-empowerment of vulnerabilised people.
Intersecting the perspective of an ethics of care with that of an ethics and politics
of capabilities within a critical theory of care, a vulnerable or a vulnerabilised per-
son is someone who is excluded from the range of capabilities that might make his/
her existence a genuine existence. Naturally, capability enhancement is articulated
with the openness of the future, while vulnerability characterises processes that
seem to bring time to a standstill, eliminating the future and imprisoning people in
the present or in the past. A politics of care (Tronto 2009: 206–232) involves rethink-
ing the very idea of democracy, which should lead to a sensitive democracy (Brugère
2014: 83–122), a democracy of care, or a caring democracy (which includes all
through care and does not marginalise those who dedicate themselves to care).
Indeed, as Brugère argues, “redefining care is denouncing a process of marginalisa-
tion of its activities” (Brugère 2010: 82). An ethics and a politics of care also oppose
a neoliberal mercantile ethics that reduces the calculation of an action to gains
and losses.
4. It is now possible to go back to our starting point and reconfirm the full inclu-
sion of the ethics of care within the scope of a non-dualistic, non-objectifying
anthropology which, given the concrete practices through which it comes to frui-
tion, can be characterised as unitarian and integrative.
In order to do that, I would like to start by stressing the profound difference that
exists between “dispensing care”, in the sense of objectifying care, and “caring for
someone” or “taking care of someone” as an intersubjective experience. In the con-
text of a dualistic anthropology, of a technical rationality, and of a mechanistic con-
ception of the body, dispensing care is, in this sense, an attitude that ultimately takes
the form of so-called care technologies. These technologies, which rest on the secu-
larisation of care inherent in the process of secularisation of modern societies, tend
to forget the non-technical dimensions of care (it is important to remember that the
Latin word for health also means salvation: salus and salvare mean both to heal, or
to cure, and to redeem, and, as Pierron argues, “by separating salvation from health,
our secularised modernity creates a positive, or even positivistic conception of care”
(Pierron 2014: 53). On the other hand, “caring for someone” or “taking care of
someone”, as defined above, only make sense within the framework of a unitarian
anthropology for which more than possessing a body, a person is also a body, cor-
poreality being an expressive dimension of his/her being as a human being, since,
34 J. M. André
more than a mere object, the body is also a subject. In view of this, “therapeutic
success must not blind us to the intersubjective dimension” (Pierron 2014: 20),
which means that the act of caring is a journey or a process whereby the other is
acknowledged as a full subject (Pierron 2014: 21–31).
At this stage, I would like to mention a number of tensions and/or distinctions in
the ambit of a philosophy of care, which must not be neglected if we wish to avoid
lapsing into a more objectifying, less intersubjective anthropology. First, there
exists a tension between the professionalization of care and its ethicisation. The
problem is that, although care requires specific skills that caregivers must possess
and develop, this pressure for professionalisation may carry the risk of technicising
care and reducing the other from a subject of care to a mere object of care. We must
be clear about what exactly can be professionalised in care, to avoid the risk of it
generating an almost unconscious process of instrumentalisation (Pierron 2014:
32). This converges with a second tension, between a merely therapeutic approach
and an anthropological approach to others in their vulnerability, which in turn pro-
duces a tension between the technical-therapeutic dimension of care and its anthro-
pological and existential dimensions. And, however subtle this distinction may
appear to be, it is also important to distinguish between the “sick body” and the
“body of the sick person” and establish their complementarity. The “sick body”
seems to call for a technical, mechanistic approach to the body while the body of the
sick person calls for an approach which has much more to do with intersubjective
communication (Pierron 2014: 117). And, lastly, account must also be taken of the
distinction between pain and suffering. In Pierron’s words, “while pain is the
psycho-physiological fact of change in bodily integrity, suffering is the resonance of
that fact on a consciousness that feels diminished by losing its self-esteem” (Pierron
2014: 132–133) and therefore, “those who suffer experience the loss of their inner
unity, bearing an invasion of the organic world that renders them dependent, ampu-
tated from the company of men, with the impression of having been abandoned”
(Pierron 2014: 136). Suffering, the deep experience of a body rendered vulnerable,
is in itself the denial of a dualistic conception of the human being and the expressive
affirmation of a unitarian, integrative anthropology.
From this unitarian, integrative anthropology of vulnerability, we may now,
under the direction of Jean-Philippe Pierron (2014: 162–167), discuss the rituals of
a “phenomenology” and a “relational liturgy of accompaniment” (in the sense of
keeping someone company). The author elaborates on the difference between
“being near someone” and “being present” or being there for someone, and lists the
following “gestures” included in such a liturgy: first, the act of coming in, which,
beyond its literal meaning, ultimately conveys the meaning of entering the other’s
space and time, that is, entering his/her world and dwell there; second, the act of
sitting down, which, while it eliminates the asymmetrical position typical of prac-
tices of domination, expresses one’s will to live in the other and stay on in his/her
presence; third, the act of touching and accepting to be touched, as a sign of inti-
mate, sensitive approximation, as illustrated by the gesture of holding someone’s
hand (which here is neither the gesture of a specialist nor manipulative infantilisa-
tion), thus redeeming the sense of touch from the marginal place to which western
philosophy has relegated it (Maurete 2017); fourth, to speak and to be silent, even
when being silent creates a seemingly void space, because such a space can be a
space for shared breathing, a qualified silence that becomes a performative act. In
short, as the author argues, “entering, sitting, touching, and speaking/being silent
are the elements of a relational liturgy. In their simplicity, they enable us to “come
face to face”. They allow us to enter the mystery of the other, meeting them in the
same way as they offer themselves: naked and fragile” (Pierron 2014: 167).
In convergence with this relational liturgy are the three stages of the therapeutic
relationship identified by Viktor von Gebsattel (1954) and later taken up by Lazare
Benaroyo (2010: 31): first, the elementary sympathetic stage (pathic rationality),
where distress is perceived and anxiety is listened to, which involves promoting and
listening to a hermeneutics of the self in the other through an articulation of body
and personal story (which transforms the physical body into somebody’s own body
within a meaning-building process) (Draperi 2010: 46); second, the scientific action
stage, which includes diagnosis, therapy, and prognosis (operative rationality); and
third, the personalised therapeutic action stage (the rationality of solicitude), where
medical care is articulated with existential and re-enabling care. In each of these
three stages an ethical dimension is realised: an ethics of the promise of assistance
in the first, a restorative ethics in the second, and an ethics of responsibility in the
third (Benaroyo 2010: 31–32).
Let us now end this journey, which started with an anthropology of vulnerability
and included different expressions of the ethics of care, by noting some aspects that
highlight and summarize its most important steps. In view of the growing number
of situations of vulnerability, vulnerability becomes the key concept of a philo-
sophical anthropology for the present times re-dimensioned within a new context
where dualisms opposing body and soul, thought and affection, and humanity and
nature are overcome. This anthropology of vulnerability calls for an ethics of care
as the most adequate response to the challenges which it poses; on the other hand,
this ethics of care, whose expression and resonances in western thought have been
quite significant, exists in, and converges with, the constellation of an ethics of vir-
tues in which consideration emerges as a core concept, and humility as its epistemo-
logical, anthropological, and ethical foundation. As regards both their distinctive
traits and the fact that they rely on the virtue of consideration, these ethics involve a
balanced relationship with the world that the concept of resonance comprehensively
translates. Lastly, viewing all this from the perspective of empowering people to act,
vulnerability, care, consideration, and resonance are reflected in an ethics and a
politics of capabilities that measure people’s quality of life by the enhancement of
the capabilities of human beings.
Rephrasing all these implications in terms of a unitarian, integrative, and soli-
dary rather than an individualistic and dualistic anthropology, we might say, para-
phrasing Laín Entralgo and elaborating on his thoughts, that the aim of caring is to
lead the I from being “a body that says I” to learning how to progressively become,
and define itself as, “a body that says we”.
36 J. M. André
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Chapter 3
The Circles of Care: A Stoic Approach
M. Jorge de Carvalho
Abstract In the Stoic view, perception (aisthanesthai, antilēpsis), positive and nega-
tive non-indifference (oikeiōsis and allotriōsis) and care (epimeleia, syntērēsis) are not
exactly the same. But this does not prevent them from being inseparably connected
with each other, like different aspects of the same thing. As it turns out, they cannot take
place independently from one another: (a) all perception is intrinsically non-indiffer-
ence-related and care-related, (b) all positive and negative non-indifference is intrinsi-
cally perception-related and care-related, and (c) all care is intrinsically perception-
related and non-indifference-related. Secondly, perception has nothing to do with a
multiplicity of isolated fragments – with an ‘archipelago’ of unconnected ‘perceptual
patches’ scattered across a ‘sea’ of non-perception. And pretty much the same holds
true for positive viz. negative non-indifference and for care: there is no such thing as an
‘archipelago’ of isolated ‘enclaves’ of non-indifference – or, for that matter, of isolated
‘enclaves’ of care – scattered across a ‘sea’ of total indifference and carelessness. All
three – perception, positive viz. negative non-indifference and care – work as an unin-
terrupted, unified, complete and coherent whole. In other words, all three have the
structure of what might be termed a field: the field-of-perception-non-indifference-and-
care. Thirdly, this field has the shape of what might be described as a centred multiplic-
ity or a centred manifold: a series of concentric circles, as it were, revolving around a
focal point and constituted in such a way that everything in them is intrinsically related
to the focal point and defines itself in terms of its connection with it. Put another way,
the field-of-perception-non-indifference-and-care has the structure of Hierocles’ well-
known circles. The latter do not describe a particular phenomenon (the specific net-
work of ‘intersubjective’ relationships): in the final analysis they highlight the structure
of the whole field – i.e. at the same time (a) its invariable form and (b) the very form of
its variability.
Keywords Care · Stoicism · Perception · oikeiōsis · epimeleia · Hierocles’ circles
M. J. de Carvalho (*)
F.C.S.H./U. N. L, Institute for Philosophical Studies (IEF), University of Coimbra,
Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: mjcarv@gmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
40 M. J. de Carvalho
Even the most superficial inquiry into Stoic thought instantly raises a host of ques-
tions. One of them concerns the right to speak of Stoic thought in general. Seen
from afar, the Stoics present, of course, a certain unity; but on closer inspection this
unity breaks up into many differences of approach hidden by distance. What we are
about to consider is not to be found invariably in every Stoic author. But the point is
that it takes shape in some exponents of Stoic Thought – that it is has a Stoic origin,
that it is part of the Stoic body of thought and, as it were, of the Stoic legacy and
challenge to contemporary philosophy. In this paper we try to assemble a jigsaw
puzzle with pieces taken from various sources (Hierocles’ Elementatio Ethica, the
Anonymous Commentary to Plato’s Theaetetus, Alexander of Aphrodisias’ De
anima libri mantissa, Cicero’s De officiis and De finibus, Seneca’s Epistulae, etc.).
But the fact that we focus on ancient texts does not necessarily mean that we deserve
Seneca’s well-known reproach: “Itaque quae philosophia fuit, facta philologia est”;1
for our interest here is not so much what might be termed their doxographic content
and their historical significance as the phenomena highlighted by these sources and
the research impulses given by them. If we are not mistaken, they can help us rethink
some important aspects of what the word “care” stands for: they shed new light on
the entire question of care and raise important and challenging questions in this area.
In short, this paper is all about trying to put into practice one of the programmatic
ideas of J. C. Lichtenberg. Writing with his characteristic wit and acumen, he once
spoke of “neue Blicke durch die alten Löcher” (i.e. of “new glimpses through the
old holes”).2 In this case, the “old holes” are some key Stoic claims about perception
(aisthanesthai, antilēpsis), non-indifference (oikeiōsis/allotriōsis) and care (epimel-
eia, syntērēsis) viz. about their interconnection – and it is up to you to decide
whether or not the “old holes” in question provide new and stimulating glimpses
into these matters.
That said, let us plunge in medias res.
*
In the Stoic view, all perception (aisthanesthai, antilēpsis) is essentially life-
related, and not just in the obvious sense that there is no perception without life (that
all percipere presupposes vivere), but rather in the sense that perception is, as it
were, an ingredient and instrument of life, so that its inner structure reflects what
life is all about and is fundamentally shaped by the role it plays in the framework of
life itself. This essential link between perception and life gives rise to the main fea-
tures of all perception as such. This is not the place to discuss this question in any
detail, but we must highlight at least some key points.
First, there are no such things as scattered and isolated cases of perception.
Perception never stands for what might be described as unconnected Lego pieces,
“perceptual atoms” surrounded by a perceptual void. All perception entails a certain
degree of awareness the living being has of itself and its environment. This means it
Seneca, Ad Lucilium, 108, 23.

1
Sudelbücher F 879, in: Lichtenberg (1968), 585.

2
3 The Circles of Care: A Stoic Approach 41
also requires a certain degree of complexity. What is more, it means that perception
always has the structure of a compact, continuous and uninterrupted manifold. In
other words, perceptual content always has the structure of a global picture: it takes
the shape of a perceptual field (of a whole perceptual field, where various perceptual
contents are fused and integrated into a global framework).
This is closely connected with a second basic feature of all perception, namely
the fact that it is essentially divided into two components, namely perception of the
self (antilēpsis heautou) and perception of the exterior (antilēpsis tōn ektos).3 On
the one hand, all perception includes a particular kind of perceptual content, namely
the self as such.4 What is more, the latter gathers around itself other contents that are
perceived as belonging to the self. In other words, the self spreads, as it were, to
other contents, and indeed in such a manner that they are equated with it. It thereby
gives rise to a whole field of self-referential contents: the field of the perceptual self.
And on the other hand, all perception also includes a field of perceptual contents
that do not belong to the self and are not equated with it. In other words, all percep-
tion includes something perceived as exterior (i.e. as exterior to the self or foreign
to the self). The result being that (a) all perceptual contents are automatically
pigeonholed into one of these two subfields and (b) the primary defining feature of
each perceptual content is precisely the fact that it belongs to the one or the other of
these two subfields. This does not mean, however, that the two subfields in question
are two separate domains. The point is that they form two interrelated and interact-
ing components of all perception. Each of them (and this also means: each and
every perceptual content in the fields both of antilēpsis heautou and antilēpsis tōn
ektos) defines itself not only by the fact that it belongs to the one or the other of
these two subfields (and by the role it plays in it) but also by a network of connec-
tions with the other subfield.
3
Cf. Hierocles, Elementatio Ethica, Col. I, 37ff. See von Arnim (1906) and Bastianini and Long
(1992). For the English translation, see Ramelli and Konstan (2009). Cf. also Aoyz et al. (2014).
4
So that there is something bearing the stamp of the self or playing the role of a self-referential
perceptum. The point is (a) that the self is a particular kind of perceptum, (b) that perception
always includes this particular kind of perceptum, and indeed in such a manner that (c) the percep-
tum in question always takes centre stage and puts everything else in relation to itself. In this
context, it is important to differentiate between the perspective we have when we speak of a living
being’s “self” (viz. of its self-perception and relation to itself) and the immanent perspective all this
ultimately refers to. When we speak of a living being’s self-perception or self-relation, (a) we
tacitly represent it from outside, as an object among others (i.e. as an object in the realm of external
perception) and (b) we endow the object in question with the power of perceiving itself and relating
to itself. At the end of the day, the “self” we are referring to is a third-person self (and its self-
relation viz. self-perception is a third-person self-relation and self-perception). But when all is said
and done, that is not what the texts we are referring to have in mind. They draw our attention to the
fact that for the living being in question the whole thing must take the form of a first-person per-
spective. And this means that it is all a question of “immanent” components of perception viz. of
percepta – and indeed so much so that everything depends on (a) a self-referential perceptum or
perceptual self (a perceptual content responsible for first-person self-reference) and (b) the all-
encompassing relation between this first-person self-referential perceptum (or perceptual self) and
all other percepta.
This brings us to a third main feature of all perception. Perception is always

about a diagnosis of the situation in which the living being finds itself.5 That is,
perception is always about knowing where one stands, what to expect, what to do,
what the liabilities are, etc. Allow me to use the well-known metaphor: perception
is always about finding one’s “whereabouts” or one’s “location” in life’s journey.
We can also say (a) that it has to do with orientation (with orientating oneself) and
(b) that perception stands for “minding the surroundings” (minding one’s environ-
ment, determining what the living being – viz. the perceptual self – has do deal with,
finding how to deal with it, etc.). So that, on the one hand, perception looks outward
(namely to what is deemed to affect one’s course of life or interfere with it); but on
the other hand, this outward look beyond the sphere of the self is essentially self-
related: at the end of the day, the perceived exterior viz. the perceived environment
is all about the self (about its meaning for the self, its impact upon it, etc.). To put it
in a nutshell, all perceptual relation to the exterior is, as it were, in the middle voice6
(and this is precisely what is at stake when one says that external perception – the
antilēpsis tōn ektos – presents a living being’s environment).
This in turn leads us to a fourth main feature of all perception. This fourth feature
has to do with what might be termed the breadth or width of the perceptual field. As
pointed out above, all perception has the structure of a compact, continuous and
uninterrupted manifold. In other words, it forms what we have termed a field. But
the perceptual field could contain nothing but the “bare bones” of “inert” qualia (a
manifold of simple qualities impinging themselves upon the perceiver). And on the
other hand, the qualities in question could all take place in the very narrow sphere
of “each given moment” (in the sense that perception has every appearance of being
exclusively of whatever is present at a given time). But the fact is that, in the Stoic
view we are referring to, none of this really applies to perception.
On the one hand, perception of the self does not grasp just whatever pertains to
the sphere of the self (as if it were something inert). It is intrinsically action-related
and perceives how to use each self-related perceptum7 (viz. what can be done with
whatever pertains to the sphere of the self).8 As a matter of fact, pretty much the
same holds true for exterior perception. It does not confine itself to noting the
immediate presence of certain qualities (or for that matter, of certain realities) in
one’s environment: it automatically assesses what the realities in question are able
to do. Furthermore, the actions we are talking about are not confined to the subfield
in which their terminus a quo is located: the point is that they cross the border
between the two subfields, in such a manner that (a) self-perception also determines
5
And this situation assessment is what the two aforementioned subfields and their inseparable con-
nection are all about.
6
In what Greek Grammar terms the middle voice.
7
Each part of one’s own body, etc.
8
As Hierocles puts it, perception of self-related percepta grasps “καὶ ὅτι ἔχει καὶ πρὸς ἣν ἔχει
χρείαν” (Col. I, 54–55); that is, it perceives both the παρασκευή and the ἐπιτηδειότης (Col. I,
52–53) – both one’s μέρη and their respective ἔργα (Col. ΙΙ, 2–3: “ἡ τῶν μέρων καὶ τῶν ἔργων,
ὑπὲρ ὧν ἐδόθη τὰ μέρη, συναίσθησις”).
how self-attributed perceptual contents can intervene in the sphere of one’s exterior
environment, and (b) conversely, exterior perception also determines how exterior
percepta are able to interfere in the sphere of the self. But this is not all. Stoic analy-
sis of perception also draws our attention to the fact that, besides being intrinsically
action-related in the said sense, perception also determines how each perceptum can
be affected by something else (and indeed not only within the subfield in which it is
located, but by something from the opposite subfield), so that, (c) self-related per-
ception determines how its percepta are subject to actions coming from exterior
objects,9 while, conversely, (d) exterior perception determines how the latter are
subject to one’s own actions.10 In short, perception is always about a dynamic set of
interactions between the two opposite subfields.11
On the other hand, the above is closely connected with the fact that perception
does not relate solely to each given present (to whatever is present at a given moment
of time). More often than not, perception is conceived in such a way that there is not
(and cannot be) any perception of the past, or of the future (both of which must be
presented by something other than perception). But according to the Stoic texts we
are referring to this is not the case. By its very nature, all perception is intrinsically
future-related. It does not have to do only with whatever is present at a given
moment: it is essentially prospective and forward-looking. It does not have to do
just with “actuality”: it is intrinsically related to possibility. And this is due to the
fact that perception is not only about what is going on (the situation in which the
living being finds itself at a given moment, the situation it must deal with) but is also
intrinsically related to dealing with it – i.e. it is all about finding what can be done
about it: all about intervening in it, reacting to it (changing or steering the course of
things). Put another way, the fact that perception revolves around the self does not
mean that it revolves around a stigmatic self (one that fits within the narrow confines
of each moment of time). As a matter of fact, it means that it revolves around the self
and what will become of it. The result being that, on the other hand, perception of
one’s environment always includes a prospective assessment of what lies ahead.
This goes hand in hand with the last feature of perception we want to highlight
in this brief outline of the Stoic views we are referring to. This last feature has to do
with the inner structure of the perceptual field. We have insisted on the fact that all
9
Cf. Hierocles, Elementatio Ethica, Col. II, 18ff.
10
Cf. Hierocles, Elementatio Ethica, Col. III, 20.
11
This is not the place to examine all the examples given by Hierocles. But a single instance,
Elementatio Ethica, Col. III, 20–22, illustrates this complex interaction in a few lines: “(…) τὰ
ζῷα καὶ τῶν ἐν ἑτέροις ἀσθενειῶν καὶ δυνάμεων ἀντίληψιν ἔχει, καὶ τίνα μὲν αὐτοῖς ἐπίβουλα,
πρὸς τίνα δε αὐτοῖς ἀνοχαὶ καὶ οἷον σύμβασις ἀδιάλυτος”. These lines underscore the fact that
(a) perception assesses both actio and passio (so that percepta in both subfields appear both as
subjects and as objects of action), (b) more importantly, each perceptum defines itself in terms of
“actiones” and “passiones” (that is, both active and passive qualities), (c) the actiones and passio-
nes in question cross the borders between the two subfields (ἀντίληψις ἑαυτοῦ and ἀντίληψις τῶν
ἐκτός), and indeed in such a manner that (d) each perceptum defines itself in terms of “actiones”
and “passiones” that cross the border between the two subfields. On this topic, see notably Carvalho
(2010), 118f.
perception has the structure of a compact, continuous and uninterrupted manifold –

so that it forms a perceptual field. But now the point is that the whole perceptual
field takes the shape of a centred multiplicity or a centred manifold. A perceptual
field could be constituted in such a way that perceptual contents were just closely
attached, juxtaposed or piled up without any specific order. But the fact is that per-
ceptual contents are not just closely attached, not just juxtaposed, not just piled up.
The perceptual field is such that it bears the imprint of what might be termed
“aroundness” or “surroundingness”: some perceptual contents act as the centre or
focal point and are surrounded by all the others. Or, to be more precise, the percep-
tual contents that are equated with the self appear surrounded by all others – and
indeed the field of the self is itself structured in such a way that part of it acts as the
centre or focal point and is surrounded by all other self-related percepta (and then
by the field of exterior percepta), so that the whole perceptual field has the structure
of multiple chains of surrounded and surrounding contents fanning out around a
central focal point.12
*
The above brings us to another essential element of the Stoic views we are trying
to adumbrate.
All the aforementioned key features of perception are closely connected with the
fact that all perception is intrinsically steeped in non-indifference or non-neutrality.
Where there is perception there is something at stake, and indeed so much so that
the fact that there is something at stake in it (and the issues that are at stake in it)
forms a fundamental component of what perception is all about. The result being
that, by their own nature, percepta are perceived in the light of a certain agenda
which determines the role they play, their relevance, etc. Some perceptual contents
are cherished and sought after, others are despised and avoided; some perceptual
contents are important, while others play no significant role, etc. In other words, the
realm of perception is such that it has its own agenda of attachments, needs, urges,
thrusts or drives; it is after something (it is the realm of being after something), and
this quest (the nature and the direction of the particular kind of non-neutrality or
non-indifference it is steeped in) is one of its key components.
12
To be sure, the perceptual field is subject to almost continuous change both (a) in the sense that
perceptual contents enter and leave the “stage”, and (b) in the sense that the focus moves from one
perceptual content to another. But the point is that, despite this variability, the main pattern we are
talking about – namely “aroundness” or “surroundingness” – remains unchanged. First, what
appears is always a perceptum surrounded by percepta, which in turn are surrounded by percepta,
and so on and so forth. Secondly, “surroundingness” itself (viz. the fact that it occupies a certain
place in the chain of surrounded and surrounding contents fanning out around a focal point) is a
major trait of each perceptum. Finally, it should be added that, in the final analysis, perceptual
“surroundingness” is always intrinsically self-related: the perceptual self takes centre-stage; and,
even when they become a focus of attention, all other percepta bear the imprint of self-related sur-
roundingness (in such a manner that this is one of their main features, and indeed one that shapes
all the others). In other words, all percepta but the self (and whatever is equated with it) surround
the self either immediately or more or less mediately.
And this is what the Stoic notions of oikeiōsis and allotriōsis – or rather the con-
ceptual couple oikeiōsis/allotriōsis – stand for. Oikeiōsis denotes positive non-
indifference: being after something in the proper meaning of the word – that is, an
agenda of needs, urges, tasks and inclinations.13 In short, it denotes the fact that life
itself is continuously driven by a quest. Allotriōsis, on the contrary, denotes negative
non-indifference: trying to avoid, impede or prevent something – that is, an agenda
of disinclinations, aversions, fears, dreads, etc. In short, it denotes the fact that life
continuously flees from something.14 And, as the Stoics point out, there is no posi-
tive non-indifference without negative non-indifference, no oikeiōsis without
allotriōsis, and vice-versa – so that this particular kind of polarity is part and parcel
of the very structure of life.
Hence, this polarity pulses through every aisthanesthai or antilēpsis. All percep-
tion is oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-related to the core. Or, more precisely, all perception
bears the imprint of non-indifference viz. oikeiōsis/allotriōsis as much as all non-
indifference (all oikeiōsis/allotriōsis) requires a minimum of perception.15 Or, still
more precisely, the point is that both form an inseparable whole, so that perception
and non-indifference (positive and negative non-indifference, oikeiōsis and
allotriōsis) are like two sides of the same coin.
13
Pretty much the same holds true for the Latin equivalents used to express the idea of οἰκείωσις,
οἰκειοῦσθαι and the like (commendatio, conciliatio, amor, caritas, conciliari, commendari, appli-
cari, diligere, appetere, etc.). See, for example, Fischer (1914), 62–71, 91f., 109, Lislu (1930),
72ff, 255, Gantar (1966–1967), Hartung (1970), 134ff., 142ff., Gantar (1976), Fuchs (1977), 38,
Moreschini (1979), 127ff., Gantar (1980), Armisen-Marchetti (1989), 213f., Lévy (1992),
378–387, Inwood (2007), 339, Citti (2012), 21f., Byers (2016), 61, 67, Klein (2016), 150, and
Tsouni (2019), 78. Moreschini is perhaps right in holding that the manuscript reading “sibimet ipsi
intimatum” in Apuleius’ De Platone et ejus dogmate II, 2, 222, is sound and shows another pos-
sible way of translating οἰκείωσις into Latin. Cf. Moreschini (1978), 102ff., Moreschini (1979),
127, note 49 and Moreschini (2016), 301ff.
14
Ἄλλοτρίωσις viz. ἀλλοτριοῦσθαι denotes abhorrence, repulsion, repugnance and aversion. And
pretty much the same holds true for its Latin equivalents (aspernatio, abalienari, etc.). Cf. Voelke
(1961), 108–109: “Pour mieux caractériser l’oikeiôsis, nous pouvons également envisager son con-
traire, l’allotriôsis. Il faut entendre par là une répugnance fondamentale de l’être vivant à l’égard
de ce qui lui est étranger et hostile (ἀλλότριος). Lorsqu’il s’agira de trouver un équivalent latin,
Cicéron emploiera le verbe alienare (De Fin. III, 5, 16, S.V.F. III, 182). Il y a là une indication
linguistique précieuse: pour que le vivant ne soit pas au sens propre un aliéné, c’est-à-dire un
étranger par rapport à lui-même, il faut que l’oikeiôsis lui permette de se posséder lui-même ou,
comme le dit Sénèque, de ne pas « se manquer à lui-même ». (Sibi non deesse, Ep. 121, 4. Cf. aussi
Cicéron, De Fin. IV, 13, 32: Omnis enim est natura diligens sui. Quae est enim quae se unquam
deserat? …).” See also Moreschini (1979), 128, and Citti (2012), 22f.
15
On this connection, see, for example, Hierocles, Elementatio Ethica, col. VII, 46–48 (“καὶ τοῦ
πρὸς τὸ σωτήριον ἑαυτοῦ συναίσθησίς ἐστιν ἡ λελεγμένη οἰκείωσις”), Plutarch, De Stoicorum
repugnantiis, 1038b11-c2, (“ἀλλ’ οὔτ’ αἴσθησίς ἐστιν οἷς μηθὲν αἰσθητὸν οὔτ’ οἰκείωσις οἷς
μηδὲν οἰκεῖον· ἡ γὰρ οἰκείωσις αἴσθησις ἔοικε τοῦ οἰκείου καὶ ἀντίληψις εἶναι”), Porphyrius, De
abstinentia III, 19, apud Nauck (1886), 209, (“τοῖς δὲ οὐθέν ἐστιν αἰσθητόν, οὕτως δὲ οὐδὲ
ἀλλότριον οὐδὲ κακὸν οὐδὲ βλάβη τις οὐδὲ ἀδικία. Καὶ γὰρ οἰκειώσεως πάσης καὶ ἀλλοτριώσεως
ἀρχὴ τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι.”), and Cicero, De finibus III, 18, SVF III, 182 (“fieri autem non posset ut
appeterent aliquid, nisi sensum haberent sui eoque se diligerent.”)
It is no accident, therefore, that the realm of non-indifference – the realm of

oikeiōsis/allotriōsis – turns out to have features remarkably different from those one
would expect and very similar to those of perception.
First, it too has the form of a field, and indeed so much so that the latter is coex-
tensive to the field of perception. As stated above, perception has nothing to do with
a multiplicity of isolated fragments – with an “archipelago” of unconnected “per-
ceptual patches” scattered across a “sea” of non-perception. But now the point is
that pretty much the same holds true for positive viz. negative non-indifference (for
the realm of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis): there is no such thing as an “archipelago” of iso-
lated “enclaves” of non-indifference scattered across a “sea” of total indifference.
It is exactly the opposite: the realm of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis has the structure of a
compact, continuous and uninterrupted manifold and accompanies, like a shadow,
the continuous and uninterrupted manifold of perception. And this means that there
is no such thing as a perceptual content that does not play a certain role in the frame-
work of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis and that is not oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-related to the core.
To put it in grammatical terms, the whole field of perception (and this means: every-
thing in it) is, as it were, bathed in a “gerundive” light or under “gerundive” pressure.
Of course, here one might object that there are perceptual contents (and indeed
numerous perceptual contents) that seem to be neither desirable nor undesirable, for
they are thought not to interfere one way or the other. In other words, one might
object that many (and indeed most) perceptual contents are, quite simply, indiffer-
ent. But this objection proves to be ill-founded. Take the example of neutral or non-
belligerent powers in a war or the like. Non-belligerent viz. neutral powers are those
who do not take sides and do not fight in a given conflict – so that their non-
belligerent status is as intrinsically related to the conflict in question as the role of
ally or enemy. And for the contenders it is as important to know who is non-
belligerent (and can be relied on to remain non-belligerent) as who is a friend or
enemy. Now, something similar happens with so-called neutral percepta: on closer
inspection it emerges that they are as oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-related (and what is more,
that they are as essentially related to this or that particular direction of non-
indifference viz. to the prevailing flow of non-indifference) as perceptual contents
that are deemed to benefit or to harm. And for a living being it is as important to
assess (a) what does not interfere with its life one way or the other as (b) what is
dangerous (hostile, adverse, etc.) or (c) what is beneficial and has a positive role to
play. All three are equally paramount to knowing what one is dealing with. The
result being that, as stated above, the realm of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis – viz. the realm
of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-related contents – encompasses both (a) positive-indifference-
related percepta, (b) negative-indifference-related percepta, and (c) those that are
neither “(a)” nor “(b)”.16
16
Hierocles, Elementatio Ethica, Col. VI, 27ff., speaks of the alternative between εὐαρεστεῖν,
δυσαρεστεῖν and ἀρρεπῶς ἴσχειν. D. Konstan translates: being “pleased”, being “displeased” or
remaining “indifferent”. See Ramelli and Konstan (2009), 17. Hierocles is, of course, referring to
three “absolute” possibilities: generally, a percipient can perceive a perceptum either (a) with
Or, put another way, the realm of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis contents is as broad and
compact as the realm of perception – and indeed coextensive to it, so that, in the
final analysis, each component of the one is at the same time a component of the
other. But in order to grasp the compact character of the realm of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis
one has to consider a further feature, namely the fact that non-indifference (and this
means both positive and negative non-indifference) can present very different
degrees of intensity – from slight inclination viz. disinclination to the absolute need
of something utterly indispensable viz. to absolute horror and the like. As the author
of the so-called Anonymous Commentary to the Theaetetus puts it with regard to
oikeiōsis: epiteinetai gar kai anietai hē oikeiōsis (it increases and decreases in
intensity).17
In other words, oikeiōsis is anomoia (unequal).18
Some Stoic texts – and among them the said Commentary – illustrate this state of
affairs with the example of our oikeiōsis to our own body: despite the fact that each
of us is globally attached to his or her body, the ties of oikeiōsis that bind us to dif-
ferent parts of our body (to the eyes, the fingers, the hair or the nails) are of different
intensity. “Our relationship to our own parts is not one of equal oikeiōsis (mēde pros
ta heautōn mere ep’ isēs ōikeiōmetha). For we are not disposed in just the same way
relative to our eyes and our fingers, let alone to our nails and hair (ou gar homoiōs
echomen pros ophthalmon kai daktylon, hina mē legō pros onychas kai trichas),
seeing that we are not alienated from their loss equally either, but to a greater or
lesser extent (epei oude pros tēn apobolēn aytōn homoiōs ēllotriōmetha, alla mallon
kai hētton).”19
οἰκείωσις, or (b) with ἀλλοτρίωσις, or (c) with neither. However, we should not forget that “(c)”
can actually mean two very different things.
First, it can mean that a given percipient is completely devoid both of “(a)” and “(b)” (viz. that
perception of a given perceptum has nothing whatsoever to do with οἰκείωσις or ἀλλοτρίωσις). In
general, animals could be constituted in such a way that they lacked all οἰκείωσις and ἀλλοτρίωσις.
But this is the possibility the Stoics exclude, both because it would be “dysfunctional” and because
it is disproved by the facts – cf. Diogenes Laertius, Vitae, VII, 85 (SVF III, 178): “οὔτε γὰρ
ἀλλοτριῶσαι εἰκὸς ἦν αὑτῷ τὸ ζῷον, οὔτε ποιήσασαν αὐτὸ, μήτ’ ἀλλοτριῶσαι μήτε {οὐκ}
οἰκειῶσαι. ἀπολείπεται τοίνυν λέγειν συστησαμένην αὐτὸ οἰκειῶσαι πρὸς ἑαυτό. οὕτω γὰρ τὰ
τε βλάπτοντα διωθεῖται καὶ τὰ οὶκεῖα προσίεται”
Secondly, “(c)” can also mean that some percepta are neither οἰκείωσις-dyed nor ἀλλοτρίωσις-
dyed for a very different reason, namely because they are deemed to be neutral with regard to the
prevailing flow of non-indifference (i.e. to the prevailing direction of οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις); in
which case, as pointed out above, “(c)” is intrinsically οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related (it is, as it
were, one of the three possible main “labels” in the field of tension between οἰκείωσις and
ἀλλοτρίωσις). In other words, the percipient is steeped in οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις, but some of its
percepta are marked with this particular kind of οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related “label”.
17
Col. V, 22–24. Cf. Diels and Schubart (1905), 5, and Bastianini and Sedley (1995), 276.
18
Anonymous Commentary, Col. VII, 2f.
19
Anonymous Commentary, col. VI, 3ff. (emphasis added). Translation borrowed from Long and
Sedley (1987), 350. See also Stobaeus, Anthologium, II, cap. 7, sec. 13, Cicero, De officiis, I, XVII,
53ffs., Laelius, V, 19.
But this is only an example. First, allotriōsis, too, increases and decreases in
intensity (epiteinetai kai anietai). Secondly, the point is that pretty much the same
applies to the whole continuous manifold of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis – and indeed so
much so that it is no exaggeration to speak of a wide range of differences of inten-
sity. In other words, the point is that the whole continuous manifold of oikeiōsis/
allotriōsis consists of a variety of ties with a highly variable degree of intensity
(with a highly variable mallon kai hētton), both with regard to positive non-
indifference or oikeiōsis, on the one hand, and to negative non-indifference or
allotriōsis, on the other.
This means that, even if we are not always aware of it, different percepta bear the
imprint of different degrees of oikeiōsis or allotriōsis (i.e. of different degrees of
compellingness of our positive or negative non-indifference towards them). And,
what is more, this means that all perceptual contents are placed in contrasting loca-
tions (i.e. in close and distant “functional locations”) according to the level of com-
pellingness of the oikeiōsis or allotriōsis ties attaching us to them – just like
three-dimensional depth vision is characterized by the fact that its contents (N.B.:
visual contents that could perfectly fit in a two-dimensional manifold) are spread
across a three-dimensional framework of less distant and more distant spatial planes.
The result being what might be described as a second source (or a second factor) of
“aroundness” or “surroundingness” – in this case the kind of “aroundness” or “sur-
roundingness” owing to which one is more immediately surrounded by what matters
most, then by what matters almost as much, then by what matters a little less – and
so on, and so forth.
In short, each living being lives in its own global field of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis –
i.e. in its own global “map” (in its own “geography”) of positive and negative non-
indifference. What is more, each perceptual content defines itself primarily by its
place in this global “map” viz. by the role it plays in the all-encompassing oikeiōsis/
allotriōsis-related “plot” of one’s life. And one of the key components of this
oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-related “identity” is the varying intensity of the ties attaching us
to each perceptum (that is, its oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-related degree of relevance in the
said “plot”).
But this brings us to the second feature of the compact and continuous field of
oikeiōsis/allotriōsis we want to highlight here, namely the fact that its various com-
ponents are not just closely attached, not just juxtaposed, not just piled up without
any specific order – in short, that this field, too, has the structure of a centred multi-
plicity or a centred manifold, in which everything fans out and revolves around a
focal point.
The Stoic view on this topic finds its most eloquent expression in Hierocles’
description of a complex set of concentric circles – a description which can be read
in a fragment from his Quomodo erga parentes gerere nos oporteat. This text is so
important and so illuminating that no excuse is needed for quoting it in extenso:
“The fact is that, in general, each one of us is circumscribed as though by many
circles, some smaller, others larger, the latter enclosing the former, according to
their different and unequal dispositions relative to each other. The first and closest
circle is the one which a person has drawn as though around his own mind, as the
centre point. In this circle are enclosed both the body and those things adopted for
the sake of the body. For it is virtually the smallest circle, and almost touches the
centre itself. Next, the second one further removed from the centre and enclosing
the first circle; within which parents, siblings, wife and children are ranged. The
third one, after these, has in it aunts, grandparents, nephews, nieces and cousins.
The next circle includes the other relatives, and this is followed by the circle of
fellow-tribesmen, next that of fellow-citizens, and then in the same way the circle of
people from neighbouring towns, and the circle of fellow-countrymen. The outer-
most and largest circle, which surrounds all the rest, is that of the whole human race.”20
Hierocles describes a centre, surrounded by a set of concentric circles, with our-
selves (i.e. the self-related focal point) and our body in the centre, while the next
circle comprises parents, siblings, wife, and children, the third uncles, grandparents,
nephews, nieces and cousins, the fourth the remote relatives, followed by the circle
of local residents, and then the circle of fellow tribesmen, next that of fellow citi-
zens, and then the circle of people from neighbouring towns, and the circle of fellow
countrymen, and so on and so forth, with the whole human race in the outermost and
largest circle. This set of concentric circles is devised to express decreasing attach-
ment viz. the complex structure of different levels of intensity (oikeiōsis being much
more intense in the enclosed circles and less intense in the enclosing ones).
This is not the place to discuss Hierocles’ concentric circles in detail. But several
key aspects should be noted here.
First, the main point in Hierocles’ comparison is not the claim concerning the
concrete ranking (who is placed in the second, the third, the fourth circles, etc.). Just
to give one example, according to him wife and siblings belong to the second circle.
But nothing prevents one’s wife or sibling from being placed in the third or fourth
circles – or some of our first cousins from being placed in one circle while others are
placed in another, etc. In other words, regardless of what he may have thought,
Hierocles’ main point is by no means a rigid composition viz. the claim that his
examples are universally valid. On the one hand, the realm of oikeiōsis-driven rela-
tions to other human beings can take one shape in my case and a very different
shape in the case of somebody else. And, on the other hand, nothing prevents us
from changing our mind, so that at a given moment in time a given relative is placed,
say, in the fourth circle, but then becomes more important and is moved to the third
(or less important and is relegated to the fifth or sixth). The important thing about
Hierocles’ circles is the underlying formal structure: the series of concentric circles
and what it stands for, i. e. the varying intensity of the oikeiōsis-ties according to
their degree of closeness and distance to the self-referential focal point. This is the
invariable element: the basic pattern of a centred manifold Hierocles’ comparison
so vividly illustrates.
Cf. Wachsmuth and Hense (1884–1912), IV, ch. 27, sec. 23. Translation borrowed from Long and
20
Sedley (1987), 349–350, and Ramelli and Konstan (2009), 91, with changes.
Secondly, it should also be noted that the oikeiōsis-related set of concentric cir-
cles depicted by Hierocles must be completed, for it gives only half of the picture.
As a matter of fact, Hierocles’ circles depict the complex structure of our oikeiōsis-
related perception of other people. It should not, however, be forgotten that the
concentric circles model also applies to the realm of allotriōsis-related perception
of other people. For, on the one hand, our relation to other people is not always
oikeiōsis-driven. There is also an important allotriōsis-component. And, on the
other hand, the latter, too, is characterized (a) by varying intensity and (b) by the
fact that everything in it depends on the functional distance to the self-referential
focal point – so that the allotriōsis-component, too, resembles a set of concentric
circles just like the ones depicted by Hierocles. Or, to be more precise, the realm of
our relations to other people (the realm of our non-indifferent perception of and
relation to other people) is of such a nature that it has the structure of a double set
of concentric circles: one set of concentric circles for oikeiōsis, and one for
allotriōsis.
But this is not all. Thirdly, it should also be borne in mind that this complex
structure – the double set of oikeiōsis-related and allotriōsis-related concentric cir-
cles – is not an exclusive feature of our non-indifferent perception of (and relation
to) other human beings. Hierocles’ concentric circles are important because they
highlight a common feature (a) of all perception – of the whole perceptual field,
without exception, and (b) of the whole realm of our non-indifferent behaviour
(both the oikeiōsis-driven and the allotriōsis-driven behaviour).
As a matter of fact, the concentric-circle-nature of our relation to other human
beings is just a particular expression of a general pattern or an instance among
many others. To be sure, other human beings play a pivotal role in our lives. But the
point is that they play this role within a much more comprehensive framework. And
the crux of the matter is that the whole realm of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis (and this in turn
means: the whole field of perception, insofar as perception is completely steeped in
and shaped by oikeiōsis/allotriōsis) is organized like this: like a double set of con-
centric, oikeiōsis-related and allotriōsis-related circles.
What is more, on closer inspection it emerges that we are not dealing with two
different fields (a set of concentric circles for oikeiōsis and a set of concentric circles
for allotriōsis), but rather with a single field populated by the said two kinds of ele-
ments, so that the oikeiōsis-related and the allotriōsis-related concentric circles
intermingle (or are interspersed with one another) and fan out around a focal point
according to their intensity, degree of importance, compellingness, etc.21
Furthermore, this highly complex structure also plays a significant role in the
Stoic account of the varieties of oikeiōsis, namely: oikeiōsis eunoētikē (relative to
21
Incidentally it should be noted that in this single field of οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις, the remotest
circles of οἰκείωσις (the circles of least intense οἰκείωσις) and the remotest circles of ἀλλοτρίωσις
(the circles of least intense ἀλλοτρίωσις) are confusingly similar to what might be termed the cir-
cles of neutral percepta (of what is deemed not to interfere one way or the other).
oneself viz. to one’s own being), oikeiōsis sterktikē (relative to other living beings),
and oikeiōsis hairetikē (relative to inanimate objects).22
There are various aspects to this account. First, it should be noted that – mutatis
mutandis – pretty much the same applies to the realm of allotriōsis, where corre-
sponding varieties are to be found. Secondly, this account highlights the whole of
which the realm of intersubjective relations is a part (so that it provides the over-
arching framework in which the realm of oikeiōsis sterktikē – viz. Hierocles’ set of
oikeiōsis-sterktikē-related circles – is embedded). Finally, what we are dealing with
here is an “irradiating” structure: different directions of oikeiōsis and allotriōsis –
what might be described as the large compass rose of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis (a com-
pass rose with the “cardinal directions” in which the “winds” of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis
blow). But at the end of the day it is not just a question of various directions: it is
also a question of various degrees of importance, intensity, urgency and compelling-
ness. There are, as it were, hierarchical connections (a) between the different direc-
tions at issue and (b) within each of them. Hence, what we are talking about is a very
complex field of fields. Its nature is such that it might be described both as a com-
pass rose and as a framework of concentric circles, where oikeiōsis-related and
allotriōsis-related elements intermingle (or are interspersed with one another)
according to their intensity, degree of urgency and compellingness, etc. In short, the
22
See notably Hierocles, Elementatio Ethica, Col. IX, 1ff. The Anonymous Commentary to Plato’s
Theaetetus, Col. VII, 26ff., highlights the contrast between οἰκείωσις κηδεμονική and οἰκείωσις
αἱρετική – i. e. (a) οἰκείωσις relative to living beings (viz. to people: πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς καὶ πρὸς τοὺς
πλησίον) and (b) οἰκείωσις relative to things. The former can be taken in a narrower and a more
extended sense: it can either apply just to a given animal species (i. e. τὰ ὁμοειδῆ) or cross the
boundaries between species. Hierocles seems to combine this distinction with the contrast between
(c) self-related οἰκείωσις (πρὸς ἑαυτό, ἑαυτῷ, Col. IX, 3, 8) and (d) non-self-related οἰκείωσις
(πρὸς τὰ ἐκτὸς πράγματα, Col. IX, 5f., 7f.). It is easy to see that the latter can be either κηδεμονική
or αἱρετική.
In addition, these texts also include a few remarks on specific topics. First, they mention the
special case of οἰκείωσις ἐκλεκτική – a self-related οἰκείωσις concerning one’s own σύστασις
(that is, one’s own constitution or one’s proper composition) viz. one’s own preservation and well-
being – see, for example, Alexander of Aphrodisias, De animi libri mantissa, 150.32, Sharples
(2008), 96 (who speaks of “πρὸς τὴν σύστασιν καὶ τήρησιν ᾠκειῶσθαι”[viz. οὶκειῶσθαι
(Sharples)]), Seneca, Ad Lucilium 121, 21 (who speaks of “conciliari saluti suae” – the result being
that the living being “et iuvatura petit, laesura formidat”) and Hierocles, Elementatio Ethica, Col.
IX, 1, and 9–10 (who speaks of an οἰκείωσις relative to the “σωτήρια τῆς συστάσεως” – i. e. to
the things that preserve one’s constitution). Secondly, these texts also highlight the connection
between οἰκείωσις αἱρετική and οἰκείωσις κηδεμονική, on the one hand, and self-related οἰκείωσις
(i.e. both the οἰκείωσις εὐνοητική and the οἰκείωσις ἐκλεκτική), on the other. Or, more precisely,
they draw attention to the fact that the latter derives from the former: both the οἰκείωσις αἱρετική
and the οἰκείωσις κηδεμονική have to do with the role played by exterior percepta in the realm of
one’s self-related οἰκείωσις. Or, as Hierocles, col. IX, 9–10, puts it: these two derivative forms of
οἰκείωσις create bonds between a living being (viz. the perceptual self) and whatever is deemed to
serve the preservation of its σύστασις (viz. its own proper composition): “οἰκειοῦσθαι τοῖς πρὸς
τήρησιν τῆς συστάσεως συμφέρουσιν”. In short, these texts highlight the dynamic character of
οἰκείωσις: the fact that it “emanates” from a source, flows in different directions and resembles –
sit venia verbo – a “chain reaction”. Cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, De anima libri mantissa, apud
Bruns (1887), 101–186, in particular 162, and Sharples (2008), 112.
compass rose in question – the compass rose of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis – has the struc-
ture of Hierocles’ circles and only a mix of the two images can adequately illustrate
the complex structure we are talking about.
*
Now, this is where care (what the Stoics term tērēsis, syntērēsis and epimeleia,
cura and tutela, etc.) comes in.23 To be sure care – viz. tērēsis, syntērēsis, epimeleia,
cura, and tutela, etc. – goes beyond the realm both of simple perception and of
simple oikeiōsis and allotriōsis. For it presupposes at least a certain degree of activ-
ity or action. Care is not just about perceiving (awareness and the like) or being
non-indifferent (inclination and disinclination, etc.). It is about “going for it”. That
is, “care” (tērēsis, syntērēsis, epimeleia, cura, etc.) is, as it were, “proactive”: it
stands for taking the initiative, for trying to interfere in (to change or to maintain –
at any rate, to steer) the course of events. Even when it takes the form of some kind
of vigilant waiting, this, too, is a way of interfering in the course of events, and has,
as it were, an “itchy finger” on the trigger.
But none of this detracts from the fact that care is connected by an “umbilical
cord” both to perception and to oikeiōsis/allotriōsis. On the one hand, care is not
possible without either of them: they provide the medium in which it “lives and
walks”. And, on the other hand, care is not just a particular development within the
realm of perception and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis (one of the many things that appear on
this “stage”). As a matter of fact, care is what perception and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis
are all about from the very outset. In other words, by their own nature, perception
and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis are intrinsically related to care – and indeed so much so
that the latter is, as it were, their fulfilment. Paraphrasing von Clausewitz’s well-
known characterization of war, we can express this by saying that care is “merely
the continuation of perception and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis (N.B.: of the indivisible
whole of perception and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis) by other means”.24 And this is the
crux of the matter: there is what might be described as a continuity and intrinsic
interrelation between the inseparable perception/oikeiōsis/allotriōsis unit, on the
one hand, and care, on the other – so that perception/oikeiōsis/allotriōsis is already
care in nuce, and care is but the full development and realization of what the former
already entails.
In short, if perception is, as Tertullian puts it in his De carne Christi, 12, the soul
of the soul (“animae anima sensus est”),25 we can also say that oikeiōsis/allotriōsis
is the soul of perception and that care is in turn the soul of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis. Or,
put another way: perception is of such a nature that it results in oikeiōsis/allotriōsis,
23
Hierocles’ Elementatio Ethica and the fragment from his Πῶς χρηστέον τοῖς γενεῦσιν (Stobaeus,
Anthologium II, 640, 4ff.) provide a good sample of Stoic care-related terminology: τήρησις,
συντήρησις συντηρεῖν, ἐπιμέλεια, προθυμία, προνοεῖν, πρόνοια, κηδεμονία and θεραπεία.
24
Cf. von Clausewitz (1832), 28: “Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen
Mitteln”.
25
See Evans (1956), 44.
and the latter is of such a nature that it results in care – so that care is, as it were, the
“outcome” both of perception and of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis and indeed what both of
them are all about.
As a result, the picture changes substantially. Up until now we have spoken of the
indivisible unity between perception and non-indifference. But now it becomes
apparent that this is not quite what the Stoic sources we are referring to have in
mind. They draw our attention to something intrinsically threefold. Put another
way: in the Stoic view, perception (aisthanesthai, antilēpsis), positive and negative
non-indifference (oikeiōsis and allotriōsis) and care (epimeleia, syntērēsis, cura and
the like) are not exactly the same; but this does not prevent them from being insepa-
rably connected with each other, like different aspects of the very same thing. For,
in the final analysis, they cannot take place independently from one another. As a
result, (a) all perception is intrinsically non-indifference-related and care-related,
(b) all positive and negative non-indifference is intrinsically perception-related and
care-related, and (c) all care is intrinsically perception-related and
non-indifference-related.
But how do the Stoic texts we are referring to understand care as such? The very
words they use to describe it give us a valuable indication as to what they have
in mind.
First, “epimeleia” denotes endeavor, commitment, engagement, dedication,
effort. It conveys the idea that one is focused on a given task, takes time to achieve
the task in question and does what one can to achieve it. Secondly, it should be
borne in mind that “tērēsis”, “tērein”, “syntērēsis”, “syntērein” (and their Latin
equivalents: “tueri”, “tutela” and the like) are loaded with a complex semantic
charge. On the one hand, these words clearly convey the idea of a perceptual com-
ponent. They mean: to watch, to keep watch, to keep an eye on something, to watch
over or for something, to look after something, to look out for something, to give
heed to something, to be alert and watchful, to observe, but also to be on one’s
guard. On the other hand, this family of words also denotes the idea of ensuring or
making sure that something (namely whatever is the main object of the said percep-
tual component viz. its main concern) does or does not take place, as the case may
be. That is, the characteristic polysemy of this family of words expresses continuity
between the perceptual component (alertness, surveillance, etc.) and the active
(action-related) component tērēsis, tērein and their cognates also stand for. Or, to be
more precise, this family of words seems tailor-made to express both (a) the fact that
the active or action-related component (ensuring that something does or does not
happen) results from alertness, surveillance, etc., and (b) the fact that the alertness,
vigilance or surveillance in question is intrinsically action-directed and determined
to ensure that something happens viz. to steer the course of events.
However, there is also another key aspect. Words like tērēsis, tērein and their
cognates also denote the idea of preservation: preserving or safeguarding some-
thing, keeping something safe or secure, assuring that it remains untouched or
intact. This feature expresses the particular nature of what both the perceptual and
the action-related components of tērēsis, tērein, etc. – viz. of care – aim at (viz. the
particular direction in which all tērēsis, etc. is determined to steer the course of
events). As a matter of fact, “tērēsis” and its cognates can simply mean to keep, to
preserve, to protect something. And it should be borne in mind that there is a link
between all these semantic shades, so that, on the one hand, the “keeping”, “pre-
serving” and “protecting” in question is rooted in the above-mentioned perceptual
component (namely vigilance, alertness, etc.), and, on the other hand, when “tērēsis”
and its cognates stand for care, the idea of preservation and the like26 is almost
inevitably evoked. That is, this family of words expresses that care (i.e. both care-
related alertness and care-related intervention in the course of events) is all about
keeping, protecting, preserving and defending its object (and this means primarily
oneself and whatever is equated with oneself and enjoys a similar kind of oikeiōsis-
like commitment).27 And this is why Stoic authors also use “sōizein” or diasōizein
(viz. other words of the same family, for example “sōtēria”, “sōtērion”) as a syn-
onym for “tērēsis”, “tērein”, etc. to express what care is all about.28
In this respect, six remarks are in order.
First, in this view the purpose of care is to keep its object, to ensure that it goes
unscathed (that it comes through unscathed). But this does not mean that care is
always about keeping things as they are, or, for that matter, that all care is exclu-
sively oikeiōsis-related (so that there is no such thing as allotriōsis-related care).
Care can of course aim at changes. But the point is that all changes it aims at have
to do with the preservation of the object of care. In other words, care aims at either
keeping things as they are or changing them, depending on whether change or the
lack thereof serves the purpose of preserving and protecting the object of care. And
on the other hand, care can be (and often is) driven by allotriōsis. But the point is
that even in this case negative non-indifference is intrinsically related to positive
non-indifference viz. to the said aim of preserving the primary (and this means: the
oikeiōsis-related) object of care. In other words, according to the Stoics there is no
such thing as pure allotriōsis (and therefore no such thing as purely allotriōsis-
related care). In the final analysis, all allotriōsis-related care is intrinsically
oikeiōsis-related.
Secondly, in the Stoic account we are referring to care has to do with something
like a relay race (or its ancient counterpart: a torch relay), but it is the object of care
that is passed on. It all has to do with the fact that life is shaped by constant time-
ticking in such a way that the “match” – the oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-“match” (the
“match” of the self or of whatever is equated with it) – is something of a Sisyphean
task: it restarts again and again. Allow me to speak, for brevity’s sake, of “each-
timeness” in order to describe this, and to say that care is intrinsically related to
“each-timeness” viz. to crossing it. And this provides the medium for the said relay
race: care is about handing over the “baton” or the “torch” of oneself – viz. of
26
Viz. the idea of tueri, custodire, conservare, etc.
27
More about this later.
28
See, for example, Hierocles, Elementatio Ethica, Col. III, 5, Col. VI, 15, 39, 58, Col. VII, 4, 44f,
and Col. IX, 1.
whatever is equated with the self – and making sure that nothing goes wrong (that
the object of care makes it through “each-timeness” unscathed).29
Thirdly, none of this means that care aims solely at purely “defensive” goals. In
the relay race we are talking about the point is not only to keep oneself from harm
and to make it through “each-timeness” unscathed, but to develop the full potential
of oneself (viz. of whatever is equated with the self). In other words, in the particular
kind of relay race “tērēsis”, “syntērēsis”, etc., stand for the point is not only to pass
on the baton, but to hand it over in the best possible condition or as much improved
as possible.
Fourthly, perception could be non-indifferent (completely steeped in oikeiōsis/
allotriōsis), but in such a manner that the percipient could not intervene in the
course of things, and all events (all non-indifferent matters) simply took their own
course. A living being would then be a non-indifferent, but utterly impotent specta-
tor of its own fate.30 But the fact is that perception – and, for that matter, oikeiōsis/
allotriōsis – is not at all like this. The perceptual self viz. the oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-
driven self is constituted in such a way that it has the task or incumbency of itself (of
preserving itself, etc.). In a word, one depends on oneself – at least to a certain
extent, one’s life is up to oneself (to the perceptual and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-driven
self). And this being-charged-with itself or entrusted-with-itself31 – and, in general,
this being charged and entrusted with at least some possibility of steering the course
of events – is what characterizes the perceptual, non-indifferent self, and indeed
what care is all about. Seneca expresses this very clearly when he writes: “sibi
quisque commissus est”.32 The point is this constitutive, permanent and unavoidable
sibi commissum esse – that is, the fact that perception and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis
involve a constitutive, permanent and unavoidable “being in charge” (and “having
to act accordingly”).33
29
This is what Cicero’s “conservandi sui custodia” (De natura deorum, II, XLVIII, 124) is all
about. His image of the “self-safeguarding” – self-protecting and self-cultivating – vine in De
finibus, IV, 38 (of the vine playing itself the role of a viticultor and taking care of itself) vividly
illustrates this particular kind of custodia viz. the idea of the tutela sui. Seneca, too, speaks of the
tutela sui – see notably Ad Lucilium 58, 30, 85, 28, 104, 4, 121, 23f., De beneficiis, IV, XVIII, 2 –
viz. of the tutela salutis suae (Ad Lucilium 104, 10).
30
And in no way an agent of its own fate.
31
I.e., this being charged with the said “each-timeness” and with the task of assuring that the object
of care makes it through “each-timeness” unscathed.
32
Ad Lucilium 121, 18: “Producit fetus suos natura, non abicit. Et quia tutela certissima ex proximo
est, sibi quisque commissus est.” (Nature brings forth her offspring, she does not toss them aside.
And because the most reliable form of protection comes from what is closest, each one is entrusted
to itself). Translation borrowed from Inwood (2007), 88.
33
The following two points deserve special attention here. First, it cannot be excluded that this
perceptual “being in charge” is but a deeply ingrained illusion – that it, too, results from some kind
of conditioning, owing to which, as Horace puts it (Saturae, I, 7, 82), we are “like puppets pulled
by alien strings” (“duceris ut nervis alienis mobile lignum”). In other words, it cannot be excluded
that the perceptual “being in charge” is itself a form of “duci ut nervis alienis mobile lignum” (and
therefore the opposite of its face value: a mere mirror of alien events). But neither can it be ruled
out that it is not an illusion. At the end of the day, there is no Archimedean point of certitude in
Fifthly, the Stoic approach highlights this intrinsic and constitutive fragility or
vulnerability of every living being: the fact that everything (I insist: nothing less
than everything) in it – i.e., both (a) its sheer existence and (b) the whole content of
its being –is continuously at stake, and that this constitutive and radical fragility
(this “everything continuously at stake”) is what care (the living being’s care for
itself and indeed all care) is always about. In other words, this comprehensive and
radical fragility – this “everything continuously at stake”– is what the perceptual
(and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-driven) self is constitutively charged and entrusted with.
Finally, this draws our attention to the fact that full-fledged care (care in the
proper meaning of the word) is permanent and comprehensive care – uninterrupted
care both for the sheer existence and for the whole content of a given being (i.e. for
the said “everything continuously at stake” or for the said radical fragility). Anything
less than this permanent and comprehensive care – that is, any kind of occasional
and restricted care – stands for a mix of care and neglect. One should not forget,
however, that this “mix of care and neglect” is always embedded in the framework
of some central, permanent and continuous care (i.e. of a permanent and continuous
care for something other than the object of occasional and restricted care).34
So much for the Stoic terminology and its meaning. Let us now shift our atten-
tion to another important matter.
Above, we stressed the close interconnection between the realm of care and the
realms of perception and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis. But this interconnection means yet
these matters. And on the other hand, it should be borne in mind that perception itself (viz. life
itself) constantly takes the form of this “being in charge” – and indeed so much so that, even when
one is convinced that we are not really “in charge” and that “being in charge” is only an illusion,
none of this changes the fact that we must continuously play the role of “being in charge” (we must
continuously navigate life and steer the course of events); for that is the way life presents itself and
impinges itself upon us. In other words, one cannot avoid “playing the game” of “being in charge”;
for trying not to play the game is itself a way of playing it (a way of steering the course of events,
etc.). So that it is impossible to avoid the said “perceptual being in charge”: to take one’s hands
from the helm and escape Seneca’s “sibi commissum esse”. Secondly, the “being in charge” we are
talking about has nothing to do with being endowed with power over everything around us. It does
not mean that we “run the place”. The point is that even if we are very far from having this kind of
power, there is at least some scope for intervention (and we are charged and entrusted with at least
some possibility of steering the course of events). In other words, the point is that there is what
might be described as an intermediate power (something between unlimited power, on the one
hand, and utter impotence, on the other). At the end of the day, the intermediate power in question
is perhaps nothing more than the sheer fact that we must “play the game” of steering the course of
events, even if it is just an illusion, and even if we lack all real power. As the Stoics never tire of
emphasising, this “irreducible core” – namely the fact that we are charged and entrusted with the
task of attempting to steer the course of events and cannot avoid trying to steer one way or the
other – is a form of intermediate power and more than enough to constitute the “being in charge”
(and having to act accordingly) we are talking about. In short, it may well be that we are just impo-
tent agents; but the point is that even in this case we are still agents. Put another way, it may well
be that all our care is impotent and helpless – but the point is that it is nonetheless care, and we
cannot give up this responsibility.
34
E.g. my occasional and restricted care for someone else is always embedded in the framework of
my permanent and continuous care for myself. See note 38 below.
something else – something the Stoic texts we are referring to do not address explic-
itly, but which is entailed in the said interconnection. We are talking about the fact
that, by and large, the realm of care shares the same main features as the realms of
perception and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis – and in particular the two features we have
tried to highlight above. But this in turn means that what we are dealing with here is
nothing less than a very particular and thought-provoking way of understanding
what care is all about.
Let us take a closer look at this important topic: what might be termed the iso-
morphism between the realm of care and the realm of
perception/oikeiōsis-allotriōsis.
First it should be noted that, contrary to what might seem to be the case, there is
no significant difference between the degree of compactness of the realm of care
and the one that characterizes the realm of perception/oikeiōsis-allotriōsis. As
shown above, the latter has nothing to do with a multiplicity of isolated fragments
(with an “archipelago” of unconnected “perceptual patches” scattered across a
“sea” of non-perception or with an “archipelago” of isolated enclaves of non-
indifference scattered across a “sea” of total indifference). But what is at stake here
is that pretty much the same holds true for the realm of care: there is no such thing
as an “archipelago” of isolated enclaves of care scattered across a “sea” of careless-
ness or carefreeness. The realm of care, too, has the structure of a compact, continu-
ous and uninterrupted manifold – and indeed so much so that it is coextensive to the
field of perception and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis. And this means that there is no such
thing as a perceptual and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-related content that does not play a
certain role in the realm of care and that is not care-related to the core. In other
words, the point is that all three – perception, positive viz. negative non-indifference
and care – work as an uninterrupted, unified, complete and coherent whole. In short,
all three have the structure of what might be termed a field: one and the same field –
the field-of-perception-non-indifference-and-care.
Of course, here one might object that such a claim goes against the facts. For, on
the one hand, luckily enough for us, life is far from being a compact sphere of per-
manent care; and, on the other hand there are many things one does not care a straw
for. But on closer inspection it emerges that such objections are too hasty and indeed
ill-founded.
We can start with the second objection, for its discussion also undermines
the first.
To be sure, our relationship to many (and indeed to the vast majority) of our
percepta seems entirely carefree. But on closer inspection it emerges that it is care-
related and care-driven, and that each perceptum is defined by a care-driven diag-
nosis of its care-related function or role. On the one hand, there is always a minimum
of vigilance, surveillance and monitoring. All perception is an intrinsically
surveillance-related assessment either (a) of the need for further surveillance and
intervention or (b) that, at least for the time being, no further surveillance and no
intervention is needed. And, what is more, when there seems to be no need for fur-
ther surveillance and no need for intervention, our relationship to our perceptual
contents takes the form of a particular kind of intervention – namely, leaving things
as they are (letting them run their own course). In the final analysis, this is as much
a way of steering the course of events and navigating the world as any other. In
short, contrary to what might seem to be the case, a living being’s (and in particular
a human being’s) relationship to each and every perceptual content is something
entirely different from complete absence of care.
As pointed out above, the Stoics insist on the uninterrupted and continuous char-
acter of perception. But in order to fully understand what they have in mind, it
should be noted that they claim that even in sleep (that is, when an animal seems
most likely to become wholly insensible), it nevertheless has some degree of per-
ception, and indeed both of inner and exterior perception. Hierocles expresses this
claim in the clearest possible way (he is referring specifically to self-perception, but
on closer inspection it emerges that his examples also apply to exterior perception).
As he points out, even in the deepest sleep we nevertheless draw up the bedclothes
and cover those parts of our body that are cold; even if we are sleeping deeply, we
keep wounds free of pressure, as though we were giving this our fully awake atten-
tion; and if, the day before, we have agreed with someone to get up at night, we do
awake when the scheduled hour arrives; furthermore, even while asleep the winebib-
ber does not release the flask from his hand; whereas the miser sleeps with a tight
grip on his purse.35
Here we touch a crucial point. It is quite clear from Hierocles’ examples that he
is speaking not just of perception, but also of oikeiōsis/allotriōsis and indeed of care
(viz. of care-driven action). Put another way: in all these cases what is at stake is the
whole framework (perception+oikeiōsis/allotriōsis + and-care) and the fact that
even in sleep – when oikeiōsis/allotriōsis and care are most likely to be interrupted –
there is no real break or interruption in their flow.
Unsurprisingly enough, this continuity and ubiquity of care is closely connected
with the fact that the latter can present very different degrees of intensity – from the
above-mentioned minimum (the care-driven diagnosis that until further notice no
further surveillance and no intervention is needed) to the most pressing cares (assur-
ing and protecting the absolutely indispensable, when it is not secured, or avoiding
what we fear most, when there is imminent danger that it might come to pass). In
other words, the whole continuous manifold of care consists of a variety of instances
with a highly variable degree of intensity (with a highly variable mallon kai hētton),
Hierocles, Elementatio Ethica, Col. IV, 54 – V, 11: “πιθανὸν μὲν γάρ, εἴπερ ὅλως ποθ’ ἑαυτοῦ
35
γίνεται τὸ ζῷον ἀνεπαίσθητον, ἐν τῷ ὕπνου πάντως χρόνῳ μάλιστα τοῦτο συμβαίνειν. ὁρῶμεν
δ’ ὡς καὶ τότε, οὐ μάλα μὲν τοῖς πολλοῖς εὐπαρακολουθήτως, συναισθάνεται δ’ οὖν ἑαυτοῦ τὸ
ζῷον. ἀπόχρη δὲ πρὸς τὴν ὑπὲρ παντὸς τοῦ γένους διάληψιν τὰ ἐφ’ ὃν διάγομεν βίον ἀπαντῶντα
παραθέσθαι· καὶ γὰρ περὶ χειμῶνος ὥραν παραγυμνωθέντες μέρη τινὰ τοῦ σώματος, εἰ καὶ
βαθυτάτῳ πεπιεσμένοι τύχοιμεν ὕπνῳ, ὅμως ἐφελκόμεθα τὰ ἐνεύναια καὶ περισκέπομεν τὰ
ψυχόμενα, τά τε ἕλκη φυλάττομεν ἀπρόσκρουστα καὶ ἄθλιπτα κοιμώμενοι βαθέως, ὡς ἂν
ἐγρηγορυίᾳ, ἵν’ οὕτω φῶ, χρώμενοι τῇ προσοχῇ, τῇ τε προτεραίᾳ συνταξάμενοί τισι νύκτωρ
ἐπαναστήσεσθαι διεγρόμεθα τῆς ὡρισμένης ὥρας ἡκούσης. ἴδοις δ’ ἂν καὶ τὰς σπουδὰς τὰς
περί τινα μέχρι τῶν ὕπνων ἐπακολουθούσας· ὁ μέν γε φίλοινος καταδαρθάνει πολλάκις οὐκ
ἀφιεὶς ἐκ τῆς χειρὸς τὴν λάγυνον· ὁ δὲ φιλάργυρος ἀπρὶξ ἐχόμενος τοῦ βαλλαντίου κοιμᾶται·”
Translations borrowed from Ramelli and Konstan (2009), 13, with slight changes.
both with regard to positive (oikeiōsis-related) care, on the one hand, and to negative
(allotriōsis-related) care, on the other. To paraphrase the quote above from the
Anonymous Commentary to the Theaetetus: care “epiteinetai gar kai anietai”
(“increases and decreases in intensity”), not in the trivial sense that a given instance
of care can undergo multiple variations of intensity, but rather in the sense that the
global field of care (the compact and uninterrupted field of global care) encom-
passes a wide range of differences of intensity, so that many of its radii fade into the
background and remain inconspicuous (and indeed so much so that they give the
impression that they have nothing to do with care).
That said, we can now turn our attention to the second structural feature the field
of care shares with the field of perception and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis, namely the fact
that it, too, has the structure of a centred manifold and is shaped like a set of con-
centric circles, revolving around a focal point and constituted in such a way that
everything in them is intrinsically related to the focal point and defines itself in
terms of its connection with it. Put another way, the field of care (or rather the field-
of-perception-non-indifference-and-care) has the structure of Hierocles’ well-
known concentric circles.
But here it should be borne in mind that in this case, too, the concentric circles of
oikeiōsis-driven care give only half of the picture. There is a second no less impor-
tant component, namely the concentric circles of allotriōsis-driven care. As pointed
out above, (a) there is no exclusively oikeiōsis-related care, (b) there is no exclu-
sively allotriōsis-related care, and (c) there are no such things as isolated enclaves
of care. Care always takes the form of a global field, in which the concentric circles
of oikeiōsis-driven and allotriōsis-driven care are intermingled. And the point is that
here, too, we are not dealing with two different fields (the concentric circles of
oikeiōsis-driven care and the concentric circles of allotriōsis-driven care), but rather
with one single field, populated by two different kinds of elements: the intermingled
circles of oikeiōsis-driven and allotriōsis-driven care fan out around a focal point
according to their intensity, degree of importance, urgency, compellingness, etc.36
36
And here, too, the remotest circles of οἰκείωσις-related care (i. e. the circles of least intense
οἰκείωσις-related care) and the remotest circles of ἀλλοτρίωσις-related care (i. e. the circles of
least intense ἀλλοτρίωσις-related care) are confusingly similar to what might be termed the circles
of less vigilant monitoring of “neutral” percepta (that is, of what is deemed not to interfere one
way or the other). It should be added that in this respect the field of perception-οἰκείωσις/
ἀλλοτρίωσις-and-care has something resembling what J. von Uexküll terms the farthest plane (die
fernste Ebene). Von Uexküll reminds us that beyond a certain point we lose our ability to locate
percepta at various distances. In other words, beyond a certain point, all differences in terms of
near and far simply disappear – and very remote visual percepta, regardless of the fact that the
corresponding objects are very distant from one another (and indeed much more distant from one
another than everything we are able to locate at various distances), appear on the same farthest
plane, with no difference in depth. The result being that they seem equally far away, as if scattered
over the inside of an immense sphere. And this is the origin of the so-called “sky vault” (or “vault
of heaven”). Now the point here is that there is something similar in the field of perception-
οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-and-care. For in this case, too, we are able to perceive differences (viz. the
contrast between “concentric circles”) only within a limited range. Beyond a certain point, all
percepta are sweepingly relegated to the very same farthest circle – which stretches far out of sight
In this respect, four remarks are in order.

First, what usually qualifies as care turns out to be only part of it: namely the
central circles. But the point is that the realm of care is much larger; and that even
if most of it remains in the background, this background, too, plays an important
role – just as in the case of figure and ground, where (as Gestalpsychology has
shown) the latter is just as much part of the whole and just as much a crucial factor
as the former.
Secondly, in the realm of care there is something corresponding to the Stoic
account of the varieties of oikeiōsis, namely: oikeiōsis eunoētikē (relative to oneself
viz. to one’s own being), oikeiōsis sterktikē (relative to other living beings), and
oikeiōsis hairetikē (relative to inanimate objects). That is, (a) there is what might be
described as epimeleia, syntērēsis or tērēsis eunoētikē (relative to oneself viz. to
one’s own being), (b) there is what might be described as epimeleia, syntērēsis or
tērēsis sterktikē (relative to other living beings), and (c) there is what might be
described as epimeleia, syntērēsis or tērēsis hairetikē (relative to inanimate objects).
In other words, what we are dealing with here is an “irradiating” structure: different
directions of care – the global compass rose of care that is always shaping all per-
ception and oikeiōsis/allotriōsis. But the Stoic account reminds us that, at the end of
the day, it is not just a question of various directions: it is also a question of various
degrees of importance, intensity, urgency and compellingness. There are, as it were,
hierarchical connections (a) between the different directions at issue and (b) within
each of them. The result being that the field of care is a very complex field of fields.
Its nature is such that it, too, can be described both as a compass rose and as a
framework of concentric circles, where oikeiōsis-related and allotriōsis-related
instances of care take place according to their intensity, compellingness, degree of
urgency, etc. In short, the compass rose in question (the “compass rose of care”)37
has the structure of Hierocles’ concentric circles – and only a mix of the two images
can adequately illustrate the structure we are talking about.
Thirdly, the Stoic account we are referring to draws our attention to what might
be described as the threefold “aroundness” or “surroundingness” shaping the field
of perception-oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-and-care. The three components in question are
like three interconnected facets of one and the same structural pattern, namely
(a) perceptual “aroundness” or “surroundingness”
(b) oikeiōsis/allotriōsis-related “aroundness” or “surroundingness” (owing to
which one is more immediately surrounded by what matters most, then by what
in every direction. And this in turn means that the majority of percepta are placed in this farthest
circle of neutral percepta (of what is deemed not to interfere one way or the other). In other words,
the majority of percepta appear with no difference in οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related viz. care-
related “depth”. The result being that they belong, as it were, to an οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related
viz. care-related “sky-vault”. On the “fernste Ebene” and the role it plays in visual space, see
notably von Uexküll (1928), 20f., 53f., 59, 186, 323, 335, von Uexküll (1934), 28ff., and Buytendijk
(1956), 49f.
37
The “compass rose” with the cardinal directions in which the “winds” of care blow.
matters almost as much, then by what matters a little less – and so on and so
forth), and
(c) care-related “aroundness” or “surroundingness”, owing to which we are imme-
diately surrounded by our greatest care and its object, then by our second most
important care-related priority – and so on and so forth.
Fourthly, the above means that not all care is pure care. As a matter of fact, much of
it is constituted in such a way that it looks after its object (i. e. is attentive to it and
decided to ensure its preservation) only to a certain extent or up to a certain point.
In other words, alertness can entail a certain degree of inattention or heedlessness;
engagement can entail a certain degree of disengagement: care can entail a certain
degree of carelessness and neglect. In short, there is no absolute either/or dichotomy
between care and its opposite. Many (and indeed most) instances of care represent
a particular mix (or rather a vast array of different possible combinations) of care
and neglect.38 Unless we are completely mistaken, this is what the care-related side
(viz. the care-related counterpart) of Hierocles’ circles is all about.39
38
I.e. various relations of forces between care and neglect, etc. Incidentally it should be noted that
Hierocles’ circles also draw attention to something else, namely to the fact that care for other
human beings can be, as it were, “astigmatic” (and indeed strongly so). For, if the object of care
belongs to the third, fourth or fifth (and a fortiori to a further) circle, there is a lack of correspon-
dence between (a) how the person who is the object of care appears to the caring subject and (b)
what the person in question is for himself or herself. For the caring subject, the other human being
belonging to the third, fourth or fifth (and a fortiori to a further) circle is more or less peripheral,
while in his or her own view the person in question is nothing less than the focal point. And there
is a world of difference between being the centre of Hierocles’ concentric circles and being some-
thing peripheral (even if only slightly peripheral). In other words, when one takes care of someone
“peripheral”, the very identity of the object of care is relative to its peripheral place in one’s own
set of concentric circles. And there is a close connection between this (a merely peripheral position
viz. distance from the focal point) and the said combination of care and neglect. After all, caring
for the “focal point” as something peripheral is eo ipso neglect. This can also be expressed in terms
of Pirandello’s Uno, Nessuno, Centomila. Pirandello points out that, contrary to what might seem
to be the case, if two people are talking to each other, there are four “identities” (or four “charac-
ters”) involved, namely (1) A for him or herself, (2) A for B, (3) B for him or herself and (4) B for
A. But the point here is that the differences in question are also due to the fact that (1) and (2) viz.
(3) and (4) correspond to very different places in the circles of care (or, more precisely, to very
different places in the circles of perception-οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-and-care).
39
It should be noted that even this “revised” version is a bit too simple and does not do justice to
the intricate fabric of οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις and care. Let us briefly see why.
1. We are still assuming that at any given moment each of us moves in a global set of οἰκείωσις/
ἀλλοτρίωσις-related concentric circles (and in the corresponding global set of care-related concen-
tric circles). But it should be borne in mind (a) that, as pointed out above, life is marked by “each-
timeness”: it unfolds as a succession of specific situations and care-related tasks, and indeed so
much so that (b) each of these specific situations and care-related tasks gives rise to its own specific
set of οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related and care-related concentric circles. The fact is that each spe-
cific situation or care-related task has its own “take” on the perceptual field – and organizes all
percepta according to its own perspective (to what is at stake in each case). In other words, each
specific situation or care-related task has its own “plot”, its own “characters”, its own “closeness
and distance” – its own “concentric circles”. The result being that the very same perceptum can
It is time to conclude. But before concluding let me add one final point.
play a major role (say as a main helper) with regard to a specific situation or care related-task A,
act as a relatively unimportant opponent with regard to another specific situation or care-related
task B, while it is no more than a background element with regard to a third specific situation or
care-related task C.
2. However, this is only one side of the coin. One should not forget that every specific situation
and care-related task is itself embedded in a larger framework: it is just a link in a chain of many
other specific situations and care-related tasks. On the one hand, as long as it remains the situation
or the main task at hand, it occupies a prominent place and plays, as it were, a leading role. It acts
as the centre-point or focus of its own set of οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related and care-related con-
centric circles. And all other specific situations and tasks (with their own sets of concentric circles)
are relegated to the background. But the fact remains that, on the other hand, (a) each specific situ-
ation or task is itself just a situation or task among many others, and (b) some specific situations
and tasks are overall much more important than others. That is: specific situations and tasks are
themselves part of an anisotropic field. This can also be expressed by saying that specific situations
and tasks, too, are dramatis personae of one’s life. And the point is that they, too, are assigned a
position in a scale of “closeness” and “distance” (of importance and lack thereof, etc.) in an over-
arching set of concentric circles – for they are always perceived by us either as “protagonists”, or
as “deuteragonists” (“tritagonists”, and so on and so forth) in the framework of life’s overall “plot”.
This results in a fairly complex picture; for what we are dealing with here is an overall set of
οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related and care-related concentric circles, in which each component has,
as it were, its own set of οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related and care-related concentric circles. In
other words, a distinction must be made between the transient sets of concentric circles of “each-
timeness” (with the corresponding succession of ephemeral “protagonists”), on the one hand, and
the global set of life’s “characters”, on the other. The former is itself part of the latter. In short, the
field of οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related and care-related concentric circles is multi-layered. It com-
prises both (a) the more superficial layer (the kaleidoscopic variation of the concentric circles
corresponding to “each-timeness” and its specific situations and tasks) and (b) the more stable set
of the overarching concentric circles, which are the ones Hierocles seems to have in mind.
3. This multi-layered structure paves the way for what might be described as a complex inter-
play of different roles: overall less important specific situations and tasks (and the corresponding
less important specific sets of concentric circles) can be given momentary prominence, while the
more important components are momentarily side-lined. In short, the “first violins” can play a
“second-fiddle role” and vice versa. And it is tempting to press the metaphor and say: the “first
violins” can momentarily play a “second”-, “third”-, “eighth”- and “twelfth-fiddle” role, etc.,
while the “second-”, “third”-, “eighth”- and “twelfth violins” momentarily play the first fiddle.
Hence, each perceptum plays not just one role, but indeed several different roles at the same
time – i. e. each perceptum is placed not only in one οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related and care-
related set of concentric circles: it is in many different places (in the framework of the said multi-
layered sets of concentric circles) at the same time. As a result, each perceptum defines itself both
(a) according to the role it plays in the specific situation or specific task at hand, and (b) according
to the place it occupies in the concentric circles corresponding to other specific situations and
tasks. On the one hand, the former tends to carry more weight than the latter. But on the other hand,
it all depends on the role played by the specific situations and tasks in question within the frame-
work of life’s overall “plot”. If a given perceptum belongs to the second circle of an overall less
important specific situation or task (say one belonging to the ninth or tenth circle within the overall
framework), it is bound to be less important than percepta belonging to the fifth circle of other
more important specific situations or tasks (say those belonging to the fourth circle within the
overall framework). And this applies even if the former is the situation or task at hand; for momen-
tary (“each-timeness”-related) importance can be outweighed by overall importance (by the role
each perceptum plays in the framework of life’s overall plot). The point is that the complex struc-
ture we are talking about resembles a system of forces. There is no such thing as a simple οἰκείωσις/
After presenting his concentric circles, Hierocles adds the following: “Once
these have all been surveyed, it is the task of a well-tempered man, in his proper
treatment of each group, to draw the circles together somehow towards the centre
(to episynagein pōs tous kyklous hōs epi to kentron), and to keep zealously transfer-
ring those from the enclosing circles into the enclosed ones (kai tēi spoudēi
metapherein aei tous ek periechontōn eis tous periechomenous)…. It is incumbent
on us to respect people of the third circle as if they were those from the second, and
again to respect our other relatives as if they were those from the third circle. For
although the greater distance in blood will remove some affection, we must still try
hard to assimilate them (hēmin d’homōs spoudastea peri tēn exomoiōsin estin). The
right point will be reached if, through our own initiative, we reduce the distance of
the relationship with each person. The main procedure for this has been stated. But
we should do more, in the terms of address we use, calling cousins brothers, and
uncles and aunts, fathers and mothers…. For this mode of address would be no
slight mark of our affection for them all, and it would also stimulate and intensify
the indicated contraction of the circles (hama d’an epotrynoi kai prosenteinoi pros
tēn hypodedeigmenēn hoion synolkēn tōn kyklōn).”40
The important point here is what Hierocles describes in the following terms:
“drawing the circles together towards the centre” (to episynagein pōs tous kyklous
hōs epi to kentron), “transferring those from the enclosing circles into the enclosed
ones” (metapherein aei tous ek periechontōn eis tous periechomenous). In other
words, what interests us here is what he terms “assimilation” (exomoiōsis) or “con-
traction of the circles” (synolkē tōn kyklōn). The point is that the concentric-circles-
structure we have been talking about – i.e. the concentric-circle-structure shaping
the field-of-perception-non-indifference-and-care – is far from being an absolutely
rigid framework. The Stoic description of the said field (a) highlights both its
ἀλλοτρίωσις-related and care-related perceptual “identity”. What defines each perceptum in terms
of its position in the framework of the οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις-related and care-related circles is
rather like the resultant force of a system of forces: it combines and expresses each and every one
of the forces involved, but at the same time the particular correlation of forces between them
(between their magnitude, etc.).
40
Stobaeus, Anthologium, 84, 23, von Arnim (1906) 61, 23ff.: “τούτων οὖν τεθεωρημένων, κατὰ
τὸν ἐντεταμένον ἐστὶ περὶ τὴν ἑκάστων δέουσαν χρῆσιν τὸ ἐπισυνάγειν πως τοὺς κύκλους ὡς
ἐπὶ τὸ κέντρον καὶ τῇ σπουδῇ μεταφέρειν ἀεὶ τοὺς ἐκ τῶν περιεχόντων εἰς τοὺς περιεχομένους.
(…) πρόσκειται δ’ὅτι καὶ τούτοις μὲν ὁμοίως τιμητέον τοὺς ἐκ τοῦ τρίτου κύκλου, τούτοις
δ’αὖ πάλιν τοὺς συγγενεῖς. ἀφαιρήσεται μὲν γάρ τι τῆς εὐνοίας τὸ καθ’ αἷμα διάστημα πλέον
ὄν· ἡμῖν δ’ ὅμως σπουδαστέα περὶ τὴν ἐξομοίωσίν ἐστιν. ἥκοι μὲν γὰρ ἄν εἰς τὸ μέτριον, εὶ διὰ
τῆς ἡμετέρας αὐτῶν ἐνστάσεως ἐπιτεμνόμεθα τὸ μῆκος τῆς πρὸς ἕκαστον τὸ πρόσωπον
σχέσεως. Τὸ μὲν οὖν συνέχον καὶ πραγματικώτερον εἴρηται· χρὴ δ’ἐπιμετρεῖν καὶ κατὰ τὴν τῶν
προσηγοριῶν χρῆσιν, τοὺς μὲν ἀνεψιοὺς καὶ θείους καὶ τηθίδας ἀδελφοὺς ἀποκαλοῦντας
πατέρας τε καὶ μητέρας, [τῶν δὲ συγγενῶν τοὺς μὲν θείους, τοὺς δὲ ἀδελφιδοῦς, τοὐς δὲ
ἀνεψιούς, ὡς ἄν καὶ τῆς ἡλικίας παρείκῃ ἕνεκα τῆς ἐν τοῖς ὀνόμασιν ἐκτενείας.] Οὗτος γὰρ τῆς
προσρήσεως ὁ τρόπος ἅμα μὲν ἄν σημεῖον οὐκ ἀμαυρὸν εἴη τῆς οὔσης ἡμῖν σπουδῆς περὶ
ἑκάστους, ἅμα δ’ἄν ἐποτρύνοι καὶ προσεντείνοι πρὸς τὴν ὑποδεδειγμένην οἷον συνολκὴν τῶν
κύκλων.” Translation borrowed from Long and Sedley (1987), 350. We leave out the question of
how κατὰ τὸ ἐντετάμενον is to be interpreted and translated.
invariable form and (b) the fact that this invariable form leaves room for variability,
in such a way that the concentric-circles-structure is both (c) the invariable form of
the field and (d) the very form of its variability.
As far as variability is concerned, the texts in question present and discuss two
main claims.
On the one hand, there is the claim that the centre (viz. the focal point) can be
widened to include further elements besides the self. That is, other percepta can be
equated with the self and play a similar role; the result being what might be described
as a complex centre: a manifold of different contents, among which the sphere of the
self, all on an equal footing.41 In other words, in the Stoic view there is the possibil-
ity of at least a certain amount of equation with the self.42 It is possible to level down
the differences between the self-related centre and exterior percepta, so that the
latter, too, become the object of superlative oikeiōsis and utmost care. And pretty
much the same applies to the connection between other components of the
concentric-circles-structure. Here, too, it is possible to make changes: to “transfer
from the enclosing circles to the enclosed ones” (say from the sixth circle to the
fifth, from the eighth to the seventh), or even to supress an entire circle, or indeed
several circles, etc. In short: here, too, there is room for a certain amount of levelling
down of differences between the circles (for exomoiōsis or synolkē tōn kyklōn). But,
at the end of the day, this kind of flexibility and change is characterized by the fact
that (a) all the changes we are talking about presuppose the original “casting” (the
original self-centred concentric circles) and are, as it were, avatars thereof, and (b)
the overarching formal structure (the concentric-circles-framework) remains
unchanged: it is all a question of partial adjustments, not of losing the said shape
(the form of concentric-circles) and taking another.
The key issue is, of course, that (a) the assimilation in question, and in particular
(b) the equation with the first circle (changes in the focal point: changes as to what
belongs to it) mean nothing less than changes as to what the whole realm of care is
all about. And that is what Hierocles & Co. draw our attention to.
In other words, according to the Stoic views at issue here, what we have termed
the map of care (the “geography” of care: the care-related global field in which
each of us lives) can be changed. The result being that there is care and care (or
rather there are global fields of care and global fields of care). And what is at stake
here is what might be described as the kaleidoscope of care: the changeability (the
variable geometry of the field of care): the fact that (a) the default mode
41
It should be noted that here we are speaking of equation with the self in a second sense: not (a)
in the sense that something else bears the imprint of the self in such a manner that it is deemed to
be part of it, but rather (b) in the sense that, as far as οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις and care are con-
cerned, the perceptum in question is given a role similar to the self (namely the leading role: the
role of the focal point around which everything else revolves in the field of perception-οἰκείωσις/
ἀλλοτρίωσις-and-care).
42
And therefore at least a certain amount of “drawing the circles together towards the centre”, of
“transference from the enclosing circles into the enclosed ones” – of “assimilation” (ἐξομοίωσις)
or “contraction of the circles” (συνολκὴ τῶν κύκλων).
(self-centred care) can evolve into a vast array of very different care-related land-
scapes (very different configurations of the global field of perception-oikeiōsis/
allotriōsis-and-care), (b) the said default mode is at the root of all other care-related
landscapes, so that none of them is possible without deviation from the default mode
(i.e. without the latter giving way to them), and (c) the default mode (and indeed
each care-related global landscape) cannot be changed overnight (it takes time and
effort, etc.).
The key question in all this is in which directions and how far the said change – i.
e. assimilation (exomoiōsis or synolkē tōn kyklōn) – may be extended.
And one of the most interesting aspects of Hierocles’ account is that it takes a
position on this issue. For Hierocles also makes a second claim, namely that it is
possible to promote nothing less than the complete and utter “assimilation”
(exomoiōsis) or “contraction of the circles” (synolkē tōn kyklōn) – so that there is
room for the kind of total transformation he refers to in the above quote: to equate
the last circle with the last but one, and so on and so forth – the eighth with the sev-
enth, the seventh with the sixth, the sixth with the fifth, the fifth with the fourth, the
fourth with the third, the third with the second, and the latter (that is, all the others)
with the first – the result being a widened, all-encompassing centre, without a
periphery. Hierocles speaks of such a complete and utter exomoiōsis or “contraction
of the circles” (synolkē tōn kyklōn) with regard to the field of human relationships
(of non-indifferent-perception-and-care-of-other-people).43 Now, this “limited”
43
Cf. Appendix I. The Anonymous Commentary to Plato’s Theaetetus, Col. V, 24–32, refers to this
complete assimilation in the following terms: “ὅσοι τοίνυν ἀπὸ τῆς οἰκειώσεως εἰσάγουσι τὴν
δικαιοσύνην, εὶ μὲν λέγουσιν ἴσην αὑτοῦ τε πρὸς αὑτὸν καὶ πρὸς τὸν ἔσχατον Μυζῶν, τεθέντος
μὲν τούτου σώζεται ἡ δικαιοσύνη (…).” (“So those people who derive justice from οἰκείωσις, if
on the one hand they are saying that a man’s οἰκείωσις in relation to himself is equal to his
οἰκείωσις in relation to the very last of the Mysians, their assumption preserves justice (…)”) –
translation borrowed from Long and Sedley (1987), 350, with slight changes. The author of the
commentary is, of course, alluding to Plato’s Theaetetus 209b – see notably Greene (1938), on
Theaet. 209b, p. 39, and Campbell (1861) on 209b, p. 207. “The very last of the Mysians” (“ulti-
mus Mysorum” viz. “Mysorum postremus”) seems to mean two things: (a) the most distant, and
(b) the last of the last in the sense of the worst of the worst (the meanest of the meanest). It appears
that the Mysians were deemed very vile, mean and contemptible (or, as Anthony Trollope puts it
in his Life of Cicero, “the lowest type of Humanity”). Therefore, in the words of Cope and Sandys
(1970), 236, if somebody is “the last and lowest – even of the Mysians”, “worthlessness can go no
further”. For this idiomatic expression, cf. Magnes, Fr. 5, apud Kock (1880), 8, Philemon, Fr. 77,
apud Kock (1884), 499, Menander Fr. 55, apud Koerte (1959), 175, Cicero, Pro Flacco, 27,
Schwartz (1891), on Rhesus 251, p. 232, Leutsch and Schneidewin (1839), 411 (Appendicis II 85),
Leutsch and Schneidewin (1851), 25, (DV II 47), Porson (1882), 23–24, Adler (1928), E 3254, and
Throllope (1880), 357. See also Cope and Sandys (1877), 235f., Pearson (1917), 58ff., Dobesch
(1962), 192ff. and 305–311, Moorhouse (1965), 31f., Wankel (1976), on § 72, p. 433, Bäbler
(1998), 90, and Bagordo (2014), 105. The equation of the ultimus Musorum with the focal point
amounts to an assimilation of the very last circle with the first – and therefore to Hierocles’ com-
plete συνολκὴ τῶν κύκλων (N. B.: in the realm of “intersubjective relations”). Moreover, if “ὁ
ἔσχατος Μυζῶν” stands for “the worst of the worst”, then the Anonymus’ wording seems to sug-
gest nothing less than the complete suppression of ἀλλοτρίωσις in the realm of “intersubjective”
relations. For the idea of “complete assimilation, cf. Plutarch, De Alexandri magni fortuna aut
virtute, 329a8-b 5: “καὶ μὴν ἡ πολὺ θαυμαζομένη πολιτεία τοῦ τὴν Στωικῶν αἵρεσιν
claim met strong resistance – the kind of resistance voiced, for example, by the
Anonymous Commentary to Plato’s Theaetetus.44 The question is: is complete and
καταβαλομένου Ζήνωνος εἰς ἓν τοῦτο συντείνει κεφάλαιον, ἵνα μὴ κατὰ πόλεις μηδὲ κατὰ
δήμους οἰκῶμεν ἰδίοις ἕκαστοι διωρισμένοι δικαίοις, ἀλλὰ πάντας ἀνθρώπους ἡγώμεθα δημότας
καὶ πολίτας, εἷς δὲ βίος ᾖ καὶ κόσμος, ὥσπερ ἀγέλης συννόμου νόμῳ κοινῷ συντρεφομένης.
τοῦτο Ζήνων μὲν ἔγραψεν ὥσπερ ὄναρ ἢ εἴδωλον εὐνομίας φιλοσόφου καὶ πολιτείας
ἀνατυπωσάμενος (…)”. See also Cicero, De finibus, V, 65: “In omni autem honesto, de quo loqui-
mur, nihil est tam illustre nec quod latius pateat quam coniunctio inter homines hominum et quasi
quaedam societas et communicatio utilitatum et ipsa caritas generis humani. quae nata a primo
statu, quod a procreatoribus nati diliguntur et tota domus conjungio et stirpe coniungitur, serpit
sensim foras, cognationibus primum, tum affinitatibus, deinde amicitiis, post vicinitatibus, tum
civibus et eis, qui publice socii atque amici sunt, deinde totius complexu gentis humanae. quae
animi affectio suum cuique tribuens atque hanc, quam dico, societatem coniunctionis humanae
munifice et aeque tuens iustitia dicitur (...)”. Epictetus, Dissertationes ab Arriano digestae, II, xxii,
15ff. is also important in this regard.
44
Col V, 18-VII, 14. Cf. Diels and Schubart (1905), 5–7, and Bastianini and Sedley (1995),
274–278. This is not the place to examine the Anonymous’ views. But it should be borne in mind
that 5.18ff. presents several arguments against the possibility of complete assimilation. First, the
Anonymous stresses the fact that one’s οἰκείωσις in relation to oneself is both natural and com-
pletely independent of reason (φυσικὴ καὶ ἄλογος), whereas one’s οἰκείωσις to one’s neighbours
(and a fortiori to distant fellow human beings), while also natural, is by no means independent of
reason: it must be awakened by rational reflection – and fuelled, as it were, by it. Secondly, the
Anonymous claims that even if we are capable of a considerable degree of the said assimilation,
there is no way assimilation can remove the difference between what might be termed the “first-
person” and the “second-person” (or “third-person”) perspective: if other people misbehave, this
gives rise to ἀλλοτρίωσις (we are alienated from them); but the persons in question, even if they
realize that they have misbehaved, are not equally alienated from themselves (that is: the “self,”
even if it realizes that it has misbehaved, does not become equally alienated from itself). Thirdly,
the Anonymous presents the above-mentioned general argument that there is no such thing as com-
pletely equal οἰκείωσις (equally intense οἰκείωσις) in relation to all percepta – and that even in the
case of one’s relation to oneself οἰκείωσις is ἀνόμοια. Each of us is, of course, globally attached to
his or her body; but the ties of οἰκείωσις that bind us to different parts of our body (to our eyes, our
fingers, our hair or our nails) are of different intensity. As the Anonymous puts it: “our relationship
to our own parts is not one of equal οἰκείωσις (μηδὲ πρὸς τὰ ἑαυτῶν μέρη ἐπ’ ἴσης ᾠκειώμεθα);
for we are not disposed in just the same way relative to our eyes and our fingers, let alone to our
nails and hair”. Fourthly, the Anonymous refers to “threshold situations” viz. to the anti-Stoic
topos of two shipwrecked people, who find themselves in a situation in which only one of them can
survive and each of them must choose between saving his own life and saving the other’s. All these
arguments try to show that any attempt at complete “assimilation” is inevitably stopped by an
irreducible margin of unequal οἰκείωσις. On “social” (“intersubjective”) οἰκείωσις viz. on the con-
nection between οἰκείωσις/ἀλλοτρίωσις, complete “assimilation”, “impartiality” and “justice”
(whether orthodox Stoic authors did or did not claim the possibility of complete “assimilation” and
advocated the corresponding notion of “justice”), see notably Praechter (1901), 9f., 13, 61f. (323f.,
327, 375f.), Sigdwick (1907), 502f., Praechter (1909), 545 (279), Mancini (1913), 69ff., Lorenz
(1914), Praechter (1916), 517ff., Mühl (1928), Elorduy (1936), Fisch (1937), Bolkenstein (1939),
121ff., 310ff., Pohlenz (1940), 10, 31ff., 45, 46ff., Reijnders (1954), Baldry (1965), 151ff., Voelke
(1961), 110ff., Giusta (1967), 499f., Zampaglione (1967), 158ff., Pembroke (1971), Isnardi
Parente (1972), Kerferd (1972), Mingay (1973), Janda (1973), Fraisse (1984), 348–373, Williams
(1976), den Boer (1979), 62ff., Inwood (1983), Inwood (1984), Vander Waerdt (1988), Engberg-
Pedersen (1990), 122ff., Blundell (1990), Magnaldi (1991), Annas (1992), Bastianini and Long
(1992), 444ff., Annas (1993), 262ff., 302ff., Lesses (1993), Long (1993), Pizzolato (1993), 80ff.,
utter exomoiōsis really possible within the sphere of “intersubjective” relations? Or

is it rather that (a) there is (and always must be) a concomitant field of “intersubjec-
tive” allotriōsis and of “intersubjective” allotriōsis-related care, and (b) there is
(and always must be) a certain variation of intensity (the above-mentioned mallon
kai hētton) both of “intersubjective” oikeiōsis, of “intersubjective” allotriōsis and of
“intersubjective” care?
And, on the other hand, is complete assimilation (complete exomoiōsis, complete
synolkē tōn kyklōn) possible in the whole field of care? And does it make any sense
in the whole field of care? If this turns out not to be the case, then the Stoic descrip-
tion of the circles of care does not apply solely to the default mode. The circles are
rather an unchangeable feature of the realm of care. If, on the contrary, complete
exomoiōsis turns out to be possible, then a second key aspect of the Stoic view –
namely the claim that the circles can be changed (and indeed radically changed) –
gains further in significance.
In either case, what we are dealing with here is a decisive feature of (viz. a deci-
sive either/or in) our lives – but one that more often than not remains undetected, so
that we are not aware of it. One of the main merits of the Stoic account of care and
its circles is that it directs our gaze to all this and confronts us with these questions.
Appendix I (to Note 43)
Incidentally, the episynagein (the exomoiōsis viz. the synolkē tōn kyklōn) we are
talking about here should not be confused with what might be termed the pliability
of the first-person plural (viz. of the circle of the “we”).
As a matter of fact, Hierocles’ circles draw our attention to the complex, flexible
and dynamic structure of what might be termed the “we-perspective” viz. the “first-
person-plural perspective” (as opposed to the “second-” and “third-person plural”).
From the centre to the periphery, Hierocles’ circles highlight (a) the transition from
Vander Waerdt (1994), Bastianini and Sedley (1995), 490ff., Schofield (1995), Inwood (1996),
Nussbaum (1997), Brown (1997), Pangle (1998), Boys-Stones (1998), Schofield (1999a, b),
Winkel (2000), Pagden (2000), Nussbaum (2000), Radice (2000), 63ff., 222ff., Striker (2000),
Banateanu (2001), Lee (2002) 122–136, Nussbaum (2002), Reydams-Schils (2002), Algra (2003),
Schofield (2003), in particular 251ff., Berges (2005), Laurand (2005), Reydams-Schils (2005), 3f.,
143ff., McCabe (2005), Zagdoun (2005), Gueye (2006), Sellars (2007), Sorabji (2007), Alesse
(2008), Ramelli (2009), XLIIIff., LVff., LXIIff., 120ff., Piatesi (2010), Kühn (2011), Richter
(2011), Sedley (2012), Boeri (2013), Berthelot (2013), Laurand (2014), Schmitz (2014), Alesse
(2016), Veillard (2016) Konstan (2016), Ramelli (2016), Klein (2016), 157ff., Mirguet (2017),
193ff., Magrin (2018). On the connection between the arguments presented in the anonymous
Commentarium in Platonis Theaetetum 5.18ff. and ancient topoi of anti-Stoic polemics, in particu-
lar the “shipwrecked-topos”, cf. Cicero, De officiis, III. 89–90, De re publica III, 30, Lactantius,
Divinae institutiones V 16.10, and see notably von Arnim (1906), Pohlenz (1934), 25f. viz. 277f.,
Fisch (1937), Croissant (1939), Weiglin (1942), Ferrary (1977), Inwood (1984), 182f., Blundell
(1990), 230, Hruschka (1994), Wright (1995), 185f., Dyck (1996), 612f., Schofield (2003), 251ff.,
Aichele (2003), Berthelot (2013), and Bonazzi (2008).
singular to plural, (b) the transition from “first-person” to “second-” viz. “third-
person”, and (c) the emergence of a new kind of “first-person”, namely the “first-
person plural”. The latter is, of course, intrinsically oikeiōsis-related. It presupposes
an oikeiōsis-bond between singular and plural (i.e. between the “first-person singu-
lar” and other people originally belonging to the realm of the “second-” or “third-
person”). Oikeiōsis has the particular power to transform the “second-” and
“third-person” into a specific kind of “first person” (namely the “first-person
plural”).
But this is not all. Hierocles’ concentric circles also highlight the fact that the
“first-person plural” can take the form either of narrower or of wider circles. For
instance, it can include just the second circle. But nothing prevents it from also
comprising the third, the fourth, the fifth, etc. For there is the “we” of one’s immedi-
ate family, the “we” of one’s wider family, the “we” of one’s friends, the “we” of
one’s neighbourhood, the “we” of one’s profession, the “we” of one’s political or
religious beliefs, the “we” of one’s football club, the “we” of one’s country, etc. And
to these different “we”s correspond different “they”s”. That is, Hierocles’ concen-
tric circles allow different first-person-plural settings (and this also means: different
second- and third-person-plural-settings), depending on the specific
circumstances.
To put it in a nutshell, the very same concentric circles can give rise to various
“us-them divides”. Furthermore, very frequent changes of these settings are part and
parcel of the normal operation of the “system” we are talking about. To give but one
example, minutes after insulting each other over a traffic incident on the way to the
stadium two people can share their common commitment to their club, their coun-
try, etc., and play their role as perfectly devoted members of the corresponding
“we”. This can also be expressed by saying that, according to the circumstances, the
emphasis can be placed either on the boundary between the first and the second
circle, or on the boundary between the second and the third, or on the boundary
between the third and the fourth, etc. In other words, the boundaries between the
concentric circles can be either stressed or unstressed in various ways – and they
can be variously connected with the divide between “us” and “them”. The result
being that (a) there are wider and narrower “we-circles” (as opposed to narrower
and wider “you-circles” viz. “they-circles”), (b) the latter are inversely proportional
to the former, and (c) in the course of one’s life the “acting” “we” is almost con-
stantly changing. And all this – namely both (1) the various “us-them divides” and
(2) very frequent changes in this regard – is as much part of the structure in question
as the concentric circles described by Hierocles.
Now, this means that, depending on the circumstances, the “we-circle” can
become very wide – and indeed as wide as the outermost and largest circle. But the
point is that none of this is what Hierocles’ episynagein, his exomoiōsis and his
synolkē tōn kyklōn are all about. For all the changes we have been talking about
leave untouched the varying intensity of oikeiōsis and care the concentric circles
stand for; while Hierocles’ episynagein, his exomoiōsis and his synolkē tōn kyklōn
stand for the exact opposite – namely for complete unification or assimilation: for
the very same intensity of oikeiōsis and care throughout the whole perceptual field.
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Chapter 4
The Relation Between Care and Despair,
According to Kierkegaard
Luís Mendes
Abstract In this article I intend to relate the structures of care and despair, accord-
ing to Kierkegaard. Firstly, I will analyse the structure of care. Three fundamental
aspects will be identified: (a) the need to consider self-existence from a global point
of view; (b) the need for an axis for that life-view; (c) the need for correspondence
between self-existence and life-view. Apparently, this structure is formal and arbi-
trary. Secondly, I will analyse the structure of despair. Three fundamental aspects
will be analysed: (α) the requirement for a life-view which can be applied to the
totality of subjective existence; (β) the requirement for an unconditioned instance of
meaning; (γ) the requirement for the exclusion of the possibility of failure. Finally,
I intend to discuss the conclusions of the previous analyses, namely, that the possi-
bility of despair reveals that the structure of care is not arbitrary.
Keywords Arbitrariness · Care · Despair · Kierkegaard · Life-view
4.1 Introduction
In this article I intend to study the relation between care and despair, according to
Kierkegaard. The problem I approach here is that of arbitrariness.
For Kierkegaard, the important thing in life is to find one idea – only one – for
which to live and die for. The decisive factor here is this fundamental need for an
idea, but he does not describe the nature of this idea: he only points out that we can-
not live without one. So, apparently, we need to have an idea to live for, but any idea
will do. All ideas are equally valid. Of course, for me, they do not have the same value
or the same validity, because for me they are not equally valid. So, the validity of this
idea must be a validity to me. But, in this way, the validity of the idea only depends
on the fact that it is adopted by an individual. So, it does not matter if I live for love
or for hate, for my family or for the State, for the Nazi ideal or for Christian love. The
L. Mendes (*)
Praxis-Centro de Filosofia, Política e Cultura, Universidade da Beira Interior,
Covilhã, Portugal
e-mail: luisffmendes@gmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
80 L. Mendes
important thing is to live by an idea that is important to me. If someone is able to live
for an idea, whichever it may be, then that idea is valid, because that idea is the truth
for that individual. Without resorting to a criterion other than the adoption of an idea,
any idea can be validated, because the criterion of validity is the adoption itself.
There seems to be great arbitrariness involved in the human condition. According
to Kierkegaard, humans are thrown into life with no established purpose at all. Each
individual must set himself an end for himself in life. What he then chooses or does
is not arbitrary because it follows from that radical choice, but that first choice
between possibilities seems to be criterionless. The first choice settles what is the
criterion for decisions, but it is itself a criterionless decision – or so it seems.
There are three existential regimes available to human beings (the aesthetic, the
ethical and the religious), but there is no automatic passage from one to the other.
Each individual has at his disposal various possibilities which he may appropriate
through an apparently criterionless radical choice. Of course, Kierkegaard has a
clear preference for the religious over the aesthetic and the ethical, but he has not
got a criterion to justify this preference apart from his preferences, for there is no
neutral standpoint from where he could justify his commitment before a decision
has been made.
So, humans are thrown into life with no established criterion. But, if they need to
measure and to judge things, there must be a criterion within them also, because
otherwise they would be incapable of measuring and judging. Therefore, they must
choose a criterion for themselves, but that decision by which a criterion is chosen is
criterionless. This is so, unless they have a criterion always already given within
themselves.
My aim in this article is to explore the hypothesis that, according to Kierkegaard,
the default human position has a teleological structure that allows us to establish a
set of criteria to measure the different possibilities available for an individual. For
that, I will start by analysing the structure of care. Then, I will try to show that the
structure of despair reveals requirements that are immanent to the human being.
With human beings, there is a permanent tension to get rid of despair and to annul
the very possibility of despair. The possibility of despair provides a criterion to
choose between existential possibilities, for what is at stake is to always annul the
very possibility of despair. So, since human beings can despair, a radical choice
between existential possibilities is not criterionless – or, at least, is not condemned
to be criterionless.
So, radical choices are not condemned to be criterionless, precisely, because
human beings can despair, but what is at stake is to always annul the very possibility
of despair, and that provides a criterion to choose between existential possibilities.
4.2 Care
Kierkegaard places a strong emphasis on the first-person perspective. What is at

stake is the self. What is of concern is my life. A prerequisite for a meaningful life
is a stable sense of self and that requires something solid to hold on.
4 The Relation Between Care and Despair, According to Kierkegaard 81
The constitution of the human individual always involves a demand for meaning.
There is in the human being ‘a concern about what meaning the world has for him
and he for the world,’ a concern about ‘what meaning everything… has for him’
(Kierkegaard 1990: 86). But the existing individual does not live locked in the pres-
ent moment. The human point of view always corresponds to a projection of himself
in the whole of his own life. Life as a structure of meaning must be considered as a
whole. The meaning and importance of what happens or what is done always
depends on the meaning the whole has. Therefore, the subject always needs a regime
of global meaning that explains everything. The failure to grant this will leave the
subject without orientation.
The global meaning of what an individual is doing relies on the meaning that the
whole of life has to that particular individual. So, every occupation in life receives
its particular meaning from its relative position in the whole of life. The meaning of
this or that, of what is done and of what one has to do, always refers to the totality
of my life and requires the recognition of that totality as something meaningful, as
something that has a meaning for me. If my life loses its global meaning, then each
of the occupations that fill it will also lose their meaning. If life as a whole ceases to
make sense, then nothing makes sense in my life. The meaning of the parts rests on
the meaning of the whole. This is so because it depends on a donation of meaning
from a point of view that originally is a launch in the whole. What gives meaning to
everything in my life is the global regime of meaning that supports my life. So, I
need to know that I work to earn money, or that I earn money to pay the bills. But
also, I need a global meaning that gives importance to all those occupations. What
is always at stake is the whole, my life as a whole.
A life-view provides an understanding of what is important, it provides a way to
integrate each event in the totality of life. It can be a regime of meaning in which the
subject exists without having done anything for it, or it can be a regime of meaning
chosen by the subject – in any case, the decisive is that he always needs to have an
operating regime of meaning, a code that presents life in a comprehensible way,
which gives his life a certain configuration and makes it habitable.
4.2.1 The Need for a Life-View
A human being has a need to consider his own life as a totality. In the second part
of Either/Or we read that every human being ‘has a natural need to formulate a life-
view, a conception of the meaning of life and of its purpose’ (Kierkegaard 1987:
179). A life-view is necessary in order to become an actual and concrete personality.
The question is ‘under what qualifications one will view all existence and person-
ally live’ (1987: 169). A global understanding maps the world, gives orientation and
meaning to life. The subject needs ‘an explanation… that explains the meaning of
everything’ (1990: 87). That need is immanent to our relations with life and
the world.
82 L. Mendes
According to Kierkegaard, a subject needs a life-view through which to under-

stand and direct his own life. The need for a view of life as a whole does not have to
be a systematically elaborated theoretical or conceptual representation. This does
not mean that Kierkegaard does not value knowledge. Knowing the truth is impor-
tant. But the most important thing is that a life-view must provide the crucial ele-
ments for an existential map and, in doing so, it must give a meaning to life as
a whole.
An existing individual human being needs an existential map that indicates what
needs to be done and the meaning of it. Therefore, the meaning requested is not the
meaning of this or that, but rather the meaning of the totality of life, which will
specify the meaning of everything. That is to say, what is needed is a system of
meaning which allows the recognition of meaning in life.
4.2.2 The Need for a Unifying telos (End)
A condition for a fulfilling life is a stable sense of self, and that requires having roots
in a unifying telos (an ultimate end). The development of a whole and complete
personality consists in striving towards a single goal in life. Failing this will render
one’s life pointless. Without a unifying centre, our life collapses into a series of
disconnected moments, and to live in this way is to live in despair (Rudd 2001: 139).
Kierkegaard (1990: 260) insists that we simply cannot live ‘without a goal and a
criterion, since a life without them is inconsolable and disordered.’ We always need
to have something to build our life and our identity on. So, a life-view needs to be
determined by the content of a single idea. In that way, a life-view will provide a
standpoint and a centre of orientation which enables us to know where we are in life
and take a stance towards challenges ‘rather than being overcome by them’ (Walsh
2018: 20).
That is: an existing human being needs to acquire a definite identity, he wants a
stable personal identity and that means to have a purpose, requires a goal in life. The
individual human being has a need ‘of always having a goal [Maal] by which it
measures [maale], a goal toward which it strives,’ a criterion ‘to measure out
[udmaale] the particular’ (Kierkegaard 1990: 260). In other words, he needs to have
his life-view ‘concentrated in one single sentence’ (1987: 158).
So, as stated by Walsh (2018: 73), Kierkegaard identifies character ‘with being
one thing.’ Humans have a need for developing a stable character, a persistent iden-
tity, that is, humans have a need to become one thing. And for that they need some-
thing to hold their life-view on. A life-view needs a standpoint to support it. I need
to have my self as a concrete unity, to link myself to a goal towards which I strive.
In fact, the understanding (of the world, of life and of himself) that one has
totally depends on the instance of meaning that supports it. If the criterion of mea-
surement changes, it changes the understanding one has. Thus, for example, a life-
view ‘teaches that health is the most precious good’, another that ‘[b]eauty is the
ultimate’ (Kierkegaard 1987: 181), another that money is the ‘nervus rerum
gerendarum’ (driving force of actions), the ‘conditio sine qua non’ (necessary con-
dition), the ‘absolute condition for living’ (1987: 277), and another that it is the idea
of the State that is the highest (1987: 322). That idea (health, beauty, money, State)
is the centre of the life-view one has.
There are many possible life-views. In any case, the decisive is ‘the most pre-
cious good’, ‘the ultimate’, the ‘nervus rerum gerendarum’, the ‘absolute condition
for living’, the foundation upon which the individual builds up his own life. So,
what I really need is to be clear about that idea, because the crucial thing ‘is to find
a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die’
(Kierkegaard 2007: 19). The most important thing is to find out what is the most
important to me, because that is what defines the global meaning of my life and, so,
that is what defines the meaning that everything has for me: to find that idea is the
same as to find myself (2007: 20). In this sense, to know anything we need to know
ourselves first, for only by knowing our own measure can we measure things and get
clear about the value of everything. To know the importance of something we need
to know, firstly, the criterion by which to measure it.
So, a life-view needs to be stabilized, to have unity. It needs an instance that
works as an axis and as a point of support. We need something to support our life.
What is at stake is to have something from which the subject can consider his own
life as a totality ruled by a single idea. This will allow him to form a point-of-view
in the strict sense. This instance of meaning has many functions, being at the same
time the most important thing, the end and the measure (criterion). Since human
beings are thrown into life with no established end, a subject needs to set ‘himself
an end for his striving here in life’ (Kierkegaard 1993: 141).
4.2.3 The Need for Fulfilment
A subject sets himself an end for his striving, and then the task is to live precisely
according to the end he has set for himself. If he does not achieve it, he is in despair.
Despair has the form of unhappy love. In fact, unhappy love is a form of despair
(Kierkegaard 2011: 173).
So, there is in human beings a need for effectiveness (Kierkegaard 1987). We
need to have a life-view and we need to live according to that life-view. What is at
stake is the correspondence between life-view and life, between principles and
actions, between the conception of the self and the content of the personality,
between ideality and reality. In other words, in the human being there is a require-
ment to acquire precisely the identity that he has set as an ideal for himself. That
ideal identity is his criterion of measurement. The requirement is to reduplicate the
possibility over reality, so that the self that is acquired must correspond entirely to
the ideal aimed as an end. As Tilley (2008: 62) suggests, for a person, ‘attachment
and care for its object are identity constituting.’
This requirement for reduplication (Redupplikation) seems self-evident. In fact,
existentially, having a life-view means living according to that view of life. For a
84 L. Mendes
human, a life-view is not just a thought, because human life is not just a matter of
thinking, and it is not just a life of knowledge. So, in this sense, the decisive factor
is not the content, the what – the idea. The crucial thing is the how, the decisive fac-
tor is to live according to. It does not matter to talk about a domed palace, if we live
in a shed alongside it (Kierkegaard 1980: 43–44). The point is to be honest about
what we really live for.
Truth is to live for an idea, and that means to live in it (Kierkegaard 2007: 21).
Without reduplication the idea remains a possibility, an imagined identity, a fantasy
life – not a real one. But a human being does not possess such a structure as to relate
to his ideals indifferently, as if he did not care whether they came true or not. On the
contrary, his ideals put pressure on him to actualize them, that is, to cancel their
character of mere possibility. An ideal – if it is indeed an ideal for the subject in
question – is precisely characterized by not leaving him indifferent. It is true that he
may be mistaken about what is really important for himself, but whatever is really
important to him requires execution. A subject may think that the measure of his life
is one thing when, in fact, it is something else. It is possible that a person really does
not care about certain things, even though he sincerely believes that those things are
extremely important to him. And, at the same time, a person may care deeply about
something without realizing how important it is to him. That is, a subject may think
that he lives in a house when, in fact, he lives next door, or even in an entirely dif-
ferent continent. But an ideal – if it is indeed an ideal that one has, and not an ideal
that one imagines having – requires execution. The individual is under pressure to
exist in such a way that his existence reduplicates the ideal.
Thus, when an ideal is meaningful to the subject, it is always already given in a
relation of tension. An ideal is only an ideal as long as it is meaningful, and it is
meaningful only as long as it requires reduplication. An ideal always appears to the
subject as something that calls for reduplication. An ideal is a calling. So, an ideal
is only an ideal for a subject if it corresponds to something real in him (a pressure).
It corresponds to a tension that does not allow a neutral standpoint but compels to
action. In other words, an ideal is a passion.
So, what defines an ideal as such is to include in it the requirement of transposi-
tion into existence. What is at stake is the individual existence. The decisive is this
tension that needs to exist in the form which corresponds to the ideal in question. In
this way, what matters is precisely the acquisition of a definite identity, to become
‘this specific individual human being’ (Kierkegaard 1980: 5).
4.2.4 Some Considerations
Apparently, this structure is completely formal and arbitrary. It is (or it seems to be)
formal, because it does not provide positive indications about what should corre-
spond to such petitions. And it seems to be arbitrary, because it admits (or it seems
to admit) any possibility of resolution. In other words, based on a subjective truth,
each life-view should be equally valid. Kierkegaard focuses on decision and invokes
its subjective validity, but there are no criteria – or, so it seems – which we could use
to determine which standpoint is justified, or to justify our choice for a specific
life-view.
On this reading, it seems that life does not require a specific configuration. It
does require a life-view, but it does not seem to require this specific life-view in
particular. Apparently, we need a meaning for life, a goal towards which to strive –
but anything works. I need an idea for which to live and die for, but any idea is a
good idea as long as I live and die for it. So, in abstract, the life-view of a terrorist
has the same validity as the life-view of Mother Teresa.
Therefore, the structure of care appears to be essentially arbitrary. The important
thing is to live for something, no matter what. The difference between alternatives
is insignificant. Before having been chosen, all possibilities have the same status,
which amounts to the abolition of the meaning of any difference between them. So,
I can choose any of them. It is true that the adoption of one would exclude the oth-
ers, but not their validity as possibilities – the others could therefore also have been
adopted since they were excluded only on the ground that one of them was adopted.
The exclusion of alternatives occurs only because, and when, a particular possibility
has been adopted and, apparently, any of them could have been adopted in its place.
However, for Kierkegaard (1980: 35–37), this life-view – according to which
anything has the same value as anything else – if a person really adopts it, it is
despair: ‘everything seems possible, but this is exactly the point at which the abyss
swallows up the self’ (1980: 36). In fact, one form of despair is precisely to lack
necessity. Here, the tragedy is that the subject did not become aware of himself as a
‘definite something’. And, because of that, he is in despair. The human being needs
something to be able to overcome the arbitrariness in which everything is possible.
Each individual human being wants something ‘firm and fixed’ that can exclude the
arbitrariness in which everything is valid (1992: 35).
4.3 Despair
Despair corresponds to failure. From the point of view of consciousness, despair is

the indication that our target has been failed. Whenever there is no correspondence
between ideal and existence, we have despair. Every time that there is no reduplica-
tion, there is despair. Therefore, despair corresponds to the sentence of the ideal
upon an individual that is not his ideal self.
Despair always indicates that the ideal in question is not purely arbitrary.
Because, if the ideal were completely arbitrary, there would be no despair at all
(Ferro 2015: 99). If despair is present, it means that, in some way, the ideal is not
arbitrary for the subject, otherwise he could simply move on. If the subject cannot
simply free himself from his despair and move on as if it were nothing, this is so
because the ideal in question is not something of what the subject can dispose of
without restraint. That is, the fact that the ideal in question is important to him is not
something which he can simply modify at will, as if he could freely establish what
86 L. Mendes
he cares about, or what preoccupies him at any given moment. Despair is the proof
of it. Despair makes it clear that the subject did not create himself (Kierkegaard
1980: 14). And, since he did not create himself, he is something of which he himself
is not the cause (1980: 19).
Therefore, while care seems to correspond to something structurally arbitrary,
despair seems to point out, precisely, the opposite. So, even in its most banal mani-
festations, despair is not completely arbitrary. If there is despair, then the subject
cannot simply get rid of it, and this means that the ideal in question is also not com-
pletely in the subject’s control. That is, despair is present precisely because the
subject recognizes the ideal as something inevitable that has power over him.
4.3.1 The Requirement of Eternal Validity
It should be noted that the requirement for reduplication is part of a global petition
of meaning. What is at stake is a life-view in the sense of having oneself as a con-
crete unity. The requirement of correspondence does not have a purely regional
jurisdiction, for it has the whole of life as its point of application. What is required
is a life-view by which to direct and understand one’s life as a whole – and not just
a part (or a province) of it. The requirement of fulfilment is inscribed in the context
of a global petition for meaning. So, the acquisition of a meaning for life implies
reduplication, but it has a global scope.
The eternal in man is a requirement. It requires something that can be applied to
life as a whole. While the subject may or may not be aware of this requirement, it is
not something which he could expel from himself. In this sense, despair is the con-
dition in which one finds oneself when one has not acquired a life-view endowed
with eternal validity. From a phenomenological perspective, this form of despair is
the announcement that our point of view has no eternal validity. That means that the
life-view adopted does not meet the requirement of eternal validity because it can-
not explain life as a whole. In this sense, despair is understood as a point of view that
does not have its own conditions of effective execution (reduplication) assured.
Thus, despair indicates that the point of view does not have its own conditions of
viability guaranteed – or that its life-view has no viability, ‘and for that reason it is
not worth the trouble to embark on it’ (Kierkegaard 1987: 190).
As said, for Kierkegaard (1993: 32), the decisive factor is to will one thing, but
that does not mean to will one thing regardless of whether it is this or that. It is not
enough to have a life-view whatever it may be, for without a life-view that can
include all life, existence is doomed to despair. If a life-view cannot include all life
it does not have its own conditions of viability guaranteed. The life-view suitable for
humans must be permanently inhabitable. Human existence requires the constitu-
tion of the self in a form that could be permanently inhabited and, whenever this
requirement is not fulfilled, there is despair.
4.3.2 The Requirement of Unconditioned Validity
A life-view needs to have a foothold that gives it not only unity, but also stability.
So, whenever a life-view is supported by something which is accidental, fortuitous,
without consistency, despair is present.
A life-view built on fragile foundations is a fragile view of life, which means that
it is not in a position to give stability to the subject’s life. The subject that builds his
life-view on something conditioned is in despair. That is, despair requires some-
thing unconditioned, and whenever this requirement is not fulfilled the subject is in
despair.
So, the unconditioned in man is a requirement. It requires something that does
not rely on something else. We always want stability.
4.3.3 T
he Requirement of Exclusion of the Possibility
of Failure
Reduplication (Redupplikation) is never completely arbitrary, otherwise there is no

reduplication. For example, sometimes the subject needs courage. To reduplicate
the idea of courage in existence he must be courageous. In order to reduplicate an
idea, the subject must exist in the mode of that idea. We have reduplication when the
two elements correspond to each other.
As stated before, what is proper to the ideal is to include within itself the require-
ment of transposition into existence. But now, the ideal in question must give mean-
ing to the whole of life. That is, the requirement is to give one form to the whole of
life. What is at stake is a lifelong reduplication. This reduplication (Fordoblelse)
requires repetition and requires repetition every moment throughout life. So, this
reduplication (Fordoblelse) is a requirement for something that is always redupli-
cable. In other words: if the successful reduplication is not constitutively assured,
then life has the form of despair.
So, there is despair not only when an ideal is not executed, but also if the condi-
tions for its execution are not granted. There is, in the human being, a requirement
to exclude the possibility of failure. If this requirement is not fulfilled, we have
despair.
4.3.4 Discussion of the Collected Data
Abstractly, despair is a lack of correspondence between ideality and reality.

Phenomenologically, it is the notification that the target has been failed. Existentially,
it corresponds to the circumstances in which an individual has a goal and fails to
achieve that goal. Unhappy love and disappointment over not having achieved one’s
88 L. Mendes
proper place in our professional career are common examples of that (Kierkegaard
2011: 173).
But now, what is at stake is that some life-views are despair regardless of success
or failure in achieving their goals. As we have seen, if our goal in life can be missed,
then we are living in despair regardless of our being a success or not (Lübcke 1991).
So, an individual can set himself an end for his striving here in life, live according
to that goal and be successful in doing that (i.e. according to that criterion) – and yet,
he can be in despair. He may even be in despair without knowing it. So, it is per-
fectly possible for an individual to be happy and, at the same time, to be in despair
(Kierkegaard 1980: 25).
Now, this suggests that the criterion (1) for not being in despair is not the end (2)
chosen by him. Therefore, an individual can set an end (2) for himself and be suc-
cessful according to that criterion (2), but if that is not the criterion (1) for not being
in despair, he can achieve that end (2) and, at the same time, fail the criterion (1) for
not being in despair. So, he can choose at will an end (2) to his striving, but the
criterion (1) for not being in despair is not for him to choose – and, if Kierkegaard
is correct, he cannot get rid of it. Even if, to a certain extent, he can change his goals
(2) in life at will, he cannot change the requirements (1) for not being in despair.
This suggests that an individual can set an end for himself that does not corre-
spond to the idea which would allow him to fulfil the requirements for not being in
despair. If the idea capable of fulfilling those requirements is not being executed
(reduplicated), then the subject is in despair. An individual can live and die for an
idea that is not able to fulfil those requirements. Despair means to live like this. In
this sense, despair consists – or, this form of despair consists – in the fact that the
idea that fulfils existence is not being executed. The subject is in despair because he
fails his true purpose in life – even if he does not know what his true purpose in life
is, and even if he does not know that he is failing it. Let us analyse this hypothesis.
Despair requires a life-view that is reduplicable for eternity, i.e., one view of life
that is, in fact, a view for life as a whole. But what I would like to emphasize is
precisely that not all life-views fulfil this requirement. That is: some life-views are
despair in a constitutive manner. Kierkegaard (1987: 190) gives us an example: ‘the
life-view that holds that one is to live to satisfy desire’ cannot be carried out, ‘and
for that reason it is not worth the trouble to embark on it’. Essentially, those life-
views are despair – even if the subject is not aware of it. The absence of recognition
of the phenomenon does not cancel the phenomenon.
Many life-views leave out several dimensions of human life, which means that
they cannot apply to life as a whole. The point of view of the world (common sense)
knows this very well, because what is characteristic of that view is the recognition
that we want health, but health is not enough for us, we also want a family, but a
family is not enough for us, we also want money, but money is not enough for us,
and so on – thus, we need to shred existence into pieces with the belief that, in doing
so, our life will become richer and more meaningful. That is, common sense tends
to believe that, since all the life-views we have are incapable of satisfying the need
for a meaningful life, then what we need is to have many of them. But what is at
stake is still the whole of life. The subject needs an explanation that explains the
meaning of everything (Kierkegaard 1990: 87). But what is clear is that some life-
views are not capable of embracing the totality of life. Even if such life-views were
applied dictatorially to the totality of life, they would leave blind spots without
explanation. They would leave moments of non-inscription, because there are prov-
inces of life that are outside their jurisdiction. So, if the subject really and seriously
adopted one and only one of those life-views, it would produce disorientation or
distortion.
Such a life-view will produce disorientation every moment that cannot be
explained by it. So, since it is too short for a human life, if the subject adopts it, he
will be disoriented in all moments that fall out of it. So, he cannot truly live his life
(as a whole) according to that life-view: it is too short (or has holes in it). A good
example of this would be the individual who adopts a life-view according to which
the most important thing is his professional career. Once retired, his life-view would
have nothing more to say and he would be disoriented, not knowing what to do. That
is: he would need another life-view. If a life-view is too short, the subject cannot live
permanently by it, and so, he will need more than one. He needs several patches to
patch the holes. And then he becomes ‘a legion’ (Kierkegaard 1987: 160). A life-
view of this kind is not adequate for life, because it is not reduplicable – at least,
not always.
Of course, an obstinate individual can force himself to live according to a life-
view (that is too short) even when his jurisdiction does not apply. In that case, his
life-view would produce the distortion of some segments of life. Like Don Quixote,
his merit is that he has passion (Kierkegaard 1992: 35). He has a life-view and he
wants to live by it. But, the ‘ludicrous aspect’ is that ‘his infinite passion thrust itself
upon a wrong object’ (1992: 35–36). This is ‘lunacy’ because he puts an infinite
passion upon a finite idea (1992: 195). His life-view was not ‘adequate for an infi-
nite decision’ (1992: 37). This is a ‘delirium’ which is tragic and comic, even if
from a solely subjective point of view ‘lunacy and truth are ultimately indistinguish-
able’ (1992: 194).
If we have a finite goal in our life, and if we commit ourselves to this goal as an
eternal goal, as the conditio sine qua non for the fulfilment of our own life, then we
are living in despair. In this sense, despair consists in ascribing eternal validity to
something that has a limited applicability.
So, some life-views are despair regardless of success or failure. Let us assume
that the man who lived for his health was healthier than ever when he died, and that
the man who lived for money lived and died really wealthy – and let us also assume
that these people lived and died indeed happy (Kierkegaard 1987: 191–192). They
succeeded according to ‘aesthetic’ criteria. So, according to those criteria, they were
indeed happy, but even so, they were in despair. They were in despair because they
built their lives on something that was very frail. In fact, every ‘aesthetic’ life-view
is despair, and everyone who lives ‘aesthetically’ is in despair (1987: 192) – whether
he knows it or not – because every aesthetic standpoint is ‘intrinsically unstable’
(Kosch 2006: 94).
The success in those endeavours do not depend on the subject, and this means
that the success of his life is not in his power. Since what it is at stake is the meaning
90 L. Mendes
of his life, the fact that the success of his own life is not in his power must corre-
spond to despair. Happiness here has a completely fortuitous nature: he might be
lucky to have been born, lived and died healthy, and he might have the illusion that
he can control his health, but the truth is that this will always depend on conditions
that could not be ensured by him. So, his situation was always desperate, even
though he had never realized it and actually died healthy. Despair is there because
the subject built his life on something constitutively unstable.
The individual with a life-view like that takes as his standard of measurement
something that is not in his power and whose attainment, therefore, cannot be guar-
anteed. So, when things go wrong he despairs, he feels unhappy and may actually
feel hopeless. But the truth is that he was in despair all along. For anyone who is
susceptible to despair is already in despair. When things go wrong he simply
becomes aware of it: despair is revealed (not produced) then.
The one with an ‘aesthetic’ life-view takes as his goal something that cannot be
guaranteed. So, he is in despair. The point here is that he can succeed according to
the ‘aesthetic’ criterion, feel happy with his life, and be in despair. This aesthetic
criterion is not the criterion for deciding whether the subject is in despair or not. A
criterion chosen by the subject for himself can be too low for him (Kierkegaard
1990: 260), for there are requirements that the criterion chosen must fulfil in order
to overcome despair. These requirements are not chosen by the subject himself, for
he did not create himself: they are requirements (criteria) that already existed in the
subject before the choice and before every choice (1987: 215).
The fact that the reduplication of the idea must be repeated throughout the life of
the subject has important consequences. At first glance, it seems that everything can
be the measure of man (Kierkegaard 1985: 38). People seem to lay their lives on the
most various things (health, beauty, money, family, happiness, etc.). But a goal that
can be missed does not guarantee the possibility of reduplication. If the subject has
that goal as a conditio sine qua non for the fulfilment of his life, then the fulfilment
of his life is not guaranteed. He is already living in despair because the conditions
for his life are not granted.
Whenever the way in which our life runs does not provide the conditions for a
successful resolution of it, we are in despair. Life-views that are too short are not
reduplicable in the sense we have already studied (Fordoblelse) – at least, they are
not constitutively so. It is true that, paradoxically, the subject may live according to
life-views that are constitutively unviable, but, in that case, he is in despair.
Therefore, since a life-view must be applied to the totality of life, the idea that must
be acquired must have the power to cover the totality of the human life in all its
dimensions.
The crucial thing is to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die, but I
cannot be willing to live and die for an idea that is not reduplicable in the sense we
have seen above (Fordoblelse). If the idea is too short, I will need several to cover
my life. If the idea is fragile, I will need plenty to feel safe. But the crucial thing is
to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.
Now, according to Kant (1998: 687), a good way to evaluate ‘practical beliefs’ is
to subject them to the betting test. A subject may seem confident and inflexible
about some beliefs, but ‘a bet disconcerts him’. An important aspect of this phenom-
enon is that the higher the bet is, the more it will make him rethink about it. When
the bet is high enough, ‘he suddenly becomes aware of what he not previously
noticed’: he may be wrong. So, Kant proposes a thought experiment: let us imagine
‘that we should wager the happiness of our whole life on something.’ If we did that
seriously, we would suddenly discover that our confidence and inflexibility were not
so great.
Kierkegaard thinks the same way. Of course, it is not the cognitive aspect that
interests him here. If the subject stops on the cognitive aspect, then he will never
make any decisions, for he can never obtain such a firm certainty that he could
exclude all the alternative possibilities. The question is what end would an individ-
ual set for himself if the moment was for him to make a decision for eternity
(Kierkegaard 1985: 60). Let us imagine that we must wager our eternal happiness
on something and keep our decision for the rest of our lives. The decisive factor here
is that what is at stake is (to gain or lose) our whole life, and that we make the deci-
sion willing to keep it for our whole life. If Kierkegaard and Kant are correct, when
pondering the repetition of the reduplication for life, the subject immediately
becomes aware that not all things are good as a measure for himself. The problem is
no longer that there are many things available, but that nothing seems to be firm
enough to risk his whole life. He needs to find something not only with eternal
validity, but also with an absolute validity worth risking his whole life on it. So, the
crucial thing is to find ‘a criterion [Maalestok] that is always valid and valid in
itself’ (1990: 260).
From this point of view, the expression ‘to find the idea for which I am willing to
live and die’ entails no arbitrariness. Kierkegaard is not stating that the criterion of
validity of an idea is the fact that it was adopted by a subject. On the contrary, what
Kierkegaard is stating is that, when what is at stake is to find the idea for which I am
willing to live and die for, then the idea (which must be found) has to meet certain
criteria of validity, it must possess certain qualities (Ferro 2015: 104, 132).
Subjectivity has his own immanent teleology (Kierkegaard 1987: 274). That is, sub-
jectivity has in itself certain criteria of validity that the idea has to fulfil in order to
legitimately play the role of human standard of measurement.
Therefore, despair requires an idea that is always valid and valid in itself, for
only the one who builds his whole life on an idea like this, builds it on a firm founda-
tion. For Kierkegaard (1987: 209), men are doomed to despair until they find an idea
with absolute validity. What is at stake is to eliminate the possibility of despair. And
for this, the subject must eliminate the possibility of failure. Only an idea that can
be reduplicated, and which can be permanently reduplicated without being exposed
to the possibility of failure, is able to exclude the possibility of despair, and only by
excluding the possibility of despair, despair is in fact eradicated. If a subject actually
lives for an idea which cannot be reduplicated for the whole of life, or for an idea
whose reduplication does not exclude the possibility of failure – then, he is in
despair, whether he knows it or not.
Kierkegaard believes that, as soon as a subject finds and actually lives for a goal
that is always valid and valid in itself, his despair is essentially cancelled, although
92 L. Mendes
the same individual may suffer many sorrows and troubles in his life; but even the
subject that lives a calm, peaceful and happy life, if he did not find that goal, he will
always live in despair, even if he does not know that his uneasiness is despair. His
despair indicates that his life-view is not built on an absolutely safe foundation. His
idea is not absolutely reliable. To avoid despair we need something unshakable,
invulnerable, that under no circumstances can collapse.
Despair reveals that certain life-views that apparently answer to the problem of
the meaning of life insofar as they establish a regime of meaning, do not effectively
answer to the petition of meaning that is implicated in human beings. So, the com-
plex care-despair somehow resembles a riddle, e.g. a riddle of the Sphinx. We may
not know the right answer to what is asked, but the riddle itself sets up the require-
ments that must be met to get the right answer. So, we can eliminate at least some
wrong answers of the equation, even if we still do not know the correct one. Of
course, it is always possible to give a wrong answer – but, then, those who give a
wrong answer are eaten by the monster.
4.4 Conclusion
According to Kierkegaard, there is in us (human beings) a pressing demand to see

our life as a whole, and to see our life as a whole ultimately raises a pressing demand
which intensifies despair. But, in a way, that is not bad for us. Despair makes it clear
to us that not everything is good for us. Many forms of life available are doomed to
failure and, therefore, are despair. Despair shows that it is possible to live our lives
according to life-views that are unviable (not capable of working successfully).
However, if a subject really wants something eternal, unconditioned and absolute,
this will cause him to disdain a goal that is too low, or a criterion that is a scale too
small to measure himself. The intensification of despair eliminates the indifference
and arbitrariness in which we usually live. In a way, despair produces clarity about
the measure of the human. Of course, we must not confuse this clarifying aspect of
despair with the typical conclusive character of objective knowledge.
The possibility of despair reveals that the structure of care is not arbitrary,
because it includes requirements which must be met in order to remove the possibil-
ity of despair from human life. On one hand, there are many possibilities available,
possibilities that may be adopted by a subject. This adoption depends exclusively on
his decision but, on the other hand, it also happens that this plurality does not mean
that all possibilities are suitable for a human life. Thus, an existing individual human
being can always adopt the life-view and the idea he wishes. But the idea that is fit
to him does not depend on what he wishes. Hence, he may fail his own measure, and
may fail it at the very moment in which he chooses a measure to live for. He can
choose a measure for himself in life that is not suitable for him, that is not adequate
for a human life.
Therefore, I suggest – as a hypothesis – that Kierkegaard concedes that there are
requirements that are properly human. Existential requirements that are transversal
to the possible life-views. If this hypothesis is admitted, then the various existential
regimes (aesthetic, ethical, religious) do not seem to be absolutely incommensura-
ble with each other. As stated, there are requirements that must be met, and those
existential regimes do not meet these requirements with the same success. It is true
that each point of view can only become comprehensible from within. However, the
requirements identified allow us to establish a scale in so far as they satisfy the
requirements more or less effectively.1
Giving that each individual has the same requirements (to find an idea that is
always valid, and valid in itself), they could find, each one individually, the same
answer. In this sense, individuals could relate themselves to the same idea, not
because this idea had been imposed upon them from outside, but because each one
individually found the same self-imposed idea. In this case, ‘the relation is optimal
and normative’ (Kierkegaard 1978: 62). Ideality unites them.
There are many problems that I did not consider in this study.2 But, if we accept
the previous hypothesis, then we may be able to assess the viability of each regime
not only from within, but also confronting each of them with the requirements in
question. Then we can see that there are regimes of meaning that fail to fulfil those
requirements, and this must be able to be recognized by each human self. At least,
to some extent.
So, because the possibility of despair exists, the structure of care is not arbitrary.
However, the formality remains because the mentioned requirements do not include
precise indications of what satisfies them. We may be able to exclude alternatives by
confronting them with the requirements in question, but it is not even certain that
there is anything that satisfies them. What is revealed by the structure of despair is
that there are formal requirements to be fulfilled and that there are life-views that do
not fulfil them, but from that does not necessarily follow that there is one which
fulfils them. And, to be clear about it, there is no way of knowing it except through
reduplication, which means that the problem cannot be solved exclusively by means
of reflection, thought or reason, for it always implies subjective existence. Ultimately,
it always implies a bet, and so, ‘truth is precisely the daring venture of choosing the
objective uncertainty with the passion of the infinite’ (Kierkegaard 1992: 203).
Thus, on one hand, the structure of care can be considered a positive instance,
because it requires something that corresponds to it and, in this sense, puts the sub-
ject on the way. Despair, on the other hand, can be considered a negative instance,
because it reveals that some possibilities cannot satisfy the petition in question. But
then again, despair also has a positive meaning, precisely in the sense that Socrates’
1
For example, we may establish that the choice between the aesthetic and the ethical is not arbi-
trary because the ethical fits better the requirements to annul the possibility of despair.
2
For example, it may seem that this interpretation reduces subjectivity to abstract objectivity and
forgets the uniqueness of the existing human being. Kierkegaard rejects objective scales, precisely,
because he takes the existing human being as a starting point. So, to justify the commitment to an
idea from some kind of objective standpoint must be rejected. Unfortunately, to answer to this
objection another article would be needed.
94 L. Mendes
docta ignorantia (learned ignorance) was not limited to the recognition of igno-
rance, but also had the virtuosity of putting the subject looking for.3
Perhaps, that is why the Judge says that he is absolutely convinced that ‘to
despair is a person’s true salvation’ (Kierkegaard 1987: 220), and urges the aesthete
to have the courage to despair with all his soul and all his mind (1987: 208). For,
despair (which is conscious of being despair) is the very consciousness of having a
human self.
Bibliography
Ferro, Nuno. 2015. Naturalmente hipócrita: Em constante referência a Kierkegaard. Lisboa:

Editorial Aster.
Kant, Immanuel. 1998. The Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. P. Guyer and A.W. Wood. Cambridge:
Kierkegaard, Søren. 1978. Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age, A Literary
Review. Trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 1980. The Sickness unto Death. Trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
———. 1985. Philosophical Fragments, or a Fragment of Philosophy/Johannes Climacus,
or De omnibus dubitandum est. Trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
———. 1987. Either/Or, Part II. Trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
———. 1990. Eighteen upbuilding discourses. Trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
———. 1992. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments: Volume I. Trans.
H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 1993. Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. Trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 2007. In Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks: Volume 1, Journals AA-DD, ed.
N. Cappelørn, A. Hannay, D. Kangas, B. Kirmmse, G. Pattison, V. Rumble, and K. Söderquist.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 2011. In Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks: Volume 5, Journals NB6-NB10, ed.
N. Cappelørn, A. Hannay, D. Kangas, B. Kirmmse, G. Pattison, J. Rasmussen, V. Rumble, and
K. Söderquist. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kosch, Michelle. 2006. Despair’ in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or. Journal of the History of Philosophy
44 (1): 85–97.
Lübcke, Poul. 1991. An analytical interpretation of Kierkegaard as moral philosopher.
Kierkegaardiana 15: 93–103.
3
To avoid misunderstandings, we must not forget that despair only indicates the error. Despair
never says that we have the right answer. There is no positive indication in that sense. Thus, the
absence of a negative indication (that we are in error) does not mean that we are not in error. The
subject has no way of determining whether or not despair is present when he has no indication of
being in despair. The absence of notification has a dialectical nature: it may mean either that the
subject has indeed overcome despair, or that he is in despair but he is not aware of it (Kierkegaard
1980: 24). So, the absence of a negative indication may mean either that the subject has the correct
answer, or that he has the wrong answer.
Rudd, Anthony. 2001. Reason in ethics: MacIntyre and Kierkegaard. In Kierkegaard After
MacIntyre, ed. J. Davenport and A. Rudd, 131–150. Chicago: Open court.
Tilley, J. Michael. 2008. Interpersonal Relationships and Community in Kierkegaad’s Thought.
University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_
diss/623. Accessed 30 Jan 2017.
Walsh, Sylvia. 2018. Kierkegaard and Religion: Personality, Character, and Virtue. Cambridge:
Part II
Care and Economy
Chapter 5
Care Ethics and the Economy
Virginia Held
Abstract What might a caring society’s economic system look like? What would
the ethics of care recommend for the ways we conduct and organize economic activ-
ity? From the perspective of care, what should we say about capitalism, socialism,
and better alternatives? I will try, in this paper to explore these questions.
Keywords Ethics · Economics · Feminism · Care · Capitalism · Socialism
I will try to suggest in this essay how an economy guided by care ethics and the
values of care would prioritize the meeting of needs and society’s needs for care,
how it would require sustainability and respect for the environment, and how it
would contribute to the ending of global poverty. Most fundamentally, it would
promote social cooperation rather than individual self-interest.
5.1 Capitalism and Socialism
For a time, the apparent success of capitalism in generating wealth and bringing vast
numbers of persons out of poverty has eclipsed much discussion of alternative
economic systems (Kocka 2016). But this is beginning to change.
Certainly, from the perspective of an imagined caring society, many of the pre-
scriptions of socialism appear more suitable than the individual self-interest and
maximizing of capital and wealth to which capitalism is devoted. But socialism so
far has been built on a distorting distinction between production and reproduction
that fails to understand the transformative potential and moral values of care and its
practices. And socialism has not understood much better than capitalism the values
and implications of care.
V. Held (*)
Graduate Center, Program in Philosophy, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
e-mail: vheld@gc.cuny.edu

Switzerland AG 2021
100 V. Held
The standard Marxist view, shared by many others,1 has been that human trans-
formation for the better only occurs through work and economic activity in the
realm of production, while in the realm of reproduction we merely reproduce what
existed before. This grievously misinterprets the realm of care. Through ever better
care, children can be brought up to be ever better persons: more trustworthy, edu-
cated, responsible, caring. And through ever better persons, under the right circum-
stances, human life can progressively be transformed for the better. The realm of
care is by no means merely the realm of reproduction.
Further, as Nancy Folbre recounts, although some early socialists such as William
Thompson argued eloquently against the subordination of women and against their
relegation to the domestic sphere, socialism generally has shown a “lack of concern
with gender inequality” (Folbre 1993: 101). Marx and Engels, she continues “con-
demned the oppression of women under capitalism, but insisted that their emancipa-
tion would follow inevitably from the successful resolution of the class struggle”
(Ibid.). In their efforts to make socialism “scientific” and to show the inevitable
problems of capitalism, gender was overlooked, and “scientific socialism defined
class interests largely in terms of the interests of working-class men” (Ibid.: 102).
Childbearing and child rearing and domestic labor, Folbre continues, “were rele-
gated to the noneconomic world of nature and instinct…” (Ibid.: 103). The Marxian
tradition, then, in Folbre’s words, was “unsympathetic… to feminist concerns…
gender inequality was deemed irrelevant to the scientific ‘laws of motion’ of capital-
ism” (Folbre 1993: 104). As Helen Longino describes this view, “Marx and Engels,
like the classical and neoclassical economists, both reasoned under the influence of
sexism and perpetuated it by treating the work socially assigned to women as trivial
and beneath serious notice” (Longino 1993: 162).
Although these accounts are of the Marxian tradition, one can add that these
attitudes were apparent for many decades and in many countries in the primary
interests of most labor unions and political parties influenced by the Marxian tradi-
tion, as well as in the discipline of economics. Changes are surely occurring, but
they are not clearly better in countries with socialist economies than in those with
capitalist ones. We need thinking based on feminist understandings and goals.
Clearly, however, feminists must learn from the experiences of capitalism and
socialism.
5.2 Economics
Feminist economists have for some time now questioned our economic arrange-
ments, and the field of economics that is supposed to help us understand and evalu-
ate them. They understand that care work should not be invisible to economics, as it
has been. And some go well beyond this.
See, for instance, Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition, and the tradition she describes.
1
5 Care Ethics and the Economy 101
In an excellent collection of essays that became a classic, Beyond Economic

Man: Feminist Theory and Economics, a variety of authors offered a range of cri-
tiques of economics, economists, and economies. In their introduction, the editors
question the gender bias in all of them.
Looking at economics as a field of inquiry, Marianne Ferber and Julie Nelson
note that “women and families remain largely absent from many ‘general’ discus-
sions of economic matters” (Ferber and Nelson 1993: 5). The unit of analysis in
economics, they write, is the individual. Individuals are seen to group together to
form organizations, but families have been invisible, along with what goes on in
them. Housework and the enormous amount of care work that goes into developing
future consumers and producers have been overlooked. “More fundamentally,” they
write, “models of free individual choice are not adequate to analyze behavior fraught
with issues of dependence, independence, tradition, and power” (Ibid.: 6).
They argue that the discipline of economics “should not be concerned merely
with goods and services traded in the market but with all necessities and conve-
niences that sustain and improve life” (Ibid.: 14).
Diana Strassman wrote about how difficult it is to change the field. Because
mainstream economics has been “built around core ideas of self-interested individu-
alism and contractual exchange,” views that challenge these assumptions can be
dismissed as “not economics” (Strassman 1993: 54 and 65). “Only those who
adhere to foundational metaphors,” she wrote, “are allowed to participate in the
conversations of the mainstream” (57). But feminist economists are trying.
We need to go far beyond merely demanding gender equality for women in the
economic systems we now have. Of course it is important that women and gender
and racial minorities be considered fairly for employment and promotion within
existing corporations and institutions. But we need far more fundamental
transformations.
In the eighteenth century, Adam Smith considered, in Nancy Folbre’s words, the
“decentralized, automatic, self-regulating forces of supply and demand in competi-
tive markets” (Folbre 2001: xii). Smith argued that through such mechanisms, indi-
viduals all pursuing their own interests would yield what was best for all (Smith
1776). And in the 250 plus years since, the “invisible hand” bringing this about has
been accepted as an article of faith in the field of economics and by a vast array of
policy-makers and citizens.
Smith himself thought that markets must be embedded in societies guided by
moral values (Smith 1759) but this part of his argument has been massively over-
looked, as devotion to markets has burgeoned. The assumption that everyone acts
always in pursuit of their own interests has in recent decades been expanded into
“rational choice theory,” and applied not only to economic choices but to all choices
everywhere. It has even been assumed by countless moral and political theorists
writing in the social contract tradition. But this is obviously not a satisfactory way
to interpret what is going on in many or most contexts of care. Now, perhaps we can
reverse the argument, and see that instead of trying to apply the values of the mar-
ketplace to contexts of care, perhaps the values of care should be applied to the
economic contexts of markets.
102 V. Held
Nancy Folbre has written a book called The Invisible Heart (2001), contrasting it
with the “invisible hand” that has been so excessively influential. “The invisible
heart is about care for others,” she writes. Providing care is not something econo-
mists or business people have taken seriously. She shows why we must take it seri-
ously, and how we need far greater support for care work.
Julie Nelson has written a book called Economics for Humans (2006). She exam-
ines the pervasive belief “that money, profits, markets, and corporations are parts of
an ‘economic machine’ [that] operates in an automatic fashion, following inexora-
ble and amoral ‘laws’” (Nelson 2006: 1). Ethical questions are thought to be irrel-
evant. “Since machines are incapable of morality, thinking about economies as
machines puts commerce firmly outside the ethical realm,” she writes (2). Her book
is an extended and persuasive challenge to this view.
She asks us to think of the economy as a ‘beating heart’ instead of as a machine.
This metaphor would allow us to see the economy in terms of necessary “bodily
provisioning” and also in terms of “care, respect, and moral…life” (60). “The image
of the economy as a beating heart,” she writes, “points us toward action regarding
the heartaches of poverty, hunger, injustice, empty consumerism, and ecological
destruction. With no machine to do the job of alleviating these for us, it is our job to
see that economies become…. vital, caring, and responsible” (60–61).
One of the most scathing recent critiques of the field of economics is by the
economist Kate Raworth, whose important recent book also challenges the domi-
nant assumption of the economy as a machine (Raworth 2017). She shows how
disastrous are the consequences, for society and for the environment, of the eco-
nomic activity and arrangements we have been taking for granted, and how dis-
torted the field of economics has been, beguiled by its mathematical models and
calculations with their impressive advantages but also gross deficiencies.
As Raworth explains, after “political economy was split into political philosophy
and economic science in the late nineteenth century” (36), the only purpose of an
economy that anyone talked about was growth. But economists, she argues, need to
learn to talk about the values and goals of economic activity, and “to put humanity
back at the heart of economic thought” (36). We could, she suggests, choose human
welfare, rather than wealth accumulation, as our goal, or create economies that
serve moral purposes. What I am trying to do in this essay is to consider what a
feminist ethics of care would recommend for our economic endeavors.
“Big picture thinkers,” Raworth notes, have offered alternative visions, but they
have been dismissed by the field of economics. They need to be brought back, and
Raworth thinks this is beginning to happen as students in economics rebel against
the “absurdly narrow… assumptions” and purely mathematic treatments of issues in
the field (1–2). Globally, the world’s richest 1% now own more wealth than all the
other 99% put together (4). Climate change threatens an “intensity of floods,
droughts, storms and sea-level rise that humanity has never before witnessed” (5).
Dissatisfied students are objecting to the “disconnect” between economic theory
and such major problems and asking that attention be paid to the goals and values
of economic activity.
“What enables human beings to thrive?” Raworth asks. Her answer is “a world
in which every person can lead their life with dignity, opportunity and community –
and we can all do so within the means of our life-giving planet” (37–38). We need
to be in the safe space between the social foundation of adequate food, energy, hous-
ing, education, health and so on, and the ecological ceiling of what our planet can
tolerate (38).
Raworth argues for a circular, doughnut-shaped model of the economy in place
of the mechanical model. It would provide a “safe and just space for humanity” that
would be above the levels of critical human deprivation but below the levels of criti-
cal planetary degradation. We need, she argues, to be agnostic about growth, rather
than addicted to it as we have been, both in fact and in our theorizing. We need to
create economies that will, by design, distribute their benefits in morally acceptable
ways. And we need to reject the metaphor of the economy as a machine that regu-
lates itself. We need to see it as a dynamic, living system, subject to the values we
set for it. Though she does not consider it herself, the ethics of care would agree.
5.3 Ethics and Economics
Expressing a view shared by many, Marilyn Power writes that “ethical judgments
are a valid, inescapable, and in fact desirable part of economic analysis” (Power
2004). And Lourdes Benaria argues that economic analysis should give a central
place to policies that lead to greater well-being (Benaria 2003).
Ethical assumptions are already inescapable in economics, however hard econo-
mists have tried to make it a value-free social science. We need to be much more
aware of what those assumptions are, and we need to decide how they ought to be
changed. We need to make of economics an endeavor serving the goals we choose.
We are coming to see considerable recognition of the need for economics and
economists to pay attention to care work and its importance. And as Shahra Razavi
writes, appropriate attention to care work “would allow us to shift our priorities
from ‘making money’ or ‘making stuff’ to ‘making livable lives’ and ‘enriching
networks of care and relationship’,” which should be a focus in economics (Razavi
2009). Feminist economists thus consider the values and purposes of economic
activity.
Economics as a field, however, is still largely descriptive rather than prescriptive.
Behavioral economics has developed to challenge rational choice assumptions, but
it too is descriptive, focused on how people do behave rather than on how they
should. What we also need are the kind of normative recommendations that we have
become accustomed to in political theory, with its considerations of justice and
rights. We also need the judgments of and prescriptions for our economies that
moral philosophers can develop.
In the field of philosophy, there has been in recent decades an important shift
away from purely abstract theorizing about morality and hypothetical moral issues,
and toward paying attention to the actual moral problems confronting us as we live
104 V. Held
our lives. Instead of focusing almost exclusively on metaethics, there has been
renewed attention to normative moral theory, and to actual moral problems. Student
interest has been important in affecting this shift. Perhaps something comparable is
occurring in the field of economics.
The intention to confront global problems by addressing questions about what
we ought, morally, to do about them has, until recently, focused overwhelmingly on
justice and rights, especially human rights. In mid twentieth century culture, in the
United States at least, human rights were dismissed as little more than wishful
thinking. Views thought of as “realist” predominated. By now, human rights have
gained important actual power to influence policies and law and opinion. They have
been part of the justice-dominated focus of normative attention since then, which
Sarah Clark Miller has described (Miller 2012).
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, however, the ethics of care (or care
ethics) began to be developed, challenging this justice dominated focus. It has con-
tinued to be further developed and to gain strength.
We can now see how a focus on justice should at least be supplemented by atten-
tion to care, and perhaps care and its values should be our primary normative con-
sideration. These are the issues on which I have been writing in recent years. And
we should explore what care ethics would recommend for our economic lives and
arrangements.
5.4 Care and Society
The ethics of care is a fundamentally new way of thinking about morality (Held
2006). It offers radical and transformative possibilities for reconceptualizing society
and for thinking about how we ought to develop our social and political and eco-
nomic and other arrangements (Engster 2007, 2015a). In recent decades, moral
thinking has been greatly influenced by how we have interpreted legal and political
matters and what we have thought about justice, equality, respect for rights, and the
rationally persuasive principles that autonomous individuals might accept. In con-
trast, the awareness and insights made possible by a care perspective lead us to
consider, far more than in the past, the experience and understanding gained from
such other segments of society as families, child care arrangements, educational
institutions, health care systems, social services, and the like. We can now see how
these other social arrangements should be much more influential than they have
been in how we think about society and the changes that ought to be recommended
from a moral point of view (See e.g. Barnes 2012).
From a feminist and care ethical point of view, society looks very different from
what we are accustomed to imagining. The standard view of normative moral theo-
rizing since its revival in the 1970s has been that society is governed by a social
contract enforced by law so that all can pursue their economic and other interests
(e.g. Rawls 1971). Or we have been offered the Marxist alternative of economic
foundations on which are built the superstructure of government and law and culture
and all the rest.
From a care perspective, society looks fundamentally different: the birth and
development of children seem to be at the center of society. The care of children and
others seems to be the foundation of society, and assuring that there are acceptable
future members of society must be society’s most important concern.
Once we understand the centrality of the value of care, we can start to imagine
how society should be reorganized accordingly. For instance, our economic arrange-
ments should assure, most importantly, that society provides the resources needed
for the appropriate growth and upbringing of children. It would also provide for the
adequate health and other care needed by all members of society. The society’s first
priority would be the care and health and education of children, and others, and this
would require that social services and education and health care become far more
central and well supported than they have been. Many persons could continue to
pursue their own economic interests, but only within an economy structured to first
of all meet the needs of care. Of course resources are limited, and how to weigh the
care needs of some compared to those of others, as well as how to weigh care needs
and other needs of society such as its defense, are difficult issues, but the ethics of
care is the approach best suited to deal with such problems.
As Ruth Groenhout has shown, the ethics of care is the best approach with which
to resolve difficult issues of healthcare allocation (Groenhout 2015). Acknowledging
that resources are limited and society has many other needs also, she shows how a
care perspective is especially suitable for making these choices. The system needs
to be justified, she writes, “on the grounds of protecting and maintaining relation-
ships of care” (151). Then, for large-scale systems of distribution, “fair and egalitar-
ian principles are not contrary to care, but actually support and protect it” (153).
Contractual thinking would not be abandoned, but it would be subordinated to wider
considerations of care. And Marilyn Freedman shows how the ethics of care can
well resolve problems surrounding questions of privacy (Friedman 2015).
If we look at society from a perspective of care, we can imagine that legal and
political institutions should be structured so that they first of all protect and uphold
practices of care. From a point of view internal to them, legal and political institu-
tions may well rest on the principles of a hypothetical social contract between imag-
ined self-interested and autonomous adults. But this can only make sense after
persons actually interrelated and interdependent form a society providing adequate
childcare, education, social services, and healthcare. As I have come to see it, a legal
system’s internal priority should be justice, and a political system’s should be the
general welfare. But these should both be understood as existing within societies
whose priority should be care.
When we understand the ethics of care as the comprehensive morality I believe
it can and should be, we can question the excessive influence the concept of the
social contract and its assumptions have had. The social contract has been seen as
the foundation of justice, which has been seen as the primary moral concern of
society. Social contract thinking has been extended from a political theory to ratio-
nal choice theory, imagined to be suitable for all choices.
106 V. Held
From the perspective of care, in contrast, instead of imagining individuals as

constantly engaged in the rational pursuit of their own interests, restrained only by
legal norms and political mechanisms of enforcement, we can see persons in weaker
and stronger caring relations. Persons in society develop patterns of activity, and
these patterns can be more caring and morally admirable or less so. From the time
they are born, human beings are in caring relations with family members and other
care providers, and develop weaker but still important caring relations with fellow
members of societies. Potentially such relations could be extended to global society.
We should not assume as an empirical given that everyone always pursues their
own interests. As Daniel Engster argues, contrary to the dominant assumptions
about the pursuit of self-interest and the war of all against all, there is much evi-
dence among human beings of a natural tendency to engage in care. Engster draws
on research in evolutionary theory, neurobiology, ethology, and developmental psy-
chology, and shows that “human beings have an innate disposition to care for oth-
ers” (Engster 2015b: 227). Admittedly, such natural caring inclinations tend to be
parochial: They are directed toward a person’s own kin and group members.
However, there is the potential for these dispositions to be expanded, to wider and
wider groups. We might well think that it is the task of morality and politics to show
how this ought to be done and to help bring this about (228).
Thus, our natural tendencies to care could be supported and expanded. We could
strive for the conditions in which all who need care receive it in ways that are effec-
tive and fair. We could ask moral and political theory to guide progress toward such
societies, rather than striving merely to channel the war of all against all into
economic rather than more violent forms of conflict.
Striving to bring about a caring society would require displacing the social con-
tract and its ways of thinking from their thoroughly dominant role in our theorizing.
To oversimplify, instead of imagining self-interest to govern all human interactions
and aiming primarily at contractual relations to contain them, we could strive to
enlarge caring relations so that they encompass wider and wider circles of caring
human beings.
A war of all against all that is modified by legal and political restraints and chan-
neled into economic battlegrounds is certainly better than one fought with the kinds
of weapons that lead to violence and death. Nevertheless, we could, and should, aim
for something very different: a caring society. A caring society would surely need
legal and political and economic mechanisms, but these would be understood as
limited and partial arrangements, for specific purposes, not the lenses with which
we should see the whole of society.
To see care as at the heart or foundation or center of society may be questionable
metaphors. It is quite possible, however, that we need and cannot do without such
metaphors. The metaphor of the social contract, according to which we are gov-
erned by laws to which we hypothetically agreed is an extremely influential meta-
phor. We can and need to explore alternatives.
5.5 The Ethics of Care
As I have become more and more persuaded of the merits of the ethics of care, care
seems to me to be the most fundamental of moral values, even more fundamental
than justice, to which such overwhelming attention has been paid by political and
moral theorists (Held 2015a). Much human life can and has proceeded while exem-
plifying very little justice, especially toward women and other denigrated groups.
However, without the sufficient practicing of care, with its inherent values, life can-
not proceed, for there would be no persons. All persons, to survive infancy and to
exist, depend on care. And human beings remain fundamentally interdependent, not
the self-sufficient adult males of social contract theorizing.
The ethics of care is a radically new approach to moral understanding and theo-
rizing. It has transformative implications for the moral theorizing that ought to
guide our actions, and for our normative political and social and economic and other
theories. It is only at the beginnings of its development as theory, but it has the
potential to fundamentally change the ways we think about morality and all the
other theories influenced by our moral commitments. Care ethics is becoming a
genuine alternative to the dominant moral theories of Kantian ethics, utilitarianism,
and virtue theory. It is the first genuinely new normative moral theory since utilitari-
anism was developed in the nineteenth century, and it is rapidly gaining influence.
Care ethics arose because in the last decades of the twentieth century, philoso-
phers and others finally began to pay attention to the enormous amount of care work
that women, especially, engage in for so much of their lives. And others as well as
women in the household, provide care. The work of care had previously been con-
sidered irrelevant to morality, part of the natural given on which morality shapes our
goals. But it was newly recognized in the late twentieth century that the care that
human persons provide and receive is of fundamental moral significance. Moral
issues are intrinsic to the providing and receiving of care.
All human beings experience care, and can recognize the moral as well as other
values embedded in its practices. All can reflect on how existing care practices
ought to be improved, and can think about how actual care should become good
care. And all can begin to envision how the values of care ought to be extended in
society and the globe. Care ethics is based on experience, and experience that really
is universal. It has no need for the religious or cultural foundations on which so
much traditional moral theorizing has been based, but which are often divisive.
For the ethics of care, the primary values are those that can be discerned in
good practices of care. These include, especially, responding to the needs of
persons effectively and with empathic understanding (Campelia 2016), developing
relations of trust and mutual concern, and taking responsibility in appropriate ways
for meeting needs. These values can be discerned most clearly in the more personal
contexts of family and friendship, but they can be extended to wider and wider
contexts.
A caring person is one who engages effectively and with appropriate intentions
in good caring practices. Such practices range from caring for one’s child or nursing
108 V. Held
a sick patient, to participating in community efforts to deal with homelessness, or

engaging in efforts to overcome global poverty. The focus of care ethics, however,
is on relations between persons, not the rights or virtues of individuals. Persons can
and ought to be concerned with the needs and aspirations of others. Caring relations
should be responsive, considerate, and trusting, and care ethics should guide us in
fostering such relations. Of course such relations will be stronger in personal con-
texts than in wider ones, but we can engage in some caring practices even with
distant strangers.
The values emphasized by care ethics are very different from those of justice, on
which normative moral concern has concentrated since its revival in the last quarter
of the twentieth century (Held 2015a). Justice demands respect for the values of
fairness, equality, and impartiality. It is focused on the rights of individuals. Care, in
contrast, calls attention to relations between persons, and asks that needs be met and
mutuality fostered.
Care is not the same as altruism or benevolence or charity. It is not primarily a
feeling. And to construe caring contexts as ones of conflicting interests, where the
choices are to promote the interests of the self or the interests of the other, is a mis-
interpretation of caring contexts. Care providers need to care for themselves as well
as for those they care for, navigating the often difficult choices of how to balance
these concerns. The situations, however, call for furthering mutual rather than con-
flicting interests. Parents want their children to thrive as well as to do well them-
selves, and children want the same for their parents. Caregivers and care recipients
want each other to do well. What is to be sought is mutual benefit rather than indi-
vidual gain, of either self or other. What is called for is cooperation rather than
conflict.
In developing our understanding of care and its values, the experience of recipi-
ents of care is as important as that of providers. Though children and others receiv-
ing care may not at a given moment be able to articulate their experience, they can
reflect on it later or it can be represented in various ways. Care can and must avoid
being paternalistic and domineering, and care providers need to learn how to pro-
vide care respectfully. The feelings and needs of recipients must be fully taken into
account for care to be good care.
Segments of society where the values of care have been influential, if not recog-
nized, are the educational system, health care and welfare practices, and the civil
society necessary for political institutions to function. It can be newly understood
that these should be much more influential in our social and moral theorizing than
they have been. Previously, the law and our political institutions seem to have been
the foundations of moralities of justice, rights, rational contracts and the general
welfare. But when we understand the centrality of care, we can rethink both society
and morality.
We can question the ways we have seen moral issues everywhere. Instead of
imagining that we should apply the dominant moralities of justice to the newly
attended to domains of care, we can wonder whether we should instead expand the
values of care to the wider realms of economic and social activity. Perhaps care
should be the basis of a comprehensive moral approach, and should be used to
address even questions concerning the global issues surrounding the structures of
established nation states.
5.6 The Growing Influence of Care Ethics
Interest in care ethics has continued to grow, and this development follows the grad-
ual but increasing influence earlier achieved by discussions of justice and human
rights. I am old enough to have experienced these developments. A half-century
ago, approaches thought to be “realist” were dominant, and discussions of human
rights were often dismissed as moralistic wishful thinking. The discussions contin-
ued, however, and their influence increased.
Human rights became more and more important to philosophers and legal and
political theorists and activists, and the influence of considerations of justice and
human rights came to be extended to actual laws and policies. Today, human rights
are taken very seriously in national policies and in international affairs.
I expect something comparable to happen with care ethics. And because care
ethics is based on experience, and experience that really is universal, it has far
greater potential appeal around the globe than many other moral theories (Held
2015b, c).
Liberal individualism has serious limitations as a foundation for moral concern
in many parts of the globe. These are discussed by Daniel Engster, who contrasts the
potential appeal of the ethics of care with that of liberal individualism. He writes
that for many countries, “particularly those with more communal-based cultures
and traditions, liberalism has limited value or appeal. Care ethics, however… can
better engage with them and help to guide them toward a [better] future” (Engster
2015b: 7). He further speculates that “Contemporary social analyses rooted in indi-
vidualistic ontologies likewise no longer seem to get things right in our increasingly
interrelated and networked society,” but that care ethics, in this respect also, pro-
vides “a better way of understanding and coping with the important transitions we
are undergoing” (Ibid).
5.7 Implications of Care Ethics
What would the ethics of care recommend for our economic arrangements? A book
that might initially be thought relevant to answering this question is Pope Francis
and the Caring Society, edited by Robert M. Whaples (2017).2 It deals mostly with
economies. In his forward, Michael Novak doubts that Pope Francis has a good
theory of how to get the poor out of poverty (xxiv), but the volume makes clear that
I am grateful to Kelvin White for bringing this book to my attention.

2
110 V. Held
Francis seeks a dialogue on the kind of economy we should have, one that will raise
the poor around the globe from their misery, one in which economic activity is
aimed at far more than profits, and one that respects the environment. Markets
should not be left to produce their outcomes unrestrained, and governments should
engage in the redistributions called for by justice.
What is proposed for the caring society, however, seems little more than the cari-
tas or charity of traditional Catholic doctrine: the wealthy should give to the poor.
And as the editor’s introduction explains, Pope Francis “embraces traditional teach-
ings that feminine and masculine roles are grounded in human nature, with mothers
called upon to labor within the family and fathers naturally serving as workers and
breadwinners” (6).
The ethics of care, which is a feminist ethics, has a very different view. The work
of care can and should be engaged in by men as well as women. The values of care
are based on universal experience rather than on religion, and these values – of
responding to need, of promoting trust, of sensitivity to others – should be extended
from the family into the wider society and economy. Care is not charity but the
building of mutually caring relationships that are mutually beneficial.
It is true that conservatives sometimes understand better than liberal individual-
ists that society requires more than the pursuit of self-interest.3 Even to cohere, and
even more to thrive, persons must connect more basically than through contractual
exchanges. Families and neighborhoods and social connections matter. But conser-
vatives are also saddled with such traditions as racism and sexism, and it is unclear
that they offer the grounds on which to overcome them. Their usual attachment to
religious traditions can also be more divisive than helpful. A feminist ethics of care,
on the other hand, offers a promising alternative to the reduction of persons to self-
interested individuals. It recognizes the importance of relations between persons,
and the centrality of social connectedness. Very importantly, it has no need for reli-
gious foundations, and it overcomes the deepest bias of human history, that
of gender.
The ethics of care can potentially contribute enormously to progress in under-
standing the kinds of economic arrangements for which we ought to strive. It can
provide new thinking and innovative suggestions for confronting the economic and
social insecurities that currently threaten the liberal foundations of democracy.
As Joan Tronto, a leading theorist of care ethics has shown, the ethics of care
offers strong support for democratic institutions (Tronto 2013). But it can also offer
new thinking on how we ought to organize economic and social life beyond the
political and legal structures that permit “free markets.” Economic arrangements so
far have badly failed to provide assurance of the values of care through assurance of
the meeting of needs. The inadequate “safety nets” so far developed are surely better
than nothing, but they still permit intolerable conditions. Economic activity ought to
contribute to better families and communities and environments.
The columnist David Brooks frequently reflects this view.

3
A recent article on homelessness provides an example. In it, Bart van Leeuwen

shows how a care ethics approach is better than either a difference approach or a
liberal approach, whether in its minimalist or more generous variant. Instead of
focusing on social difference or individual agency, van Leeuwen argues, we should
focus on “the needs of homeless people” (my italics) (van Leeuwen 94). And we
should respond to the particular needs of actual persons, as care requires.
The homeless are often in need of psychiatric care, or drug treatment, or counsel-
ing, as well as a home (and not just temporary shelter), and care ethics, van Leeuwen
writes, “is the most relevant moral outlook” for attending to such needs (595).
For many homeless persons, however, the need is more straightforward: the need
is for adequate amounts of affordable housing to be available, and for jobs paying
adequate wages. A caring society would clearly make these priorities, and demand
of its economic system that it provide them. Instead of primarily serving the inter-
ests of investors, an economy guided by the ethics of care would put meeting the
needs of its citizens for affordable housing and for adequate income close to the
center of its concerns.
I have in the past argued for limits on markets (Held 2006: Chapter 7). The issues
I have tried to highlight are the goals and norms guiding the human activity of work,
especially care work. It is certainly progress that much care work is now paid work
rather than being the unpaid burden of women in the household. But the norms of
the market – giving priority to economic gain, or profit-maximization – are not the
appropriate norms of care work.
The pulling of more and more care work into the market, as has taken place in
recent years, is thus a questionable development. While the traditional exploitation
of women and minorities through completely unpaid care work may be even worse,
the priorities of the market are not those to which care work should be subordinated.
Schools, hospitals, daycare providers, and social service workers should not have
economic gain as their primary objective.
Julie Nelson argues against a separate spheres approach. She does not reject
markets or profits, including for care work. She maintains that normal, profit-
making corporations are not required, either by law or by economic competition, to
maximize profits, putting the search for profit above all other objectives. Corporations
can have various goals, and can well pursue moral aims. She notes that non-profit
organizations can also be irresponsible, so our goal, in her view, should be for all
economic activity to be morally acceptable, not for us to oppose profit-making as
such. Care and business, she argues, need to be brought together.
I can agree up to a point. IF a profit-making corporation puts the values of care
ahead of profit-making, it may be suitable for organizing care work as well as for
providing other goods and services. But the market norm that is usual at present – of
maximizing economic gain for shareholders – is NOT suitable for child-care cen-
ters, schools, hospitals and the like. The currently prevailing norms for business
could well change, and be far more influenced by the values of care than at present,
and this is a goal we should work towards. Producing gains for the already economi-
cally powerful should not be the first priority of most economic enterprises. But in
112 V. Held
the meantime we need to resist the taking over, by profit-seeking enterprises, of

education, healthcare, and the like.
Milton Friedman agued that “few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very
foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social
responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible”
(Friedman 1982: 133). And this view has been enormously influential. The ethics of
care would surely recommend that we overcome such a view, and develop economic
enterprises aiming at morally admirable purposes – such as producing needed goods
and services, and providing gainful employment at decent pay while respecting the
environment. In the meantime, we should resist the expansion of for-profit norms
and arrangements for schools, hospitals, childcare, and other public services. Many
activities are such that their primary aims should not be economic gain, even though
they should aim also at efficiency.
In the U.S., Senator Elizabeth Warren advocates requiring corporations by law to
consider the interests of workers and communities as well as of those of sharehold-
ers (Warren 2018). Others are considering fundamental changes in how economic
enterprises ought to be understood and their structures evaluated and changed.
5.8 Care and the Economy
Perhaps the clearest examples of enterprises that ought to put other objectives above
those of economic gain for shareholders are educational and healthcare institutions.
But these are not the only kinds of enterprise for which we should question the pri-
macy of this aim. Many economic activities should aim primarily at meeting actual
needs, whether or not their economic gains are maximized.
Many business executives rightly reject views such as Friedman’s, arguing that
corporations can and should have socially responsible objectives beyond making as
much money as possible for their stockholders. Marc Benioff, for instance, argues
that his corporation should indeed concern itself with the homelessness that exists
in its environs. “Our obligation,” he writes, “is not just to increase profits for share-
holders. We must also hold ourselves accountable to a broader set of stakeholders:
to our customers, our employees, the environment and the communities in which we
work and live” (Benioff 2018).
It has been shown that persons are willing to work for lower salaries for enter-
prises whose purposes they admire (Folbre 2001: 47). So corporations can have an
interest in becoming socially responsible for the sake of paying their employees
less. Socially responsible enterprises, however, will favor being responsible for
moral reasons, not in order to reduce their employees’ pay. Various executives jus-
tify their concerns with social responsibility in terms of the reputations and long-
term interests of their corporations. They could also come to do so for the sake of
admirable objectives.
It is unlikely that morally admirable objectives will often have priority for profit-
seeking enterprises left to themselves in capitalist economies and organized as they
are at present. The pressures of competition with those seeking economic gains for
their shareholders are simply too great (See e.g. Folbre 2001: Chapter 8).
Governmental intervention and corporate reorganization may often be needed. But
social pressure might contribute a great deal.
Elizabeth Anderson explores the many ways in which governmental intervention
can make work in a capitalist economy less exploitative and can curb the abilities of
private corporations to dictate overly burdensome requirements on workers
(Anderson 2017). For instance, laws that workers may not be required to work more
than 40 h a week without receiving overtime pay prevent a race among corporations
to require longer and longer workdays.
Carol Gould considers how “an increasing number of Americans are involved in
co-ops, worker-owned companies, and other alternative forms of economic organi-
zation” (Gould 2014: 242). More interested in “workplace democracy,” or worker
participation in management and control of corporations, rather than in mere par-
ticipation in ownership, she examines self-managing enterprises and how and why
workplace democracy ought to be greatly expanded. A core aspect of her argument
is “an appeal to the conception of people’s equal freedom” (246).
To criticize, as I think we should, the way care work – from households to school-
rooms to doctors’ offices to hospitals – has been pulled into the market does not
mean that market mechanisms should not be used to bring care providers and care
receivers together and to place persons in carework positions. As Joan Tronto,
explains, “market mechanisms can be useful in distributing care… What markets do
best is to make choice available” (Tronto 2013: 177). Providers and receivers of care
should have the kinds of choice of employment that markets facilitate. But, she
continues, those who enter into market transactions should to so from positions of
equality, not under conditions of domination. And, I would emphasize, they should
not be guided by currently prevailing market norms.
Though care work should be far better supported and paid than it has been and is,
its practices should not be subordinated to profit and return on investment. Markets
in capitalist economies at present are driven by the goal of economic gain for self-
interested individuals. Certainly care work should be paid and well paid, and paid
far better than it is at present. But economic gain should not be its primary aim nor
individual interest its primary motivator.
From a care perspective, an acceptable economy would severely limit the priori-
tizing of market norms. Instead of the kinds of expanding application of market
norms to healthcare, childcare, education, and other public services that we have
been seeing, we should aim to have the prioritizing of the economic gains of share-
holders apply to fewer and fewer economic enterprises.
A caring society would direct governmental policies to organize economic activ-
ity in ways that provide adequate resources to meet the needs of all. This goal should
have higher priority than rewarding the owners of capital and the winners in finan-
cial speculations.
An economy acceptable from a care perspective would understand the crucial
centrality and importance of the human capacity to work. For human lives to be
114 V. Held
morally satisfactory, this capacity must be respected, honored, appreciated, and

directed towards humanly admirable ends.
An economy that recognized the centrality of care to human wellbeing would be
organized to assure that needs are met before shareholders are further rewarded.
And needs would be met in ways that are conducive to rather than undermining of
trust. It would understand the importance of the relationality of persons, rather than
seeing only the interests of individuals or their ability to enter into contracts. It
would understand and contribute to the prospects for relations between persons to
be caring and cooperative rather than primarily self-interested and in conflict.
Of course conflicts will not disappear, and some competition will not only be
acceptable, it will be desirable. As with sports, firms can compete to do the best job.
But these conflicts can and should be contained within a broader and more funda-
mental cooperative community.
5.9 Care Ethics and the Future
We are living in times of great discontent with our economic systems in the United
States and in parts of Europe. Income inequality has risen to levels that are clearly
unacceptable.4 Support for capitalism is at historically low levels in the
U.S. (Krugman 2018b). Perhaps we should strive for the social responsibility of
socialism (without the governmental ownership and bureaucracy and interference),
together with the entrepreneurial freedom of capitalism (without the exploitation
and irresponsibility and rewarding of greed).
The current social democracies of Europe have high taxes and governmental
provision of many needed services: medical care, generous unemployment insur-
ance, tuition for higher education, etc. They have capitalist economies plus an
extensive governmentally provided safety net. In the U.S. there is much more resis-
tance to the levels of taxation such safety net programs require. Perhaps there are
opportunities to make corporations more socially responsible. “Socially responsible
investment,” is now a small-scale effort, but it could become much stronger.
Consumers could influence corporate behavior through their purchases far more
than they do at present. “Social enterprise” rather than socialism or capitalism might
come to challenge “private enterprise.”
4
Paul Krugman considers who gains from our economic growth, and shows how “since the
1970’s…. wages have stagnated for many” while “C.E.O.’s at the largest companies now make 270
times as much as the average worker, up from 27 times as much in 1980″ (Krugman 2018a).
Meanwhile, Patricia Cohen notes, since 2000 “labor’s share of the nation’s income has sunk to the
lowest level in decades. In 2000… corporations pulled in 8.3 percent of the nation’s total income
in the form of profits; wages and salaries across the entire work force accounted for roughly 66
percent. Now, the jobless rate is again…below 4 percent. But corporate profits account for 13.2
percent of the nation’s income. Workers’ compensation has fallen to 62 percent.” (Cohen 2018).
We need many experiments, to see what works and why, and what doesn’t work,
in our economic arrangements. We should experiment with corporate structures
(Gould 2014), with requiring corporations to take account of the interests of others
as well as shareholders (Warren 2018), with guaranteed minimums of income
(Goodman 2018), with workers on boards of directors as in Germany and
Scandinavia (Anderson 2017), with various public and private programs. We should
understand how the monetized economy and the current growth paradigm lead to
the devaluing of care, and how they threaten the environment (See Dengler and
Strunk 2018; Nelson and Power 2018; Raworth 2017). We should experiment with
the structuring of various kinds of enterprises and various kinds of work arrange-
ments, guided by the values of care.
We know from the women’s movement, and the movements for racial and
LGBTQ justice, that enormous social change can occur without violent revolution.
Some legal change is needed to solidify changing attitudes and behavior, but much
social change can occur without legal and certainly without violent coercion (Held
1993). We might do well to aim for this in our economic endeavors.
We should get used to evaluating economic arrangements on moral grounds, and
making moral recommendations for how we ought to structure and run our econo-
mies, as we are used to offering moral recommendations for our political institu-
tions. Care ethics offers us the grounds on which to make these moral evaluations
and recommendations.
In dealing with many of our most serious current problems, the ethics of care is
more promising than the traditional moral theories and than theories centered on
justice and rights. For instance, it can better deal with the global migrations of care
workers that are disrupting so many lives (Ehrenreich and Hochschild 2003; Abu-
Laban 2012). It can effectively support international law and human rights, while
recognizing their limitations in dealing with many global issues (Held 2011, 2015b).
It can recognize dependency rather than relying on unrealistic assumptions of indi-
vidual self-sufficiency, either within nations or globally (Kittay 1999; Mahon and
Robinson 2011; Robinson 2011). It can confront problems of violence between
groups as well as individuals (Held 2010). It can address the problem of global
poverty through its focus on taking responsibility for what needs to be done rather
than on holding people responsible for purposes of blame or punishment (Held
2018). And it is more suitable for dealing with the problems of climate change and
the environment through its understanding of care and its requirements (Preston and
Carr 2019). Rather than being limited to individuals and their interests or obliga-
tions, or to justice between individuals, it can deal with groups and their needs and
responsibilities for care. It is well suited to recommend how we ought to transform
our economic enterprises.
Care ethics enlists our emotions to work for a global society in which we increase
trust and decrease violence between persons and groups, and direct our economic
activity to meeting the needs of all with empathetic understanding within the bounds
of responsibility to the environment.
116 V. Held
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Chapter 6
Welfare, Care and Human Economy
in the Theory of Wilhelm Röpke
Jerónimo Molina Cano and Jesús A. Guillamón Ayala
Abstract One of the leaders of the German ORDO review group was the outstand-
ing liberal economist Wilhelm Röpke, who did a critical review of political economy
during the so-called ‘social policy period’. We aim to show the advisability of his
thinking in order to reconsider the role of the state in political economy at ‘the post-
welfarist age’. Röpkean thought is based on a humanistic approach to economy,
from which he questions the ability and opportunity of social care provision by state.
Unlike other liberals and libertarian ideologists, Röpke is not against the public
intervention in the economy and he provides a measurable alternative: Der dritte Weg.
Keywords Wilhelm Röpke · Ordoliberalism · Third way · Human economy
6.1 Introduction: The Epistemological Shifts in Economics
Social policy is inseparable from the methodological development of economics.

Volkswirtschaft and Socialpolitik are consequences, on one hand, of the epistemo-
logical breaking-off lived in Political Economy (Staatswirtschaft), on the other
hand, of the modern thought break that began with the social French Republic
in 1848.
Although the economy has been extraordinarily nationalized in our time, only a
few noticed the intimate link between economics and politics. On the contrary, the
majority attempted to separate them by an abuse of reason. As a result, political
system1 (in the sense of a theory of policies) and econometric methods (in the sense
of mathematical economy) have been institutionalized via university.
1
It should be borne in mind that during the modern era “state thought” and “political thought” have
coincided. Thus from the World War II “state thought” has monopolized the university context,
relegating the “political thought” to a nearly private cultivation.
J. Molina Cano (*) · J. A. Guillamón Ayala

Department of Social Work and Social Services, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
e-mail: jeromo@um.es; jesusadolfo.guillamon@um.es

Switzerland AG 2021
120 J. Molina Cano and J. A. Guillamón Ayala
The Traicté de l’Oeconomie politique, published in 1615 by Antoine de

Montchrestien, used the term political economy for the first time, connecting policy
and economy around the historic shift that led to the emergence of the modern state
(Schmitt 1958). Only warned by the French polemologist Julien Freund about
400 years later, it meant an ‘epistemological break’ in economics (Freund 1993:
23–5). The merit of this finding is that finally became visible the inherent economic
nature of the modern political form. From ancient Greece to this epistemological
turn, the economy was moving into the limits set by household economy and chre-
matistics (Aristóteles 1989: VIII & IX). The constitutive interweaving of state and
capitalism explains, in part, the modern process of totalization of the political. Thus
the state revolutionary transformed the European way of life, providing a new con-
text for the economy and determining the emergence of political economy.
In Germany, Volkswirtschaft or Nationalökonomie had better acceptance perhaps
because both were more in contact with the spirit of Romanticism (Koselleck et al.
1972: 581–4). Schmoller said that the originality of German language had created
an individual and collective noun at once. Volkswirtschaft means the unity of econ-
omy of the nation. Therefore (Schmoller 1905: 85–6), Volkswirtschaft it is different
from Staatswirtschaft, but at the same time the first includes the second one (Kirzner
1976: 85).
We can now perceive more clearly the epistemological shift that the birth of
Socialpolitik meant, coming some decades earlier than the Social economy – as it
was vaguely named in the economical-scientific terminology. If Political economy
meant a new context for economy, social policy also disclosed a new economical
field or, in other words, a new pragmatic order, separated from the already known
institutions: family, enterprise, state.
The original concept of Socialpolitik appeared from the beginning linked to the
ethical critique of Political economy. The specialist in Social policy (Sozialpolitiker)
was an economist aimed to struggle against the historical unjustices (Schmoller
1905: 119). As expected, numerous authors understood the question in terms of
income distribution, introducing a moralization in economics in order to justify the
modification of market outcomes. In spite of the priority given by Schmoller and
other authors of the Historical school of economics to the methodological and sci-
entific rhetoric, we have to agree that the theoretical consequences of their researches
were barely economic.
In some way, the Socialpolitik was an encouragement for socialism and, not
without reason, deserved the epithet ‘cross-current of liberalism’ from Schumpeter
(1982: 844). He was partially right, because he was only focused on developing
scientific economics and forgot the historical significance of the Socialpolitik,
which gave an answer to a new dimension of the collective existence, ‘the social’.
Lorenz von Stein exposed his thoughts about the laws of historic movement in
his Geschichte der sozialen Bewegung in Frankreich von 1789 bis auf unsere Tage,
basing them on the dialectic between state – kingdom of freedom – and
society – kingdom of need (Stein 1981: 193). At this point, we have to say that the
oeconomie politique of Montchrestien was typical of the former state characterized
by national dynasties and the ratio status, or the Anglo-Saxon economic society.
Thus, it could not respond to the challenge that this conflict involved. In any case,
6 Welfare, Care and Human Economy in the Theory of Wilhelm Röpke 121
Socialpolitik belonged to the particular circumstances of the twentieth century, as it

is the expression of a specific mind-set and social structure that we can denominate
the ‘social era’, or even the ‘social policy era’ (Molina Cano 2004: 17 & ff.). So,
from this reasoning, we think that the separation between Social policy and Political
economy is justified. For instance, we can not understand the Social rights in the
context of Political economy, but it makes sense in the context of Social Policy.
6.2 From Methodenstreit to Soziale Markwirtschaft
Since the last years of the nineteenth century and during the most part of the twen-
tieth century, there have been numerous discussions between economical scientists
in order to set the specific point of view of economics. As Political economy and
Social policy have shared a similar treatment, we consider interesting to look over
this debate and then we will understand what makes difference between each other.
A brief summary show three basic attitudes: (1) To combine in several ways the
economical-political and the socio-political, producing the diverse manifestations
of Welfare economy. (2) To correct the mistakes in Political economy, turning it into
the special praxeology (‘catallactics’) propounded by the Austrian school. (3) To
develop a new economic knowledge from the historical and theoretical works gath-
ered along the decades before the II World War: the Social market economy (Soziale
Marktwirtschaft). This one aimed to get the social-politician (sozialpolitiker) and
the political-economist together. Its intellectual context is especially interesting for
us, as it contains one of the best justified conceptions of ‘the third way’: Röpke’s
Human Economy.
6.2.1 Theory and History
The polemic about the method in economics (Methodenstreit) set Gustav Schmoller
and Carl Menger against each other. The first, as leader of the Historical school of
economics, and the second, as promoter of the Austrian school. The controversy
dealt with the course that economics had to assume: theoretical or historical.
Although it took place mainly between the year 1883 and 1884, it was of such
importance that its development has influenced almost to the present day (Huerta de
Soto 1994: 64).
In summary, Menger postulated that the theoretical corpus of Political economy,
as a science of the spirit (Geisteswissenschaf) or moral science, could be developed
deductively from certain axioms. Schmoller took this as an attack on his School and
defended vehemently the supremacy of history (Schmoller 1883).
According to Böhm-Bawerk (1999: 165–81), the crux of the matter was that
historical economists mistook the Austrian postulate for this of classical economics.
However, the method maintained by Austrians is connected with the Aristotelian
realism and it is not unempirical. Quite the contrary, ‘marginal utility’, ‘temporal
preference’ and many other axioms of the Austrian school have been confirmed by
daily life experience.
6.2.2 Praxeology and Human Economy
Faced with the dilemma theory-history, the praxeology proposed by von Mises
framed economics within the sciences of human action, and involved a critique of
all the neoclassical paradigm. His plan exposed in Human action (Mises 1986) was
an attempt to relaunch economics, basing it on what Schumpeter named ‘method-
ological individualism’.
In his works, Mises and his school outlined the limits between Political economy
and Social policy. Afterwards, several authors tried to unite them both, not from old
schemas, but to update a special way of economic thinking. One of those econo-
mists was Walter Eucken, who claimed a ‘thought in orders’ for economics. He
found that it releases economic intelligentsia from the slavery of the idealist ‘indi-
vidualist abstraction’ and it shows that economy is firstly a kind of order. Not a
natural one, as for classics, but an order in close dependence with other orders
(legal, political, et cetera). Moreover, Eucken (1967) set up that every economic
action needs an order and that they are based on plans, whether they are planned or
not. So we can distinguish two types of economic order: economy of central direc-
tion and traffic economy.
Along with Eucken, others – Rüstow, Müller-Armack – formed an outstanding
intellectual group at the University of Freiburg who defended the so-called Social
market economy (Soziale Marktwirtschaft). What they had in common was an inter-
related vision of all human orders, where the political order should support the oth-
ers. Ultimately, the economic order is always a ‘political problem’ (Eucken 1963).2
Wilhelm Röpke also belonged to this group. His important contribution was a
humanist approach towards philosophy and sociology. His Human economy was the
base of Civitas humana and a reprobation of both, paleoliberalism and
collectivism.
Wilhelm Röpke was born in 1899 in Schwarmstedt, a village near Hannover.
Undoubtedly, the fact of living in this rural setting influenced childhood and youth.
This impact can be seen from time to time in his writings praising the simple life of
small communities.
We find strange that scientific community on social sciences did not put too
much attention yet, except for the book dedicated exclusively to his work (Gregg
2010), on who, to us, must be considered one of the most important European econ-
omists of the second third of the twentieth century, as Röpke was one of the most
widely read economists before his death in 1966, in Coligny, near Geneva. Therefore,
2
To him, the interrelation between politics and economics is an evidence. The problem is the whys
and wherefores of this interdependence.
it is paradoxical that it has gone unnoticed – except for ordoliberal circles – for
young economists promotions, whose training in European universities seems to be
focused on mathematical and statistical training.
Wilhelm Röpke, as thousands of young people, was part of one of the Europe’s
saddest generation. The First World War put an end of a way of life, of a political
world, economic and technical representations. Militarism became the clearest
expression of the new dimension of the state. Political form that finally prevailed
across Europe. The war and the particular economic organization that states were
forced to adopt, the famous “planned economy” of Walther Rathenau, showed the
threat to personal liberties posed by what Schumpeter (1970) called the ‘tax state’
(Steursstaat). Maybe it has not been paid enough attention to this industrialist and
German politician, visionary publicist and theorist of historical developments: Von
kommenden Dingen (1917), Die neue Wirtschaft (1918), Der neue Staat (1919), Die
neue Gesellschaft (1919) (Röpke 1922).
For Röpke (1959: 12), the battlefields where he fought determined him. He
promised himself that if he ever came out of that hell, he would devote his lifetime
to lend their support to prevent the repetition of the disaster, to understand the causes
of this crisis and to help prevent it.
At first, Röpke (1959: 13) was convinced that the root of evil was in the corrup-
tion of society and elites. Such a corrupt society was commonly identified with
capitalism. Thus for him and for thousands of students, the logic solution was
socialism. But, more than a socialist, Röpke wanted to be a serious and realistic
economist. That is why he quickly began to discover the intellectual incoherencies
of this ideology. For instance, socialists declared themselves as anti-militarists and
pacifists, but they were against of free trade, maybe a cooperative and peaceful way
to order international relations. At this point, one of the biggest events in the intel-
lectual life of Röpke was the reading of Die Gemeinwirtschaft: Untersuchen über
den Sozialismus (Mises 1922). According to Hayek (1981: xix), this book taught
many young economists as him, Röpke or Robbins that they were wrong in their
initial approaches.
In 1923 he became an expert at the Commission of the German Foreign Ministry,
being in charge of studying the problem of war reparations. This experience was
crucial to him, as he could get deep into the international economic reality, becom-
ing one of the great contemporary defenders of unrestrained international trade. In
few words, he advocated for an international economic order based on freedom,
whose referent was the global trade organization before the First World War. In this
sense, his work of 1945 on international trade policy, Internationale Ordnung, can
be considered the turning point of his youth. However, the thought of Röpke, which
was based in part on the tradition of the renewed market economy by Mises, did not
follow the neoliberalist line of the Austrian professors and their followers. Röpke’s
attitude towards politics is a very interesting aspect of his thought. According to
him, it was a serious mistake to ignore the close relationship between the various
human orders, especially between the political and the economic ones. Facing the
Mises refusal to accept any state interference into the economy, Röpke (1966: 223)
claimed his faith in free market, but argued the need for a strong state able to place
human interests over the economic ones, what it could mean to defend capitalism
from the capitalist restrictive practices.
Due to his harsh words for Hitler’s national socialism, Röpke had to leave
Germany in 1933, accepting an offer from the University of Istanbul. This Turkish
period did not mean an estrangement from the most interesting and under discussed
issue in Europe. Thus, he studied in depth the ‘economic cycle theory’, which was
based on the ‘capital theory’ outlined by Böhm-Bawerk and Mises. In summary, he
attributed the origin of economic crisis to the credit expansion by central banks, but
with the originality of asserting that such overinvestment also occur in socialist
economies. Actually, he boasted about that he had launched the first warnings
against the distorting effects of Keynesian policy, characterized by an economic
expansion obsession and an irrational terror to postwar deflation.
In any case, his most important economic work of this period is probably Die
Lehre von der Wirtschaft (Röpke 1943). Here, he developed his conception of eco-
nomics, whose cornerstone was to consider economy as a human activity. Then, the
economic is the about how to order the anarchy (Röpke 1966: 15). For Röpke, the
economic order had at least four essential premises:
–– The phenomenological premise: the process of price formation.
–– The epistemological premise: the marginal utility, on which all modern eco-
nomic theory had been built (Röpke 1966: 25).
–– Sociological premise. It should be taken into account that society has three ways
to combat scarcity: an ethically positive way, altruism; a negative ethical manner,
violence; and an ethically neutral way, economic exchange.
–– Praxeological premise. There are several ways to harmonize needs with prefer-
ences: the collective economy system, the system of market prices, and every
intermediate forms.
According to Röpke, European wars forced to adopt an unprecedented point of
view. The solution was neither the old liberalism, burdened by his sociological
blindness, nor the collectivism responsible for the mass of life. Thus, in the winter
of 1942, Die Gesellschaftskrisis der Gegenwart appeared in Switzerland, that, in
Röpke’s words (1947: 1) is the “outcome of the ideas that an economist has been
forming about the disease of our civilization and the procedure to overcome it”.
Röpke proposed what others had called ‘dritter Weg’, a sort of intellectual and
empirical mediation between the individualistic liberalism and the collectivist
socialism. Its corollary was what he called ‘Economic humanism’, that is, a new
conception of the economy subordinated to ethical and legal imperatives, and inte-
grated into a vast political action to configure a healthy social order (Röpke 1947:
287 & ff.).
Unlike the rest of the Austrian school, what proposed Röpke was a renewed
Socialpolitik. Mises and his disciples did not understand social policy nor the
humanistic vision of ordoliberalism properly. Röpke admitted the Socialpolitik
interventionist character but, unlike Mises, he understood that there was a satisfac-
tory explanation from the point of view of the human society order. In the following
years, this idea (Röpke 1944) gave way to reach the Gesellschaftspolitik or policy
that configures a well ordered society. This concept date probably from before
Second World War, but it started to be known from the book of Hans Achinger
(1958). In other words, Röpke expounded a cultural review of the political, eco-
nomic and spiritual disorders of his time, as well as its alternative: a humanized
economy at the service of the civitas humana (human city). As a matter of fact, there
is a strong consensus about that some degree of social care provision is desirable
(Koslowski 1997: 1), as Social welfare is a preference already settled on society.
The debate is about which moral criterions should be applied to economic actions
in order to neutralise negative externalities and how to get a given social care system
viable (Koslowski and Buchanan 1997: 31). From a moral point of view, it could be
said that caring our fellow men was an ethical private matter but, once social care
became a welfare state duty, the ethical question is related to our civilised or unci-
vilised behaviour in order to determine the viability of the welfare state (Parijs
1997: 383–5).
Röpke is an example of the renewal of liberal thought contributing to abandon
the topics of the twentieth century (paleoliberalism). His contemporaries recog-
nized in him the intellectual resistance against the ideology and propaganda, and his
leadership – shared with Eucken or Müller-Armack – in the group of social market
economy. We must not forget the enormous influence that it had on the smart eco-
nomic policy of Ludwig Erhard (1989), the so-called ‘German miracle’ of 1950’s.
6.3 Criticism of ‘Economism’
Röpke’s thought challenges a way of understanding the economy that has prevailed
throughout the twentieth century: the Economic Analysis that has replaced the
economy as a human activity.
Liberals and anti-liberals have ended up ejecting the man from the economy. The
claim of materialistic selfishness as the foundation of the economy – for liberals,
leading to the common good, for anti-liberals, to ruin society, gave the way to epis-
temological determinism, whose laws have translated the human activity into num-
bers through the language of mathematics. We could say that economists have
neglected the practical reality of economic action as an object of knowledge to
embrace the figures, as if they existed. For Röpke, the result of this process was a
discipline away from human reality and obsessed with quantity, standard of living,
development and economic growth. The answer to the human needs – foundation of
the economy – can not be indifferent to productivity, but to take this as the ultimate
purpose of the economy, it dehumanizes economy. The economist must pay special
attention to the ‘productivity of value’ (Röpke 1956: 22), as economics is a moral
science and, at this point, the entrepreneur has a crucial role. He should not accept
the role of a machine in search of the highest profit, that economic theory has
assigned to him, but to assume his creative role with a higher moral purpose (Röpke
1996: 339). Actually, to support a high moral standard inside the enterprise, espe-
cially about confidence, work-life balance and social care, can improve the firm
performance on risk management and costs control (Koslowski and Buchanan

1997: 68–9).
As Röpke understood, the damage caused by this abuse of reason could only be
recovered from extra-economical premises: political, but especially moral. However,
we do not mean economic moralism as, for instance, in the sense of a critique to
consumer society (Galbraith 1969). Overcoming economism is compatible with the
material benefits, as the neediness of man has no solution. What is more, technical
and social innovations helping the human being to cover his needs are much more
difficult to be obtained under tuitorist moral criterions (Koslowski and Buchanan
1997: 38).
6.4 Goals and Imperatives of Economic Humanism
Röpke’s ‘economic humanism’ transcends the economic field in a similar way than
the Catholic social teaching placing in the centre of any action the human being. It
means to understand the market as a tool at the service of men, which must contrib-
ute to the their perfection in three major lines: deproletarianization, decrowding and
decentralization.
According to Röpke, the proletarianization of masses that arrived with the
European turn of the nineteenth century is no longer a problem of low wages and
exhausting working days. It is a disease of the spirit to which has contributed a divi-
sion of labour that has gone to be incompatible with human morality (Röpke 1947:
166). This situation is characterized by socio-economic dependence, lack of attach-
ment, army life style, detachment from nature and lack of motivating work (Röpke
1947: 19). The consequence of this life style is that mankind has forgotten the spiri-
tual attitude to be an owner. The Servile state moves forward in front of the Owners
state and all citizens are divided into two categories: employees and employers
(Belloc 1945: 167).
Partly inspired by Ortega y Gasset (1929), Röpke talked about overcrowding and
massification. The coexistence inside the mass society is anonymous, disconnected
from the community and easily controlled by the state. Actually, he thinks that tra-
ditional family has been destroyed because the state expropriated its natural right to
educate their children (Röpke 1956: 165). Although one of the moral arguments in
favour of social welfare is solidarity, the truth is that public care leads to a stronger
state, not to a stronger society (Koslowski 1997: 4). Not for nothing, nowadays there
are voices pointing to a weakening of institutions like family or intermediate groups
(Opielka 1997: 239–42). In fact, family support policies show how the birth of a kid
turned into a public good needed of protection, in a similar way like human capital
for firms (Opielka 1997: 252).
Aesthetically, Röpke was always in favor of the small – ‘small is beautiful’ –, the
rural life, the agriculture. We do not want to mean that he was a conservative tradi-
tionalist, as he was aware that history never returns. His social philosophy of decen-
tralization is a deep critique of social colossalism.
6.5 Means of Economic Humanism
The ‘third way’ should be understood as a synthesis of freedom and order. Therefore,
it is not a simple negation of liberalism and collectivism, but a real social reform
project, which is defined as conservative and radical. Conservative, because it
defends the continuity of cultural and economic evolution, from values and princi-
ples based on the free personality. It is radical complaining the decomposition of
liberal economic and social system, criticising the false paths of liberal philosophy
and practice (Röpke 1956: 165). Undoubtedly, this program goes beyond econom-
ics, as it subordinates the activity to higher imperatives: political, legal, but above
all cultural and moral. So, the question is: what to do in the economy for the consti-
tution of free men?
The answer implies to accept politics still as a worthy activity. At this point,
Röpke appealed to the European liberal tradition to set up a neutral and strong state,
characterized by its independence from interest groups and asserting his authority
as a worthy representative of the community (Röpke 1947: 246). In summary, politi-
cians must to make a decision on the relationship between politics and economics,
establishing a general framework for government action. In Freund’s thinking
(1993), if the goal of economy is the economic well-being, political interventions
must to be classified in two: those which are compatible with a healthy economic
order – so, those generating well-being – and those incompatible with a healthy
economic order – so, those not doing it.
Although political intervention in economy is often judged according to a quan-
titative criterion, that is, from non-intervention to total intervention, this approach is
wrong, since every economic action is planned. And the crux of the matter is to
know if the intervention will be useful or detrimental for economic well-being
(Freund 1993). On the one hand, against the general opinion, interventions aiming
to free the market can lead to better social care results, for instance, lowing the
prices of goods and services. On the other hand, the state’s promises of full social
care provision – unemployment, retirement, disabilities, et cetera – can create an
unreal view of the country’s wealth. And, if the state cannot fulfil these promises,
the welfare state will distort the life plans of his citizens that misallocated their
resources over the life cycle due to this illusions (Koslowski 1997: 2).
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Verfassungslehre, ed. Carl Schmitt, 375–383. Berlin: Dunker & Humblot.
Schmoller, Gustav. 1883. Zur Methodologie der Staats- und Sozialwissenschaften. In Jahrbuch für
Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft im deutschen Reich, 975–994. Berlin: Verein
für Socialpolitik.
———. 1905. Política social y Economía política. Cuestiones fundamentales. Vol. I. Barcelona:
Heinrich y cía.
Schumpeter, Joseph Alois. 1970. La crisis del Estado fiscal. Revista de Hacienda Pública Española
2: 145–169.
———. 1982. Historia del análisis económico. Barcelona: Ariel.
Stein, Lorenz von. 1981. Movimientos sociales y monarquía. Madrid: C.E.C.
Chapter 7
Time, Space, and Care
Joaquim Braga
Abstract In a first approach, “caring” can be understood as a way of articulating time in

full agreement with the need of others. Therefore, and thanks to care, we profit with the
access to a peculiar consciousness of time which transcends the practical time of caring
and simultaneously fosters and frames our own perception of time itself. Nevertheless, we
know that in several care institutions there is a kind of “economic time” which is neces-
sary both to the meeting with the most urgent needs as to fill the scarcity of the available
resources. The time of institutionalized care is, above all, measured by the spatial condi-
tions and possibilities as well as by the individuals who daily dwell and struggle in
between such factors. The institutionalization of care practices tends to arouse an apparent
primacy of space over time. Hospitals, nursing homes, day-care centers for children,
recovery centers, among others, are now more likely than ever to fill the lack of time of
individuals. Therefore, space is also a material reaction both to the lack of time and to the
consciousness of time, especially boosted by those who abandon their loved ones. Based
on these multiple articulations of time and space, I will try to show how the relational
nature of care is transformed and gives rise to new ways of conceiving the idea of caring.
Keywords Care institutions · Consciousness of time · Contemporary society ·

Relationships · Space
7.1 Introduction
With regard to the spatio-temporal conditions of care, we can begin with a well-
defined example given by artworks. The physical preservation of a work of art com-
prises several caring practices, which are given over time and in a particular space,
such as the space of the museum where it is exposed. The work is cared for and, for
many centuries it may have, comes to us without relevant signs of decay. There is,
in this case, an archetypal articulation between time and space. It is, of course, a
J. Braga (*)
Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação, Universidade de Coimbra, Institute
for Philosophical Studies (IEF), Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: bragajoaquim77@gmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
130 J. Braga
space-time bond related to an institutionalized care, which contributes both to the

idea of work of art and to its aesthetic autonomy in relation to the other objects of
our cognitive environment. These two dimensions would hardly be feasible, if there
were no institutionalized care intervention. But does the time and space of institu-
tionalized care generally nourish the idea and consciousness of care itself?
Many of the theoretical conceptions about care are still based on the interaction-
ist models of social life, such as those ground on an ethics of virtue. It is clear that,
like any human practice that is immediately associated with certain universal feel-
ings, we can always have as reference of the concept of care a set of ideal feelings
and not so much the empirical conditions that make it possible, especially the forms
of social organization of human beings. If we start from the multiple conditions and
boundaries imposed by contemporary society, then we will have to submit the con-
cept of care to a reality that is no longer entirely dictated by informal interpersonal
relations, but which, conversely, is impregnated with formal relations, public and
private services. Being a society of production of services and not only of produc-
tion of goods, contemporary society imposes, since long ago, the transference of
informal behaviors to social mediation spheres. Such transference of interpersonal
behaviors to impersonal functional networks, as with the institutionalization of sev-
eral domains of care, greatly conditioned the awareness of their subjective and
social value as well as their ethical reach.
In view of such changes on social life, in the following paragraphs, I will try to
bring to light how spatio-temporal conditions can influence the practices of care
and, at the same time, how they affect our conception of the idea of caring.
7.2 Care as Relational Concept
The ethics of virtue, in its classical formulation, has as its main anthropological
presupposition a heroic conception of human beings. These, in their solipsistic
nature, and thanks to their psychic dispositions, are able to overcome the contingen-
cies of life in society and place virtue in the place of vice. In its Latin etymological
meaning, the term virtue (virtus) appears connected with a heroic conception of the
individual, being, in this particular case, the male sexual behavior that, through its
alleged virility, best embodies the psychic dispositions of the true virtuous individ-
ual. The supposed distinction between higher virtues and lower virtues is only a
rhetorical device here, because in fact it is the so-called noble sentiments – such as
courage – that dictate the paradigm of a virtuous man. Such a paradigm was, in fact,
in a rather satirical way, widely criticized by Bernard Mandeville when, in his oeu-
vre The Fable of the Bees, he portrays the individual of commercial society as a
being plunged into vice; but vice, which, for the wealth of nations, bears more ben-
efits than drawbacks. Mandeville warns above all of the impossibility of prescribing
an ethics of virtue to the social life of men, since the latter is already built at the
expense of the ceaseless quest for the individual realization of every human being.
“Pride and Vanity have built more Hospitals than all the Virtues together”
7 Time, Space, and Care 131
(Mandeville 1992: 261), so states the author in his Essay on Charity and Charity-
Schools. To deny these facts will, according to Mandeville, sustain and increase
moral hypocrisy and reproduce a simulated ethics, without content.
Modern theories of society have found in the concept of “sympathy” a true
touchstone to explain and analyze the original constitution of social relations.
Edmund Burke and Adam Smith are, in this respect, two reference authors. The
concept of sympathy carries with it the idea of simulation, and this is due to the fact
that the two thinkers start from an alleged psychic solipsism among human beings,
which, in turn, serves their liberal concerns on trade and economy in general.
Simulating the other’s mind is at the basis of such empathic projection-identification
nexus; but, strictly speaking, the concept of sympathy thus conceived echoes the
ancient idea of virtue as the psychic (and potential heroic) disposition of every
human being.
Now, caring is an effective practice that places the caregiver and the care receiver
in a mutual and dynamic relationship – caring is not, therefore, a mere skill or psy-
chic disposition related to a single human being. Whether Virginia Held or Joan
Tronto warns us of this seminal difference between care and virtue. According to
Tronto, “the problem with all theories of care-as-virtue is that they are not rela-
tional. They do not begin from the premise that the important ethical issues concern
relationships and meeting needs, not the perfection of the virtuous individual.
Starting from an ethic of care-as-virtue returns the focus to the caregiver’s perfor-
mance; this preoccupation makes too remote the political concerns of unequal
power among caregivers and care receivers” (Tronto 2013: 36).
In this sense, the concept of care in ethical theory should not fall into the same
psychological fallacy as that of the virtuous man. It must, conversely, seek in the
always contingent articulation among human beings, culture and society its first and
fundamental touchstone. Care involves a relationship between at least two beings
or, in other cases, between a being and an object (a work of art, for instance). From
medical practices we inherit the conception that there is one being who cares and
another who is cared for – this is the physician-patient relationship. The attempt to
make medical practices, through subjectivation of the physician-patient relation-
ship, total acts, in which the physician himself is involved with the psychological
dimensions of the patient, is, in fact, a suggestive sign of the technical-scientific
specialization to which modern medical care is submitted.
To reverse or mitigate this process, placing the physician and the patient at a
symmetrical intersubjective level, means, in Karl Jaspers’s belief, a wrong and dan-
gerous intent, since, first of all, it calls into question the necessary distance that the
former requests to objectify the disease and its treatment and cure processes. Against
the pretensions of von Weizsacker, Jaspers argues that “the physician can only act
reasonably to the extent that objectification succeeds” (Jaspers 1998: 26). In this
sense, the objective possibilities of medical action are dependent on the subjective
limits imposed by the disease itself. The physician can never be confused with the
patient, nor can he fully examine the psychological states provoked by the disease
and the therapeutic processes, because as a “scientific man” he possesses a neces-
sary radical consciousness of what is subject and what is object, of what is the part
132 J. Braga
and what is the whole; without it, the pivotal medical process which, in general
terms, begins in the identification of the disease and ends in the intervention and its
resolution, will be entirely compromised. In a nutshell, Jaspers’ formulations,
embodied by his experience as a physician, point to the need for a demarcation
between medical care and all those care acts provided by other social spheres, such
as those given by religious agents. It is, in this sense, that the penultimate paragraph
of his text on the physician-patient relationship should be understood, namely: the
physician should not become an “instrument of escape”, but he should, quite the
reverse, leave room for the care practices provided by others human beings (Jaspers
1998: 37).
Jaspers’ concerns about the transformation of medicine into a pseudo-science –
through which, for instance, the physician becomes a sort of priest, thus regressing
to a primitive condition of medicine itself – could be extended to other domains of
caring. It has been noticed since long time that the discourse of technical-scientific
specialization has been challenged by the discourse of the psychologization of
social relations, be they between the physician and the patient or, in the teaching-
learning contexts, between the teacher and the student. In the latter case, the slogan
teacher as father figure invaded a significant part of psycho-pedagogical studies and
greatly influenced many of the school’s educational strategies and the teacher’s own
scientific development, as well as the role reserved for parents in their children’s
education.
It is true that, in the sphere of medical care, there is, in semiotic terms, a primacy
of the signal – the symptom of disease – over the symbol – the individual expression
of human beings. Care as a technique goes back to the conceptions of the Corpus
Hippocraticum, where the main subject matter of medicine is the human body and
the main purpose, its cure. But can we reduce care to such a pathological relation-
ship? Caring is not just about dealing with pain. To avoid pain and to provide plea-
sure is also part of what we should call “care”. The practice of caring is necessary
to exist both the feeling and the idea of care. On the other hand, however, we should
not reduce care to its empirical context, to the urgent need to deal with something.
Caring implies, also, projecting the other – that is, the care receiver – in a different,
positive context, which, conversely, is favorable to him. Caring is, in this second
sense, anticipating and imagining its effects. To this extent, acts of caring in general
suggest, at the same time, the assumption of the human autonomy of the care
receiver.
Hence also the idea that care cannot be defined as a simple “compassion”. If this
were the case, care would only be a restricted practice, merely technical, without a
full expression of human being’s faculties. As Virginia Held argues, “the caring
promoted by the ethics of care is quite far from compassion. Even though the carer
may perform tasks for the benefit of the cared-for that the cared-for cannot recipro-
cate, the persons in a caring relation are not competitors for benefits, hence altruism
is not what is called for. Caring is a relation in which carer and cared-for share an
interest in their mutual well-being” (Held 2006: 34–35).
7.3 Time in Care and Time Consciousness
As for the lived experience of temporality, contemporary society has fed, on the one
hand, the economic fact of lack of time and, on the other hand, the playfulness of
enjoying time. In the first case, individuals feel they do not have the time to accom-
plish everything they need and want; in the second case, however, are these same
individuals who claim for themselves the necessity of free time – a time experience
that mitigates the economic fact of lack of time. Strictly speaking, both facts are
connected with the idea of “control”. Free time is, in this assumption, a kind of
sublimation of the lack of control over time, inasmuch as it provides individuals
with the experience of uncontrollability of their time. These two facts tend to appear
interconnected, largely due to a lack of time consciousness. Or rather, in contempo-
rary society, free time appears as the fundamental dimension that, presumably, actu-
alizes the consciousness of time.
Joan Tronto assigns to “attentiveness” the first epistemological element inherent
in care practices. It is, however, an ethical ideal, grounded on a matching percep-
tion, since, as she points out, “the temptations to ignore others, to shut others out,
and to focus our concerns solely upon ourselves, seem almost irresistible”. Hence
the dual meaning of attentiveness – “the recognition of a need and that there is a
need that be cared about” – is, as she well reiterates, “a moral achievement” (Tronto
1994: 127). One can then categorize through this formulation of Tronto two basic
temporal dimensions that shape the concept of attentiveness, namely: a cognitive
temporality, which corresponds here to the process of perception and identification
of the needs of others; and a volitional temporality, which concerns the possibility
of react to these same needs. Tronto does not develop this point, but, although they
may be articulated in several care practices, these two temporal dimensions are
somewhat distinct and, therefore, do not always converge ethically. The same is to
say, not always the identification of a necessity leads to its suppression. Over-
identification of needs can often lead to a certain volitional inhibition, often
expressed in the idea of lack of time to attend to all of them.
In every act of caring there is a double expression of the experience of time: we
preserve the existence of others, of objects, of values, that is, we take time for and
give time to what must exist outside of ourselves; we anticipate the effects of future
time, thereby mitigating the contingencies of becoming. Caring is therefore a way
of articulating time in full accord with the demands of an existence shared with that
of others. Therefore, thanks to care we have access to a unique time consciousness.
For exemple – and taking up the case of art – we preserve the existence of a work of
art, making it available to the perception and appreciation of future generations. The
work of art, protected, incorporates and expresses the gestures of caring, just as in it
is inscribed the consciousness of time.
In fact, the time of care is not only focused on the “practical time” of caring.
More than that, the act of caring highlights and fosters its own consciousness of
time. Against a solipsistic existential conception, Emmanuel Levinas tells us, pre-
cisely, that “The other is the future. The very relationship with the other is the
134 J. Braga
relationship with the future. It seems to me impossible to speak of time in a subject

alone, or to speak of a putely personal duration” (L’avenir, c’est l’autre. La relation
avec l’avenir, c’est la relation même avec l’autre. Parler de temps dans un sujet
seul, parler d’une durée purement personnelle, nous semble impossible) (Levinas
1987: 77).
We find, therefore, in the practices of care a processual temporality. As Annemarie
Mol points out, in her distinction drawn between logic of care and logic of choice,
“Care is a process: it does not have clear boundaries. It is open-ended. This is not a
matter of size; it does not mean that a care process is larger, more encompassing,
than the devices and activities that are a part of it. Instead, it is a matter of time. (…)
Care is not a transaction in which something is exchanged (a product against a
price); but an interaction in which the action goes back and forth (in an ongoing
process)” (Mol 2008: 18). Unlike logic of choice, which has a “linear” time, in logic
of care, “time twists and turns. There is no single, crucial moment when all relevant
fact-values are available. Problems emerge and as they are tackled new problems
arise.” Thus, as she concludes, “The logic of care does not unfold in time. It folds
time” (Mol 2008: 54). Nevertheless, it is obvious that in a hospital, for instance, all
caregivers do not experience such processual temporality in the same way.
Physicians tend to live their temporal experiences according to the degree of urgency
of each situation they face, feeling, in this sense, other health professionals a tem-
porality that, in many cases, is closer to that experienced by patients.
One of the extensions of the “logic of choice” is given within the commercial
sphere of consumption. By means of commercial exchanges and advertising cam-
paign, there is a logic of consumption, whose greatest expression is to consider
individuals outside the social domain. In order to establish itself in the mind and
habits of each being, it needs to abstract the individual from society. Likewise, it
applies not only to products and services, but also to the transmission of informa-
tion. The advertising world exemplifies, above all, the articulation of these two
dimensions, often based on the conventional image of the individual who, acquiring
a certain product, becomes free from others and society.
One of the main consequences of the logic of consumption in our societies and
cultures is the gradual replacement of care by prevention procedures. In fact, coer-
cion of individuals through prevention procedures follows the same parameters as
the logic of consumption: each individual must act for himself. When it is asserted
that prevention is aimed at society, one is committing and perpetuating a quantita-
tive fallacy, according to which society is a mere set of individuals. But, “society”
is not synonymous with “population”; society is not only constituted by the inhabit-
ants who live in a given territory. Another aspect that emerges here – which, in
certain cases, determines the failure of prevention – results from the fact that the act
of preventing is directly connected with an imagined unwanted effect. Due to the
wide dissemination of the logic of consumption, our culture operates differently,
since we are all led to imagine our individual well-being, to build an idea of an
unlimited world, without obstacles, without problems. If so, how can it be believed
that individuals imagine the opposite and develop feelings aroused by limits, barri-
ers, difficulties and, through them, generate an effective awareness of prevention?
To overcome this, there is an increasing tendency to use violent pictures to alert

individuals to the dangers of certain everyday behaviors. However, this strategy
hardly works. In the context of the mass media, for instance, those violent pictures
are interspersed with other pictures that promise happiness and that lead individuals
to imagine their well-being, to think about the benefits for themselves and to forget
the effects of their actions on society.
7.4 Time and Space
We well know that in several care institutions there is a kind of “economic time”
which is necessary both to the meeting with the most urgent needs as to fill the scar-
city of the available resources. The time of institutionalized care is, above all, mea-
sured by the spatial conditions and possibilities as well as by the individuals who
daily dwell and struggle in between such factors.
Erving Goffman in his analysis of the “total institutions” reveals to us the com-
monly felt idea that “among inmates in many total institutions there is a strong feel-
ing that time spent in the establishment is time wasted or destroyed, or taken from
one’s life; it is time that must be written off; it is something that must be ‘done’ or
‘marked’ or ‘put in’ or ‘pulled’”. And he adds: “This time is something its doers
have bracketed off for constant conscious consideration in a way not quite found on
the outside. As a result, the inmate tends to feel that for the duration of his required
stay – his sentence – he was been totally exiled from living” (Goffman 1961: 67–68).
This sui generis sense of lost time of which Goffman speaks seems to denote pre-
cisely a certain primacy of space over time, that is, it is a feeling imposed by the
limits of space that individuals actually live.
Therefore, one of the main problems with the institutionalization of care prac-
tices has to do with reducing it to a mere surveillance process. In this strict sense,
the difference between a health institution and a prison institution often tends to be
blurred: patients are being watched, just as prisoners are being surveyed. But caring
is not only about surveillance. The latter is an act connected, first, with the space of
the institution and not necessary with the care receiver. Caring, even in the institu-
tional case, comprises human dimensions that go beyond the practical sphere of
institutions.
The “time of surveillance” is not, therefore, the “time of caring”, lato sensu. The
time of surveillance is, above all, anchored and dependent on spatial conditions and
possibilities. Jeremy Bentham was aware of this fact when he proposed the architec-
tural configuration of panoptic institutions. Inside their walls, reigns the time of
surveillance. Hence the space of these institutions must be configured according to
the demands of vigilance and the laws of the economy of time. Bentham wants to
maximize the usefulness of time through a disciplinarization given by space.
The violence of Bentham’s architectural device lies precisely there, in the abso-
lute subjection and reduction of space to time: who, through the panopticon, con-
trols individuals, controls time through space. To observe without being observed is,
136 J. Braga
in this sense, to watch, but not to take care, since this last act, unlike the first,
involves a mutual observation relationship between observer and observed. The
economy of time has led Bentham to apply his architectural device to various public
institutions, including schools and hospitals. The following quotation exemplifies
such Bentham’s concern: “In a private house, one bed-ridden person, to be properly
taken care of, will occupy a considerable part of the time of another person in good
health, who, if his (or her) ordinary employment would carry him at a distance from
home, must for the time sacrifice his employment, and means of subsistence, for
that purpose. But in a Hospital 20, or perhaps 50, bedridden persons at a time may
be well and sufficiently taken care of by a single nurse” (Bentham 2001: 164).
Michel Foucault, in his analysis of the appearance of the modern hospital space,
states that the constitution of a hospital medicine depends essentially on the “disci-
plinary mechanisms” that are introduced through space. According to the author,
several economic factors allied with the power attributed to the individual, as well
as the desire to prevent the spread of epidemics, explain the disciplinary scrutiny of
the hospitals (Foucault 1977). From this topological framework of discipline and
surveillance, Foucault believes that “The present epoch will perhaps be above all the
epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtapo-
sition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed. We are at
a moment, I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life
developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects
with its own skein.” As for the question of time, Foucault asserts that “the anxiety of
our era has to do fundamentally with space, no doubt a great deal more than with
time. Time probably appears to us only as one of the various distributive operations
that are possible for the elements that are spread out in space” (Foucault 1986: 22–23).
Even in a more radical way than Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, emphasizing the pri-
macy of space over time, states that “With the advent of modernity time has van-
ished from social space. It is recorded solely on measuring-instruments, on clocks,
that are as isolated and functionally specialized as this time itself. Lived time loses
its form and its social interest – with the exception, that is, of time spent working.
Economic space subordinates time to itself; political space expels it as threatening
and dangerous (to power). The primacy of the economic and above all of the politi-
cal implies the supremacy of space over time” (Lefebvre 1991: 95). But we must
always take into account the maxim of Norbert Elias, according to which “every
change in ‘space’ is a change in ‘time’, and every change in ‘time’ is a change in
‘space’” (Jede Veränderung im ‘Raum’ ist eine Veränderung in der ‘Zeit’, jede
Veränderung in der ‘Zeit’ ist eine Veränderung im ‘Raum’) (Elias 1988: 74–75).
7.5 Some Effects of Care Institutionalization
The institutionalization of care practices tends to arouse an apparent primacy of

space over time. Hospitals, nursing homes, day-care centers for children, recovery
centers, among others, are now more likely than ever to fill the lack of time of
individuals. Therefore, space is also a material reaction both to the lack of time and
to the consciousness of time, especially boosted by those who abandon their
loved ones.
The space of institutional care tends to generate relevant links in the formation of
our consciousness of space. First of all, because the places where institutional care
practices are implemented are also care spaces, which obey to a strict restraint of all
the elements that compose them. This spatial consciousness is, in this sense, trans-
ferred to the organization and preservation of space, whether public or even private.
This is not a new fact. The creation of landscape architecture has come to revolu-
tionize the forms of ecological care and, through painting, generate in us the physi-
ognomic perception of landscape. But what happens to care when the temporal
dynamics are radically transformed?
In the same way, the institutionalization and professionalization of care practices
tend to underline the “practical time” of caring. Not having time for the other means,
therefore, not having the time given through the experience with the care receiver.
There is, therefore, a dimension of time consciousness that is lost. Our age – and the
modern age in general – is characterized by speed, by the acceleration of temporal
dynamics. The feeling that there is no time is a strong daily feeling in almost all
human beings. Such changes affect the acts of caring, namely their conditions of
possibility.
If there is no time, how to give time to what should be protected?
The concept of care has, in its pathological semantic legacy, an intimate connec-
tion with a radical time idea. It is the time imposed by the disease. The act of caring
comes, then, here, connected with a kind of fight against time. It is not by chance
that, in our times, the theme of care is especially focused on medical care, particu-
larly nursing. A society that has no time but which, paradoxically, fight against time
tends to transfer the idea of care
to the domain of care professionals. Delegating to
others and to the institutions care practices is, on the one hand, an act of trust. On
the other hand, this transference implies the responsibility of caregivers. Trust and
responsibility are two essential ways to strengthen social relationships. However,
there is never, in social terms, a virtuous balance among feelings: the reinforcement
of some can be the slumping of others.
Consequently, the institutionalization of care ends up generating paradoxical
approaches, such as this expressed through the distinction introduced by Nel
Noddings between caring and caregiving: “In this discussion of caring and practice,
we should note a critical distinction between caring and caregiving. They are not
synonymous. Caregiving as an occupation or activity can be done with or without
caring. Most of us have occasionally encountered uncaring “caregivers”. Yet, care-
fully guided practice in caregiving activities contributes substantially to develop-
ment of the sensitivities characteristic of caring. People who participate in such
practice are usually prepared to care” (Noddings 2015: 406). But this formulation
has a psychological background based on the familiar model of care. According to
Noddings’ point of view, the familiar model should be applied to the study of care-
giving institutions (Noddings 2002).
138 J. Braga
Joan Tronto, in his most extensive explanation of the concept of care, character-
izes it as a practical activity and a mental disposition. Both dimensions are mutually
articulated and, accordingly, none of them can separately define the concept of care.
Therefore, as she reiterates, “it is possible that what we might describe as ‘caring
work’ can be done without a caring disposition: a person checking vital signs in a
nursing home may think of that work only in terms of a job” (Tronto 1994: 105).
However, Tronto applies the term “care” only to those cases where there is an inter-
play between the two dimensions. It is difficult, however, to realize to what extent
the practices of caring always involve corresponding psychic dispositions. The nor-
mative idealization that, from such practices, we can make, does not in itself develop
a set of psychic dispositions that affect individuals, nor do the latter automatically
generate caring practices. As with other phenomena and activities of everyday life,
many of the relational behaviors of human beings have both an eminently mimetic
background.
Besides that, the allocation of care to institutions (public and private) tends to
generate relevant effects in the family sphere, to the point that there is a certain
emptying of the functions that their members normally perform. Tronto points out
precisely this fact when she says that “Throughout the twentieth century, with the
growth of more professional ways to understand human development, care has
become more professionalized and left the household further behind. This profes-
sionalization of nurturant care has led to the creation of many forms of institution
outside of the home to perform caring duties that used to be met in the home:
schools, hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, care facilities for disabled people,
funeral homes, and so forth” (Tronto 2013: 2). Hence, as she also reiterates, it is
altogether impossible and utopian to make family space the true topology of caring:
“As care moves out of the household, “home” becomes ungrounded, disconnected
from the realities of living our lives. When care becomes mainly invisible – mired
down in a messy material world below the “meaningful” world of social media
(where teenagers now spend most of their waking lives), people float away from
what really goes on in a home” (Tronto 2013: 6).
To these observations we would have to add the increasing relevance of the new
technologies in the education of children today, even when it is carried out in the
family context. The growing tendency for children to entertain themselves with
digital devices and, in many cases, to spend their time immersed in the new screens,
provokes in the family space a gap between the physical presence of the parents and
their emotional involvement. In this context, parents watch, keep an eye on, but do
not necessarily take care. Being present does not imply here being emotionally pres-
ent. Due to such gap, the relational dimensions of education tend to be weakened
and with them the very emphasis placed on caring for the other and being cared for
by the other.
7.6 Final Remarks
Joan Tronto, extremely aware of the problems aroused by delegation and the trans-
fer of care to institutional spaces, reasserts, once again, the relational nature of care
practices. As she reiterates, “At the heart of change toward democratic caring is this
critical fact: care is about relationships. And relationships require, more than any-
thing else, two things: sufficient time and proximity. Among the most important
considerations in rethinking society from a caring perspective, then, is creating time
and space for care” (Tronto 2013: 166). The major dilemma, however, remains how
to create these propitious “time” and “space”, knowing in advance, for instance, that
medical devices are increasingly trying to shorten the response time to patients’
needs. Emergency intervention health systems, supported by new technological
means, are now part of the health policies of any state.
On the other hand, and not least, more than ever, there is an increasing tendency
to replace care with acts of charity. The so-called lack of time to take care of leads
those who need it to ask for it in the public space. Several food collection cam-
paigns, for example, are carried out, preferably, inside the large shopping malls, at
a time when the potential “charitable” individuals are in the process of making their
purchases – that is, their choices. On the other hand, advertising language, aware of
today’s conscience of lack of time, makes use of the term “care” to persuade indi-
viduals about the advantages of certain products and services. Phrases such as “We
take care of your money”, for instance, are today part of the most widespread adver-
tising strategies worldwide. But, as Virginia Held argues, care is not only conceiv-
able as a virtuous motive, as in the case of charity (Held 2006: 44). The two terms
are different. Care requires not only the motive, but also the mutual relationship
between care receiver and caregiver.
Indeed, care, by involving individuals in their social relationships, is, at the same
time, capable of nourishing the feeling of society. To mitigate the logic of consump-
tion, we must therefore renew the sense and feeling of our social life. If so, the
strategies and procedures to be developed and encouraged in the behavior of indi-
viduals must be social strategies and procedures, that is, framed by social relations
and the space where they are initially feasible. Social actors who have a close rela-
tionship with communities can make an important contribution to the implementa-
tion of this paradigm shift; above all, because they have a privileged and close
contact with the sphere of local social relations, as well with the microenvironments
where such mutuality occur or, in some cases, where it is still absent.
A society deeply anchored in forms of communication at a distance ceases to
operate in purely social terms, because society itself cannot be equated with the
organization of a communication game between two interlocutors, between an “I”
and a “you”. Society expresses, first of all, the cause and effect of a “we”, which is
inscribed through our daily perception. When this “we” is broken or unsighted,
society is precisely called into question and the conflict invades the daily communi-
cative exchanges among individuals. Enlightenment ethics sought to envisage,
through art and aesthetics, a stable balance between communication forms and
140 J. Braga
perception forms. Nowadays, however, the increase of telecommunication tends to

generate an excessive ethical pressure, largely because this pressure aims to bridge
the lack of direct perception. But, this is impossible to achieve – ethics also feeds on
perception. Moral values are insufficient to regulate and stimulate all social rela-
tions. The “disarticulation” between perception and communication and the conse-
quent discrepancy between ethics and society, tend to result in an increase of social
indifference and, in effect, in a spread of violence.
Bibliography
Bentham, Jeremy. 2001. Writings on the Poor Laws, ed. Michael Quinn, vol. 1. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Elias, Norbert. 1988. Über die Zeit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Microphysique du Povoir, ed. A. Fontana and P. Pasquino. Turin: Enaudi.
———. 1986. Of Other Spaces. Trans. Jay Miskowiec. Diacritics: A Review of Contemporary.
Criticism 16 (1): 22–27.
Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other
Inmates. New York: Anchor Books.
Held, Virginia. 2006. Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Jaspers, Karl. 1998. O médico na era da técnica. Trans. João Tiago Proença. Lisboa: Edições 70.
Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford and
Cambridge: Blackwell.
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1987. Time and the Other. Trans. Richard A. Cohen. Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press.
Mandeville, Bernard. 1992. The Fable of the Bees. Vol. I. Indianápolis: Liberty Fund.
Mol, Annemarie. 2008. The Logic of Care Health and the Problem of Patient Choice. London/
New York: Routledge.
Noddings, Nel. 2002. Starting at Home: Caring and Social Policy. Berkeley/Los Angeles:
University of Columbia Press.
———. 2015. Care Ethics and Virtue Ethics. In The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, ed.
Lorraine Besser-Jones and Michael Slote, 401–414. New York: Routledge.
Tronto, Joan. 1994. Moral Boundaries. A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York/
London: Routledge.
———. 2013. Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice. New York: NYU Press.
Part III
Care and Otherness
Chapter 8
(Mis)understanding ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς
(care for virtue) in Plato’s Euthydemus
Fábio Serranito
Abstract This paper provides a tentative reading of the Euthydemus that empha-
sises the role of misunderstanding in the dialogue. It explores some of the differences
between philosophy and eristic portrayed in the Euthydemus, namely their contrast-
ing perspectives on ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς (care for virtue or excellence). These perspec-
tives are revealed in their radically different approaches to the protreptic challenge
issued by Socrates. The paper argues that in displaying their eristic skills, the broth-
ers are actually showing how they would encourage others to pursue knowledge and
care for virtue – but with a different conception of knowledge and virtue than the one
held by Socrates. In misunderstanding each other’s conceptions of ἀρετή (virtue)
and its ἐπιμέλεια (care), Socrates and the brothers enter into a dialogue of the deaf
that emphasizes their radically different approaches to the care of the young.
Keywords Care · Virtue · Eristic · Philosophy · Protreptic
The Euthydemus is a complex, confusing and often noisy dialogue. It is a dialogue

made of misunderstandings, equivocations and fallacies. And so it is fitting that the
Euthydemus starts and ends by portraying the way in which the main event, the
discussion involving Socrates and the brothers Euthydemus and Dionisodorus as
well as the young Clinias and Ctesippus, is heard or misheard, and understood or
misunderstood by two characters who did not take part in the discussion itself: Crito
and the Anonymous Bystander.
Crito’s inability to hear what was going on is the trigger for the conversation
between Crito and Socrates, and for Socrates’ reporting of the discussion that took
place the day before (Euthydemus [Euth.], 271a). Unlike other instances of reported
dialogue in the corpus platonicum, the person the dialogue is reported to was actu-
ally present at the events. But such was the size of the crowd surrounding the main
F. Serranito (*)
Institute for Philosophical Studies (IEF), Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: fserranito@gmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
144 F. Serranito
players, and such was the noise and confusion, that Crito could not really under-
stand what was going on. It is this inability to hear the conversation, particularly
galling for a self-described φιλήκοος (lover of hearing), that created the need for
Socrates’ report (Euth. 304c).1 On the other hand, we the readers, who were not
there, learn about the events of the previous day (or to be more accurate, Socrates’
version of those events) as they are told to Crito, who was.
It is therefore through Crito’s eyes, or ears, that we learn about what happened
the previous day. But it is also through Crito that Socrates, and we the readers, learn
about another silent witness of the discussion between Socrates and the brothers:
the Anonymous Bystander.2 We are not going to concern ourselves with unmasking
this anonymous character. For the purposes of this paper what matters is the fact that
the Anonymous Bystander is, like Crito, an external witness of what has happened.
Unlike Crito, however, he seems to have been able to hear the discussion and claims
to have understood it well enough to be able to pass a negative judgement on the
proceedings and those involved in them.
Unlike Socrates, the Anonymous Bystander does not hide his contempt for the
skill displayed by the brothers Euthydemus and Dionisodorus. This skill, which
Socrates named as eristic or παγκρατιαστική τέχνη (the art of pankration, or all-
round fighting), gives its practitioner the ability to best anyone else in argument
(Euth. 271c-272a).3 Socrates describes this τέχνη (art or skill) and its practitioners
in lofty terms, and throughout most of his report he uses hyperbolic and mythologi-
cal language to characterise the brothers and their exploits.4 The Anonymous
1
Cf. Euth. 274c, where Ctesippus’ φιληκοΐα (love of hearing) led him to put himself in a better
position to both gaze upon his beloved Clinias and to hear the conversation. Ctesippus’ move is
particularly significant, since Socrates will attempt to make Clinias the main concern of the
discussion.
2
Much has been said over the years about who this anonymous character may be. The description
we find in the text is somewhat detailed, and suggests that a particular person is being portrayed.
Many critics believe that the person at stake is none other than Isocrates. This identification is
partially based on the fact that the perspective described in the Euthydemus is very similar to the
criticism of philosophy (in the Socratic and Platonic sense) that can be found in some of his writ-
ings. See Isocrates, Against the Sophists, 2, 7-8; Helen 1, 6. For the scholarly discussion on the
identity of this anonymous character, see Heitsch 2000; Palpacelli 2017: 892–894; Sermamoglou-
Soulmaidi 2014: 143–151.
3
The term παγκρατιαστική τέχνη (art of all-round fighting) is a wordplay on the brothers’ old
profession as wrestlers and teachers of wrestling. Their newly acquired skill with arguments is
characterised as another weapon in their arsenal – making their fighting skills all-rounded and
complete. This anticipates the competitive nature of their understanding of ἀρετή (virtue) and of
their σοφία (knowledge or wisdom). Eristic is one of the main themes in the Euthydemus, but is
also mentioned in other platonic dialogues like Lysis (211b); Meno (275c-d, 80e, 81d); Republic
(VI, 499a), and Sophist (216b, 226a, 231e). On the meaning and origin of eristic, see Hawtrey
1981: 35–37; Keulen 1971: 61–90; Eucken 1983: 8–11; Chance 1992: 5–8.
4
Socrates’ description of the brothers (271cff.) is full of hyperbolic language, with a repeated use
of superlatives and compound words with the prefix παν-. See Hawtrey 1981: 42–43. This carries
on throughout the reported dialogue and is particularly evident in how he describes the meeting
and initial conversation with the brothers, as well as in his retelling of the brothers’ final victory
over him (303bff.). Socrates finds himself where he will meet the brothers κατὰ θεὸν (…) τινα,
8 (Mis)understanding ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς (care for virtue) in Plato’s Euthydemus 145
Bystander, on the contrary, could not be more contemptuous of the brothers and
their skill: it is mere babbling about matters of no importance (Euth. 304e). But the
most devastating criticism seems to be directed at Socrates himself. By associating
with the brothers, by deigning to engage in conversation with them, Socrates has
brought shame on himself and his friends. And so, as the brothers are worthless and
ridiculous for doing what they do, so too are Socrates and all others who deal with
them (Euth. 305a).
The perspective of the Anonymous Bystander, as reported by Crito, provides us
with an important insight into the events that Socrates reports in the Euthydemus.
Seen from the outside, by someone with a less than flattering opinion of philosophy
and certain other intellectual pursuits of the time, the discussion between Socrates
and the brothers shows how there are few significant differences between the skills
claimed by the latter and the pursuits of the former. Both parties engage in argu-
ment, in verbal distinction, in refutation and cross-examination, and they do so in a
way that comes off as deeply unserious. More importantly, perhaps, although both
Socrates and the brothers are concerned with the education of the young (a matter
of the utmost importance), the end-result amounts to nothing, and the way the dis-
cussion proceeds guarantees that nothing useful will come out of it. The Anonymous
Bystander therefore voices something that amounts to a double indictment of both
eristic and (Socratic) philosophy – or, to be more precise, an indictment of two sup-
posedly different pursuits that, in the way they are enacted, become one and the
same. To use the mythological imagery employed by Socrates elsewhere in the dia-
logue, in fighting with the sophistical hydra and its many heads of arguments,
Socrates becomes monstrous himself, or, at the very least, normalises and gives
credit to people and pursuits that merit nothing but contempt – making himself con-
temptible in the process (Euth. 296b).
This adds yet another layer of complexity – and indeed confusion – to an already
complex dialogue. Besides having to navigate the twists and turns of a convoluted
set of discussions, and having to understand the differences (suggested throughout
the dialogue) between the pursuits of the brothers and Socrates, the reader of the
Euthydemus needs to consider the possibility suggested by the Anonymous
Bystander: that in the end there is no real difference between philosophy and eristic
and that both somehow fail at what they set out to achieve. After all is said and done,
after pages and pages of intricate arguments and distinctions, all may amount to
nothing.
“by the favour of some god” (272e). Cf. Hawtrey 1981: ad loc. See especially 274a: “μακαρίζω ἄρ᾽
ὑμᾶς ἔγωγε τοῦ κτήματος πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ μέγαν βασιλέα τῆς ἀρχῆς·”: “then I congratulate on
account of your acquisition much more than the Great King on account of his rule”. Cf. 303c: “ὦ
μακάριοι σφὼ τῆς θαυμαστῆς φύσεως, οἳ τοσοῦτον πρᾶγμα οὕτω ταχὺ καὶ ἐν ὀλίγῳ χρόνῳ
ἐξείργασθον.”: “o you blessed pair on account of your amazing nature, who have accomplished so
great a thing so quickly and in such a short time”. Throughout the dialogue, the brothers are com-
pared (in more or less direct terms) with various mythical or religious figures: the Korybantes
(277d), Medea (285c), Proteus (288b), the Dioskouroi (293a), the hydra and the crab (296c-d). Of
course, the use of such exaggerated language immediately suggests irony. See Michelini 2000,
especially 521–523, and Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi 2014: 128–129, 141.
146 F. Serranito
Although few modern scholars would agree with the position of the Anonymous
Bystander, we know from ancient sources that the neat distinction modern students
of philosophy tend to draw between Socrates and his supposed rivals, the sophists,
was not as clear to many of his contemporaries. Socrates’ portrayal in Aristophanes’
Clouds – the only portrayal of the philosopher by a contemporary during his life-
time – suggests that much.5 It took time and a considerable effort from its defenders
and practitioners for philosophy to gain the standing it went on to enjoy from the
fourth century BC. Part of that effort consisted in establishing distinctions between
the practices of Socrates and his followers and disciples and the practices of other
intellectuals such as the sophists and the rhetoricians.6 The position of the
Anonymous Bystander alludes to the fraught and disputed position of philosophy
within the intellectual ecosystem of the fifth and fourth centuries and frames the
dialogue in such a way that forces readers to consider what exactly (if anything)
distinguishes philosophy from one of its rivals – eristic, in the case of the Euthydemus.
A very rich critical tradition in the interpretation of the Euthydemus has tried to
answer this question in terms of differences of methodology, often emphasizing the
constant use of fallacies by the brothers.7 Its interest and fertility notwithstanding,
this is not the line of inquiry I have chosen to explore. This line is sometimes con-
nected with a supposed difference of moral purpose between Socrates and the broth-
ers (and indeed the sophists in general). And so, whereas Socrates is genuinely and
actively concerned with the improvement of Clinias and the other young men (and
indeed with the improvement of any person), the brothers would seem to have no
particular interest in actually improving their potential pupils.8 In other words, while
Socrates wants Clinias to indeed achieve ἀρετή, the brothers, in spite of their prom-
ises, do not care about this at all. The implication is that they are fundamentally
dishonest and acting in bad faith: they promise ἀρετή to their prospective pupils, but
know they cannot provide it and are indifferent to the condition in which they leave
their pupils afterwards.
5
Critics have pointed out several allusions to the Clouds in the Euthydemus. See Michelini 2000;
Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi 2014: 95, 132–154, 166 n. 281, 189–190.
6
See Nightingale 1995: 10–11: “In order to create the specialized discipline of philosophy, Plato
had to distinguish what he was doing from all other discursive practices that laid claim to wisdom.
It is for this reason that, in dialogue after dialogue, Plato deliberately set out to define and defend
a new and quite peculiar mode of living and of thinking.”
7
Good examples of this are Sprague 1962, Chance 1992, and McCabe 1998. For overall surveys of
the secondary literature on the Euthydemus, see Chance 1992: 8–13, and Nehamas 1999.
8
See Sprague 1962: 3: “In other words, dialectic (in the person of Socrates), is represented as an
art whose practice displays a real concern for the welfare of the individual soul, whereas eristic (in
the persons of Euthydemus and Dionisodorus) appears to be completely lacking in any such con-
cern.” See also Chance 1992: 25–26: “As will become abundantly clear, the Euthydemus is
designed to portray two “philosophers” unconcerned about the restrictions demanded by the pro-
treptic discourse, unconcerned about how to produce arguments, unconcerned about when, where,
and how to use the arguments they have produced, and, most important, unconcerned about what,
as protreptic masters, they should be most concerned about, namely, the soul of that individual
whom they are attempting to exhort in their protreptic discourse.”
However, in this paper I wish to argue from the opposite assumption: that the
brothers are indeed acting in good faith and that they believe their own promises
regarding ἀρετή.9 From this standpoint, I will put forward the hypothesis that the
difference between Socrates and the brothers lies (at least partly) in their radically
different fundamental conceptions of ἀρετή, and that the dialogue between the two
parties is distorted through and through by a mutual misunderstanding regarding
this issue.10
8.1 Caring for Virtue
One of the dominant themes of the Euthydemus is the concern for the future and
education of the young. This is explicitly embodied throughout most of the dialogue
in the person of the young Clinias. How Clinias will turn out to be when he reaches
manhood, what he will do with his life, and how he will be able to contribute to the
good of his family, friends and the city-state at large is anything but a matter of no
importance. But the character Clinias plays an exemplary or paradigmatic role.11 He
is standing in for all Athenian young men with similar characteristics and whose life
could either lead them to ἀρετή (virtue), or else be led astray.12
9
I am not the first scholar to put forward a good faith or charitable interpretation of the position of
the brothers in the Euthydemus. In his famous analysis of the dialogue (Strauss 1983), Leo Strauss
seems to put forward a rather charitable reading that apparently takes Socrates acknowledgement
of the brothers’ skill (and his consequent eagerness to learn from them) seriously. The reading of
the dialogue I propose here differs from Strauss’ inasmuch as I agree with most scholars in taking
Socrates’ eagerness as ironic. And, although I take the brothers’ seriously and in good faith when
they claim to be purveyors of virtue, I fall short of concluding that Plato (or indeed the character
Socrates) seriously endorses eristic. Cf. Altman 2007 on Strauss’ argument. This should be read
with Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi 2014: 128ff., and especially 129 n. 220.
10
In focusing on the role of misunderstanding in several crucial aspects of the Euthydemus, I agree
with and am indebted to Palpacelli 2017.
11
See Chance 1992: 25: “Quite simply, Kleinias represents that ideal student who is ready either to
gel beautifully if the protreptic phase of his education is properly handled, or to be corrupted by
adverse influences if he is dissuaded from the pursuit of philosophy and virtue.”
12
In fact, even this is a limited perspective, as the need for education and improvement is extended
to the old too. This is suggested from the very beginning of the dialogue by Socrates’ stated inten-
tion of becoming a pupil of the brothers (272b), and his urging Crito to do the same (272c). This
reflects Socrates’ final words to the brothers the previous day, in which he asks them if they will
take him and Clinias up as their students (304d). The comic overtones of the idea of old men going
back to school, however, are also clear from the start, and are a possible allusion to Aristophanes’
Clouds. See Michelini 2000: 519–520. Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi 2014: 131–132. Being the teacher
of old men (a γεροντοδιδασκαλός, a comic compound word) is described as ridiculous and shame-
ful (272c). See Hawtrey 1981: ad loc. Socrates’ idea of using Crito’s sons as bait for the brothers
to accept Socrates and Crito as pupils is also comical. Cf. the ridiculous image of Socrates as the
timid pupil of Connus (295d). Cf. the serious mention of old-age learning in Laches 201a-c.
Notice, however, that the brothers were also old when they acquired their eristic skill (272b-c). In
another passage in which he highlights his old age (285b-c), Socrates offers himself up like a
148 F. Serranito
This concern with the life of the young is present from the very beginning of the
dialogue and is embodied in the character of Crito, the father of young sons, the
elder of which at that time in his life that inspires the most concern for his education
and future prospects. For Crito, his son Critobulus is never far from his mind.
Looking at the young beautiful Clinias, he is immediately reminded of Critobulus
and of how poorly he compares to the other boy (Euth. 271b). This concern with his
sons is expressed again at the very end of the dialogue, in a moment that explicitly
connects ἐπιμέλεια (care), or, to be more precise, its opposite, ἀμέλεια (lack of care
or negligence) with the educational needs of the young (Euth. 271b and 306e; see
Canto 1987: 83).
One could say that the dialogue is bookended by this specific concern, and that
in fact the long middle section portraying the discussion between Socrates and the
brothers dramatizes the confrontation between two possible paths a young man like
Clinias could follow: the path of Socratic philosophy or the path of eristic.
However, it is important to remember at this point that both eristic and philoso-
phy claim to have some kind of relationship with ἀρετή. Philosophy’s claimed rela-
tionship is complex, but in the case of eristic, the claim seems to be quite simple: the
brothers claim to be able to ἀρετὴν παραδοῦναι (provide virtue) in the best and
quickest way (Euth. 273d, cf. 272b). That is to say that the brothers claim they are
able to impart, transmit or teach virtue very well and very quickly. They themselves
are the perfect examples of the efficiency of the skill as they were able to acquire it,
and consequently, ἀρετή, in a very short time indeed (Euth. 272b-c). It is precisely
on this claim, more than anything else, that Socrates zooms in. But Socrates does
not tackle this claim head on. Rather than examining if the brothers are capable of
providing virtue, he asks instead whether they are also capable of persuading some-
one to pursue ἀρετή (Euth. 274d-e; see Chance 1992: 22–26).
This changes the terms of the discussion in several ways. First, it replaces a pas-
sive model – in which the teacher, the bearer and holder of a specific σοφία (knowl-
edge or wisdom) or τέχνη (skill), transmits something to an already receptive
student – with an active model. In this model, the potential student is recognised as
an autonomous participant in the process, someone who may resist, someone whose
acquiescence and active participation is needed in order to produce ἀρετή. But the
persuasion at stake here is of a special kind: it is a protreptic kind of persuasion, an
exhortation or encouragement.13 It is not a matter of transmitting something, but of
changing the course of action or attitude of the listener.
Therefore, by intending to turn what could otherwise be a simple display of the
brothers’ technique into a προτρεπτικὸς λόγος (protreptic or exhortative speech),
Socrates is suggesting that the process of acquisition of ἀρετή requires an active
Carian slave or mercenary to take the risk of being the object of Dionisodorus’ ministrations. The
suggestion is that the elderly Socrates is less valuable than the young men on which the brothers
would normally dispense their skills.
13
In the Euthydemus we find the oldest extant example of a speech encouraging the pursuit of
philosophy, inaugurating a long and influential tradition that will include protreptic works by
Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine and Iamblichus. See Chance 1992: 14–15.
engagement by the person who is to become ἄριστος (excellent or the best). This
idea is reinforced by the formulation Socrates chooses to use. In Socrates’ formula-
tion, the simple and direct ἀρετὴν παραδοῦναι of the brothers’ claim is replaced by
a persuasion or exhortation εἰς φιλοσοφίαν καὶ ἀρετῆς ἐπιμέλειαν, “towards love
of knowledge and care for virtue” (Euth. 274e-275a).
The word “φιλοσοφία” (love of knowledge) in this context suggests and perhaps
anticipates the role played by φιλοσοφία (in the Socratic and Platonic sense of the
word) in the acquisition of ἀρετή (Euth. 281bff., and especially 282c-d; see also
288d). And that may very well be Plato’s intention. However, it is unlikely that the
word would have that specific immediate association for the characters Euthydemus
and Dionisodorus. Even understood simply as an intellectual pursuit, φιλοσοφία is
an equivocal term. It can, indeed, designate the pursuits of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
and others of the same ilk, but it could also designate any kind of intellectual culti-
vation that might contribute to the formation of a well-rounded citizen.14 Φιλοσοφία
was the term used by Isocrates to designate his own particular brand of education.15
At this point in the dialogue, however, I believe that the use of the term φιλοσοφία
has another more immediate purpose: of emphasizing the indirect, staggered and
consequently more complex process of acquisition of ἀρετή. In a situation where
the potential student needs to be persuaded of either the teachability of ἀρετή or of
the brothers’ ability to teach it, the exhortative speech cannot simply state what the
curriculum is. Rather, it has to encourage and mobilise. It has, in other words, to stir
up φιλοσοφία in the etymological sense of the word: a love, attachment or yearning
for σοφία, for wisdom. The student has to want the σοφία that will help him acquire
ἀρετή. This does not necessarily imply an identification between ἀρετή and σοφία –
nor, for that matter, does this necessarily exclude such an identification. But it is
clear from the brothers’ initial claim that they accept that at the very least there must
be a σοφία that, when learned, results in the acquisition of ἀρετή. In fact, that is
precisely what they are offering.
And so from the point of view of Euthydemus and Dionisodorus, φιλοσοφία
does not mean what Socrates and others we normally identify as what philosophers
do, nor any other intellectual pursuit like the one proposed by Isocrates, nor even a
generalised yearning for knowledge. Rather, from the brothers’ point of view,
φιλοσοφία may simply mean wanting the specific σοφία they are selling. And as
they take it for granted that this specific σοφία leads to ἀρετή, then to want their
σοφία (to φιλοσοφεῖν) is nothing other than to care for virtue (ἀρετῆς ἐπιμελεῖσθαι).
In other words, what they hear when Socrates asks them to προτρέπειν εἰς
φιλοσοφίαν καὶ ἀρετῆς ἐπιμέλειαν (exhort towards love of knowledge and care for
14
See Nightingale 1995: 14–15: “First of all, φιλοσοφεῖν and its cognates were not often used
before the fourth century, and they certainly did not have a technical sense that indicated a specific
group of thinkers practicing a distinct discipline or profession. When it did appear, the term was
used to designate “intellectual cultivation” in a broad and unspecified sense.” See also Nehamas
1999: 110.
15
See, e.g., Isocrates, Against the Sophists 14.4; Antidosis 195.7, 205.5; Panathenaicus 9.3. 11.3.
Cf. Eucken 1983: 17–18; Nightingale 1995: 59–113; Timmerman 1998.
150 F. Serranito
virtue) is: “convince Clinias to want your σοφία and by those means move to acquire
ἀρετή.”16
However, it would be difficult to read this specific formulation without immedi-
ately sensing the clear Platonic undertones. In using these terms, it is as though
Plato (if not perhaps the character Socrates) is highlighting the multiple possible
meanings and the equivocality of the formulation. What for Euthydemus and
Dionisodorus may just be an invitation to convince someone to become their pupil
(which is in fact, in rough terms, the purpose of a sophistical ἐπίδειξις or display of
prowess), contains the implication of something very different from what the broth-
ers will display.17 In other words, the equivocality of the terms in which Socrates
issues his challenge to the brothers contains the seeds for all the great misunder-
standings that constitute the bulk of the Euthydemus.18
And so, I do not believe that the brothers outright ignore the terms issued by
Socrates. Rather, they understand what is going on in a fundamentally different way,
a way that is based on their understanding of their own σοφία and their conception
of ἀρετή. These, as the dialogue will bear out, are in profound disagreement with
the Socratic understanding of the same issues. And this is why what begins to
unravel after this point in the Euthydemus can be described as a gigantic misunder-
standing and, in fact, a long dialogue of the deaf.
To examine all the ways in which the characters in this dialogue misunderstand
each other would make for a long and tedious paper. And so I am going to focus on
what I believe is one of the roots of this generalised misunderstanding between
Socrates and the brothers: their divergent conception of ἀρετή. We have already
seen a fundamental difference in the way the notion is introduced in the dialogue by
the brothers and Socrates. For the brothers, ἀρετή is something that they can trans-
mit or impart κάλλιστα and τάχιστα – very well and very quickly.
ἀρετήν, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες, οἰόμεθα οἵω τ᾽ εἶναι παραδοῦναι κάλλιστ᾽ ἀνθρώπων
καὶ τάχιστα.
virtue, o Socrates, he said, we believe we two among human beings are capable of provid-
ing in the best and quickest way. (273d)
Socrates, on the other hand, speaks of an ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς (care for virtue) and
in such a way that verbally echoes Euthydemus’ formulation.
16
Cf. Palpacelli 2017: 874: “Dunque, chiarito questo, la dichiarazione dei due eristi, che si dicono
maestri di virtù, può leggersi in questo modo: «Aiutiamo i nostri allievi a realizzarsi presto e
bene», ma non si dice come e in che cosa.”
17
The term ἐπίδειξις designates the kind of performance used by sophists to show off their skill and
advertise their ability as teachers. It usually consists of a speech or lecture (e.g. Protagoras’ speech
in Protagoras), but the kind of skill Dionisodorus and Euthydemus claim to possess would not be
properly shown off by means of a speech. See Cassin and Goffey 2009: 353–354; Canto 1987: 85.
18
Cf. Palpacelli 2017: 873–876, where furthermore she connects the misunderstanding between
Socrates and the brothers regarding ἀρετή with the interplay between the outer dialogue between
Socrates and Crito (set “today”) and the discussion with the brothers (set the day before). Where
Palpacelli focuses on the brothers’ claim to teach ἀρετή, this paper focuses in particular (and
complementarily) on the terms of the protreptic challenge issued by Socrates.
ὑμεῖς ἄρα, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ὦ Διονυσόδωρε, τῶν νῦν ἀνθρώπων κάλλιστ᾽ ἂν

προτρέψαιτε εἰς φιλοσοφίαν καὶ ἀρετῆς ἐπιμέλειαν;
“then you, I said, o Dionisodorus, of all human beings now living would best
exhort towards love of knowledge and care for virtue?” (274e-275a).19
Of the two superlatives used by Euthydemus, Socrates only echoes κάλλιστα
(very well, the best), and drops τάχιστα (very quickly, the quickest). The immedi-
acy in acquiring ἀρετή implied in παραδοῦναι ἀρετὴν τάχιστα (provide virtue very
quickly) is incompatible with the idea of an ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς. This is because the
term ἐπιμέλεια does not mean simply care, concern or attention. Rather, it implies
activity, an effort, a dedication to a specific aim. To ἐπιμελεῖσθαι something means
to care for that thing in such a way that it improves its condition or prevents its cor-
ruption (cf. Alcibiades Maior 128b). By insisting on the idea of an ἐπιμέλεια
ἀρετῆς, Socrates is emphasizing the fact that we are dealing with a process, not
simply an immediate acquisition. One needs to learn or acquire it in some way or
another. This means one needs to be active, to search and pursue it, since one cannot
expect to have ἀρετή fall into one’s lap. As acquiring ἀρετή requires work, effort
and dedication, it also requires time.
However, ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς is a somewhat awkward phrase. The reason for this
is that, unlike other similar phrases (e.g. ἐπιμέλεια ψυχῆς, care of the soul), the
focus is not on the direct object of care – the thing that is being taken care of – but
rather on the goal that is to be achieved through that care. This is an important dis-
tinction. The doctor takes care of the patient – the object of care – with the objective
of restoring his or her health – the goal of the act of caring. In the phrase ἐπιμέλεια
ἀρετῆς, ἀρετή is not the object of care (as it would not make sense to take care of
something that, by its own definition, is the best). Rather, ἀρετή is the goal that is
aimed at through the application of care. One takes care of somebody in order to
make them ἄριστος.20
In the specific case of the Euthydemus, the object of care is clear: it is the boy
Clinias. But who is the subject, the agent, the person who is supposed to be applying
that care? The answer to this question is slightly more complicated. At one level, the
formulation used by Socrates makes it clear that the agent is also the boy Clinias.
What Socrates asks the brothers to do is to persuade Clinias to have an ἐπιμέλεια
ἀρετῆς – to care for excellence or virtue. The person who would be improved by
this effort would be Clinias himself, and the same time, the person exercising that
effort would also be Clinias. The role Socrates envisages for the brothers in his chal-
lenge (and the role he will assume in the protreptic sections of the dialogue) is of
19
Later on, after the first eristic display of the brothers, Socrates restates the terms of the challenge:
“τὸ δὲ δὴ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐπιδείξατον προτρέποντε τὸ μειράκιον ὅπως χρὴ σοφίας τε καὶ ἀρετῆς
ἐπιμεληθῆναι.”: “but next you have to give a display exhorting this lad that it is necessary to take
care of wisdom and virtue” (278d).
20
In Greek there is an etymological connection, not immediately obvious in English, between
ἀρετή, virtue or excellence, and ἄριστος, excellent or the best. Ἀρετή is the quality of he who is
excellent at something, ἄριστος; he who is excellent at something, ἄριστος, possesses and exer-
cises an ἀρετή.
152 F. Serranito
guiding or persuading Clinias towards a care for ἀρετή that is equivalent to a care
of himself. But the role envisaged for the brothers (and later assumed by Socrates)
can also be understood as a kind of ἐπιμέλεια. In persuading Clinias to care for
virtue, and therefore also for himself, Socrates and the brothers would be also taking
care of Clinias, albeit in a more indirect way. In this way, the ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς sug-
gested by Socrates is once again staggered or indirect: it is, on the one hand, a care
of oneself by oneself; on the other, it implies a care of oneself by another. And this
latter form of care is a care once removed, since the carer exercises care by having
the person cared for take care of him or herself.
This fact shows another key difference in the conceptions of ἀρετή of Socrates
and the brothers. Implicit in the phrase ἀρετὴν παραδοῦναι is the idea that ἀρετή is
acquired as the direct result of the actions of a third party. It is because the brothers
teach their specific skill that their student becomes ἄριστος. The student’s participa-
tion in the process is that of a recipient of their extraordinary σοφία. In this process
of care, however, the agents are the brothers, not the student. As we have seen, both
Socrates’ appeal to persuasion and his introduction of the phrase ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς
point in a completely different direction.
However, from what we have seen so far, we could have expected the brothers to
simply reject the terms defined by Socrates as incompatible with the skill they have
on offer. But they seem to implicitly accept those terms – or, at the very least ignore
them. To support my initial hypothesis that the brothers are acting in good faith, I
need to provide a plausible explanation for this. In other words, I need to show how
the brothers could have misunderstood Socrates’ terms in such a way that would
have made them compatible with what they had in mind. This is possible because
the phrase ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς is itself ambiguous.
This ambiguity becomes clear just from a brief survey of some of the occur-
rences of the phrase in the corpus platonicum. Many of these can be found in spe-
cifically political or civic contexts. In Laws, Republic, Timaeus, and Protagoras the
phrase ἐπιμέλεια (or ἐπιμελεῖσθαι) ἀρετῆς is directly connected to the existence of
specific laws and norms that define what being an excellent citizen means.21 In the
Apology, Socrates invokes the idea of ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς to argue that his behaviour,
deemed corrupting of the youth by his accusers, actually encouraged his fellow-
citizens to care for excellence (Apology 31b).22 In doing this, Socrates is appealing
to a conventional understanding of civic ἀρετή as directly beneficial to the city-state
21
See Laws 807c-d: the main activity of the citizens of Magnesia would be caring for ἀρετή;
Republic VIII, 556a, 557b: ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς is opposed to the love of money that corrupts oligar-
chies, and a law urging citizens to care for ἀρετή would help fight this sort of corruption; Timaeus
18b: Socrates describes the life of the guardians as one devoted to ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς; Protagoras
326e: refers to the collective effort to foster ἀρετή in the πόλις (city-state), through education,
customs, institutions, etc.; Protagoras 327d: the πόλις as a whole fosters ἀρετή and justice and
even the most unjust man in a πόλις like that will appear just when compared with someone who
has not been forced to care for ἀρετή.
22
Cf. Apology 41e, where Socrates asks that his soon-to-be fatherless sons be encouraged to care
for ἀρετή.
as a whole. In many of the occurrences in the corpus, something similar seems to be

at stake. Ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς is used as a kind of rhetorical appeal to virtue: a man
who cares for ἀρετή would (or would not) behave in this or that manner. Often
ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς is invoked by the interlocutors of Socrates, e.g. Protagoras, Crito,
and Pausanias, precisely as an appeal to traditional civic virtue or to show how spe-
cific forces or institutions foster ἀρετή in the traditional sense.23 In this sense,
ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς relates to a specific attitude or behaviour that is attuned to a pat-
tern of excellence as commonly understood by the city-state.24
But this neat correspondence with the traditional understanding of ἀρετή is dis-
turbed in several passages of the corpus, and especially when the phrase is used by
Socrates himself. A paradigmatic case can be found in Crito. At 45d, Crito uses the
phrase when trying to convince Socrates to escape from prison. He does this as he
appeals to a variety of conventional ethical values and norms, finishing with
Socrates’ duties of care towards his sons. According to Crito, a man who has
ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς will not let himself be killed and fail in these duties. Later on, in
51a, Socrates uses the exact same phrase to defend the opposite position in the
prosopopoeia of the Laws. The same appeal to virtue can be used rhetorically to
defend completely different positions. The juxtaposition of these two occurrences
suggests the ambiguous and unsettled meaning of the ἀρετή invoked. It suggests
that, from a Socratic point of view, the meaning and nature of ἀρετή is still up for
grabs and yet seem to be fully understood and defined. And, as the meaning of
ἀρετή is yet far from clear, whatever corresponds to an ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς is also still
to be defined.
In these conditions, a misunderstanding regarding the meaning of ἐπιμέλεια
ἀρετῆς is perfectly possible. As we shall see, Socrates’ conception of ἀρετή differs
substantially from the brothers’. At this point, it is important to keep in mind that the
brothers are employing an already settled (and for them obvious) meaning of ἀρετή.
In contrast, Socrates’ attitude remains interrogative. And so while for the brothers
ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς means caring for an ἀρετή that they already know – and so acting
in accordance with and in application of that virtue – for Socrates, on the contrary,
this ἐπιμέλεια will include an effort to search for and understand an ἀρετή that
remains elusive and obscure. The Socratic ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς will therefore contain
an important element of φιλοσοφία (love of knowledge) as the search for knowl-
edge yet to be attained – as opposed to the φιλοσοφία of the brothers, consisting in
simply learning what they have to teach. And so although the brothers may have
accepted the terms set by Socrates, they interpreted them in such a different way that
23
That is the case of the Protagoras passages mentioned above, but also Crito 45d (where Crito
appeals to Socrates’ ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς to convince him to break out of prison), and Symposium
185b (where Pausanias states that the Heavenly Aphrodite compels both lover and beloved to care
for ἀρετή).
24
Cf. Theaetetus 167e. In this passage, part of Socrates’ imagined defence of Protagoras, the imag-
inary Protagoras invokes ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς in the context of the fair use of arguments. As in other
occurrences, this is part of an appeal to virtue but in the context of philosophical discussion.
Similar phrases also appear in Xenophon and Isocrates. See Michelini 2000: 510.
154 F. Serranito
the only possible outcome was a spectacular misunderstanding – a dialogue of

the deaf.
8.2 Knowledge and Virtue
So far we have seen how similarities in terminology do not translate into an agree-
ment between the two parties. If anything, they lead to confusion and misunder-
standing. One thing, however, seems to be common to Socrates and the brothers:
they all recognise the important role played by knowledge. Nevertheless, we will
see in the next few pages that even this is affected by misunderstanding.
The brothers, just like Socrates, recognise the intimate connection between
ἀρετή and knowledge. But they do this in very different ways. As we have seen, the
conception the brothers hold of ἀρετή is connected with the specific knowledge that
they themselves claim to hold and purvey. One becomes ἄριστος (excellent or the
best) by learning what the brothers have to teach: ἀρετή is the end result of the pro-
cess of learning eristic. Ἀρετή is purveyed and imparted through knowledge and
will involve the possession and use of a specific form of knowledge.
Α connection between ἀρετή and knowledge is already implied in Socrates’ ini-
tial questioning of the brothers and in the formulation of the protreptic challenge.
Socrates’ own προτρεπτικὸς λόγος (protreptic or exhortative speech) points in that
direction. In the next few pages, I will examine more closely how the connection
between knowledge and ἀρετή sketched out in this προτρεπτικὸς λόγος differs
substantially from the brothers’ understanding of this connection. But I will also
show how this difference is emphasized by the interplay between the so-called pro-
treptic sections and the eristic sections of the dialogue.25
The first segment of exhortative speech is presented as a kind of example or
model for the brothers to follow – a παράδειγμα (Euth. 282d). Socrates feels the
need to present this example of how a προτρεπτικὸς λόγος should be done because
he thinks the brothers failed to do so during the first eristic section. However, I argue
that they did put on a protreptic display precisely by showing what eristic is capable
of. Socrates misunderstands this and that is why he explains away what has just hap-
pened as something unserious and therefore feels the need to restate the terms of the
protreptic challenge (Euth. 278d). This particular instance shows how what goes on
in the dialogue is not just a matter of the brothers misunderstanding Socrates, but
also of Socrates misunderstanding the brothers. Socrates may be capable of seeing
through and deconstructing the brothers’ arguments (Euth. 277dff.). However, in
doing so, Socrates fails to take them seriously within the framework of the brothers’
25
The Euthydemus displays a very clear and orderly formal structure (contrasting markedly with
the confusion that rules the discussion itself). Within the internal dialogue, different sections domi-
nated either by the eristic display of the brothers or by Socrates’ προτρεπτικὸς λόγος are easily
drawn and contrasted. See McCabe 1998: 167–168; Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi 2014: 9 n. 15. Cf.
Chance 1992: 13–15, 211–214.
own conception of ἀρετή. He thinks the brothers are joking or playing, when in
reality they are just as serious (relative to their own peculiar perspective on the mat-
ters at hand) as Socrates. What separates the brothers from Socrates is not their
attitude towards what is being discussed, but rather their fundamental conceptions.
I am aware that in arguing (even ex hypothesi) for the seriousness of the brothers
I am going against most of the critical tradition of the interpretation of the
Euthydemus. I also realise that the idea that the brothers are being unserious regard-
ing matters of the utmost importance is supported by good textual evidence, and
namely Socrates’ own assessment of the matter in crucial points of the dialogue
(Euth. 278b-d). The overall comedic tone of the dialogue also supports that idea.
But my argument is that the comedic nature of the Euthydemus does not simply
emerge from the tension between ridiculous characters like the brothers and the
serious straight man Socrates. Rather, as has been pointed out by others, Socrates
also makes himself laughable in the Euthydemus.26 And in spite of the many ridicu-
lous traits he exhibits, it would be hard to state that he does not take his own concep-
tion of ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς seriously. By this I mean that being ridiculous in general
and serious regarding the specific conception of ἀρετή and the educational project
at stake are not incompatible attitudes. The brothers may very well believe their own
claims regarding their abilities and the good that can be derived from them, and still
be utterly ridiculous. In fact, they may be even more ridiculous if they actually
believe in what they are claiming and if they actually, seriously, earnestly believe
that using absurd and fallacious arguments to defeat opponents in discussions is in
fact a display of ἀρετή. They are, if anything, unwittingly frivolous, not simply jok-
ing around. In this case, I would argue that Socrates’ claim that the brothers are
playing and joking and not being serious and earnest fulfils two tasks. On the one
hand, it provides a charitable interpretation of what has been going on that at the
same time opens space for Socrates’ own display of protreptic skill. On the other
hand, it is another instance of Socrates’ misunderstanding of the brothers – not only
of the fact that they are operating under different conceptions, but also of their own
attitude towards those same conceptions.
That being said, in Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi (2014) we find a well-argued case
for the lack of seriousness of the brothers, with excellent points regarding the theme
of laughter that pervades the whole dialogue (Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi 2014:
156–187). Arguing every point made by Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi would swell this
paper well beyond what is appropriate, and so I would like to just make one point
that I believe may contribute to the debate (cf. Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi 2014:
185–187). My point is that laughter is not just an indication of levity: it can also be
used aggressively, as a display of superiority over others.27 Several crucial moments
in which the brothers and their cheering crowd of followers descend into laughter
may be read in that light. The ability to humiliate the vanquished opponent by
laughing at him is part of the attractiveness of what the brothers are selling and is
26
See, e.g., Michelini 2000.
27
See Philebus 48b-c, 49b-d. Cf. Torres Morales 2013.
156 F. Serranito
perfectly in tune with a combative and competitive conception of ἀρετή. And so,
when they laugh at a bewildered Clinias, they are indicating that that is what hap-
pens to those who do not learn the skill they are capable of purveying. Correlatively,
those who learn that skill will be able to do to others what would otherwise be done
to them. Ctesippus’ adoption of their techniques later on and the laughter that arises
from his own display shows precisely that.28
But regardless of the clear disagreement on what ἀρετή means, Socrates starts
his προτρεπτικὸς λόγος not by asking what ἀρετή might be, but rather from the
common notion of εὖ πράττειν – to do or fare well (Euth. 278e). From here Clinias
is then led to consider what goods are necessary for the constitution of a state of εὖ
πράττειν (Euth. 279aff). Even though the term “ἀρετή” is not mentioned through-
out this particular discussion, among the goods listed by Socrates we can soon find
the traditional four cardinal ἀρεταί (virtues): σωφροσύνη (moderation or temper-
ance), δικαιοσύνη (justice), ἀνδρεία (courage) and σοφία (wisdom). In this,
Socrates seems to still be operating within the conventional understanding of ἀρετή
(Euth. 279b; see Dimas 2002: 2–3). But this soon changes as σοφία becomes the
most important notion under consideration. Socrates shows that εὖ πράττειν is not
merely a matter of possessing goods, but of using or employing them well (Euth.
280dff). The good use or employment of goods depends on the presence of knowl-
edge. Socrates goes as far as to show that the presence or absence of knowledge is
the decisive factor in determining the good or bad nature of a specific acquisition.29
The things that are normally considered good can become superlatively bad if used
badly, that is, without the guidance of knowledge. That is to say that the goodness
of other acquisitions is derived from the presence of knowledge. And so the conclu-
sion is that the only things that can be properly called good or bad – in the primary
sense – are knowledge, σοφία, and its opposite, ἀμαθία (stupidity).30
One of the commonly recognised ἀρεταί is therefore revealed to be the primary
good from which the goodness of all other possible goods derives – including the
other commonly recognised ἀρεταί. This not only amounts to an identification
between knowledge and ἀρετή, but to an identification of the good – in whatever
particular form it may present itself – with knowledge. In other words, σοφία is
truly an ἀρετή in the superlative sense of the word – the superlative of ἀγαθόν,
good. And it is so not only because it is the best of all things – and indeed the best
28
See note 38, infra.
29
Euth. 281b: “ἆρ᾽ οὖν ὦ πρὸς Διός, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ὄφελός τι τῶν ἄλλων κτημάτων ἄνευ φρονήσεως
καὶ σοφίας;”: “Then, by Zeus, I said, is there any benefit from the other possessions without under-
standing and wisdom?”
30
Euth. 281e: “τί οὖν ἡμῖν συμβαίνει ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων; ἄλλο τι ἢ τῶν μὲν ἄλλων οὐδὲν ὂν οὔτε
ἀγαθὸν οὔτε κακόν, τούτοιν δὲ δυοῖν ὄντοιν ἡ μὲν σοφία ἀγαθόν, ἡ δὲ ἀμαθία κακόν;”: “so what
comes out for us of what we have been saying? Anything other than that nothing is good or bad
among the other things, but that, of these two things, wisdom is good while stupidity is bad?”
of all best things, the excellences or ἀρεταί – but also because it is the best of the
best from which the goodness of all the rest derives.31
In this regard, Socrates’ claim is a lot stronger than the brothers’. The brothers
fall short of claiming that their specific branch of knowledge is the good from which
all other goods derive. For them, ἀρετή is something that can be taught, suggesting
that it is something somewhat like knowledge. More importantly for them, ἀρετή is
something that can be acquired through and on account of the specific kind of
knowledge they are purveying. That is why they can say in all earnestness that they
purvey ἀρετή. But they do not put forward any general thesis regarding the nature
and source of the good, nor, for that matter, regarding what the ἀρετή they claim to
purvey might be.32 In contrast, Socrates’ claim at this stage is at the same time more
and less specific. It is more specific inasmuch as it explores the nature of the good
and explains the intimate connection between it and σοφία. But it is less specific as
he does not put forward any specific skill or discipline or area or type of knowledge
that could be the ultimate good.
Socrates interrupts the first protreptic section with a very clear purpose: to give
the brothers the opportunity to show how the specific form of knowledge they pur-
vey can indeed lead to ἀρετή (Euth. 282d-e). In a way, Socrates has done most of
the work for them by providing a conceptual basis for the connection between
knowledge and ἀρετή. The only thing they would need to do at this point is show
that eristic is indeed that branch of knowledge from which all good derives. But
Euthydemus and Dionisodorus seem to miss the hint entirely and respond to this by
giving another demonstration of their eristic skills.
This does not satisfy Socrates as he later feels the need to go back to his
προτρεπτικὸς λόγος and carry on the job where he left off (Euth. 288c-dff). Once
again in dialogue with Clinias, he goes on exploring different possible candidates.
This emphasizes the fact that previously no specific candidate was put forward. In
fact, the previous protreptic section of the dialogue ended with an emphasis not on
what σοφία is, but rather on the need to pursue it – φιλοσοφία. That is to say that
what was emphasized then and will play a significant role now is the distance that
still separates us from σοφία. At this stage we do not know what σοφία is – only that
it is the most important thing in the world and that we need to find it and acquire it.
As σοφία is presented as the most excellent among the excellences – the ἀρετή
among ἀρεταί – it now becomes clear how φιλοσοφία and ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς are
virtually synonymous. Without σοφία, none of the commonly recognized ἀρεταί
are really so.
31
The implication is that somehow knowledge will be different from the other ἀρεταί inasmuch as
knowledge is what makes the other ἀρεταί good, while knowledge is unambiguously good in and
of itself. This seems to create a two-tier system of ἀρεταί and indeed suggests that without knowl-
edge the ἀρεταί (as conventionally understood) are no ἀρεταί at all. Cf. the discussion of the dif-
ficult relationship between σοφία, ἀρετή and happiness in Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi 2014: 28–48.
See also Dimas 2002.
32
What this ἀρετή might be, as we shall see, is implicit in the brothers’ position, but never explic-
itly stated.
158 F. Serranito
But σοφία is something that we still do not have. It is something that is still to be
found out, let alone acquired. And this reminds us that φιλοσοφία is the desire for a
σοφία that has not yet been found out. Likewise, the notion of ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς
also contains this idea of distance or delay. Both notions, besides the implied virtual
synonymy between σοφία and ἀρετή, entail an active engagement and effort
towards a good yet to be reached, the reaching of which cannot be taken for granted.
This is very different from what the brothers seem to be offering: an easy path
towards ἀρετή.
In the second protreptic section, Socrates and Clinias engage together in this
effort of finding out σοφία. And they fail. At this point of the dialogue, however, the
frame dialogue, that is, the conversation between Socrates and Crito, bursts into
Socrates’ report of the events of the previous day. Crito, who has been silently lis-
tening to Socrates all this time, suddenly interrupts him (Euth. 290e). This is the
moment in the dialogue where two extraordinary things happen. First, Socrates is
explicitly and clearly called out by Crito as an unreliable narrator, as he attributes to
Clinias arguments and thoughts that, according to Crito, are well beyond Clinias’
ability. Socrates himself (perhaps disingenuously) suggests that the argument might
have been put forward by Ctesippus instead, once again to Crito’s incredulity (Euth.
291a). The suggestion is that either Socrates is misremembering or that he is pur-
posefully misattributing theses to the other characters. In either case, Socrates’
report is explicitly put in doubt, adding to the generalised feeling of confusion and
misunderstanding that pervades the whole dialogue.
The second extraordinary thing is that at this point and for several pages, the
search for σοφία is conducted outside of the frame of the reported dialogue. It is
conducted between Socrates and Crito, as if the two dramatic levels of the dialogue
had been merged. In any case, it all leads to a dead end, as it supposedly did in the
conversation of the previous day. Once again, it is Socrates who interrupts the
προτρεπτικὸς λόγος, and once again he calls upon the brothers to take it up. This
time, however, it is framed in a different way. Socrates’ προτρεπτικὸς λόγος is no
longer an example of what he expects the brothers to do; rather, the brothers are to
come over as saviours, like the Dioskouroi (Euth. 293a). This gives them yet another
chance to show that their specific skill is indeed the σοφία that leads to ἀρετή.
However, the brothers continue to do what they had done before. They put on
another performance of their eristic skill, as if they had misheard or misunderstood
or just plainly ignored what Socrates said, as if they were speaking two different
languages. The level of confusion and misunderstanding only goes up from this
point. Socrates does not even get the chance to resume his προτρεπτικὸς λόγος and
finish what he started. There is a moment in the dialogue, 300e, in which he
addresses Clinias directly again, in a move suggestive of another attempt at the
προτρεπτικὸς λόγος (Euth. 300e).33 But Socrates is immediately dragged back into
33
In this I disagree with Hawtrey 1981: ad loc., who sees in this sentence only “the usual irony”
and a cue for the next sophism. In this passage, Socrates seems to be about to tell Clinias off for
laughing at Ctesippus’ beating the brothers at their own eristic game. By doing this, Socrates
would be resuming his protreptic task of leading Clinias to the path of ἀρετή and φιλοσοφία. This,
the eristic discussion by Dionisodorus. And so it goes on, until Socrates’ final defeat
by the brothers.
This result – Socrates’ defeat and the brothers’ complete victory – is taken as a
confirmation of the brothers’ claims, even (with significant restrictions) by Socrates
himself (Euth. 303b-304b). It is because he finds himself entirely refuted by
Dionisodorus and Euthydemus that Socrates hyperbolically praises their σοφία and
proposes that he and Crito and others become their students. That is to say that their
victory confirms the brothers’ claim of being purveyors of virtue. However, for any
attentive reader it is clear that the brothers’ victory was achieved through the inge-
nious use of fallacious arguments. That also seems to be the opinion of the
Anonymous Bystander and, to a certain extent, of Crito himself. And yet I would
argue that their victory somehow confirms their claim, but only as far as they are
operating with very different conceptions of ἀρετή.
Whereas Socrates sees ἀρετή as something that can only be acquired with time
and effort, the brothers claim that it can be given to us quickly simply by learning
what they offer to teach. Whereas the brothers present ἀρετή as something that can
be imparted or transmitted by them to a relatively passive student, Socrates insists
on it being a process of transformation of the person at stake. And while Socrates
seems to agree with the brothers that there is a close connection between ἀρετή and
σοφία, Socrates does not know what kind of σοφία that could be. On the contrary,
the brothers are certain that it is through their own particular σοφία that ἀρετή can
be achieved.
Dionisodorus and Euthydemus win because they do not play by Socrates’ rules.
They do not let him define the terms of engagement. It is possible that they do so
wittingly and on purpose, as a tactic to win the confrontation. But it is also possible,
and, as I have been arguing, likely, that there is a genuine misunderstanding of those
terms. This is made possible, as we have seen, by the ambiguity of the terms used
by Socrates and by the apparent (and misleading) similarities between some of their
basic conceptions. But Socrates and the brothers approach the issues from different
angles, and the lack of precision and detail in Socrates’ approach actually provides
an easy opening for the brothers’ method. In this sense, Socrates comes woefully
underprepared to deal with the brothers. He brought a knife to a gunfight.
8.3 Medea and Marsyas
But there is a way in which the difference between their two conceptions is even
more profound. This is a difference that is not obvious in the substance of the argu-
ments put forward, but rather in the form or manner in which the discussion is
conducted. This is also a difference that I believe is eloquently illustrated in the
however, is immediately interrupted by the flood of eristic discussion that will continue in ever
increasing volume until the brothers’ final victory at 303b.
160 F. Serranito
reference at a crucial moment in the dialogue to two mythological figures: Medea

and Marsyas.
Just after the first protreptic section, the brothers display their extraordinary skill
by forcing Socrates to the uncomfortable conclusion that in wanting Clinias to
become σοφός (wise), all his friends and well-wishers actually want him dead. We
need not concern ourselves with the details of this ingenious argument (Euth. 283d-
e). What matters is that this infuriates Ctesippus, who is in love with Clinias, enough
to come into the arena to fight with the brothers himself. This leads to the most tense
and aggressive exchanges in the whole dialogue and it is up to Socrates to calm
everybody down. He does so by doing something similar to what he had done at
another point in the dialogue: by providing a charitable explanation for the brothers’
argument (Euth. 277dff). In this particular case, Socrates explains that what the
brothers have in mind is a kind of constructive destruction: the bad is destroyed to
become good; the foolish is destroyed to become wise (Euth. 285aff). Socrates then
explains that that is precisely the skill that the brothers possess: turning bad people
into good people, that is, killing the bad and turn it into good. He encourages every-
one to entrust themselves to the power of someone who has such a skill, and volun-
teers himself as a guinea pig of sorts. Socrates portrays Dionisodorus as someone
who has the power of destroying the bad to turn them into good, comparing him
to Medea.
Two episodes of Medea’s mythical life are clearly alluded to in this passage of
the Euthydemus, with two very different outcomes. Both episodes deal with the
theme of rejuvenation, as Medea, with her magical lore, is able to turn old men
young again. The first of these episodes is described in an extant fragment of the
Nostoi (Bernabé 1996, fr. 7; see Griffiths 2006: 15). In this episode, Medea uses
drugs to rejuvenate Aison, Jason’s father. But another more well-known episode is
also alluded to in this passage. This is the story of the death of Pelias, Jason’s evil
uncle. Medea persuades the daughters of Pelias that she can make their old and ail-
ing father young again through her magical skills. She makes a display of her ability
by cutting a ram in pieces, putting it in a cauldron, and turning it once again into a
lamb. With his daughters’ help, she does the same to Pelias, but Pelias is not made
young again. He is dead. This was all a ploy to kill him.34
The allusion to the myth of Medea in this context serves a variety of purposes.
First, it illustrates the theme of destruction and transformation Socrates uses to rein-
terpret the brothers’ argument. Turning what is worse into something better is the
generic description of any process of acquisition of ἀρετή. However, by illustrating
this process with a myth of actual (successful or unsuccessful) radical and magical
transformation, Socrates is putting before us a conception of the process that
requires a profound and significant change in the individual who is to become
ἄριστος. Whereas the brothers seem to treat ἀρετή as a mere acquisition, as some-
thing that can simply be imparted, Socrates stresses what a difference having or not
having ἀρετή, being or not being ἄριστος, makes to the nature of the individual at
34
See Euripides, Medea 484ff. Cf. Hawtrey 1981: ad 285c3ff; Griffiths 2006: 41ff.
stake. It is as if he or she were killed and made alive again – but stronger and better.
Notice that in this conception of ἀρετή, the comparison is not between me and
another individual, but between me as I was before, a worse version of me, and me
as I am after the process of transformation. What matters in this conception of ἀρετή
is not simply being superior to others, as these others may be only slightly less
worthless than me. Rather, what matters is becoming better than myself, is becom-
ing an improved version of myself.35
But the most important aspect is the one pertaining to the final result. We have
seen that there are two myths where Medea performs a ritual to rejuvenate an old
man. In one, the old man, Aison, becomes young again; in the other, the old man,
Pelias, ends up dead. This suggests that being submitted to the arts of Dionisodorus
and Euthydemus is dangerous: you may emerge from the process better than you
were, or you may be destroyed by it. And this is why Socrates suggests himself as a
test-subject or guinea pig, as someone of lesser importance and value than Clinias
or any of the other young men.
But in the mythological episodes alluded to the difference in outcome does not
correlate to a difference in ability. Medea is successful in both cases: in the first she
truly wants to rejuvenate the old man; in the second, she wants him dead. She always
gets what she wants, and so the difference is one of intention, of good or ill will.
This brings in a more sinister connotation to the comparison between Medea and
Dionisodorus, as it suggests that behind the claims of purveying virtue lies some
ulterior and ultimately damaging agenda. This undercuts and undermines the idea
that the brothers are indeed purveyors of virtue. They may be either incompetent or
malicious Medeae instead. In the same way that the daughters of Pelias should have
been wary of Medea’s claims, so should all those poised to entrust themselves to
Dionisodorus and Euthydemus. However, this does not undercut or undermine the
conception of the process of acquisition of ἀρετή as a radical transformation akin to
a rejuvenation. Becoming ἄριστος is still the desirable result of a process of meta-
morphosis of the individual, and therefore requires more than the simple transmis-
sion of a given skill. But we should be careful in the choice of methods and not
entrust ourselves blindly to anyone claiming to possess the means to make us better.
This latter connotation, however, is not the most obvious. And so Socrates seems
to behave throughout the dialogue either ironically or naively in recommending the
brothers. In any case, he seems to operate (or pretend to operate) under the assump-
tion that the brothers hold the same transformative conception of ἀρετή as he does.
Ctesippus, on the contrary, sees through this, or, if Socrates is being ironic, does
not dissemble. Picking up on the playful mythological references, Ctesippus com-
pares himself not to an aged Aison or Pelias, but to the satyr Marsyas, alluding to
the myth in which Marsyas, having invented the flute, decides to challenge Apollo
35
We could contest the idea that the brothers really have such a skill, and it is more likely than not
that Socrates the character, or at least Plato the author, is employing some heavy irony in this pas-
sage. However, we cannot dismiss the fact that it is implicit in any τέχνη claiming to provide ἀρετή
that it is an instance of effective and successful ἐπιμέλεια (care). In other words, that it turns the
worse into something better.
162 F. Serranito
to a competition. The competition goes as well for Marsyas as you could expect:
Apollo plays his lyre, Marsyas plays his pipes, and in the end the Muses, who are
judging the competition, give the prize to the god. In one version of the myth, Apollo
wins the competition by being able to play his lyre upside down, something impos-
sible to do with a flute. As a punishment, the satyr is then skinned by Apollo. As a
joke, Ctesippus implies that the satyr’s skin was turned into a wineskin, but that he
would accept the same fate as Marsyas if only his skin could be turned into ἀρετή
(Euth. 285c-d).36
This little tale, I believe, eloquently illustrates the conception of ἀρετή held by
the brothers – a conception that Ctesippus sees right through. The myth portrays a
competition, not a supposed therapeutic event, like the Medea myth. This is not a
story of one party helping the other become better. Rather, this is a story where one
party, clearly and without deceit, proposes to defeat the other and be declared
the best.
For the brothers, to be ἄριστος means to be better than the others, to be able to
defeat them in confrontation. To be ἄριστος means to be a winner, and ἀρετή is the
excellence that characterises such a person. This is a conception of ἀρετή that is
deeply grounded in the competitive spirit that pervades much of ancient Greek cul-
ture. To run faster than your opponents, to defeat them in combat, to surpass them
in rhetorical ability are all goals that are embraced and encouraged by ancient Greek
society. That the brothers are somehow linked with this cultural trend is clear from
their various professions through time: from martial arts teachers, to teachers of
rhetoric, to teachers of eristic.37 All these activities are related to fighting and defeat-
ing opponents. Their σοφία, the specific σοφία that they claim to impart ἀρετή, is
precisely a combative σοφία, a σοφία that gives the ability to defeat in argument
whoever is opposing them by whatever means necessary – regardless of the sub-
stance of the positions being defended at each moment by either party. Operating
with this competitive and combative understanding of what is ἀρετή and what it
means to be ἄριστος, then it is reasonable to say that the brothers are right: they
indeed are able to impart or transmit ἀρετή through their σοφία. Even their claim
that they can do it very quickly is borne out by the facts, since Ctesippus, after just
a short while listening to them and engaging in discussion with them, is able to pick
up the skill and throw some very good punches.38
36
See Hawtrey 1981: ad 285c9. Cf. Dover 1968: ad 439–442, who sees in this passage of the
Euthydemus echoes of “Strepsiades’ extravagant self-surrender”. See Herodotus, Historiae 7, 26.
Xenophon, Anabasis 1.2.8. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.4.2.
37
Euth. 271cc-272b, where Socrates provides Crito with a curriculum vitae of Euthydemus and
Dionisodorus. The brothers are skilled at fighting in every way: with their bodies, in armour, but
also in the law-courts, and now also in debates.
38
This happens at several points in the dialogue, e.g., 296a, 299c, 299e, 300d. At 303e, Socrates
points out how quickly Ctesippus was able to imitate the brothers as proof that they can indeed
teach their skill very quickly. Cf. Lysis 211b-c, where the disputatious (ἐριστικός) Menexenus is
jokingly described as a pupil of Ctesippus.
Seen from this angle, it also becomes clear that the brothers are indeed in the
process of producing a προτρεπτικὸς λόγος of sorts throughout most of the discus-
sion. Socrates asks the brothers to persuade Clinias to love wisdom and care for
virtue. They do just that by displaying their own wisdom and showing how it can be
used to become ἄριστος – a winner. The challenge issued by Socrates, if reduced to
its bare bones, is that the brothers show how their particular σοφία leads to ἀρετή.
Unlike Socrates in his own exhortative speech, they do this performatively: they use
their skills to defeat every opponent. Instead of doing like Socrates and going in
search of an ἀρετή yet to be identified, the brothers display right there and then the
ἀρετή that they already have.
From this standpoint, it is clear that it is Socrates, not Ctesippus, who is playing
the role of Marsyas.39 It is Socrates who decides to issue a challenge to a superior
opponent and uses a completely inadequate instrument in the course of the competi-
tion. It is Socrates who in the end is completely and utterly defeated by his oppo-
nents’ ability to twist and turn.40 But Socrates’ defeat and metaphorical skinning in
the Euthydemus has a very different meaning from Marsyas’. In the Marsyas myth,
we are shown the futility and disastrous effects of challenging and defying the gods.
But in the many mythological allusions peppered out throughout the dialogue,
Euthydemus and Dionisodorus are as likely to be compared to monsters like the
hydra, or to sinister figures like Medea, as to gods. More importantly, their ability
comes off not as some sort of divine skill, but as a collection of cheap tricks easily
learned and easily mastered. This makes the meaning of their victory a lot more
ambiguous than the mere allusion to the Marsyas myth would suggest.
The combative and competitive conception of ἀρετή clearly wins the combat, but
this is a pyrrhic victory nonetheless. This is a victory that does nothing to confirm
the validity of this conception, because it consists of a simple unjustified affirmation
of its basic tenets. It does nothing to persuade those who were unconvinced of its
merits, and, considering the silliness of many of the arguments used by the brothers,
may even put off some of those who were inclined to side with it in the first place.
8.4 Conclusion
I have argued that one of the main features of the Euthydemus is the misunderstand-
ing between Socrates and the brothers. This is decisive from the very start of their
discussion and particularly evident in the terms set out by Socrates. These will have
been understood in a radically different way by the brothers, setting up the confu-
sion, lack of mutual comprehension and misunderstanding that characterises most
39
In this I take a very different view from McCabe 2008, who identifies the Marsyas of the
Euthydemus with Ctesippus.
40
This is not even the only passage in the corpus platonicum where a parallel is drawn between
Socrates and Marsyas. Socrates is explicitly compared to Marsyas in Alcibiades’ speech in
Symposium (215b-c). Cf. McCabe 2008: 114 n. 19.
164 F. Serranito
of the dialogue. But the initial terms set out by Socrates were meant to do the oppo-
site and are an instance of a rhetorical strategy used by him in many dialogues:
using terms, phrases, notions and conceptions the interlocutor would be familiar
and comfortable with to facilitate the discussion. Starting from an apparent concep-
tual common ground allows Socrates to ease in his interlocutors into unfamiliar and
unsettling terrain without scaring them off. This rhetorical strategy contrasts starkly,
for example, with the use of paradoxes, which tend to have a startling effect on the
interlocutor. One could read the Euthydemus as Socrates’ attempt to use this strat-
egy on the brothers. If that is the case, in these terms Socrates will have failed, and
the Euthydemus serves as the record of that failure. But it is interesting that in this
case failure did not assume the form of a stubbornly silent interlocutor (like Callicles
in Gorgias) or of an interlocutor suddenly finding out he was urgently needed else-
where (like Euthyphro in the eponymous dialogue). In this case, the discussion is
not interrupted. It carries on but in such a way that makes meaningful dialogue
impossible. The failure to establish an initial common ground leads to lack of
mutual comprehension, and the dialogue descends, by the end, into little more than
gibberish.
Therefore, Socrates’ mistake – if it was indeed a mistake – was not that he chal-
lenged someone whose abilities are far superior to his own, as the allusion to the
Marsyas myth would perhaps suggest. Rather, his supposed mistake was in assum-
ing that there was enough common ground between the two parties to allow for any
kind of meaningful and productive engagement. His mistake, if there was one, con-
sisted in underestimating the chasm between him and the brothers. But perhaps this
was no mistake at all, and the point of it all was precisely to clearly show how dif-
ferent they are. By portraying Socrates as less capable than he is elsewhere in the
corpus platonicum, Plato may be emphasizing the differences between philosophy
and eristic and showing that what is at stake in philosophy is something other than
winning arguments. This is a performative refutation of the position of the
Anonymous Bystander.
Even though I believe the Anonymous Bystander’s assessment of the events por-
trayed in the Euthydemus to be unfair– supposing that Socrates is a fairly reliable
narrator of what took place the previous day – his position raises an important ethi-
cal problem. This is a problem that runs through the whole of the Euthydemus and
that does not receive a clear solution. How can we communicate with people who
have conceptions that are fundamentally different from our own? How can we pre-
vent a dialogue of the deaf? And if those conceptions are associated with morally
vicious attitudes, how can we exercise our duty of care towards them and encourage
them to care for virtue instead? Should we do like Socrates and fight, or is this tan-
tamount to wrestling with a pig? Or should we instead do as the Bystander does and
keep ourselves aloof and unsullied?
The Bystander’s attitude is perhaps the most tempting, and even more so when
we are reminded of Socrates’ humiliating and undignified defeat. And yet the
dialogue ends with a reaffirmation of the importance of philosophical debate.41

This, I believe, is borne out – perhaps paradoxically – by the fact that Socrates is
defeated. Socrates may have ended defeated, but his defeat does not show the supe-
riority of the combative conception of ἀρετή over Socrates’ transformative concep-
tion. Rather, it emphasizes the profound difference and the inevitable tension
between the two. By trying to engage in a serious, well-intentioned and generous
intellectual debate about matters of great importance, Socrates gives the audience a
taste of a different form of φιλοσοφία and of a different variety of ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς.
He provides an example of someone who strives to foster virtue in others – by
encouraging Clinias, and by extension, others such as Ctesippus, the audience and
even the brothers themselves, to apply their attention, effort and care in developing
virtue. Socrates may have been defeated in the discussion, but his confidence on the
merits of his own φιλοσοφία and of the importance of dialogue and learning is
undiminished. He remains an example of φιλοσοφία and ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς – the
same φιλοσοφία and ἐπιμέλεια ἀρετῆς he seeks to encourage in others. Like
Marsyas, Socrates is defeated and skinned, but from his defeat we get a glimpse of
the shape of ἀρετή.
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Canto, Monique. 1987. L’intrigue philosophique. Essai sur l’Euthydème de Platon. Paris: Les
Belles Lettres.
Cassin, Barbara, and Andrew Goffey. 2009. Sophistics, Rhetorics, and Performance; or, How to
Really Do Things with Words. Philosophy & Rhetoric 42: 349–372.
Chance, Thomas H. 1992. Plato’s Euthydemus: Analysis of What Is and Is Not Philosophy.
Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford: University of California Press.
Dimas, Panos. 2002. Happiness in the Euthydemus. Phronesis 47: 1–27.
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Society.
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McCabe, Mary M. 1998. Silencing the Sophists: The Drama of Plato’s Euthydemus. Proceedings
of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 14: 139–168.
41
Cf. Gonzalez (1998), 127–128, who points out that by engaging in debate with the brothers,
Socrates is in effect cancelling the harmful effects of eristic by forcing them “either to become
involved in a serious discussion or retreat to harmless puerility.”
166 F. Serranito
———. 2008. Protean Socrates: Mythical Figures in the Euthydemus. In Ancient Philosophy of the
Self, ed. Pauliina Remes and Juha Sihvola. New York: Springer.
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protrettico sulla protrettica. Educação e Filosofia 31: 865–908.
Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi, Georgia. 2014. Playful Philosophy and Serious Sophistry. A Reading of
Plato’s Euthydemus. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.
Sprague, Rosamond K. 1962. Plato’s Use of Fallacy. A Study of the Euthydemus and Some Other
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Chapter 9
The Care of Others in Marcus Aurelius’
Meditations
Hélder Telo
Abstract Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations lends itself to be seen as an egoistic or

self-centred exercise of self-care. I will argue against this view and show that caring
for others also plays a central role in this work. In order to do so, I will first discuss
what caring for someone else entails according to Marcus Aurelius. Second, I will
show that this kind of care can be directed at all human beings without becoming
too vague or abstract, for it implies a form of universal love that directly determines
one’s relation to those closest to oneself. Third, I will argue that, despite emphasiz-
ing the self and one’s virtue, Marcus Aurelius adopts an objective and highly meta-
physical standpoint that establishes the equal importance of the self and others.
Finally, I will consider the possibility of separating Marcus Aurelius’ views on care
from some of his main metaphysical claims.
Keywords Self-care · Care of others · Virtue · Love · Cosmopolitanism · Kinship

· Nature
Almost all human beings are surrounded by many others and this simple fact raises
the question of how we are to relate to each other. We may neglect or harm others,
but we may also care for them. Moreover, we may care for others in many different
ways, with many different outcomes, and for many different reasons. This set of
possibilities plays an important role in contemporary discussions of care, which go
as far as developing a whole ethical system based on our experiences of interdepen-
dence and care. In contrast with this ethics of care, contemporary virtue ethics and
its ancient tradition may seem to be considerably less concerned with others.
Nevertheless, caring for others is also a fundamental concern of virtue ethics (even
if the way care is conceived in the framework of such an ethics is significantly dif-
ferent from how it is conceived in the ethics of care). Therefore, it is no wonder that
H. Telo (*)
Universidade de Coimbra, Institute for Philosophical Studies (IEF), Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: heldertelo@hotmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
168 H. Telo
some attempts have been made to compare the ethics of care with virtue ethics in
general and with Aristotle’s ethical thought in particular.1
Differently from what one might think, Aristotle is not the only ancient author
that is relevant to contemporary discussions of care. We can also find interesting
ideas in ancient Stoicism. In contrast with Aristotle, Stoicism presents a rather
extreme version of virtue ethics, which conceives virtue in more intellectualistic
terms and defines it as the sole good. Hence, Stoicism seems to correspond exactly
to what the contemporary ethics of care fights against: namely, a conception of
human beings that sees them as rational, autonomous and abstract beings, thereby
neglecting their constitutive relation to each other and their interdependence.
However, the Stoic view on the subject is much more complex and, as I will show,
the need to care for each other is, in fact, at the centre of Stoic ethical thought.
In order to show this, I will focus on a work that at first sight may seem to be as
far as possible from any concern with others. The work in question, by Marcus
Aurelius, is usually called Meditations and it was known in Antiquity under the title
Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν (which has the approximate meaning of “To himself”). It encom-
passes a set of notes that were not intended for publication. These notes include
many pieces of advice that Marcus Aurelius gives to himself and many reflections
that are often meant as spiritual exercises, to use Pierre Hadot’s expression.2 This is
thus a work of solitude that lets us enter into Marcus Aurelius’ mind as he tries to
develop his own rationality and be virtuous. In this sense, it could be read as a work
that focuses solely on self-care or at the very least prioritises it. Foucault himself,
who in his later thought developed exhaustive analyses of the notion of self-care,
often considers Marcus Aurelius’ writings from this angle.3 However, as I will
argue, caring for others plays an equally central role in the Meditations.
In order to show the importance of the care of others for Marcus Aurelius, I must
first discuss how the Meditations outline a very specific model of care that differs in
many aspects from how we normally understand the care of others. Afterwards, I
will show that such a care of others is an essential part of self-care or that, to be
more precise, they are both equally important for Marcus Aurelius. The entire argu-
ment will be based on central claims of Stoic philosophy that are far from being
obvious and uncontested, but even if we do not agree with these claims, we will still
be able to see how general philosophical commitments can affect our conceptions
of the care of others and of its importance. Moreover, this will give us the chance to
discuss the extent to which Marcus Aurelius’ views on the care of others depend on
more general Stoic beliefs and whether we can subscribe to those views without
subscribing to Stoic philosophy in general. However, before anything else, I will
consider in more detail how the Meditations may suggest a certain indifference
towards and neglect of others, or at least a subordination of the care of others to the
1
For comparisons with virtue ethics in general, see e.g. Halwani 2003 and Sander-Staudt 2006. For
comparisons with Aristotle, see Komter 1995, Groenhout 1998, Curzer 2007, Slote 2011.
2
Cp. Hadot 1997: 51–69, and Hadot 2002: 19–98.
3
Cp. Foucault 2001.
9 The Care of Others in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations 169
care of the self. I will then show how the matter is more complicated and how
Marcus Aurelius actually puts forward a refined view of the structure and impor-
tance of the care of others.
9.1 The Apparent Neglect of Others
As stated above, Marcus Aurelius’ notes to himself are a rather complex set of spiri-
tual exercises and, as such, they constitute a particular form of self-care, as analysed
in Foucault’s above-mentioned later thought. Throughout the whole book, Marcus
Aurelius is concerned with transforming himself (or, more precisely, with changing
his way of seeing things, his actions, and his feelings), in order to improve himself
morally. This is something he does in isolation, reflecting about his own life, his
acts, and his ideas in the light of Stoic doctrines. To be sure, we may read his
Meditations as the expression of a general outlook on life and as indications on how
all of us should live, but this does not change the fact that in the text Marcus Aurelius
seems to “retreat into himself” (to use a phrase of his) and to be solely concerned
with himself.4
A very brief consideration of Marcus Aurelius’ outlook on life and the Stoic
doctrines it is based on likewise suggests that Marcus Aurelius’ work is exclusively
concerned with self-care and completely disregards the care of others. Indeed,
according to Marcus Aurelius (and Stoicism in general), one’s life (i.e., the way
things appear, their value, what one does, how one feels and so on) is wholly deter-
mined by views or conceptions. As he says, “everything is conception” (πᾶν/πάντα
ὑπόληψις).5 This means that rationality is an essential feature (in fact, the essential
feature) of human life. Moreover, rationality is intrinsically connected with one’s
ruling part or directing principle (τὸ ἡγεμονικόν), which is what ultimately deter-
mines one’s views and, thus, how one acts, how one feels and how one lives.6 In this
sense, the way we see things, as well as the way we live, is up to us or in our power
(ἐφ’ ἡμῖν). But this does not mean that we can arbitrarily turn reality and ourselves
into whatever we want. We have a particular constitution or nature, which is itself
part of cosmic nature, and this constitution or nature of ours determines which
possibilities are available to us and how we should live.
According to Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics, the main choice before us (even if
we normally do not conceive it in these terms) is between deviating from our nature
or following it, and we should follow it – i.e., we should live according to nature
(κατὰ φύσιν ζῆν).7 This must be considered in light of what was said above. From
4
For the notion of retreating into oneself (εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἀναχωρεῖν) or retreating into one’s own soul
or mind (ἀναχωρεῖν εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ψυχήν), see 4.3. The references to Marcus Aurelius’ text (as
well as the translations) are all based on Farquharson’s edition (1944).
5
See 2.15, 12.8, 12.22, 12.26.
6
Cp. e.g. 5.26, 6.8, 9.7, 12.33.
7
Cp. e.g. 12.1.
170 H. Telo
a Stoic standpoint, we are fundamentally rational beings. Thus, our entire life (as
well as its moral worth) depends on whether our reason is fully developed (which is
what constitutes virtue in the Stoic sense) or somehow defective (which corresponds
to vice). Indeed, according to the Stoics, our nature is such that for us virtue (ἀρετή)
is the only good thing and vice (κακία) the only bad thing. All that matters is how
we determine our character or inner disposition, which depends primarily on our
views and our rationality. Other things (such as the outcomes of our actions and all
external things such as health, possessions, honor or good repute, as well as their
opposites) are indifferent and do not have any say in whether we are happy or not.8
Still, this does not mean that we cannot select between these other things. Many
Stoics said that some of these “indifferents” are preferable and should be selected.
Marcus Aurelius does not formulate it this way, but he recognizes that the indiffer-
ents may still have some value (ἀξία), especially if considered in the context of the
whole of reality, and may therefore outline functions or duties of ours, in which we
are to exercise our virtue.9 Nevertheless, these things are not in themselves good and
they do not decide whether or not our life is good.
This is the core of Marcus Aurelius’ outlook on life, and his reflections are an
expression of this outlook. Marcus Aurelius wants to be virtuous and the Meditations
themselves are exercises in virtue. He tries to improve himself by thinking about his
way of seeing things, his way of acting and his way of feeling. He constantly
reminds himself of his constitution or nature, of how it relates to the whole of reality
or cosmic nature, and of what this entails. In doing so, he aims at changing himself
and his life, and others do not seem to be an object of much concern to him.
The impression of not being concerned with others becomes even stronger if we
look at the way he talks about one’s general relation to others. Since we as human
beings depend only on ourselves for determining our views and our life, and all that
matters is our moral disposition (i.e., our virtue or vice), others cannot really affect
us. No matter what they do and what happens to them, they are no obstacle for us,
they cannot harm us, and they cannot benefit us either. Consequently, Marcus
Aurelius affirms that we should not care about what they think or do, we should not
be concerned with how we are seen by them, and we should even avoid strong
emotional attachments to them. Others are not a good or part of the good. They are
indifferents and they do not therefore determine our happiness.10
8
Cp. e.g. 7.31: “Make yourself glad in simplicity, self-respect, and indifference to what lies
between virtue and vice.”
9
See e.g. 3.11. For more on Marcus Aurelius’ stance with respect to the so-called indifferents (τὰ
ἀδιάφορα), cp. e.g. Gourinat 2012: 424–425.
10
This is clearly stated in 8.56: “To my will the will of a neighbour is as indifferent as his vital spirit
and his flesh. For even though we were brought into the world more than anything else for the sake
of one another, still each of our governing selves has its own sovereign right; for otherwise the evil
of my neighbour would surely be evil of mine, and that was not God’s good pleasure, in order that
my unhappiness might not depend on someone other than myself.” For similar ideas, cp. 2.1, 2.9,
4.39, 8.1, 11.34.
This being so, Marcus Aurelius’ ethical stance (as well as Stoic ethics) may seem
to be wholly self-centered and egoistic, which actually corresponds to an objection
commonly leveled against virtue ethics in general.11 This objection seems to be even
more relevant in the case of Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics, insofar as they propose
an extreme form of virtue ethics, which – in contrast with Aristotelian virtue eth-
ics – places the whole emphasis on oneself and what is in one’s power. Consequently,
others seem to be irrelevant and something to be neglected.
This is an idea that strongly goes against life’s tendencies and ordinary ethical
views. Thus, one easily becomes suspicious of it. But is this really what Marcus
Aurelius is saying? As an emperor, he had to deal with many others and care not
only for his family, but also for his polis and the empire. Moreover, even a cursory
reading of the Meditations cannot fail to notice that Marcus Aurelius constantly
emphasizes his (and by extension our) social nature, and the importance of being
just, helpful, generous, forgiving and loving in our relations with others. In this
sense, we are not supposed to completely neglect or disregard others. The text out-
lines a positive relation to them and a particular way of caring for them. This is an
important component of virtue and our own self-care must therefore direct us to
care for others.
But what exactly is the relation between self-care and the care of others? If car-
ing for others is wholly subordinated to self-care (i.e., if it is only a way of improv-
ing ourselves and allowing us to be virtuous and happy), then Marcus Aurelius will
continue to seem self-interested and egoistic, and we may wonder whether such
self-interested care of others is not contradictory or perverse. The status of the Stoic
care of others is indeed problematic and this affects the whole status of Stoic virtue
ethics. Hence, it is important to consider how exactly Marcus Aurelius conceives of
the care of others and its relation to self-care. This, in turn, will make it possible to
determine exactly what motivates this care of others and how genuine it is.
9.2 The Ideal Way of Caring for Others
Let us begin by discussing what kind of concern for the well-being of others and
what kind of interventions we are to have in their lives according to Marcus Aurelius.
Looking at the Meditations, we can easily see that Marcus Aurelius’ conception of
the care of others is quite different from ordinary conceptions. Normally, care is
concerned with external goods such as health, possessions or recognition, but the
Stoics define these goods as indifferents (i.e., as being neither good nor bad). Hence,
they cannot be the primary aim of care. They may still be cared for in some way, as
we will see, but only indirectly. Marcus Aurelius thus shifts the focus of the care of
others and, in doing so, he presents a new and more appropriate form of care – an
ideal or sublimated care, as it were. The new focus is the sole good: virtue. Virtue,
11
For more on the alleged egoism of virtue ethics, cp. e.g. Annas 2008 and Toner 2015.
172 H. Telo
in turn, depends on one’s understanding of oneself and reality. Thus, proper care of
others requires one to change their views or beliefs, their inner disposition and their
moral worth. Marcus Aurelius constantly refers to this throughout the Meditations.
He speaks of showing others how they should see things, teaching them, persuading
them, admonishing them, treating or curing them.12 However, he does not say much
about how this could be done. He does not outline an educative or a political project
that aims at making others virtuous. He mentions that one can be an example, and
one may also try to instruct them, but he provides no recipe for success.13 What is
more, Marcus Aurelius constantly remarks that one should try to change the other
“if one can”.14 This alludes to an important point: when one cares for others and tries
to make them virtuous, one cannot guarantee that this care will be effective.
Everything depends on their own ruling part, which determines their way of seeing
things and their way of living. One cannot simply change it from the outside. Doing
so is not in one’s power, but only in theirs. The only thing one can do is try to
improve them and this is what caring for others essentially amounts to.
Now, if this were all that the care of others entailed, this care would probably
seem too abstract and perhaps even harsh and insensitive. It would focus solely on
virtue and on one’s essential self and neglect everything else. However, the picture
painted by Marcus Aurelius is much more nuanced, and we can get a better idea of
it if we consider the way he defines the ideal inner disposition towards others.
Marcus Aurelius frequently stresses how virtue includes, as one of its essential
parts, justice in our dealing with others.15 Although he does not define justice, the
latter seems to imply the functions or duties prescribed both by our individual nature
and by general nature. However, this does not mean that our relation to others and
our caring for them is supposed to be abstract, cold or mechanic. Marcus Aurelius
constantly stresses that this relation and this care is also affectionate or emotional.
One is supposed to be benevolent, kind, generous, friendly and loving.16 Others are
to be treated as very close or familiar (οἰκεῖοι) and even as our own kin (συγγενεῖς).17
This involves more than a vague liking. It includes accepting them with their limita-
tions, enduring their wrongdoings or unjust acts, and forgiving them, which may be
quite difficult sometimes. Indeed, we are often angered by what others do. However,
Marcus Aurelius also presents many arguments to defuse anger, which include not
only the view that anger is based on a wrong interpretation of things and of what life
is about (since we are angered by things that are in truth indifferent), but also the
idea that anger goes against our calling to love others.18
12
See e.g. 8.59, 9.11, 10.4, 11.13, 12.16.
13
For the idea of being an example, see e.g. 10.15.
14
See in particular 9.11.
15
Cp. 7.54, 9.1, 10.11, 11.20, 12.1.
16
Cp. e.g. 7.13, 8.26, 9.27, 11.13.
17
Cp. e.g. 2.1, 5.20, 9.22.
18
Cp. in particular 11.18, which enumerates the different arguments against anger.
It is important to note that this calling to love others does not mean that one
should be overwhelmed with feelings for others. Marcus Aurelius does not conceive
this love as a strong attachment or affection, causing emotional imbalance. One is
not supposed to regard others as what is good in one’s life or as part of the good.19
One must be solely concerned with virtue. However, being kind and loving others is
a part of virtue.20 This means, among other things, that loving others is not about
experiencing strong feelings for them. Rather, loving others implies a certain behav-
ior, i.e., it implies helping them and acting for their sake. This may well require
trying to change them and help them become virtuous, but Marcus Aurelius is not
exclusively focused on the virtue of the other. He admits that one must be also con-
cerned with the more ordinary objects of care (health, possessions, honor, and so
on). These are indifferents, but have some value, insofar as they agree with nature.
They are something justice has to attend to, and a loving disposition likewise implies
concern with these things. Marcus Aurelius even believes that one should (at least
in some cases) tolerate people’s usual goals and what they think is beneficial, and
help them if one can.21 According to him, the gods themselves care for people in this
way, helping them with these things.22 Thus, despite focusing on virtue as the sole
good in life, Marcus Aurelius accepts human imperfections – at least to a point. This
acceptance seems to manifest itself even in his political views, insofar as he advises
himself not to expect Plato’s polity (i.e., a perfect political regime, in which people
are as good as possible) and to be satisfied with less.23 One must try to improve
others as much as one can, but without excessive expectations and without neglect-
ing their natural needs and their desires for things that are indifferent from a Stoic
standpoint. All this is involved in the loving attitude that is a part of virtue.
It is therefore clear that the care of others outlined in the Meditations is not
entirely insensitive to (or neglectful of) the things that we usually think we should
care for when we care for others. Things such as health, possessions, and honor,
which the Stoics regard as neither good nor bad, are also taken into account, though
they are not the primary object of care. One must primarily aim at the virtue of
19
In fact, one must be even prepared to lose the other at any time. This is what is implied in 11.34:
“Epictetus used to say, as you kissed your child, you should say in your heart: ‘to-morrow maybe
you will die.’”
20
This is the Stoic view on love or friendship (φιλία) and it gives rise to many complex questions.
For a discussion of this, see e.g. Lesses 1993.
21
See 5.36: “Don’t be carried away by imagination which sees only the surface, but help men as
best you may and as they deserve, even though their loss be of something indifferent. Do not,
however, imagine the loss to be an injury, for that habit is bad. Like the old man who, when he went
away, used to ask for his foster-child’s top, but did not forget that it was a top; so you should act
also in this instance.” Cp. also 6.27: “How inhuman it is to forbid men to set out after what appears
suitable and advantageous to themselves. Yet, in a way, you are not allowing them to do this, when-
ever you are indignant because they do wrong; for certainly they are moved to what looks to be
suitable and advantageous to themselves. ‘But it is, in fact, not so.’ Very well, instruct them and
make it plain; don’t be indignant.”
22
See 9.11 and 9.27.
23
See 9. 29.
174 H. Telo
others, which places strong demands upon us, given the Stoic understanding of
virtue. However, this does not mean that one can neglect the other things. Marcus
Aurelius preserves the usual components of the care of others, even if he changes
their meaning and presents a very different reason for being concerned with those
components. Thus, instead of becoming neglectful of others, Marcus Aurelius
actually extends the care of others to a deeper level, reconfiguring our relation to
the others we care for.
9.3 The Scope of the Ideal Care of Others
This is not the only significant extension involved in the ideal care of others outlined
by Marcus Aurelius. According to him, one’s care of others should also have a more
extensive scope than it normally has. Although in general we are aware of the exis-
tence of innumerous other human beings, our relation to them varies greatly. In
geographical, functional and affective terms, some people are closer and others are
more distant. Generally speaking, we all have family (parents, siblings, spouses,
and children), neighbors, friends, masters and tutors, people we serve, connections,
associates, fellow citizens, and there are also foreigners. These different categories
are almost always associated with different degrees of concern and care. However,
Marcus Aurelius (like the Stoics in general) opposes this natural tendency and out-
lines a kind of care that is not confined to (or does not prioritize) those closest to us.
Instead of determining people’s importance according to their relation to us, the
ideal care looks at all people in the same way, grants them the same value, and cares
for them accordingly. This egalitarian view is based on the fact that all human beings
are primarily determined as rational beings. They are thus aware of each other and
of the universe, and as a result they all belong to a single body, ruled by the same
constitutive laws. This is what is primarily involved in the notion of “cosmic citi-
zen” (κοσμοπολίτης) – i.e., of being someone that belongs to a universal or cosmic
polis.24 Each of us is constitutively subjected to (and can also become fully aware
of) the laws of nature that permanently tie us together.
It is important to remark here that Marcus Aurelius does not think of these ties in
an abstract or impersonal way. Although belonging to this cosmic community seems
to involve certain duties to others, the performance of which makes us just, it implies
more than that. We belong to a cosmic community in such a way that we experience
a tension towards others and towards unity, even if we often do not realize it and
24
See in particular 4.4: “If mind is common to us all, then also the reason, whereby we are reason-
ing beings, is common. If this be so, then also the reason which enjoins what is to be done or left
undone is common. If this be so, law also is common; if this be so, we are citizens; if this be so, we
are partakers in one constitution; if this be so, the Universe [κόσμος] is a kind of Commonwealth
[πόλις].” Cp. also 2.16, 3.11, 4.3, 6.44, 10.15, 10.33, 12.36. For more on the notion of cosmic
πόλις and Marcus Aurelius’ cosmopolitanism, see e.g. Stanton 1968 and Hammer 2014.
sever ourselves from the community (without thereby ceasing to belong to it).25
Others are by nature something οἰκεῖον or even what is most οἰκεῖον – i.e., most
familiar, most intimate, that belongs to us the most or with which we identify the
most.26 This applies not only to those that are close to us. We are closely connected
to everybody or, as Marcus Aurelius says, we are all connected by ties of kinship.27
Consequently, the proper relation to everybody is a relation of great concern or of
love. This means that instead of reducing all our relations to an abstract level,
Marcus Aurelius brings them all to the center of our interest. The love and care that
are involved in virtue are a cosmopolitan love and a cosmopolitan care.28 Far from
simply isolating ourselves in a citadel (to use Marcus Aurelius’ well-known meta-
phor), this citadel is open to others and it actually encompasses all human beings.29
We are a part of the totality, each one of us is connected with everybody, and this
means that we should care for everybody, without differentiation. We should pro-
mote everybody’s virtue as far as we can, we should be just to everybody, love
everybody, be kind to everybody, accept everybody’s limitations, and help every-
body with things that are morally indifferent but still have some value from a natural
perspective.
This, of course, raises the difficult question of how we can possibly take care of
everybody. Such a care seems to be impracticable, especially if we are not a sort of
universal emperor. How could we ever affect the lives of all the people alive at this
moment? And what about people who lived before us and who will live after us?
Should we also love them and somehow care for them? How could we ever hope to
affect so many lives?
This is not what Marcus Aurelius is proposing, though. As we saw above, the
kind of care he describes requires us to make the utmost effort to improve others, but
it does not require us to actually be effective in doing so. Moreover, the universal
scope of our care does not mean that we must intervene in everybody’s life at the
same time. Many meditations stress that the kinship with all human beings is some-
thing we must remember in all our particular dealings with particular human beings.
At any given moment, there are people who are physically or functionally closer to
us, and they place particular demands on us in virtue of this proximity. Hence, we
must focus our loving and caring attitude on them.30 In Marcus Aurelius’ case, he
mostly had to deal with people in court and several of his meditations seem to be
25
For this alternative between a tension towards unity and the attempt to sever oneself, cp. 8.34,
9.9, 9.23, 11.8.
26
See in particular 5.20: “(...) man is the nearest creature to ourselves [ἡμῖν ἐστιν οἰκειότατον
ἄνθρωπος] (...).”
27
Cp. e.g. 12.26: “(...) the great kinship [συγγένεια] of man with all mankind (...).”
28
This is a central component of the idea that there is a cosmic city to which we all belong.
29
For the notion of citadel (ἀκρόπολις), see 8.48.
30
See in particular 6.39: “Fit yourself into accord with the things in which your portion has been
cast, and love the men among whom your lot has fallen [οἷς συνείληχας ἀνθρώποις], but love
them truly.”
176 H. Telo
about how to deal with them.31 He also had to be concerned with the people he ruled
and how his political decisions affected them (though he reflects little about this in
the text). For most of us, the situation is very different, but we still have to deal with
family, friends, colleagues, and other people we meet during the course of the day.
We may be tempted to focus our attention and our care on those we spend most of
our time with and are closer to us. Our friends in the broad sense of the word are
important for us and even Marcus Aurelius recognizes that they can play an impor-
tant role in one’s life, especially if they are virtuous and can inspire us.32 However,
although he admits and does not oppose these preferential or partial relations, he
still thinks that this changes nothing in our duty to care for everybody as much as
we can.33 Our family and friends have no particular privilege apart from the fact that
their proximity makes them the most frequent focus of our care. They may be often
the point of application of our care, but this care is – or should be – primarily
referred to everybody. We must therefore try to expand our care as much as possible,
in order to be connected with the whole of humanity. We must regard ourselves as
part of the whole social body and our actions must be always referred to this. Our
actions must be social and cooperative, and try to benefit the whole.34 It is true that
we are probably only able to do so in an extremely limited way, but what is impor-
tant here is how we are disposed and what we ultimately aim at – and those are
things that are entirely under our control.
Marcus Aurelius thus reconciles the particular with the universal, not by putting
aside our relation with those closest to us, but by redefining them (as well as our-
selves) as parts of the whole. We are primarily attached to the totality and, by
becoming aware of this, we change our relation to each particular being (including
ourselves, as we will see in the following section).
9.4 Self-Care and the Care of Others
After determining Marcus Aurelius’ conception of the care of others, we must now
consider the question of how this care of others relates to self-care. More precisely,
we must consider whether the care of others as Marcus Aurelius conceives it is
somehow subordinated to one’s desire to be virtuous and happy, and whether this
means that such a care of others is egoistic and defective.
At first sight, it may seem obvious that we are talking about a way of caring for
others that is self-interested. Marcus Aurelius himself acknowledges that (at least in
31
Cp. e.g. 9.27, 10.36.
32
See 6.48.
33
See 3.4: “(...) he remembers that all reasonable beings are akin to himself, and that although to
care for all man is in accord with man’s nature (...).”
34
Cp. e.g. 6.1, 7.5, 9.23, 11.21, 12.20.
normal circumstances) each of us loves himself or herself most of all.35 We want to

be happy, and according to him this is only possible if we care for ourselves in such
a way as to attain virtue, since this is the only good. Hence, everything seems to be
subordinated to self-care and self-interest, and despite the fact that Marcus Aurelius
describes a complex and extended care of others, there is still the strong suspicion
that one is not really concerned with others. Helping others could simply be a way
of caring for oneself and attaining what one wants: to wit, virtue and happiness. But
is it really so? Are we really only interested in benefitting ourselves, and are the
others just the means to do so? What is our real motivation in caring for others in the
way described by Marcus Aurelius?
If we look at the text, there are a few passages where Marcus Aurelius presents
self-interested reasons for caring for others. For instance, he argues that helping
others or acting for the sake of others or of the community is pleasant and useful for
oneself.36 However, according to Stoic ethics, pleasure and usefulness are not the
reasons why one should act. Instead, one should live according to nature (κατὰ
φύσιν ζῆν), and one’s nature is above all reason. Hence, one should live according
to reason, which means that one should fully develop it and, in doing so, attain vir-
tue. One could then argue, based on this view, that virtue itself requires us to be
genuinely concerned with others. However, this is not exactly the direction that
Marcus Aurelius follows.
When considering why we should care for others, Marcus Aurelius often alludes
to the fact that reason itself is intrinsically social. It opens us up to others that are
equally rational and automatically creates a community of rational beings. This is
implied in the fact that we are all subjected to the same cosmic laws (namely, the
laws of universal nature or, as we might also say, universal reason) and in this sense
we all belong to the same cosmic polis. But our connection with each other is not
just a matter of being subjected to the same laws. We are not only fellow citizens,
but we are also connected by ties of kinship. In a way, we belong to the same family.
We are naturally close (or naturally belong) to each other and we are naturally
united or naturally drawn to each other. Thus, the proper relation to others is a rela-
tion of love (i.e., a relation that acknowledges our natural connection as rational
beings).37
Marcus Aurelius develops this idea in different ways. For instance, he repeatedly
says that we are born for the sake of each other and for cooperation.38 He also argues
that one’s good is the good of all.39 This might be surprising, given the fact that
Stoics define virtue (i.e., individual virtue) as the sole good and, hence, as what hap-
piness consists in. However, we can reconcile these two claims if we consider some-
thing that was mentioned above. As we saw, Marcus Aurelius accepts that, from the
35
Cp. 12.4: “I often wonder how it is that every one loves himself more than all the world (...).”
36
Cp. 6.7, 6.48, 7.13, 7.74.
37
For the idea of being drawn to each other, cp. in particular 9.9.
38
Cp. 4.3, 7.55, 8.56, etc.
39
Cp. 9.23, 10.6, 11.21, 12.20.
178 H. Telo
standpoint of cosmic nature or cosmic reason, other things have some value (even if
they are not defined as morally good). This is precisely what outlines our functions
or duties, which include caring for others in the sense of both trying to develop their
virtue and trying to meet their needs in general. Those are valuable things and being
rational or virtuous requires us to act for the sake of what is valuable. In sum, our
action must aim primarily at virtue (i.e., the correct use of reason), but this involves
aiming at the good functioning of the cosmos (and, more precisely, at the good
functioning of the lives of all human beings that exist therein) according to the laws
of universal nature or universal reason.
This model therefore portrays a complex motivation for caring for others.
Although one is primarily concerned with one’s happiness, one adopts an objective
standpoint or an objective standard (universal nature or universal reason), which
transcends and encompasses both oneself and others.40 This means that in order for
one to live according to one’s nature, one must care for others in the same way one
cares for oneself, because from an objective standpoint (namely, the standpoint of
nature) we all have the same importance. This introduces a collective component at
the core of one’s self-care and one’s pursuit of virtue and happiness. Hence, despite
the emphasis on the individual, Marcus Aurelius’ ethical project is at the same time
directed at the whole of humanity. In caring for the self, one cares for everybody
else, and in caring for everybody else, one cares for the self. As a result, one’s
actions are not self-interested or egoistic in the strict sense, nor can they be reduced
to a form of altruism or self-sacrifice. Rather, the fact that one guides oneself by
nature – i.e., by an objective standard – means that one’s self-love is reorganized
and distributed among all human beings, without neglecting oneself in the process.41
9.5 Appraisal
As shown, Marcus Aurelius presents a refined view not only of what the care of oth-
ers involves, but also of why we should care for others. This entire model of caring
for others is based on strong metaphysical commitments, and especially on the
notion of nature (in the sense of cosmic nature). Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics in
general argue that the universe has a teleological and providential structure, and the
value of ethically indifferent things (which is the basis of our duties, including the
duty of caring for others) is determined by this. However, it is far from clear that the
40
The distinction of these two levels could also be used to explain why one may be indifferent to
others (insofar as they do not directly affect one’s virtue) and at the same time be concerned with
them. On this topic, cp. Wolf 2016.
41
To be more precise, the guidance of nature or reason and the objective standpoint that corre-
sponds to it is the basis of the ideal form of social appropriation (οἰκείωσις), which involves iden-
tifying ourselves with all others or regarding them as our own (οἰκεῖοι). This blurring of the
boundaries between one’s identity and others is in turn the basis of a moral stance that is neither
egoistic nor altruistic. For more on this, cp. in particular Algra 2003.
universe is fashioned according to some rational plan, and even if it were, the Stoics
would still have to prove that they have correctly identified this plan (or at the very
least that it can be correctly identified by the human mind). What does this mean for
the ethical project outlined by Marcus Aurelius, then? Does it collapse if we do not
subscribe to such a complex and problematic metaphysics, or can it still be relevant
in some way?
If we look at the Meditations, Marcus Aurelius himself gives us some indications
about this, especially when he discusses the alternative between the universe being
the result of an intelligent design or simply a chaotic entity, composed of atoms. He
says that even if the latter is the case, we are still rational beings and we still belong
to a social whole.42 This means that we can still develop our reason, we can still
become virtuous, and we can still recognize our tension towards others (and even all
others). If this is so, then the only way of fulfilling this tension or being fully coher-
ent with it is by recognizing the equal importance of others and ourselves – which
also brings us to recognize that caring for others is as important as caring for oneself
or that these forms of care actually involve each other.
It is true that in this case the lack of an intelligent design could render it difficult
to determine what exactly our duties to ourselves and others might be. It could be
difficult to decide the value of things and how we are to care for ourselves and oth-
ers. As a result, it could become very difficult to express our love for ourselves and
others. However, even if we cannot guide ourselves by an absolute standard as the
Stoics did, we can still adopt the idea of natural constitution as a sort of regulative
idea in the Kantian sense. We would then be required to constantly make the effort
to determine it as well as we can, even if it can never be fully determined, and this
would be a central component of our self-care and of the care of others.
Bibliography
Algra, Keimpe. 2003. The mechanism of social appropriation and its role in Hellenistic ethics.
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 25: 265–296.
Annas, Julia. 2008. Virtue ethics and the charge of egoism. In Morality and self-interest, ed. Paul
Bloomfield, 205–221. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Curzer, Howard. 2007. Aristotle: Founder of ethics of care. The Journal of Value Inquiry 41:
221–243.
42
See 10.6: “Whether there are Atoms or Nature, the first postulate must be: ‘I am part of the Whole
which is governed by Nature’; the second: ‘I am allied in some way to the parts that are of the same
kind with me.’ (...) By remembering that I am a part of a Whole so characterized, I shall be well-
affected to all that results from it, and in as much as I am allied in some way to the parts of the same
kind as myself, I will do no unsocial act, rather I will study the good of my kind and direct every
impulse to the common benefit and divert it from what opposes that benefit.” See also 12.14:
“Either the Necessity of destiny and an order none may transgress, or Providence that hears inter-
cession, or an ungoverned welter without a purpose. (...) If an undirected welter, be glad that in so
great a flood of waves you have yourself within you a directing mind; and, if the flood carry you
away, let it carry away flesh, vital-spirit, the rest of you; for your mind [νοῦς] it shall not carry away.”
180 H. Telo
Farquharson, A.S.L. 1944. Μάρκου Ἀντωνίνου αὐτοκράτορος τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν – The meditations of
the emperor Marcus Antoninus. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Foucault, Michel. 2001. L’herméneutique du sujet. Paris: Seuil.
Gourinat, Jean-Baptiste. 2012. Ethics. In A companion to Marcus Aurelius, ed. Marcel van
Ackeren, 420–436. Malden (MA): Blackwell.
Groenhout, Ruth. 1998. The virtue of care: Aristotelian ethics and contemporary ethics of care.
In Feminist interpretations of Aristotle, ed. Cynthia Freeland, 171–200. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press.
Hadot, Pierre. 1997. La citadelle intérieure: Introduction aux “Pensées” de Marc Aurèle. 2nd ed.
Paris: Fayard.
———. 2002. Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique. 2nd ed. Paris: Albin Michel.
Halwani, Raja. 2003. Care ethics and virtue ethics. Hypatia 18: 161–192.
Hammer, Dean. 2014. Marcus Aurelius and the Cosmopolis. In Roman political thought: From
Cicero to Augustine, ed. Dean Hammer, 358–381. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Komter, Aafke. 1995. Justice, friendship and care: Aristotle and Gilligan – Two of a kind? European
Journal of Women’s Studies 2: 151–169.
Lesses, Glenn. 1993. Austere friends: The Stoics and friendship. Apeiron 26: 57–75.
Sander-Staudt, Maureen. 2006. The unhappy marriage of care ethics and virtue ethics. Hypatia
21: 21–39.
Slote, Michael. 2011. The impossibility of perfection: Aristotle, feminism, and the complexities of
ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stanton, G.R. 1968. The cosmopolitan ideas of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Phronesis 13:
183–195.
Toner, Christopher. 2015. Virtue ethics and egoism. In Routledge companion to virtue ethics, ed.
Lorraine Besser-Jones and Michael Slote, 345–357. New York: Routledge.
Wolf, Edita. 2016. Others as matter of indifference in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Acta
Universitatis Carolinae: Philologica 2: 13–23.
Chapter 10
Care and Compassion: A Buddhist
Contribution to the Philosophy of Care
S. J. Thierry Meynard
Abstract This paper makes the case that the notion of compassion in Mahayana
Buddhism could be an important contribution in the constitution of a philosophy of
care for the twenty-first century. After setting up the historical context from where
the notion of compassion emerges with Buddhism, the paper shows that compassion
involves a high degree of personal involvement towards the other, and yet avoids the
risk of overinvolvement by deconstructing the reality to the self.
Keywords Care · Compassion · Buddhism · China · Liang Shuming · Siderits
The care for others was traditionally grounded in Western philosophy on the ontol-
ogy of the person, until contemporary philosophy reframed the concept of person
through the resources of hermeneutics and analytical philosophy, rearticulating the
relation between ethics and metaphysics. In developing the philosophy of care, it
may be useful to bring into the discussion the perspective of Asian traditions, which
stresses the importance of compassion for others as a path for ultimate liberation.
After a brief historical overview of the development of the Mahayana’s concept
of compassion, we shall illustrate it with a twentieth century Chinese philosopher,
showing that compassion leads to a deep spiritual experience of liberation.
Intellectually, there seems to be a paradox between compassion for others and the
doctrine of no-self according to which persons do not exist in reality, and we shall
see in the third part how an analytic philosopher deals with this paradox, promoting
the idea of ironic engagement. In the conclusion, we shall attempt to investigate
how the Buddhist notion of compassion can enrich our notion of care.
S. J. Thierry Meynard (*)
Department of Philosophy, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
e-mail: meiqianl@mail.sysu.edu.cn

Switzerland AG 2021
182 S. J. Thierry Meynard
10.1 From Wisdom to Compassion
For Theravada Buddhism, the most important condition for enlightenment is wis-
dom (Sanskrit prajna, Chinese zhihui), that is, a complete understanding of the Four
Noble Truths (suffering, its cause, its extinction, the way), and when wisdom is
obtained, compassion (Sanskrit karuna, Chinese cibei) comes as a necessary conse-
quence. After having purified his mind of all defilements, the Buddhist practitioner
does the good and avoids evil according to the Eightfold path (right view, thought,
speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration). Also, compassion
uplifts wisdom to a higher stage, since it induces a Buddhist practice which plays an
important role in reaching perfect wisdom, so much that Theravada emphasizes the
personal benefits of practice for attaining wisdom. The practitioner lives a moral life
according to Buddhism, and being compassionate towards those who are still entan-
gled in the illusions of the self and of the world, he/she teaches them wisdom. This
great compassion (Sanskrit Mahakaruna) is considered the last or ultimate of the
eighteenth virtues of Buddha. In brief, in the perspective of Theravada Buddhism,
moral life is mostly the consequence, or the enactment of wisdom.
In the first century AD, the rise of the Mahayana movement within Buddhism
allocated to compassion a more foundational position by which compassion became
equated with wisdom. Compassion then became the essential quality of a bodhisat-
tva, who works for the liberation of all sentient beings, and the condition or founda-
tion for enlightenment. Unlike Theravada which considers compassion as a
consequence of enlightenment, Mahayana understands that compassion, like wis-
dom, is, in fact, the source and essence of enlightenment.
This doctrinal shift corresponds to a change in the social settings of the Buddhist
communities in the Northern branch of Buddhism, which progressively set apart
from the previous model, preserved in the Southern branch. Theravada Buddhism
was centered on communities of monks practicing meditation, and hoping to reach
for wisdom and ultimate liberation. In contrast to the Theravada of the Southern
branch Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism in the Northern branch was not exclusively
centered on the community of monks in quest for wisdom, but promoted the model
of a Buddhist society shaped by the ideal of compassion.
Indeed, for Mahayana Buddhism, individual enlightenment cannot happen in
isolation from others, but only by working towards the enlightenment of all. This
explains the reason for the bodhisattva vow: not to attain nirvana for oneself alone
but to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment. While the Eightfold path in
Theravada stressed the personal benefits of practice, the Mahayana developed a new
framework, called the Six Perfections, based on altruistic practices: donation,
morality, forbearance, effort, meditation and wisdom (Mizuno 1996: 28–29). In this
list, the first three practices of donation, morality and forbearance, clearly have a
social dimension, but even the next three practices of effort, meditation and wisdom,
have a strong social and ethical dimension; for example, individual meditation in
the Mahayana tradition is focused on developing skills to train the mind to be com-
passionate for all sentient beings.
10 Care and Compassion: A Buddhist Contribution to the Philosophy of Care 183
New developments occurred later. For the Huayan School, a school of Mahayana
Buddhism which flourished in China under the Tang dynasty, the six Perfections
constitute the first six stages leading to wisdom, but this leads further to four other
stages in which compassion is brought to its completeness: in the seventh stage, the
practitioner is born into this world to bring liberation to all sentient beings; in the
eight, he/she works to transfer his merits to others by means of the vow of bodhisat-
tva; in the ninth, he/she achieves complete compassion, and in the tenth, he/she
attains Buddhahood (Mizuno 1996: 202).
The bodhisattva goes to the extreme of compassion since he/she makes the total
sacrifice of himself/herself for other. As the eight century Indian Buddhist monk and
scholar Santiveda says: “May a rain of food and drink descend to clear away the
pain of thirst and hunger, and during the aeon of famine may I myself change into
food and drink” (Harvey 2000: 124). Indeed, what a better proof of the non-existence
of the self that sacrificing oneself for the other, showing him/her not to cling to the
self. We could say that the bodhisattva is like a “martyr” in the sense that he/she
sheds his/her life for other in order to witness (this is the etymological sense of
martyrium) a truth to the other, a truth which consists for Christians in the salvation
in Jesus-Christ, and for the Buddhists, in the liberation from the entanglements of
the self.
Buddhism holds the idea of karmic retribution, meaning that good deeds will
necessarily produce good results in the future, while bad deeds will bring bad con-
sequences. An ethical action brings necessarily merits, but the ethical agent should
do meritorious deeds without considering the merits. As Kogen Mizuno says,
“donation is conceived as selfless, unconditioned act in which there is no conscious-
ness of being either the giver or the receiver and no thought of reward or merit from
the act of donation” (Mizuno 1996: 31). This being said, the Pure Land school of
Mahayana greatly emphasizes the accumulation of merits (gongde) through chari-
table actions to obtain a better reincarnation in the next life, and this may lead to
build an attachment to the self, which runs contrary to the spirit of Buddhism. But
Pure Land Buddhism precisely sets up complex mechanisms of transfer of merits,
so that one does not accumulate merits for oneself but transfers the merits to help
others, especially parents or grand parents who are prisoners of the netherworld.
This illustrates an important dimension of the Buddhist compassion extending not
only to the living but also to the dead. Here it should be observed that the karmic law
of retribution operates absolutely only within the samsara, that is within the cycle
of death and birth which constitutes the world, and Buddhism aims precisely at
making the karmic law inoperative, by leaving the samsara and reaching nirvana.
From this brief presentation above, we can see how compassion has become to
play a foundational role in the thought and the practice of the believers in Mahayana
Buddhism.
10.2 Compassion Towards Other as Path of Liberation
To be truly compassionate towards others may involve obtaining merits and trans-
ferring them to the persons in needs, as Pure Land Buddhism teaches. Compassion
for others may also require personal sacrifices to awaken others from their illusions,
and this may involve the whole psychological and moral resources of a person.
I would like to illustrate this with the example of a twentieth-century Chinese
Buddhist philosopher Liang Shuming (1895–1988). Like Buddha, Liang was per-
sonally shocked by human suffering, like the death of friends or the physical toil of
a rickshaw-puller. The tragic circumstances surrounding the end of the Chinese
empire in 1911 and the political and social chaos in the following three decades
accentuated his sensitivity to human suffering. He was also sensitive to the suffering
of plants and animals which we make die to feed us.
Liang became extremely sensitive to the suffering of people facing death with
anguish. From the point of view of Buddhism, death itself should not be feared, but
it is only because people are attached to life that they fear to lose it. By dying with
anguish, people perpetuate continuously their existence of suffering within the sam-
sara. On the contrary, the one who has cut all the attachments to life can escape
completely the cycle of death and birth, and reach nirvana.
When Liang witnessed the psychological suffering of people unable to accept the
reality of their death and agonizing with anguish, he was giving rise to a “true and
real feeling,” making their suffering his own. Liang would know intellectually that
their anxiety is ill-founded, unnecessary, and ultimately empty, but instead of teach-
ing Buddhist philosophy, he would take on himself their psychological pain. Moved
by feelings of compassion, Liang would then feel compelled to “leave” the world,
that is, to renounce personally to all the attachments to the world. Liang thought that
only this attitude of personal renouncement and sacrifice could awaken others in
their final hour, so that they could leave peacefully the world, renounce their own
attachments to life, and avoid perpetuating their existence of anxiety into the next
reincarnation. The compassionate person and the dying person could communicate
with one another at the deepest level of reality, beyond both life and death (Meynard
2011: 64–65).
In his own personal life, Liang had lived this spirit of renouncement to the attach-
ments of the world. He lived like a Buddhist monk within the world. While keeping
all his life a vegetarian diet and often meditating the sutras, he was engaged in pro-
grams for educating peasants in the countryside since 1921, after he had renounced
his teaching position at Peking University.
Liang was living the ideal of the bodhisattva we talked above. By his way of life
and attitude of not grasping, of not craving on life, he would hope to awaken others
to another dimension of reality, so that he and the others may be freed from the
attachments to life, and reach together ultimate liberation.
As we can see, the care for other takes into consideration not only the material
needs of others, but more importantly his spiritual welfare. It does not suffice to give
food and alleviate physical pain, but true compassion embraces as much as possible
the psychological anxiety of the other to find together liberation. Without walking
with the other the path of anxiety and finding together a way out, compassion for the
other would be necessarily limited, and even misguided.
Somehow Liang’s way of embracing the anxiety of the other may appear not
entirely genuine, because Liang is already enlightened and knows that the causes
for anxiety in the other are ultimately unreal. Though the causes are unreal, the suf-
fering is real, and even though an enlightened person like Liang may not be able to
experience at that time the suffering of the other at the same degree of intensity, he
would have certainly remembered how in his own young age he had himself expe-
rienced psychological anxiety to the point of attempting suicide twice. This is
because Liang himself went through suffering and found peace in Buddhism that he
was able to accompany others through the same path of liberation.
Liang’s compassion for others may appear as lacking the concrete mediations
which have been the core elements of the philosophy of care. Indeed, Liang did not
provide physical or material care to the elderly or the ill. However, he was con-
cerned with the spiritual care of the persons, and he concretely exercised his care by
being with the people, accompanying them through their anguishes to show them a
way out.
10.3 Paradox of Compassion Towards Empty Persons
As we have shown above, Buddhist compassion had been the foundation of

Mahayana Buddhism, and Liang Shuming illustrates in the modern time this spirit
of compassion for others, by accepting to walk with them a life of renunciation. At
a more theoretical level, the notion of compassion for others seems to lack a secure
position. Indeed, for Buddhism, the self (or personhood) does not exist, and the
negation of the self appears devastating for any ethical enterprise. If there is no idea
of a self, if myself and the other are not real, then I have no good reasons to care for
myself and for others. Also, if the other person lacks any uniqueness and particular-
ity, the act of caring being becomes anonymous and disengaged towards the con-
crete other, and the care-giver fails to show due respect to what matters most to the
other beyond the act of care, i.e. to be recognized for who he/she is. In other words,
the Buddhist negation of the idea of a self appears making the ethical relationship
completely impersonal and disengaged, failing to reach its real target.
Though Buddhism denies the existence of the self, it still acknowledges that the
illusion of the existence of a self creates a suffering which is very real and concrete,
and only by going beyond the illusion can we get liberated from suffering. As we
saw in the case of Liang Shuming, the practice towards liberation needs to engage
all the psychological resources at the individual level, and therefore, Buddhism has
traditionally recognized that the idea of a self can still be a useful conventional and
temporary truth as long as it is not constructed as an absolute truth which would
hinder liberation for oneself and others.
Modern philosophers have tackled to interpret afresh the paradox of the Buddhist
notion of compassion for others. In Personal identity and Buddhist Philosophy:
Empty Persons (2003), the American philosopher Mark Siderits uses analytic phi-
losophy to show the articulation between the Buddhist negation of the idea of per-
son and the Buddhist affirmation of the legitimacy of the idea of person as a
conventional truth, and this articulation is aptly expressed by two words within the
title: “empty persons.” In chapter fifth of his book, Siderits deals specifically on the
ethical dimension of the question, and he comes forth with the idea of a middle path
in ethics, an ironic engagement: “We are able of engaged attitudes despite a knowl-
edge that would seem distancing, in the way irony is usually thought to be” (Siderits
2003: 107). Siderits shows the need for a full engagement in two points. First, cul-
tivating attitudes towards persons alleviates more effectively the suffering of con-
crete persons and promotes their individual welfare. Beyond the help given to
concrete persons, the engagement towards them is indirectly instrumental in allevi-
ating the overall suffering and promoting the overall welfare. Second, only by being
engaged with concrete persons and paying attention to their specific needs, only by
having heartfelt compassion towards others, I am effectively focused on the needs
of the others and do not treat the recipient “as a mere means to some private-end of
the care-giver” (Siderits 2003: 109). Engagement should be full and real, but at the
same time Siderits qualifies the attitude of this engagement as ironic: “We can be
genuinely engaged persons while still preserving the sense of irony to escape the
suffering that is the usual fate of persons. We are smart enough to do two things at
once” (Siderits 2003: 109). This sense of irony does not deny the reality of suffer-
ing, but denies making suffering the ultimate and absolute reality. The word irony is
understood here not in the sense of derision and mockery that it has for example in
French modern language, but as pointing out a discrepancy between the appearance
and the reality.
In his last chapter, Siderits applies his concept of ironic engagement to the notion
of bodhisattva. There, the ironic engagement does not focus exclusively on the
notion of person, but it extends to all our ontological commitments, because the
bodhisattva remains in this world, without being attached to it. Siderits analyses a
traditional exercise of compassion for the aspirant bodhisattva, by which one
exchanges identity with the other: “One seeing oneself from the first-person per-
spective of those unenlightened and suffering individuals one wishes to help”
(Siderits 2003: 204). By adopting the point of view of the other (which is after all
an illusion same as mine), one can effectively discard his/her attachment to his/her
own subjectivity. Also, only by taking the perspectives of the unenlightened, the
bodhisattva can effectively help them acting in a certain way and refrain from bad
karmic deeds. Siderits stresses that there is the risk of acquiescing in the bad habits
and preferences that create suffering, and therefore the bodhisattva must retain
firmly his/her commitment to avoid any attachment and defilement. The quality
required in this regard is flexibility, avoiding superiority and overbearing (Siderits
2003: 207).
It seems to me that this notion of ironic engagement is quite helpful if it is not
understood in a nihilistic fashion, but as expressing the unavoidable tension between
the concreteness of our engagements and their openness to a reality beyond every
words and deeds. The irony opens precisely a space, a distance by which our full
engagement and care for concrete persons escapes the conceptual and psychological
attachments to our own self and to others. Ironic engagement does not imply a
detachment from the concrete persons, as if we do not really care for them, but a
kind of engagement which opens the relationship to something beyond.
10.4 C
onclusion: Contribution of Buddhism Towards
the Notion of Care
After this historical and philosophical investigation on the notion of compassion in

Mahayana Buddhism, I would like here to spell out what the contributions of this
notion to our philosophy of the care could be. The first contribution could be in the
purification of our will to care for others, in which there may be strong affective and
selfish dimensions. The will to care for others can be a way to dominate and control
them. Nietzsche had shown how a certain kind of Christian ethics could result into
a domination oppressing the life of individuals. More recently Foucault had shown
how pregnant the technological control of our modern societies over human biologi-
cal life was. In the domain of medical care, voices are raised against prolonged
artificial life support (acharnement thérapeutique), by which human life is sup-
ported through extraordinary and artificial means without consideration of the gen-
eral good of the person. In all such instances, Buddhism would deconstruct the
ideological constructions upon which are built our ethical actions. Especially preva-
lent is the common conception establishing a duality between the one who performs
the ethical act, and the one who receives it. On the contrary, Buddhism does not
postulate that there is a fundamental difference between the self and the other, but
considers the duality between myself and the other as a construction based on our
ignorance, and thus, it invites each one to return to the true nature common to all,
which is “no-self.” Only by returning to this common nature, there will be fewer
projections over the others. This purification of the intentions between the care-
receiver and care-giver invites to a necessary adjustment of how institutions of care
operate today.
Another contribution of Buddhism is to stress the universal dimension of ethics.
As we have said, the bodhisattva makes a vow to help all sentient beings to get liber-
ated from ignorance and suffering. For practical matters, one is limited in his/her
psychological and material means, but ideally, he/she should not be making differ-
ences among people. The migration crisis that we are facing today in many parts of
the world bring a challenge to this ideal of universality. While our ethical deeds
usually start from the people closer to us and connected by blood, language, culture,
and politics, the ideal of bodhisattva challenges our conceptual, psychological and
institutional attachments to those concepts of blood, language, culture, and politics,
and opens to a beyond.
Also, Buddhism offers intellectual and moral resources to widen the scope of
ethics in encompassing all sentient beings. An ethics which would be constructed
only on the concept of human person understood in isolation from the other forms
of life seem today inadequate. It may not be necessary to adopt the Buddhist notion
of transmigration or metempsychosis, which was also held by Pythagoras and Plato,
to widen the scope of ethics towards all forms of life. The Buddhist deconstruction
of the notion of person and the commitment of the bodhisattva towards all sentient
beings are enough for promoting a renewal of our reflection for a care extended to
all forms of life, and beyond, to the entire earth and cosmos.
In conclusion, the Buddhist notion of compassion could be an important resource
for our reflection on the roads to care. This compassion takes into consideration the
needs of the other, and yet refuses to enclose the other in his/her needs, promoting
instead a common path of liberation from the unnecessary anxieties of life towards
a greater freedom.
Bibliography
Harvey, Peter. 2000. An introduction to Buddhist ethics: Foundation, values and ethics. Cambridge:
Meynard, Thierry. 2011. The religious philosophy of Liang Shuming: The hidden Buddhist.
Boston: Brill.
Mizuno, Kogen. 1996. Essentials of Buddhism, Basic Terminology and Concepts of Buddhist
Philosophy and Practice. Tokyo: Kosei.
Siderits, Mark. 2003. Personal identity and Buddhist philosophy: Empty persons. Aldershot:
Ashgate.
Chapter 11
Care in the Protection of the Patriarchal
Family According to Francisco
de Vitoria’s ‘De Restitutione’
Maria Camps
Abstract Family, as a basic cell of social functioning, is based among other pre-
suppositions in the possibility of the attribution of legitimate fatherhood and mater-
nity, ensuring the genealogical line, the inheritance of titles and the redistribution of
wealth by inheritance. Thus, marriage, in a patriarchal society, is an indispensable
institution in order to ensure the stated purpose. However, given the impossibility of
proving paternity, only achieved in the second half of the twentieth century, through
DNA tests, the problem of adultery of women, with the consequent possibility of
procreation of illegitimate children, legitimized for marriage, for if they assume the
putative father, poses problems in the application of commutative justice among
sons and daughters, facing the principle of legal assurance in the case of inheritance
of property and titles. We propose to discuss on the care to be taken in the manage-
ment of the problem of adulterous children by the mother in order to protect the
legitimate progeny and to maintain the basic foundations of the patriarchal regime.
Our reflection is based on the Commentary of Francisco de Vitoria, O.P. on com-
mutative justice and restitution.
Keywords Patriarchal family model · Care · Legitimate fatherhood · Commutative

justice · Extramarital relationships · Restitution · Francisco de Vitoria (1592)
11.1 Introductory Note
The present communication focuses on the problem related to the prudence to be

applied in order to maintain the basic cell of social functioning, the family, in a
model of patriarchal society. We take as reference the existing debate on the subject
between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe, starting with the biblio-
graphical collection of Thomas Aquinas and Francisco de Vitoria. However, it must
M. Camps (*)
e-mail: camps.maria@gmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
190 M. Camps
be borne in mind that this question of social order, such is the approach to be taken,
remained unchanged for centuries in terms of its assumptions.
The twentieth century brought us, in the field of biological sciences and medi-
cine, the possibility of overcoming some uncertainties regarding the fruit of sexual-
ity and reproduction. It seems that the twenty-first century has brought fresh ones to
light that until very recently were not imaginable and that also alert us to the care to
be taken with the functioning of the family. Some of them have come to initiate the
debate on the radical change of family models, once again brought about by scien-
tific research in the field of biology, and social change – e.g. sex change, the so-
called surrogate mothers, the use of anonymous sperm and egg banks for the purpose
of medically-assisted procreation, among others, that we will not occupy ourselves
with, but that also call on the theme of prudence, since they interfere with ancestral
models, rooted in millennia-old habits, that are the foundations of our civilization,
which shaped stereotypes, mentalities and ideologies favouring the proper perfor-
mance of the model. Our approach is not in the field of morality, but rather an analy-
sis of the emerging problems of social and cultural management of family-functioning,
in order to prevent entropy of the reference model. One of the crucial pillars on
which the patriarchal model is based is the marriage as an institution that legitimates
procreation, the transmission of names, property, and titles of nobility. That is, the
legitimacy of the offspring occurs within marriage having as its main core the
assumption of female fidelity. Let us not forget, as it has been mentioned before,
that discoveries in the field of biology such as the discovery of the reproductive
cycle of women, in the first half of the twentieth century, and efficient contracep-
tion, such as the use of the pill and other trustworthy methods, in the second half of
the last century, had a profound effect on sexuality within and outside marriage. The
spreading of contraception also encountered well-known obstacles of a cultural and
ideological nature, which also indirectly showed the fear that sexual freedom of
women could interfere with the patriarchal model and the institution of marriage, as
indeed it has happened.
During the sixteenth century, the question of legitimate fatherhood depended
heavily on the sexual behaviour of women during and even before marriage. The
fact that children born into marriage were not the husband’s children entailed seri-
ous problems of restitution if their illegitimacy was to be discovered. This was not
easy, since the child itself would not suspect and the woman might not know if she
had sex with another man or men other than her husband. Even if there were suspi-
cions, it would not be possible to affirm it with certainty. It should be considered
that DNA tests with greater reliability only emerged at the end of twentieth century
and only today have a probability of around one hundred percent. This problem
raises questions of commutative justice, particularly in the field of restitution. It is
not only a matter of the moral condemnation of the act of adultery, since there may
even be no adultery, in case the woman, when contracting marriage, is already in
early-pregnancy and does not come to suspect that the child is not of the putative
father. Hence also the focus on female virginity at marriage, transformed into a
taboo, ensuring that the offspring can only be from the husband. Society needs to be
certain, within a high degree of probability, therefore creating the means of control
11 Care in the Protection of the Patriarchal Family According to Francisco de Vitoria… 191
it needs to avoid dysfunctions. These means are mainly ideological, religious,

beliefs, myths and, of course, legal norms. The paradox in patriarchal society is that,
on the basis of the father’s order and authority, the only lineage that can be proven,
in fact, is the maternal one, since it is easily witnessable, unlike the paternal one.
When queens gave birth there was a court of observers who witnessed the birth in
order to ensure that the child was indeed of the queen and that there would have
been no change or abduction.
11.2 The Restitution
What does restitution consist of? Restitution consists of repairing the injury or dam-
age caused with or without blame to a third party. It assumes the existence of actual
damage and an appropriate causal link between the event producing the injury and
the production of the damage. When should it be restituted? The person who caused
the damage to the third party has to do the restitution. Wilful intent is not enough,
and the existence of measurable damage is also required. The general principle of
the doctrine recommends that restitution should be made in kind (natural reconstitu-
tion), provided that reparation is possible, and that the victim is restored to the state
in which it would be if there had been no damage. When this is not possible, either
by the disappearance of the object or because natural reconstitution would be too
onerous, the object should be replaced by something of the same kind and quality,
or by material compensation. The same happens when there is an irremediable loss
of a non-replaceable good such as life, honour, irreversible physical or psychologi-
cal damages, among others. In view of all this, it is clear that restitution belongs to
the field of commutative justice. We are within the scope of the horizontality of
social relations and not in the domain of the hierarchical relations typical of dis-
tributive justice of, above all, meritocratic inspiration. We are facing equality crite-
ria. The theme of this communication focuses on the possibility of the family core
being affected in its functional balance due to the presence of illegitimate children,
because, although born within marriage, they are legitimised by it, until the hus-
band’s spurious fatherhood is discovered or revealed. This situation could lead to
problems of commutative justice among siblings, particularly as regards the distri-
bution of benefits such as hereditary titles, estates, use of surnames, and others.
Thomas Aquinas (Vitoria 1932: 175) deals with restitution and wonders if one is
always obliged to restitute. In reply to the objections of those who asserted that
replacement did not always take place, e.g., in cases that lead to the disclosure of a
crime, Thomas Aquinas stated that, even if a man is not obliged to disclose his
offense to other men, he is bound to reveal it to God through confession. Thus, the
restitution of the third party’s object may be done through a priestly mediation to
whom the fault is confessed. Whenever the restitution emerges from a fact that
evokes fraud or injury in addition to the actual injury of property or moral damages,
a sin is committed. That is, according to Thomas Aquinas there are two aspects to
consider: the first refers to the thing taken in itself; the second concerns the act of
192 M. Camps
subtraction. As for the former, it is clear that restitution is compulsory. With respect
to the act of subtraction, if it is injurious, the injured person should be compensated.
Regarding the answer to the second objection, namely what should be done when a
thing cannot be restored without dishonour, Caietano (Vitoria 1932: 179) considers
the rule that no one is obliged to return goods of a lower order to the detriment of
higher-order goods. Therefore, as temporal goods are inferior to immaterial ones
such as honour and reputation, there will be no restitution when such values are at
stake. Francisco de Vitoria criticizes Caietano and tries to prove that restitution is
due, notwithstanding the dishonour or the damage to reputation. In the case of a
thief that is clear, but what happens when it comes to another type of situation that
involves a special treatment? This is where the problem of children born of extra-
marital relationships is placed, during marriage, since it brings about the dishonour
of the family, of the husband, of the child, and of the woman herself. The child is
legitimised by marriage and paternity attributed to the mother’s husband.
(a) First case
A woman, who has other legitimate children, conceives a firstborn of an adulter-
ous or extramarital relationship. The child is legitimised for being born into mar-
riage but it is not the son or daughter of the putative father. He is the firstborn. He is
the heir of the estate and, possibly, of hereditary titles. The woman, by revealing the
crime, dishonours the son, the family, the husband and herself. The whole family is
affected. How can restitution be effected in regard to the wrong done to the legiti-
mate children? There are two possibilities: she can either compensate the other chil-
dren for the loss of the estate and discloses her crime, or she restitutes through the
confessor. This situation is obligatory in the case of the totality of the estate, when
the illegitimate son is the firstborn. In this case, he would inherit the whole of the
assets of the putative father, in order to avoid the subdivision of the family’s estate,
therefore harming the legitimate siblings. Francisco de Vitoria adds:
Situation A – A woman has a large estate and her husband has a scarce one. She
can restitute without disclosing her crime. In this case the woman can give the eldest
legitimate son the greater part. The woman’s estate will serve to compensate the
legitimate children, with the illegitimate succeeding her in a smaller portion.
Situation B – The woman is now a widow and she is rich. She has several chil-
dren, so she can divide her estate in equal parts among all her children, without
revealing her crime, regardless of their legitimacy or otherwise, since the property
is hers and she no longer has a husband.
(b) Second case
The woman does not have legitimate children but her husband has siblings who
succeed him in the inheritance. The woman can donate to her brothers-in-law her
dowry and she does not have to reveal her adultery. All authors agree on this point.
(c) Third case
The woman has no property. In this case, she cannot repair the damage. She must
reveal her crime.
11 Care in the Protection of the Patriarchal Family According to Francisco de Vitoria… 193
Situation A – The confession of adultery is advantageous. We are facing a situa-

tion in which the woman believes that the illegitimate child will voluntarily with-
draw from the position of the putative father’s heir, when knowing the identity of its
true father. In this case, the woman must reveal the crime.
Situation B – The confession of adultery is not advantageous because the woman
considers that the illegitimate child will not relinquish its putative father’s inheri-
tance. He would accuse his mother of wanting to harm him in order to benefit
another brother, for example. Then she should not reveal her fault in vain and
thereby dishonour herself. According to Adriano, we are facing a situation in which
the priest confessor should intervene, so that restitution can be carried out. The
confessor should say to the husband and the legitimate child something like this:
“someone from the past, whose name it is not possible for you to know, owes you a
thousand ducats, but is unable to re-pay you. Do you, therefore, renounce such a
sum? “Each of them must answer: “ I renounce.” In this way, the woman will be
exempted from the duty of restitution. Francisco de Vitoria criticizes this solution
because he understands that if the woman cannot re-pay, she is not obliged to do so.
In addition, the renunciation could create a suspicion in the husband. He would
wonder where such a debt could have come from, and not only could he suspect his
wife, but also innocent people unaware of the situation. Hence, according to Vitoria,
the creditor’s renunciation is not required when the debtor is unknown.
(d) Fourth case
There are situations in which, in spite of the infamy, the woman is obliged to
reveal her crime, even if that involves putting her own life at risk. These are situa-
tions in which a person’s life and the honour come second, in comparison to things
of a higher value, as for example, in the case of the succession to a kingdom.
Francisco de Vitoria emphasises that the kingdom of Spain would not be given to a
bastard who was the firstborn, but rather to the legitimate heir, in order to respect
nobility titles, lineage and the Spanish monarchy itself. The kingdom of Spain is
worth more than the life and honour of the queen. He reinforces this idea, providing
another example: if the queen fell ill and there was only one doctor who could cure
her and asked for the kingdom of Spain as the price of saving the queen’s life, this
would be illegitimate because the kingdom is worth more than the life of its monarch.
(e) Fifth case
It is a situation in which the authors consider that the woman is acting in good
faith. For example, a few days before the marriage the woman had sexual relations
with a man who would not be her future husband and became pregnant. In this case,
it is considered that she should not reveal the situation because she acted in good
faith. That is, the woman did not commit adultery. If she were to reveal the situation
to her son, and even if she was sure that the father was not her husband, he might not
believe his mother and might think she wanted to disown him. Therefore, she must
maintain secrecy about the situation in order to avoid her infamy and that of her
own family.
194 M. Camps
11.3 Some Conclusions
We have pointed out only the most relevant examples of the situation inherent to the
illegitimacy of children born of extramarital relations, analysed by Francisco de
Vitoria. We emphasised the aforementioned, regarding the care theologians and
jurists put in the protection of the patriarchal family-model during the sixteenth
century. They were aware that the model itself was not infallible and that paternity
could be presumed, but could not be proven, unlike maternity. Motherhood is proved
by direct testimonial evidence and notorious evidence. Hence, the relevance of mar-
riage as the only social institution able to legitimise offspring. Care should be taken
to preserve values such as honour, good family name and succession. In a society
which is eminently misogynist and where women occupy a place of almost absolute
subordination, it seems at first glance that theologians and jurists are quite under-
standing and even tolerant of the fruits of female adultery, giving to Caesar what
belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. That is, even if they allow a
woman not to disclose her sin before her family and society, they order her to con-
fess it to God. The sacrament of Reconciliation and the power of priestly mediation
occupy a key place as the atonement for guilt. As we have also pointed out, the
model implied the maintenance and reproduction of the social norm imposed by
female virginity until the moment of the wedding, as well as the duty of absolute
fidelity during marriage, since, unlike male infidelity, whose fruits did not affect
directly the family because they were external to it, the existence of children born of
adultery or of premarital relationships on the maternal side, dangerously put social
structures in question. Hence, instead of tolerance, we prefer to emphasise pragma-
tism in the choice of solutions to the real problems affecting family and the care in
preserving it, even if appearances were to be kept, as it is still common nowadays,
in spite of all the means that sciences provide us with to respond to some of the situ-
ations described herein, but which decorum and appearances often prefer to ignore.
Reference
de Vitoria, Francisco. 1932. In Comentarios del Maestro Francisco de Vitoria a la Secunda

Secundae de Santo Tomás, ed. Vicente Beltrán de Heredia. Salamanca: San Esteban.
Chapter 12
Care: A Virtue Among Virtues
José Beato
Abstract Within the context of the relationships between virtue ethics and the eth-
ics of care, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the theoretical conditions that allow
conceiving and defining care as a virtue. The move from natural caring to ethical
caring, especially by extending its scope and range to strangers and distant people,
opens and invests a particular field of ethical “demands of the world”, and a specific
form of moral “excellence”, that is, a virtue. Care as a disposition (care for) and a
practice (take care of) presents a triple cognitive, affective and volitional dimension
conducive to morally relevant actions. This same functional structure is recognized
in the most common definitions of virtue(s). Intrinsically empathetic and altruistic,
aiming, in the first instance, at the well-being of the other, we may call it a “rela-
tional virtue” that challenges the constitution of the moral agent as a “relational self”.
Keywords Virtue ethics · Ethics of care · Virtue · Care
12.1 Introduction
Our purpose is to address the following question: Is care a virtue? Although, the
issue is not to discuss the ongoing inquiry about the relations between virtue ethics
and the ethics of care, we will compare and contrast some aspects of these two
approaches to normative ethics. Doing so, one must acknowledge the specificity of
these two views on moral practice and theory, and, at the same time, consider their
increasing internal diversity. Arguing for a sharp and clear boundary between care
ethics and virtue ethics ventures to be schematic and unfit to the complexity of the
theoretical field. Subtlety and prudence are needed in order to avoid a simplistic
reductionism, or expeditious foundationalism, proclaiming the primacy of one over
the other, or even to escape a misplaced eclecticism erasing conflicts and looking for
simplistic alliances.
J. Beato (*)
e-mail: jose.beato71@gmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
196 J. Beato
If by “care” we mean the faculty of “caring for” and “caring about”, coupled
with the ability to “take care of”, we are certainly before an emotional and sensitive
disposition and, simultaneously, the willingness and the practical reasoning enabling
one to carry out concrete “care giving” actions.
If caring for the dear and near ones, as a basic concern and practice (“natural
caring”), is required for survival and thrive, an ethical conception of care – which,
namely, extends its scope and range to strangers and distant others – is morally
“virtuous”, not only “good”, but in fact, “excellent” and “admirable”. Care is a dis-
position and a practice responding to some of the world’s morally relevant demands.
The former being correct, we can argue that “care” may be fairly seen as a “vir-
tue”, both intuitively and conceptually. However, this virtue is prima facie aiming at
the well being and flourishing of others; explicitly, the vulnerable and dependent
ones. Therefore, “care” is, we may say, a “relational virtue”. A classical understand-
ing of “virtue ethics” tends to be, at least, reluctant to embrace the concept of “rela-
tional ontology” – which “construes the entire self as constituted, known, and
maintained through relationships” – as proposed by Maureen Sander-Staudt (2006,
p. 36). Nonetheless, conceiving “care” as a “virtue”, a virtue among other virtues, is
most challenging for both “virtue theory” and “virtue ethics” stricto sensu. In fact,
a virtue of care – as intrinsically empathetic, dialogical, other-regarding – engages
the moral agent on a most fundamental or radical openness to otherness.
12.2 Ethics of Care Versus Virtue Ethics
That being said, a first question arises: which are or might be the relations between
the evolving project of an “Ethics of care” (or “Care Ethics”) – as a comprehensive
moral theory grounded on the basic notion of caring, as a practice and value – and
the contemporary renewal of “Virtue Ethics”? Some answers to this question have
been brought forward. Based on a quick overview of the main literature addressing
it, and on our own conclusions, we can discern three fundamental positions.
(1) The first perspective is to assert like Virginia Held does, that “Ethics of care”
has become a moral theory on in its own right, both consistent in normative and
even meta-ethical issues. In this way, it embodies an original and reliable alterna-
tive, theoretically consistent and pragmatically fruitful, not only to Kantian deontol-
ogy and to Utilitarian consequentialism, but also to Virtue Ethics itself. It’s certainly
needless to remember that Virtue Ethics re-emerged as a third way to the former
two. One can point out as decisive events in the revival of virtue ethics, beyond, the
publication in 1958 of Elizabeth Anscombe’s paper, “Modern Moral Philosophy”,
the critical reaction to “A Theory of Justice” by John Rawls that reduced the whole
moral doctrine to a choice between deontology and utilitarianism. Rawls also sus-
tains the “priority of the right over the good”, in the context of a procedural public
morality.
Virtue Ethics and the Ethics of Care, in fact, begin sharing the same opponents.
The respect for duty and strict obedience to rules or universal laws, the impartial
12 Care: A Virtue Among Virtues 197
calculation of utility, or the formal adequacy of mutually disinterested individuals to

contractual justice do not provide answers to the personal or interpersonal motiva-
tions, or flourishing issues, and do not pay attention to the stiltedness of close rela-
tionships. Neither have they enhanced the practical reasoning or emotional response
implied by concrete situations and dilemmas.
Nevertheless, Carol Gilligan’s “different voice” gives rise to a theory that focuses
on women’s moral experience and care relationships, in which the constitutive vul-
nerability of the human condition is highlighted and understood as crucial.
Therefore, such a theory is often presented as “an ethical theory by and for women”
(Berges 2015: 1): a “feminist ethics” (Superson 2011: 221) seeking to emancipate
itself from the pre-modern historical burden that Virtue Ethics carries, and, also,
from gender essentialism.
Thus, a usual criticism, from a feminist point of view, consists in underlining the
androcentric and elitist profile of the classical aretaic ethics. Authors such as Susan
Moller Okin denounce that view, from Homer to Alasdair MacIntyre’s virtue theory
(Okin 1996: 211–220). Virtues are qualities of character and moral aptitudes con-
sidered admirable, but only found in free men of high social status. In Ancient
Greece, namely for Aristotle, moral excellence does not seem to be within reach of
women, slaves, and strangers, since they are excluded, in the city-state, from public
life. (Berges 2015: 10–12, 110–112). Virtues have their full expression within the
Polis: no flourishing is possible without civic participation. Slaves and women are
confined to private life and, of course, as Sandrine Berges points out: “Aristotle and
others from that tradition, including Plato, fail to take into account that caring for
the young, the old and the sick is in and of itself a virtuous activity which contrib-
utes to the flourishing of a community” (Berges 2015: 113).
The lexicon does not fail to express the androcentric and elitist trait within this
idea of the fulfilment of a noble purpose or function. In fact, the Greek term for what
we call “virtue” is “arete” (ἀρετή), meaning “excellence”. It’s the noun correspond-
ing to the adjective “aristos” (άριστος), which is the superlative degree of “aga-
thos” (ἀγαθός): good, noble, and valorous. The root “ar-” refers to masculinity or
virility and hence to the notions of strength and courage. So, the Greek “arete” is the
excellence and perfection of the citizen, an adult male free from manual labour. The
corresponding Latin term “virtus” comes from “vir”, which means virile strength. It
emphasizes the idea of potency of action, power, effectiveness and excellence of
achievement, fulfilling a given nature or essence (Gobry 2000: 23; Okin 1996: 212).
Another distinguishing factor between the Ethics of Care and Virtue Ethics is
that the latter focuses on the dispositions, capacities, and character traits of indi-
viduals, within the dynamics of their own flourishing and improvement as moral
agents. One central issue is about the acquisition, possession and expression of such
individual moral capabilities. Instead, the ethics of care claims to be rooted not in
the individuals but in the relations. So, Virtue Ethics’ focus on the agent’s character
and disposition seems, to some care ethicists, to miss the point: the close relations -
asymmetrical and dependent - and the practices that support them.
Fabienne Brugère contends that the ethics of care begins with a “theoretical
invention”: the “relational or interdependent and vulnerable subject”, taken in an
198 J. Beato
asymmetrically defined caring relationship (Brugère 2006: 4). On the one hand, that
relationship engages the responsibility of the caretaker; on the other hand, it attests
the vulnerability of the one being cared for. Unlike the dominant moral theories,
“the ethics of care usually works with a conception of persons as relational, rather
than as the self-sufficient independent individuals” (Held 2006: 13). We are dealing
with “relational selves” and the Kantian notion of “autonomy” seems no longer to
be the major aspect of moral agency.
From this perspective, although caring can be seen as the “ethical ideal” of a
moral agent (Noddings 2013: 5, 49–51), it is not grounded on the dispositions - as
aptitudes and motivations – of individuals as autonomous moral agents, but in the
qualities of relational practices between moral agents and “moral patients” (Maillard
2011: 180). In this way, “care“is not a virtue, but what mobilizes or promotes the
aptitudes, skills, and virtues between the moral agent and the moral patient, the one
caring and the one cared.
A final point should be underlined. For Virginia Held, Nel Noddings or Sandrine
Berges, the experience of care – of caring and being cared for – is fundamental,
universal and formative. More than the respect for duty, the pursuit of certain ends,
the fulfilling of contractual demands, the basic experience of caring is the “very
reason why we develop moral thought”, and what allows the earlier development of
moral conscience (Berges 2015: 117). Caring is seen as the very basic and ground-
ing dimension of morality, and, therefore, of moral theory. The model of any ethical
relationship would be the caring relation, the responsibility towards the most vul-
nerable persons and not the contractual relationship between autonomous individu-
als with equal rights and duties. A broad and ambitious intention is clearly identified:
the reconfiguration of moral theory and ethical thinking, which starts from the pri-
vate sphere extending to the public sphere, from the most basic human encounter to
global politics (Held 2006: 21; Noddings 2013: 27–29; Berges 2015: 117).
(2) The second perspective argues that care ethics should be subsumed under
virtue ethics. An aretaic moral theory – that goes beyond the neo-Aristotelian frame-
work -, would be able to respond to the theoretical and practical challenges of care.
Many scholars – even feminist ethicists – support an integration of Care Ethics into
Virtue Ethics by assimilation or derivation. Margaret McLaren (2001a, b), Lisa
Tessman (2001), Raja Halwani (2003), Alan Thomas (2011) are researchers who
argue in favour of these hypotheses.
These authors begin by emphasizing the similarities or compatibilities between
Care Ethics and Virtue Ethics. Let’s see what these common or corresponding fea-
tures are.
(a) Both want to put forward what has been missed or disregarded by Kantian
deontology, utilitarian consequentialism or Rawlsian contractualism. They share a
“particularistic” tendency, responsive to the concrete situations, carried out by
unique individuals, implicated in specific contexts and differentiated practices,
which cannot be subsumed to abstract principles, and universal norms. Their atten-
tion to the particular context and personal commitment – in particular to the emo-
tional engagement and affective response of the agents – implies that the criterion
of right or good action cannot be formulated in deontic, procedural or utilitarian
terms. The definition of right action and moral judgment cannot only meet the cri-
teria of impartiality, universality, and rationality. Caring, acting virtuously, or learn-
ing to be virtuous always takes place in an embedded context.
(b) They both acknowledge the importance of emotion and feeling. Affective
responsiveness, emotional engagement and response, such as empathy, compassion,
or benevolence are essential, both to recognize and respond to caring situations.
Likewise, most virtue ethicists claim that when a virtuous person acts, she would
also, characteristically, have the requisite emotion, both as a motivation to act and
as a reaction to certain situations. In fact, to act virtuously, or to be virtuous, it is not
enough to perform right actions: one must have the “right feelings”, one must act as
expressing “fine inner states” (Annas 2011: 63; Swanton 2005: 19). This claim is
equally present in most contemporary and ancient views: “Virtues have an affective
aspect: they involve our feelings, especially our feelings of pleasure and pain, and
developing a virtue involves habituating our feelings in certain ways.” (Annas
1995: 49).
(c) In addition, Virtue Ethics and Care Ethics, unlike dominant moral theories,
pay equally attention to the question of the acquisition, development, and perfecting
of moral conscience. It is almost needless to recall the context in which the ethical
issue of care is born: the critique of Kohlberg’s “Theory of Moral Development”
and its deontological and cognitive assumptions (Gilligan 1983). We find similar
concerns in philosophers of education and ethicists committed with the “aretaic
turn”, like David Carr and Jan Steutel (1999). Quoting Annas: “Understanding the
process of ethical education is a part of virtue ethics. Ethical education is not some-
thing ‘merely practical’ and so extraneous to theory. We cannot understand what
virtue is without coming to understand how we acquire it” (Annas 2011: 21).
Once the value of care is acknowledged – not only in private life but also in the
public sphere – it is all about conceiving it as a virtue. As Raja Halwani asserts, the
goal “is to think of care as a virtue, as one virtue, albeit an important one, among
those that go into constituting a flourishing life” (Halwani 2003: 168). Care can
become part of the cast of virtues, along with justice, temperance, courage, honesty,
generosity, and so forth.
This position assumes that, regardless of its extreme importance – as value and
practice – care does not offer, as an ethical concept, sufficient support for a compre-
hensively constructed moral theory. Care does not allow grounding or covering the
whole field of morality. In fact, not all moral life can be thought from partiality,
asymmetry, and the model of close relations.
This theoretical proposal presents internal variants regarding the definition,
weight and scope given to the virtue of care, which we will not describe here (see:
Sander-Staudt 2006: 23–28). It is important to state what the main and general
advantages of this perspective are:
(a) It preserves the most characteristic elements of the issue of care: the importance
of asymmetric relationships and caring practices, within a conception of the
human as a vulnerable being.
200 J. Beato
(b) It allows framing care in a broader and more structured conception of normative
ethics, fostered by the renewal and extension of both the notion of virtue and the
list of virtues. In fact, once one takes into account the dialectic of autonomy and
vulnerability, and faces the duality of dependency and self-sufficiency in moral
action, within virtue theory, the board of virtues must be extended.
(c) It provides an internal and suitable articulation for justice and care, not slipping
in paralyzing dichotomies. This is because justice, before being taken as the
result or the quality of a formal institution, a contractual and procedural system
of norms and rules – subject to the equitable logos of distribution, compensa-
tion, and proportionality – is, as Aristotle emphasized, a personal virtue.
Quoting Nicomachean Ethics: “We see that all men mean by justice that kind of
state of character which makes people disposed to do what is just and makes
them act justly and wish for what is just” (Aristotle 1998: V, 1, 1129a7-9 , trans.
D. Ross). Consequently, it is already at the level of ethical dispositions, motiva-
tions, and intentions that justice and care are articulated, for they are mutually
governed by the principle of organic unity and reciprocity of virtues. Such prin-
ciple is essential on virtue theory, since Aristotle or the Stoics. The plurality of
virtues must contribute to the unity of Virtue, and to the aim of human flourish-
ing. I find it useful to quote Annas, on this matter:
“There are some indications, then, that a virtue is not compartmentalized to a single area or
context of life in its exercise, and that to learn how to exercise it is not compartmentalized
from learning how to exercise other virtues. These two points come together in the idea that
virtues are not mutually independent dispositions in a person’s life; they imply one another,
or ‘reciprocate’” (Annas 2011: 85).
One can contend, of course, as Daniel Engster, that the principles of care theory
are central to shape “any adequate theory of justice”, for, in fact “there would be no
individual liberty or equality, community values or good life without the caring
practices necessary to sustain and foster human life and society” (Engster 2007: 5).
Even agreeing with this statement, we argue that the first way for the demands of
“care” to pervade at political and global levels, is to include “care” together with
“justice” in the moral board of virtues, shaping moral conscience and agency. In a
virtue-ethical approach, care and justice – as virtues – are compatible, by mutually
enriching and correcting themselves.
(d) In order to be consistent with the conception of a normative moral theory, an

account of right action must be provided. Virtue Ethics deliver such requisite, so
Care Ethics will benefit from it. The aretaic criterion of morality is not about act-
ing in accordance with duties, instituted in procedural, legal or contractual terms,
nor is it about choosing the action that has the best consequences, producing the
greatest overall amount of happiness. From an aretaic point of view, right-action
is one resulting from the exercise of a virtue in concrete circumstances, or the
one that a virtuous agent would characteristically perform in the same circum-
stances (Hursthouse 1998: 33). Right actions are the expression of virtuous dis-
positions and virtuous agents. Acting virtuously – in a good enough or excellent
way – is to do the right thing for the right reason, and in the appropriate way. As
Aristotle established: “at the right times, with reference to the right objects,
towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is
both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue” (NE II, 6,
1106b20-23).
But, after all, what is a virtue? We will consider and assume the contemporary
definition proposed by Linda Zagzebski: “[a virtue is] a deep and enduring acquired
excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain
desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end” (Zagzebski 1996: 137).
This definition which can be completed with the one offered by Rosalind Hursthouse:
“a virtue is a character trait a human being needs for eudaemonia, to flourish or live
well” (Hursthouse 1998: 23).
These definitions include both externalist and internalist elements in the consti-
tution of moral agency to be considered. Acting from virtue involves choosing the
right action in a particular context and occasion (a certain “kairology” is implied).
It also implies to carry out this action for the right reasons, in the appropriate emo-
tional state, and to do it in a way appropriate to fulfil its purpose. The complex of
motivation, intention and competence in performing a certain action characterizes a
behaviour derived from an acquired and admirable character trait, which we call
“virtue”.
(3) The third perspective to be considered is, more than integration, the fusion
between the ethics of care and the ethics of virtue.
Such is Michael Slote’s proposal. Slote has for many decades assumed a promi-
nent position as a virtue theorist exploring a “sentimentalist virtue ethics” centred
on the motivational and affective dimensions of virtue. He ends up bringing together
the British tradition of “moral sentimentalism”, an ethics of aretaic contours and the
problematic of care.
In recent years Michael Slote has developed a form of Care Ethics that seeks to
be virtue-ethical as well, and to be so entirely within a sentimentalist framework.
Moral sentimentalism stated that moral judgment and motivation derive more from
feeling and emotion than from reason. So, the point is to make the notion of benevo-
lence converge – as a universal vocation, directly inspired by Hutcheson – with care,
having a partialistic vocation, mobilizing empathy and emphasizing its meta-ethical
function in the context of caring relationships. Quoting Slote:
“I have […] become convinced that an ethic of caring can take the well-being of all human-
ity into consideration just as easily as an agent-based virtue ethics grounded in universal
(i.e., impartial) benevolence. The only difference, roughly, is that the former allows for and
mandates preference for those near and dear to one, whereas the latter rules that out […].
But partiality toward near and dear is quite compatible with substantial concern for all
human beings, whether known to one or not, and (like Virginia Held) I have […] argued that
the morality of caring can and should take in a concern not just for those one intimately
knows” (Slote 2001: IX).
The issue is to build a “virtue-ethical care ethics” focused on individual qualities

and motivations. Within this “warm agent-based virtue ethics”, care is, according to
Held’s interpretation of Slote’s position, the “primary virtue” (Held 2006: 19), or
202 J. Beato
the main virtue from which other virtues may derive. We would rather say that it is
what is virtuous in all virtues, or the emotional and motivational matrix of all vir-
tues. Morality based on the virtue of care may offer a general criterion of right or
good action, which can be formulated in strictly aretaic terms. Let us quote Slote:
“care ethics treats acts as right or wrong, depending on whether they exhibit a caring
or uncaring attitude/motivation on the part of the agent” (Slote 2007: 21I). Or, in
other words, “an act is morally acceptable if and only if it comes from good or virtu-
ous motivation involving benevolence or caring (about the well-being of others) or
at least doesn’t come from bad or inferior motivation involving malice or indiffer-
ence to humanity.” (Slote 2001: 38I).
12.3 The Common Inner Framework of Care and Virtue(s)
Once made this overview of the main aspects of the critical connections between
Ethics of Care and Virtue Ethics, I will be addressing this issue on my own account.
Although my goal, here and now, is much more modest than to compare and con-
trast these two approaches on moral theory. So, my plead is that before asking if
Virtue Ethics can successfully respond to all the demands of “caring” issues (sub-
stantially and meta-ethically) – and thus assimilate the Ethics of Care – or, if Care
Ethics is consistent with the requirements and criteria of a full comprehensive moral
theory, a preliminary question should be asked. Is “care” a virtue? Or, can it be
construed as a virtue? In other words: what allows us to conceptualise the disposi-
tion, the ability, the practice and the value of care as a virtue? For such a goal, it is
important, firstly, to analyze, in the notion of care (as “care for”, “care about”, “take
care of” and “care giving”), what enables us to understand it as a virtue.
What is the functional characterization of care? Joan Tronto identifies four main
elements of care: attentiveness, responsibility, competence and responsiveness,
(Tronto 1993: 127–136). Being compliant with these functional elements, we argue
that they can be grounded on a common and more fundamental functional structure
that insures the principle of “integrity”, much praised by Tronto. We believe that an
emotional, cognitive and volitional dispositional framework – that enables, propels
and supports morally and ethically relevant practices – is more basically required
and involved.
(1) Care implies a cognitive dimension: knowing and understanding the concrete
situation experienced by singular persons. For this reason, Sara Ruddick, for exam-
ple, insists on the idea of “practicalist reasoning” (Ruddick 1995: 13–27), and
Nathalie Maillard uses the fine expression of an “epistemology of the particular”
(Maillard 2011: 194). We are therefore very close to a fundamental element of neo-
Aristotelian virtue ethics: the notion of “phrónēsis” (φρόνησῐς). “Phrónēsis” is
understood as practical reasoning or practical wisdom, as a form of “deliberative
wisdom” or sagacity. According to the well-known Aristotelian distinction, instead
of theoretical rationality, which is contemplative, aiming at the knowledge of what
is universal, eternal and necessary, practical wisdom, in turn, seeks the knowledge
of singular, contingent, and mutable things. About these realities, humans are able
to make transitory judgments based on which they can act properly. These same
realities are object of desires, volitions and projects. Practical wisdom – so-called
calculating or deliberative - is the one competent in moral issues (NE VI, 2,
1139a-1139b35), determining how to act properly by assessing situations and
adjusting means to ends (NE VI, 4, 1140a, 1141b; VI, 9,1142b).
(2) Care has an affective dimension: this aspect has been underlined as funda-
mental and characteristic (Held 2006: 10, 156, 134; Berges 2015: 33–35, 116,
136–142; Noddings 2013: 199). The “emotional engagement” involves attentive-
ness, feeling and affective availability. According to Noddings, genuine acts of car-
ing require both the accurate perception of the other’s needs, and a sort of empathetic
involvement (“engrossment and motivational displacement”) with this other
(Noddings 2013: 69, 78). It must provide with the proper motivation and appropri-
ate emotional response to a perceived need, condition and situation.
Noddings also underlines the need to analyze and distinguish the several aspects
of affective life: affect, emotion, feeling, or sentiment, corresponding to different
forms of reflective or non-reflectiveness, and various levels of interiority. She also
uses expressions like “ethical feeling” and “moral perception” (Noddings 2013: 3,
90) in a sense that can be understood as a modality of “moral sense” or, at least, as
giving a “sentimentalist” dimension to “moral conscience”. On this matter, it is also
worth noting that Joan Tronto devoted an important chapter of “Moral Boundaries”
to the problem of “moral sense” and “moral sentiments” during the Scottish
Enlightenment (Tronto 1993: 35–52). Although not endorsing that approach, she
acknowledges that the “ethics of care bears a family resemblance to those […] theo-
ries of moral sentiments”, even considering, that the arguments of Hutcheson,
Hume, and Smith “represent the ‘losing’ side in moral thinking in the eighteenth
century” (Tronto 1993: 142, 36).
(3) There is also a volitional dimension: the motivation meets the intention in a
cognitive dynamics that leads to concrete actions.
Care, as an ethical notion, is about “sustaining and enhancing caring” (Noddings
2013: 107). Willingness is needed to support the practices and sustain efforts in
order to see that they are carried out effectively. A renewed commitment of the will
to the initiative from which it springs is essential to provide the common practices
of caring and to promote the construction of the “ideal of care” (Noddings
2013: 104).
On this issue, Selma Sevenhuijsen, for instance, underlines that the activity of
care is “an ability and a willingness to ‘see’ and to ‘hear’ needs, and to take respon-
sibility for these needs being met.”(Sevenhuijsen 1998: 84) The scope of an Ethics
of Care must go far beyond the dear and the near. Thus, without this willingness of
citizens to accept responsibility for each other’s well-being, Care Ethics is hardly
imaginable (Sevenhuijsen 1998: 149).
If “care is both a practice and a disposition” (Tronto 1993: 104), we can argue
that the four ethical elements of care (attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and
responsiveness) are based in the emotional, volitional and cognitive dynamic struc-
ture described above. So, the all practice and range of care – “caring about”, “taking
204 J. Beato
care of”, “care-giving”, and “care-receiving” (Tronto 1993: 127) – runs on that
framework.
A virtue is a persisting, reliable, and characteristic disposition of the person
“which expresses itself in acting, reasoning, and feeling in certain ways” (Annas
2011: 9). In this brief definition by Julia Annas, we find the same tridimensional
framework. A virtue is a complex character trait with intellectual, affective and cog-
nitive features that produces right actions, and expresses “a commitment to good-
ness” (Annas 2011: 102). But, an essential point must be added. Since Aristotle,
virtues are conceived as dispositions acquired by a repeated practice (NE II,
1,1103a14-1103b2). It is by doing virtuous actions that one shapes motivations,
abilities and character as virtuous. We become virtuous exercising the virtues.
Aristotle also stresses that virtuous actions must be conscious and voluntary (NE
III, 1, 1109b30-1110a35). There is no virtue unless actions are chosen and wanted.
“Care” is certainly a virtue because it is a disposition of the moral agent: it
depends on cognitive, affective, and volitional aptitudes directed to a practice.
Actions are performed, and ends are attained from a dispositional complex.
12.4 Objections to Conceiving Care A Virtue, and

Their Rebuttal
Once this common framework between the notions of care and virtue is recognized,
three main objections can and must be raised. Now, we are going to briefly explain
those objections in order to refute them.
(1) Virtue ethics focuses on the qualities and dispositions of individuals, whereas
the ethics of care focuses on relational practices. We are facing the so-called explan-
atory priority of the virtuous character over right or virtuous actions. According to
a common criticism, Virtue Ethics is “concerned with Being rather than Doing”, as
addressing “What sort of person should I be?” instead of “What should I do?”.
Virtue ethics is, therefore, “agent-centred” rather than “act-centred” (Hursthouse
1998: 18–19), being a form of “moral perfectionism.” It is important to inquire what
kind of character it is good and admirable to possess and develop, and how best to
conduct life in order to achieve its fulfilment.
This objection is easily rebuttable. Indeed, if virtues provide the criterion of
morality, they do not exist independently of their effective exercise, that is to say,
outside the performance of concrete actions, expressing the commitment to certain
goods and values. It is worth remembering, in this regard, that Aristotle clearly dis-
tinguishes moral virtues – as acquired dispositions (hexis or diathesis) and abili-
ties – from natural capacities such as sensory faculties. If the capacities of vision or
hearing pre-exist to the act of seeing or hearing, for instance, the same does not
happen with the virtues of justice or generosity, shaped by action and through
action. A virtue is engendered by repeatedly acting virtuously – as a hexis –, a habit
that implies a permanent renewal by means of an improving repetition (NE II, 1
1103a25-1103b2; II, 5,1105b19-22).
In this matter, Alasdair MacIntyre broadly supports that virtues are a type of
qualities whose possession and exercise enable agents to succeed in their practices;
that is, mainly, to achieve the “goods which are internal to practices” (MacIntyre
2007: 191). Therefore, concrete actions and practices are what decide which virtues
are required and which ones sanction the excellence of the agents.
(2) Virtue ethical theories are traditionally eudemonistic. Cultivating the virtues
is an essential mean or way to personal well-being, flourishing or fulfilment. Ethics
of virtue is therefore seen as self-centred or egoistic.
Here is another easily refutable argument. In the first place, no fulfilment or hap-
piness is possible without the well-being of family, friends, fellow-citizens, and so
forth. On the other hand, there are, in the list of virtues, self-regarding virtues (like
temperance, or sagacity), and other-regarding virtues (like generosity, or kindness),
as well as “mixed virtues” (like courage, or self-control) (Annas 1995: 127; Slote
1992: 98). So, quoting Annas: “An ethics of virtue is therefore at most formally self-
centred or egoistic; its content can be fully as other-regarding as that of other sys-
tems of ethics” (Annas 1995: 127).
Caring for oneself is the condition of being able to take care of others. This leads
us to a fundamental point (and purpose): “sort out the confusion between self-
sacrifice and care”, underlined both by Gilligan (Gilligan 1983: 74) and Noddings.
Since we are defined in relation, we do not sacrifice ourselves when we move
towards the other as one-caring: “Caring is, thus, both self-serving and other-serv-
ing” (Noddings 2013: 99).
Moreover, if caring involves “caring for” – as a way of feeling with, “engross-
ment” and “motivational displacement” with the other (Noddings 2013: 26) – not
only one clearly promotes the other’s well-being and flourishing, but shares that
happiness. There is clearly a eudemonistic feature in care as a virtuous relational
practice, as in all other virtues. Care constitutes an intrinsic value, and also a neces-
sary condition for human flourishing.
Virginia Held strongly underlines that caring is beyond the antinomy of egoism
and altruism:
“Those who conscientiously care for others are not seeking primarily to further their own
individual interests; their interests are intertwined with the persons they care for. […].
Persons in caring relations are acting for self-and-other together. Their characteristic stance
is neither egoistic nor altruistic; […] the well-being of a caring relation involves the coop-
erative well-being of those in the relation and the well-being of the relation itself” (Held
2006: 23).
So the virtue of care enables the reinforcement and deepening of the sense of
interpersonal communion, beyond the duality of self-regarding and other-regarding
motivations. It transcends the age-old opposition between selfishness and selfless-
ness (Gilligan 1983: XIX).
One of the most challenging aspects of the ethics of care is that it suggests a new
and simultaneously deeper and wider understanding of the interconnection between
other and self (Gilligan 1983: 74). From interpersonal bonds, familiar relations, and
social ties, up to global relatedness, this is about shaping “relational selves” (Meyers,
1989; Held 2006: 47), and incorporating “a relational model of moral agency.”
206 J. Beato
(Keller 1997: 152) A radical consequence of this conceptual and practical motion is
what Maureen Sander-Staudt refers as a “relational ontology” (2003: 26).
That being said, our immediate question is not about knowing if relations could
become “ontologically basic” in the context of a virtue-ethical conception of moral
agency. In fact, Sander-Staudt accurately argues that, though some virtue theorists
(McLaren and Slote) “embrace the idea that the self is relational”, the central focus
granted to virtue as a character trait of moral agents “retains a mode of individual-
ism” that Care Ethics will challenge (Sander-Staudt 2003: 26). A classic framework
of Virtue Ethics hardly subscribes to the concept of “relational ontology”. But, I also
contend, that this is not an impediment – for the reasons previously explained – to
explore the relational aspects of virtue, and that’s the advantage of construing and
integrating “care” as a “virtue” in a virtue-ethical normative theory. The virtue of
care would be deeply committed to the fact and the value of our interpersonally
bonded selves. We can call it a “relational virtue”.
(3) A virtue is an acquired disposition and aptitude. Quoting Aristotle:
[…] moral virtue comes about as a result of habit […]. From this it is also plain that none
of the moral virtues arises in us by nature; […] Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to
nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are
made perfect by habit (EN VI, 1103 a 15–25).
This classical and almost canonical statement seems to open a gap between “car-
ing” and “virtues”, as the former being perceived as a fundamentally “natural” dis-
position, attitude and behaviour. But the argument turns out to be ineffective.
Sometimes, Nel Noddings - herself accused (along with Sara Ruddick) of “moral
naturalism”, for grounding care in the maternal or nurturing relationships – draws a
clear distinction between “natural care” and “ethical care”. Quoting Noddings: “We
must distinguish between natural caring—a mode of relating compassionately with
another that does not require a moral effort in itself—and ethical caring, a mode that
does require a moral effort” (Noddings 2015: 404). An ethic of caring implies mov-
ing “from natural to ethical caring” (Noddings 2013: 40, 79). This means that the
constitution of a moral theory from the practices and relations of care implies the
transition from a mere natural predisposition to a socially and culturally constructed
aptitude, and a politically framed capacity. Issues that Joan Tronto (1993, 2013),
Virginia Held (2006) and Fiona Robinson (1999, 2011), among others, have been
working on.
We should add Noddings’ statement that ethical caring “depends not upon rule
or principle but upon the development of an ideal self” of caring agents (Noddings
2013: 94). This claim reinforces a virtue-ethical understanding of care, for it empha-
sizes the “agent-based” criteria of morality, grounded on “caring” as an “admirable”
motivation, and disposition of persons pursuing moral excellence.
Although contrasting ethical caring from natural caring, Nodding’s position
looks ambiguous regarding the issue of “naturalism”, by saying that “ethical caring
[…] derives its strength from natural caring” (Noddings 2013: xvi); or, furthermore,
that “care ethics does not elevate ethical caring over natural caring, as traditional
moral philosophy might” (Noddings 2015: 404). So, the debate about the issues of
naturalism and essentialism remains open.
The tension between naturalism and non-naturalism is a usual topic in virtue
theory. Neo-Aristotelian virtue ethicists, like Philippa Foot or Rosalind Hursthouse,
accept some form of naturalism. These theories claim that our final end and virtues
depend on fulfilling the specific requirements of “human nature”. Nonetheless, “It
is actually not true that virtue ethics is bound to be naturalistic”, for, in fact, both
ancient and modern versions of Christian, or even Platonistic, virtue ethics are not
so. Even MacIntyre wanted to transcend what he called the “Aristotle’s metaphysi-
cal biology”, still maintaining some sort of eudemonistic teleology (MacIntyre
2007: 162–163). Besides, if the “naturalism” – somehow universalistic – is a strong
tendency, it contrasts with the recent dawning of “culturalism” – with relativistic
features – that explores the historical, cultural, social and ethnic determinations of
the moral virtues.
12.5 Care: A Virtue Among Virtues
One may not be satisfied by the earlier definitions of virtue previously mobilized,
for they may look too much centred on the idea of “character trait”. Yet this concep-
tion has been broadened by a “pluralistic” approach, attributing more importance to
the “targets” of moral actions. Such is the proposal of Christine Swanton. For
Swanton, “a virtue is a disposition to respond well to the ‘demands of the world’”
(Swanton 2005: 21). The world addresses and defies the moral agent with multiple
demands, and then requires different modes of responsiveness. So, the characteriza-
tion of virtues is manifold, as are the criteria of right action. Virtues are multiple and
“plural”. They differ according to the “fields” (specific sphere(s) of concern, and
their items), which can be people, institutions, values, bonds, objects, etc., the
“modes and bases” of responsiveness requested (rationality, affectivity, creativity,
etc.), and the characteristic “targets” they aim at. Swanton draws a “pluralistic vir-
tue ethics”. This view adopts a “target-centred” conception of right-action, in which
a virtue “is a disposition to respond, or acknowledge, items within its field or fields
in an excellent or good enough way” (Swanton 2005: 19). A virtuous action is not
only an act from/out of a virtuous disposition, or a good quality of character. A vir-
tuous action is the one “hitting the target of a virtue”, responding successfully to
items in its field and according to the aim of a virtue (Swanton 2005: 233).
Swanton’s virtue theory is particularly helpful because it opens significant hori-
zons beyond virtue-ethical Aristotelian framework. The multiplicity and complex-
ity of the moral demands of the world summon equally multiple and complex
modes and bases of human responsiveness. Therefore, the list of virtues must
remain open and enriching itself according to new demands or to a new understand-
ing of old or perennial demands. Stoics, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Hume,
and so forth, present their board of virtues. Contemporary virtue ethicists are much
more cautious and reluctant about offering a systematic list of qualities, capacities
208 J. Beato
or character traits suitable with a strict criterion or definition of virtue. Courage,

justice, temperance, prudence, generosity, humility, honesty, benevolence, fidelity,
and so forth, are some of the virtues most usually acknowledged, but the debate
about the criteria to elaborate a proper list remains open. As Alasdair MacIntyre
underlines:
“deep conflicts over what human flourishing and well-being do consist in and the way in
which rival and incompatible beliefs on that topic beget rival and incompatible tables of the
virtues. Aristotle and Nietzsche, Hume and the New Testament are names which represent
polar oppositions on these matters” (162–163).
So, we cannot undertake, here and now, such large discussion.

Swanton pushes the notion of diversity and plurality of virtue to its limits, fol-
lowing several criteria: “First, not all moral virtue need be universal. Certain virtues
may be relative to role (e.g. that of parent, business executive, doctor), to circum-
stance, and even to abilities” (Swanton 2005: 71). Consequently, “virtues are
legion”, argues Swanton, for “the moral domain of virtue ethics is particularly rich,
detailed, and broad-ranging, and attention to this richness contributes also to a rec-
ognition of the artificiality of the moral/non-moral distinction in much contempo-
rary ethics” (Swanton 2005: 72). This detail and broad range constitution of the list
of virtues leads to admit charm, tact, “surgency”, cheerfulness, conscientiousness,
“agreeableness” as virtues! We will not subscribe to such a position, and rather
agree with Julina Annas. She claims that a core of “central virtues”, along with the
principle of unity and reciprocity of the virtues, “enables us to ‘filter’ traits which
may well be admirable, popular, valued, and more, but which are not virtues”, in the
sense of morally relevant human qualities or abilities (Annas 2011: 97). Of course,
this is another way to stand for the classical notion of “cardinal virtues”.
In the same way as Christianity challenges the Greek “ethos”, calling for humil-
ity, compassion, or charity as moral excellences, or that Hume proposes benevo-
lence, honesty or industriousness for the list of moral qualities, the demands of the
post-modern globalized world make care eligible for the board of virtues. Such is
our approach and main proposal: to conceptualise and promote care, both theoreti-
cally and practically, as a virtue among other virtues, operant on moral excellence
and human flourishing.
12.6 Conclusion
If “natural caring” is the spontaneous aptitude and motivation to care for and take
care of the near and dear in situations of dependency and vulnerability, “ethical car-
ing” extends its scope and range to strangers, as well as distant others and the world.
Such caring embodies an ideal of moral excellence.
Such value and practice of caring is no longer a natural behaviour, but an acquired
and perfectible disposition and capacity, needed for the well-being and flourishing
of the human being qua human being.
“Care” can be conceived as a dispositional complex of the moral agent: cogni-

tive, affective, and volitional convergent aptitudes conducing to an ethically relevant
practice. Virtues – as usually defined – share this same functional framework.
Thus characterized, care can be defined as a virtue, able to join the board of vir-
tues, and also a moral theory of aretaic features.
The virtue of care is primarily relational and other-regarding. This fact chal-
lenges the moral agent to a more radical, deep, and wide openness to otherness.
Care is a “relational virtue”. Therefore, within caring virtuous practices, the inter-
ests of the “one-caring” are intertwined with the interests of the “one-cared”, thus
defying the theoretical and practical constitution of a “relational self” we believe
this is the first consequence of the conception outlined here: a change in the tradi-
tional way of understanding virtues and the virtuous agent, shifting its focus to the
excellence of relationships.
Two other consequences can be drawn from our proposal. One of them results
from the principle of organic unity and reciprocity of virtues within virtue.
Understanding care as a virtue provides an internal and more fundamental
articulation between justice and care, below and beyond their usual antinomy in the
context of the confrontation between “care ethics” and other normative ethics, with
a deontological or utilitarian profile.
Emphasizing the theoretical contiguity and promoting the practical convergence
between the ethics of care and virtue ethics disclosures yet another consequence. In
addition to allowing conceiving and exercising “care” as a virtue, it also allows us,
in a reversible way, to understand virtues as multiple expressions of care. Such
articulation, and the principle of reversibility that it obeys, instigates incursions in
several domains of “applied ethics” where “care” as a virtue, or virtues as manifes-
tations of care, are relevant: bioethics, environmental ethics, business ethics, sports
ethics, among others.
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Chapter 13
On Women: An Analysis About the Status
of Women in Denis Diderot’s Theory
of Enlightenment
Fabiana Tamizari
Abstract This analysis presents the conception of woman in Denis Diderot’s mate-
rialist thought, considering the philosopher’s perspective on the female psychic-
physiological constitution and the moral and social position of women in the
Enlightenment century as presented in his essay On Women (1772). For Diderot,
women suffered a twofold oppression: from their physical constitution and from the
historical and cultural condition which always ascribed them a secondary role.
Keywords Diderot · Women · Materialism · Enlightenment
In April 1772, Diderot publishes in Correspondance littéraire his essay On Women.

The philosopher’s aim was to respond to his friend’s Antoine Leonard Thomas text
Essay on the character, manners, and genius of women in different ages, published
in the same year. Thomas’ work became an object of discussion not because of its
content, but rather because the author was a virgin, a condition that regarded him as
not experienced to address the subject. Diderot shared this opinion, even though he
praised his friend Thomas for his intellectual capacity and erudition. For the phi-
losopher, a complex being such as a woman, who should have “apocalypse and
mystery” (Diderot 2000b: 228) as symbols, could not be treated neutrally, and only
experience would be capable of unveiling this creature “extreme both in strength
and weakness, who faints facing smiles or spiders, and who also faces sometimes
the greatest horrors of life” (Diderot 2000b: 220).
From the standpoint of his materialist theory and his personal experience with
women, Diderot writes the Essay on Women (Sur les Femmes), willing to reveal
facets of the feminine universe: “In almost every country, the cruelty of laws gathers
against women with the cruelty of nature” (Diderot 2000b: 225). For the
F. Tamizari (*)
Mackenzie Presbiterian University, São Paulo, Brazil
e-mail: fabitamizari@yahoo.com.br

Switzerland AG 2021
212 F. Tamizari
philosopher, the woman faces a double challenge: a fragile material constitution,

resulting from her psychic-physiological formation, and an oppressive and humili-
ating social situation submitting her to male dominance, represented by the figures
of the father, the husband, and children.
For Diderot, differences between men and women result from their material con-
stitution, not from a divine design. The philosopher suggests that women are defined
by their reproductive organs, being the uterus the motivator of her thoughts and life
experiences: “the woman carries inside herself an organ susceptible to terrible
spasms, which disposes of her and raises in her imagination phantoms of all kinds”
(Diderot 2000b: 222). For him, the uterus is responsible for women’s actions and
emotions, bringing several shortcomings, which result from their psychic-
physiological constitution. These shortcomings are justified by the philosopher
while analyzing the experience of feminine sexuality, the presence of menstruation,
maternity, and menopause – events which mark the reproductive cycles of a wom-
an’s life; he also considers the relation of women with their feelings, which when
imbalanced would lead to hysteria, insanity, and religious fanaticism.
Beyond all the difficulties originated by her material and biological formation,
the woman, as Diderot understands, also suffers a repressive social condition, one in
which her desires are almost always subordinated and supervised by men. For him,
this situation takes place along the entire history of humanity, as women were
always relegated to answer male needs (Diderot 2000b: 227). Diderot understands
that some cultural conditions responsible for female submission are historical con-
structions and not consequences of their psychic physiology. The author sets the
question forward considering a possible changing of affairs.
In this text I am going to analyze the particular aspects of the female condition as
considered by Diderot in his essay On Women. First, I discuss Diderot approach of
the uterus as the determinant element of women’s nature and social condition.
Second, I bring Diderot’s interpretation of the social situation of women, which
according to him carries the marks of oppression and humiliation, consequence of a
historical process of submission of women to the needs of the male universe.
13.1 The Material Constitution of Women
Human species, in Diderot’s materialist theory, is inserted into a chain of creatures

formed by the dynamics of the matter. The difference between humans and other
beings relies on the material disposition or assembling. Memory, conscience, and
reason, therefore, are mechanical and organic processes resulting from the psychic-
physiological constitution of each being. According to Diderot’s materialist think-
ing, differences between men and women are not explained from a religious
perspective, but rather through the disposition of matter, which generates distinct
characteristics for each sex. Within this context, women are defined by Diderot as
creatures driven by passions and emotions commanded by the uterus (Diderot
2000b: 223), insofar this is the organ that defines their thoughts and experiences. In
13 On Women: An Analysis About the Status of Women in Denis Diderot’s Theory… 213
Elements of Physiology Diderot addresses the question once again, defining the
uterus as an “active organ with a particular instinct” (Diderot 2004: 230). He adds
that on adult life, from the start of menstruation to menopause, there is a strong
influence of the uterus over women, comparing this role to a choleric animal, as the
organ “becomes furious, pressing and suffocating the other parts” (Diderot 2004:
230). By stating that the uterus defines female particularities, Diderot is relying on
medical research of his time about the determinants of the female psychic-
physiological constitution. Kryssing-Berg states that when Diderot takes the uterus
as constitutive of female identity, he is recurring to the researches developed by the
Medical School of Montpellier: “for the professors of this school, women were
subject to ‘uterine stress’ to which they could not resist. Therefore, female behavior
is explained by an imbalance in the body due to the energy concentrated in the
uterus” (Krissing-Berg 1985: 103). By the way, Houbre shows that Enlightenment
thinkers tried throughout science to establish a study of human nature. In her own
words: “Getting rid little by little of the influence of the ancient and Church, they
intend to elaborate a medical rational science founded on anatomic and physiologi-
cal observation, allowing the discovery of the truth about human nature.” (Houbre
2003: 94). Diderot’s On Woman precisely illustrates what Houbre describes, as in
his portrayal of female nature, the guiding principle is the idea that women are ruled
by the uterus. Badinter highlights this aspect: “There is sheer clarity in Diderot’s
thesis: women are beings of passions and emotions, commanded by their uterus. All
the rest is derived from this” (Badinter 1991: 25). I will then analyze in further detail
the characteristics determining the female nature according to the Diderot.
13.1.1 Female Cycles
In his On Women, Diderot affirms that women’s life is marked by the reproductive
cycles. The first one, menstruation, is defined as the rite of passage from childhood
to adulthood: “subject to a malaise which disposes women to become wives and
mothers” (Diderot 2000b: 224). For Diderot, the outset of menstruation determines
a woman’s character: “because this is the critical moment when a young lady
becomes who she will be along all her life: penetrating or dull, sad or happy, grave
or frivolous, good or bad, fulfilling or frustrating her mother’s hopes” (Diderot
2000b: 224). Even though Diderot does not provide further information about the
bond between menstruation and the manifestation of female character, we could
assume that his stand can be framed according to what Del Priore classifies as “a
fantasy aura surrounding menstrual blood”. According to Del Priore, back in the
eighteenth century, the menstrual cycle brought up many questions and misleading
interpretations, such as the claim that menstruating women could spoil food or met-
als. “The period of secret blood was, therefore, a period of symbolic death in which
women should keep away from everything that was produced or that reproduced”
(Del Priore 2006: 4). For the researcher, menstruation reaffirmed the segregated role
of women and created with “its smells and red secretions (…) a kind of invisible
214 F. Tamizari
curtain between a woman and daily life, keeping her away from milk, wine, harvest-
ing or metals” (Del Priore 2006: 4).
Diderot’s discourse on menstruation illustrates both aspects shown by Del Priore.
He strongly affirms that in the beginning of the female reproductive cycle the char-
acter of a woman is formed, which for him is inextricably linked to the outset of
menstruation. As Houbre (2003: 94) shows, by discussing menstruation and its
effects over women’s life, Diderot is dealing with a concern of his time: the studies
on puberty, which became a relevant theme especially in the second half of the
eighteenth century, bringing “many medical theses, investigating both boys
and girls”.
After the start of menstruation, women would be ready for their natural vocation:
motherhood. For Diderot (2000b: 224), women undergo great expectations for their
first child, which is, nevertheless, a moment of risk. “Maybe there’s no joy compa-
rable to that of a mother who has her first-born; a moment, however, that comes with
a high cost”. Pregnancy is considered by Diderot (2000b: 224) a “malaise of nature”
which could even lead to death: “Pregnancy is painful for almost every woman. It is
amidst pain, with their lives in danger, the loss of their charm and the deterioration
of their health that women give birth.”
This negative appraise of pregnancy is not exclusive to Diderot’s work. Badinter
(2003: 110) affirms that Madame D’Epinay feared her first childbirth, as 12 of her
friends died before reaching 25 years old due to puerperal fever. Badinter also shows
that because of childbirth complications Madame du Châtelet died at 43. In the
work Thérèse, the Philosopher a quote from Abbot T shows that pregnancy was
indeed a female concern at that time: “women have only three things to fear: the
devil, their reputation and pregnancy” (Unknown Author 2000: 87). Therefore, by
facing various distresses, which could even bring life to an end, women affirmed
their natural vocation for motherhood. We could not forget that even surviving
childbirth, the mother still had to consider if her newborn would actually survive, as
the rate of child mortality by the eighteenth century on Europe was very high.
Diderot himself buried three children of his own, still in their early years of life. The
philosopher also points out that women, due to their natural condition, could face
incurable diseases in their characteristic organs: “the child’s first household and
both her reservoirs of food, the organs which characterize women as such, are sub-
ject to a couple of incurable diseases” (2000b: 224).
Menopause, the last stage of a woman’s life, will also leave marks on her - such
as the loss of beauty, bad mood, and boredom – and is one of these diseases: “It is
due to a malaise that nature makes women become mothers; it is due to a long and
dangerous disease that it takes this power away from them” (Diderot 2000b: 224).
This association made by Diderot actually reflects the scientific research of his time,
as Cabral (2001: 70) shows: “the first scientific researches about menopause date
from the eighteenth century, even though back then menopause was not properly the
term used, but rather disturbances originated from the end of menstruation”. Perrot
in her work says that menopause was seen as a moment marked by silence and
labeled as the end of a woman’s glorious times:
On the other end of genital life, menopause happens somewhat in a clandestine way. For
common sense, when it happens there is no longer a woman, but rather an old lady,
eventually endowed with more power and freedom, but devoid of fertility and, conse-
quently, seduction. (Perrot 2003:14).
Perrot adds that the very term “menopause” was considered an insult or a mockery,
something that determined a life of exile, distant from the glamour of youth and its
bond with motherhood.
Analyzing the consequences of Diderot’s conception of women, Badinter affirms
that as Diderot establishes that women have their lives marked by reproductive
cycles, the uterus becomes the determinant factor of their condition: “In his view,
the female specificity resides in their genital organs. The uterus is the essence of
women and determines their thoughts and experiences. This invisible organ is the
source of all their discontents and of their not so enviable place in society” (Badinter
1991:26). The consequences of this condition play a strong role, according to the
researcher, on women’s life development: “because of their sex, the stages of female
life are announced in terms of pain and serfdom. Being destined to please men and
to reproduce, all that precedes and succeeds this period of life is hollow and forget-
ful” (Badinter 1991:26).
Therefore, according to Diderot, nature determined the role of women. A not so
generous nature with the female sex, insofar as it imposes pain and constant suffer-
ing on women for them to fulfill their role as mothers, the ultimate task which they
were made to accomplish. But for Diderot, there is another unfortunate aspect of
women’s lives that comes from the uterus as their commander organ: their exagger-
ated relation with feelings.
13.1.2 Women and Feelings
For Diderot, nature is not only responsible for the biological female determinism,
but also for female susceptibility to passions, insanity, and hysteria. He argues that,
as a consequence of this capacity to feel more intensely, the female universe is more
flexible and has a more visceral relation with feelings. Analyzing female behavior
in intimate relations, the philosopher affirms that in the name of love, a woman is
capable of numerous sacrifices while being at the same time disingenuous, venge-
ful, and having no scrupulous (Badinter 1991: 221). He also says that as women are
naturally more sensible, it makes them less reasonable and easier to be influenced:
“Yet this fiery imagination and untamed spirit needs only one word to be taken
down. A doctor says to Bordeu’s women, tormented by dreadful vapors, that they
are threatened by epilepsy, and suddenly they are cured (…). Oh, women, you are
quite extraordinary children!” (Diderot 2000b: 224).
According to the philosopher, biological determinism not only establishes a
more intense relationship between women and feelings but also explains diseases
attributed by than only to the female universe, such as hysteria. In the following
passage from the essay On Women, Diderot establishes a connection between the
216 F. Tamizari
intensity of female senses and the disease: “Nothing is more closely related then
ecstasy, vision, prophecy, revelation, fiery poetry and hysteria” (Diderot 2000b:
223). In another passage, he reaffirms this: “A woman ruled by experimental hyste-
ria has something celestial or infernal upon her. She makes me tremble sometimes.”
Piva in his book The Virtuous Atheist affirms that Diderot considered the relation of
women with religion a hysterical manifestation: “having stronger passion than men
makes women more susceptible to religious fanaticism. For Diderot, their relation-
ship with religion was hysterical, especially at youth. When old, women become
pious or even insane” (Piva 2003: 276). In the words of Diderot himself: “only a
woman’s mind can be distempered to the point of actually sensing the presence of a
god, which makes her scream, foam, become agitated and messed up (…)” (Diderot
2000b: 221). Such a view consolidated the idea that differences between sexes were
inscribed in nature.
Diderot is actually echoing the medical discourse of his own time, which takes
hysteria as the proof that women are determined by the uterus, as Berriot-Salvadore
shows considering the studies of hysteria from that period: “Indeed, until the end of
the 17th century such affection is considered exclusively female.” As Berriot-
Salvadore highlights (1991: 423):
instead of the academic term ‘hysteria’, whose etymology is much more complex, other
expressions, strongly evocative, are preferred, such as ‘womb suffocation’ or ‘uterine
frenzy’. The very diagnosis is connected to the female universe: “the first symptom allow-
ing the doctor’s diagnosis resides precisely in these extraordinary movements of the uterus
which, just like an animal, becomes agitated with violent convulsions.
But for Diderot, these disadvantages imposed by nature upon women became
even more severe when it came to the deprivation of freedom.
13.2 The Moral Oppression over the Female Sex
After sustaining that the psychic-physiological constitution determines female

nature, Diderot analyses the moral condition of women. He says: “So what is a
woman? Neglected by her husband, unassisted by her children, having no one in
society, devotion is her sole resource. In almost every country, the cruelty of laws
gathers against women with the cruelty of nature” (Diderot 2000b: 224). In addi-
tion, the philosopher highlights the effects of such unequal treatment: “They were
treated as imbecile children. There is no type of vexation that men are not allowed
to exert over women, and with no punishment whatsoever […]. There is no type of
vexation the savage cannot exert over his wife” (Diderot 2000b: 224).
As we can see, Diderot’s criticisms are thorough; for him, women were not
respected both from civilized and savage people. In both cases, submission, impu-
nity, and despise reigned over female issues. Diderot elaborates further on these
topics, stressing that in both contexts the negative situation of women is confirmed.
Let us examine closely his arguments on these situations marked by oppression.
13.2.1 The “Savage Women”
For Diderot, in savage societies women were submitted to male dominance due to
the value of strength and protection offered by men. Physically more fragile and
thus submitted to male protection, women were forced to subject themselves to
men’s will and to perform less prestigious tasks on society. Within such a context,
women were responsible for agriculture, whereas men dedicated themselves to the
art of war Diderot 2000b: 227). To illustrate the situation of savage women, Diderot
tells the story of an indigenous woman from the margins of the Orinoco River. We
are presented then to a woman in pain who gives birth to a girl and kills the baby in
order to prevent her from suffering the same problems she had to face through her
life, such as being responsible for farming activities (work done exclusively by
women from this culture), taking care of children, cooking meals and being beaten
up by drunk men, as her words tell us: “They drink Chica and become drunk, and
when they are drunk they drag us by the hair and stomp on us. Oh, father, if God
only allowed my mother to suffocate me when I was born!” (Diderot 2000b: 225).
As if mistreatments and humiliations suffered by young indigenous women were
not enough, old age do not portray either a better condition: “it is sad for the poor
indigenous woman to serve her husband as a slave, breaking sweat on the fields,
deprived of any rest at home: yet it is even worse to notice in twenty years the hus-
band getting together with another woman, much younger and unmindful” (Diderot
2000b: 225).
In the essay On Women, Diderot (2000b: 222) draws on savage people twice
again to illustrate particular situations regarding women. He considered women to
have more pride than men and to make his point he tells the story of a young Samoan
who deceived people with a pseudo-religious power. When her tricks were unveiled
she did not hesitate to hurt herself to preserve her position before her social group.
In another moment, Diderot addresses the condition of men from the Mariana
Islands, who, according to Historians, would be under women command. For
Diderot (2000b: 226), if such a situation took place, he would be against it, as it
would be contrary to a “well known general and constant law of nature”, because for
women to have this power they should be physically and intellectually superior to
men: “if this is to be accepted, then one thing should be supported by another: in this
country women overcome men not only regarding intelligence, but also in what
comes to body strength”. The philosopher concludes that the exceptional situation
found in the islands could be explained by superstitious dogmas which would have
turned women into sacred figures endowed with power (Diderot 2000b: 226).
Reflecting on the topic, Diderot makes way for his thoughts on women who exert
some type of power, situation he considers an exception, not the rule: “beauty, tal-
ents and the spirit, all over the world, shall bring men to the feet of women; but these
particular advantages shall not establish anywhere the tyranny of the week sex over
the robust one” (Diderot 2000b: 226).
We should stress that the same issue is defended by Diderot about female intel-
lectual capacities: women more intelligent than men are an exception, not the rule.
218 F. Tamizari
“When they are ingenious, I believe it is in a stronger fashion than with us”, he adds
(Diderot 2000b: 231). It seems rather clear that Diderot does not establish equality
between sexes, but claims for respect for the fragile sex, which is handicapped in its
psychic-physiological constitution.
13.2.2 Women and Marriage
According to Diderot, the situation of women had little differences between savage
and developed societies; in the latter, women kept submitted to male interests, as
marriage showed. In his analysis, Diderot considers marriage to be just an exchange
of tyrants on a woman’s life, in which the rule of parents is traded for the role of the
husband. In the following passage, he stresses how marriage would also destroy
juvenile female illusions regarding love:
the moment to be freed from parents despotism has come; (…) rejoice indeed, unfortunate
creature; time would ceaselessly weaken the tyranny you now leave behind; time will
ceaselessly increase the tyranny you shall face from now on: a husband has been chosen for
you” (Diderot 2000b: 224).
Marriage is regarded in this context as business, something that takes place to

maintain a previously established social order. Diderot points as the origin of this
type of union the existence of property, which brought wealth inequality and, con-
sequently, the establishment of a social hierarchy, sustained by arranged marriages.
According to him, women were always submitted to the will of the family, having
no control over their own destiny: “The bonds of marriage are not formed by chance;
it is by will they are arranged. To be accepted, one should please; and such need
brings attention to women, giving them some dignity” (Diderot 2000b: 227).
This situation of submission in the family affects women since the Middle Ages,
as explained by Badinter in The one is the other (1986): “In the Middle Ages, as it
still remains in the eighteenth century, the father had complete control over his chil-
dren, whose marriages he arranges or prevents according to his will” (Badinter
1986: 124). Badinter also highlights that, following the tradition of Roman Law,
women were always considered underage, and when married, their custody was
transferred from the father to the husband; this actually meant that both these men
had complete control over herself and her belongings.
Thus, marriage for a woman was an obligation to which she was submitted
according to the interests of her family. In On Women Diderot describes the situation
of women submitted to relationships against their will: “to be submitted to a man
that displeases her is a torment. I have seen an honest woman trembling as her hus-
band came close; I have seen her drowning in the bathtub and still consider to be not
sufficiently clean from the filth of her duty” (Diderotc: 227).
Everything indicates that Diderot (2000b: 227) was against arranged marriages
and defended marriage to be a relation of companionship and even complicity.
Indeed, in his Supplement to Bougainville’s Voyage, he grants women with the right
to pick their partners as they wish, inasmuch as the relation had reproduction as the
goal (Diderot 1979: 139). For Diderot, therefore, marriage for women was a syn-
onym to obligation and the strengthening of submission bonds, condemning them to
a life of abandonment and disrespect. It seems that for the philosopher, the solution
would reside on the establishment of free unions, motivated by mutual interest in
spite of economic and political interests. Despite having an avant-garde perspective
on marriage, Diderot defends traditional values when it comes to adultery, virginity
and the definition of female morality.
13.2.3 A
dultery and Virginity: The Values Which Define
a Woman’s Moral
In his analysis of the effects of gallantry in society, Diderot discusses the value of
virginity and the issue of adultery concerning the determination of the moral situa-
tion of a woman. For him, the multiplication of wealth kept men away from work,
valuing idleness, luxury, and frivolities, always searching for entertainment to avoid
tedium (Diderot 2000b: 228). In such context, women are another instrument of
distraction, as the following passage shows: “By that time, women were searched
with care, be it for the lovely qualities they earn from nature, or for the qualities
earned from education” (Diderot 2000b: 228). Ribeiro (1987: 83) highlights this
aspect of the eighteenth century French society when comparing it to the Spanish:
“instead of the Spanish etiquette, which considers the woman as someone whose
chastity must be watched, in France they are deemed, along with the king, as the
rulers of men’s charm and gallantry”. In such a scenario Diderot sees that relation-
ships are becoming superficial and driven especially towards pleasure: “In a gallant
nation, that which is less perceived is the value of a declaration; men and women see
it as nothing more than an exchange of pleasures” (Ribeiro 1987: 228).
For Diderot, women, naturally more susceptible than men, could be easily driven
to ignore the values which sustained them socially – such as the preservation of
virginity until marriage, fidelity, and motherhood – and surrender to the hypocrisy
and falsehood of gallantry games. Being virginity a socially considered value to
determine female virtuousness, losing it before marriage implies in two forms of
despising: that of a woman towards herself and of society towards her. In this situa-
tion, the woman has no moral restraints left; as she does not believe to have the
required qualities to be respected, she surrenders to seduction games, gallantry and
the corruption of her character, contributing therefore to the depravity of customs
(Diderot 2000b: 229).
By the way, in the text Continuation of the Preceding Conversation Diderot sug-
gests, with the words of the character Bordeu, that masturbation is a way for young
women to be sexually pleased and not dishonor themselves or their families (Diderot
2000a: 215). For Diderot, this solution reconciles the sexual desires arising from
puberty and the moral demands imposed on women. A similar proposition is made
220 F. Tamizari
in another quite popular text of the period, Thérèse the Philosopher: “In the end, I
repeat men and women should only experience pleasures which cannot disturb the
interior of the established society. Women should enjoy what is appropriate, consid-
ering the obligations set up by their conditions” (Unknown author: 81).
Diderot’s proposition, also present in Thérèse the Philosopher, represented a
major struggle against the present moral codes. At first, because he acknowledges
that the female sex has the same needs, wills, and desires than the male. Second, he
admits female masturbation as natural in a moment when such practice was consid-
ered a generalized social disease, being fought both by lay and religious authorities,
as Matthews-Grieco (1991: 102) says: “along with the coitus interruptus, homo-
sexuality and bestiality, masturbation was one of the four sexual sins defying the
reproductive imperative of nature in the name of ‘perverse’ pleasures”.
Diderot is aware of the impact of his suggestion. The character Bordeu, the
author’s spokesman, says that recommending female masturbation could only be
done in private, and the spreading of such principles would lead to public condem-
nation: “[..] I wouldn’t take off my hat for a man suspicious of practicing my doc-
trine; enough calling him infamous. But we are talking here without witnesses or
consequences” (Diderot 2000b: 214).
As presented, virginity for Diderot was the guarantee of a woman’s integrity
until marriage, but it was up to her to keep her social status, remaining loyal to her
husband. Female adultery was harshly criticized by Diderot. According to him, a
woman that has “as many lovers as acquaintances” contributes to the ruin of mar-
riage, neglecting her functions and casting doubts over the paternity of her children:
“under the rule of these customs, conjugal love is disdained; (…) blood bonds
become loose. Births are uncertain and children no longer recognize their father, nor
the father his children” (Diderot 2000b: 230).
Thus, infidelity was regarded as a factor which could shake social structures, as
shown by Crampe-Casnabet (1991: 378), once it could bring suspicious about the
paternity of heirs. Such possibility made repression against adulterous women a
common practice throughout mankind’s history, as stressed by Badinter (1986:
127): “Following the civilizations over time, adulterous women were stoned,
drenched in bags, killed by their husbands, tied on a pillory, locked in convents or
thrown in prison.”
In Diderot, one cannot find the author supporting violence against women, even
though the philosopher emphasizes the moral damages caused by women who com-
mit adultery. That is the same moral judgment Diderot applies when discussing
gallantry. He even affirms that gallantry was worse to the depravity of customs than
public prostitution, which, practiced by the so-called “common” ladies, raised ques-
tions about the character of all and every women: “one will not distinguish anymore
the honest and virtuous woman from the loving one; the gratuitous vice from that
inflicted by misery and need for a salary, and these subtleties will reveal a system-
atic depravity” (Diderot 2000b: 230).
A possible solution to counter the effects of gallantry and the subsequent deprav-
ity of customs, according to Diderot (2000b: 228), would come from education. For
him, female education should not be limited to valuing virginity: “The only thing
they were thought well was how to use the fig tree leaf received from their first
ancestor.” Diderot claimed that women should be elucidated about the vicious
effects of gallantry in a society which valued it excessively. Regarding false state-
ments, the philosopher alerted: “what does it mean, these words so fleetingly pro-
nounced, so frivolously interpreted, I love thee?”. And he adds that an unthoughtful
action could mean severe moral consequences, such as social demoralization and
familial ruin.
Thus, another topic to be considered would be clearly educating women about
the development of sexuality. That was actually put into practice by Diderot himself
with his daughter Marie Angélique when he sent her to Mrs. Biheron to study anat-
omy. Mrs. Biheron was famous for making anatomic wax models and exhibiting
them in a private museum in her house.
Researcher Houbre (2003: 95) points out Diderot’s audacity in assuming a role
usually attributed to mothers regarding the education of young girls: “Diderot some-
how assumes the pedagogical role usually attributed to mothers regarding the edu-
cation of their daughters, especially in its most subtle and dangerous aspect”. As
said before, according to Houbre, Diderot’s decision reveals a concern of his time
with puberty.
Diderot defended formal education for women (Badinter 1986: 175). He consid-
ered education to be a path for them to face their adverse condition imposed by
nature and inflicted by society. According to the philosopher, knowledge about the
body, and especially about sexuality, could prepare women for the cycles which
mark their lives, helping them to face the “traps” armed by society, such as gallantry
and false promises, which deviate women from the role determined by nature.
Moreover, Diderot also mentions another fierce enemy of women, religious moral,
which greatly contributed to their submission. This was the subject of one of his
most famous novels, La Religieuse, or The Nun.
13.3 Conclusion
For Diderot, women suffered a twofold oppression: first, that imposed by their
psychic-physiological constitution and second, by cultural rules resulting from reli-
gious and economic issues, which always submitted female sex to the impositions
and interests of a male-driven society.
Nature also determined women’s vocation for motherhood according to Diderot,
so much that their life is marked by reproductive cycles. This vocation, however, is
a double-edged aspect of women’s lives, inasmuch as it defines their identity and
situates them socially but also represents a danger. In On Women Diderot affirms
that it is not without pain or risks to their existence that women become mothers.
This topic of the natural vocation is again addressed in the Supplement to
Bougainville’s Voyage, where he advocates an active sexual life for women because
this would be the only way of generating newborns that, besides bringing joy to
women, increase the number of a nation’s subjects.
222 F. Tamizari
The aspects of motherhood emphasized by Diderot also reflect two major con-
cerns of his time: first, the praise of motherhood, which was undertaken by philoso-
phers and thinkers in an attempt to preserve maternal relationship, worn out due to
leaving children’s education to others; second, a political and economic concern,
insofar as population growth was a source of wealth for nations and, therefore,
encouraging procreation was a way to assure the constant flow of wealth for
the State.
Analyzing the psychic-physiological female constitution presented by Diderot
we realize that by characterizing women as a creature wretched by nature, he indi-
rectly reaffirms the very model of women submission undermin society. His accep-
tance and respect towards women do not include equality between sexes and equality
of rights thereof. Diderot’s claim end up accepting, or even justifying if we want, the
condition of inferiority live by women.
Nevertheless, even though his discourse does not demands equality between
sexes, Diderot’s diagnosis about the social situation undergone by women of his
epoch – the product of a history marked by humiliation and domination – should
still be appraised. In On Women Diderot traces a time-line showing that economic
reasons turned women into currency trading according to the interests of their fami-
lies. Such a situation was ratified by religion and society, which sustained that this
role was natural and, therefore, intrinsic to female behavior.
Bibliography
I – Diderot’s Works
Diderot, Denis. 1979. Suplemento à viagem de Bougainville ou Diálogo entre A e B. In Textos
escolhidos. São Paulo: Abril Cultural.
———. 2000a. Continuação do Diálogo. In Obras I Filosofia e Política. São Paulo: Editora
Perspectiva.
———. 2000b. Sobre as Mulheres. In Obras I Filosofia e Política. São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva.
———. 2004. Éléments de physiologie. Paris: Honoré Champion.
II – Other Main Sources
Cabral, Maria das Mercês Cavalcanti. 2001. Situando a menopausa: Tempo, nomenclatura e tipo-
logia. Revista Interlocuções 1 (1): 65–85.
Crampe-Casnabet, Michèle. 1991. A mulher no pensamento filosófico do século XVIII. In Georges
Duby e Michelle Perrot, ed. História das Mulheres. Porto: Editora Afrontamento.
Del Priore, Mary. 2006. História das Mulheres no Brasil. São Paulo: Editora Contexto.
Unknown Author. 2000. Tereza Filósofa. Porto Alegre: L&PM.
III – Critical Works
Badinter, Elizabeth. 1986. Um é o Outro: Relações entre homens e mulheres. Rio de Janeiro: Nova
Fronteira.
———. 1991. O que é uma mulher? Um debate. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira.
———. 2003. Émilie, Émilie: A ambição feminina no século XVIII. São Paulo: Paz e Terra.
Berriot-Salvadore, Évelyne. 1991. O discurso da medicina e da ciência. In Georges Duby e
Michelle Perrot, ed. História das Mulheres. Porto: Editora Afrontamento.
Grieco, Sara F.Matthews. 1991. O corpo, aparência e sexualidade. In História das Mulheres:
Do Renascimento à Idade Moderna, ed. Georges Duby e Michelle Perrot. Porto: Editora
Afrontamento.
Houbre, Gabrielle. 2003. Inocência, saber, experiência e seu corpo no fim do século XVIII e
começo do XX. In O corpo feminino em debate, ed. Maria Izilda Santos de Matos e Raquel
Soihet. São Paulo: Editora UNESP.
Kryssing-Berg, Ginette. 1985. A imagem da mulher em Diderot. Revue Romane 2 (1).
Perrot, Michele. 2003. Os silêncios do corpo feminino. In O corpo feminino em debate, ed. Maria
Izilda Santos de Matos e Raquel Soihet. São Paulo: Editora UNESP.
Piva, Paulo Jonas de Lima. 2003. O ateu virtuoso: Materialismo e moral em Diderot. São Paulo:
Discurso Editorial.
Ribeiro, Renato Janine. 1987. A Etiqueta no antigo regime: Do sangue à doce vida. São Paulo:
Editora Brasiliense.
Part IV
Care and the Self
Chapter 14
Care of the Self: The Opposition Between
“Lover of Self” (φίλος αὑτῷ)
and “Excessive Love of Self” (σφόδρα
ἑαυτοῦ φιλία) in Plato’s Laws
Samuel Oliveira
Abstract In Laws IV-V, Plato highlights that care of/for the self (attachment or
dedication to the self) contains ambiguity and involves a fundamental alternative:
φίλος αὑτῷ/σφόδρα ἑαυτοῦ φιλία. This paper analyses the meaning of this alterna-
tive, the questions it raises and its implications – in particular: (a) the reason for
which the second form of care for the self has a defective character and constitutes
the origin of all faults (πάντων ἁμαρτημάτων αἴτιον); (b) how the very care for the
self can lead to a misrepresenting of the self and of all it interacts with; (c) in what
sense the σφόδρα ἑαυτοῦ φιλία has to do with a claim to know (οἴεσθαι εἰδέναι);
(d) what is the link between the opposition mentioned above and the “secondary”
character of the ψυχή when compared to the gods sc. to the “divine” (θεῖον); and,
lastly, e) what a correct (ὀρθῶς) care of/for the self would consist of.
Keywords Oneself · “Divine” · Confusion · Knowledge · Ignorance
The question this paper seeks to investigate is analysed by Plato in particular in

Laws Books IV and V, especially in 715e–732b. This section contains a complex
constellation of aspects, closely linked to a rather wider context (to the analyses
involved in this context, the problems it raises and the “twists and turns” of the
whole reasoning in question, etc.). Nevertheless, owing to space limitations, it is not
possible to consider all the important points – and not only as regards the links
between 715e–732b and the bigger picture it belongs to, but also, in truth, regarding
the very constellation of aspects dealt with by 715e–732b. In fact, in the following
S. Oliveira (*)
Institute for Philosophical Studies (IEF), UNL/FCSH, Universidade de Coimbra,
Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: samyoliveira16@hotmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
228 S. Oliveira
text we restrict ourselves to focusing on one sole problem in all this constellation,
which is stated particularly clearly in 731d–732b.1
In the first place, this extract asserts that there is an evil, the greatest of all of
them, rooted in the ψυχή of the majority of human beings («πάντων δὲ μέγιστον
κακῶν ἀνθρώποις τοῖς πολλοῖς ἔμφυτον ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἐστιν»). However, this
occurs in such a way that, instead of it being an object of repulsion or aversion, each
of us is indulgent or lenient towards it and does not make the slightest effort to free
himself of it («οὗ πᾶς αὑτῷ συγγνώμην ἔχων ἀποφυγὴν οὐδεμίαν μηχανᾶται»).
This evil is what gets expressed when saying («ὃ λέγουσιν»)2 that every man is by
nature “φίλος αὑτῷ” (lover of self) – and that it is perfectly fine (it is correct or
right: ὀρθῶς) that he should be precisely this. The notion of “φίλος αὑτῷ” is used
here in an extensive and formal sense, expressing the idea of something like a com-
mitment to oneself, dedication to oneself, “love” for oneself, attachment to oneself,
concern for oneself, care for oneself, etc.3
1
See especially 731d6–732b4: «Πάντων δὲ μέγιστον κακῶν ἀνθρώποις τοῖς πολλοῖς ἔμφυτον ἐν
ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἐστιν, οὗ πᾶς αὑτῷ συγγνώμην ἔχων ἀποφυγὴν οὐδεμίαν μηχανᾶται· τοῦτο δ’
ἔστιν ὃ λέγουσιν ὡς φίλος αὑτῷ πᾶς ἄνθρωπος φύσει τέ ἐστιν καὶ ὀρθῶς ἔχει τὸ δεῖν εἶναι
τοιοῦτον. τὸ δὲ ἀληθείᾳ γε πάντων ἁμαρτημάτων διὰ τὴν σφόδρα ἑαυτοῦ φιλίαν αἴτιον ἑκάστῳ
γίγνεται ἑκάστοτε. τυφλοῦται γὰρ περὶ τὸ φιλούμενον ὁ φιλῶν, ὥστε τὰ δίκαια καὶ τὰ ἀγαθὰ
καὶ τὰ καλὰ κακῶς κρίνει, τὸ αὑτοῦ πρὸ τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἀεὶ τιμᾶν δεῖν ἡγούμενος· οὔτε γὰρ
ἑαυτὸν οὔτε τὰ ἑαυτοῦ χρὴ τόν γε μέγαν ἄνδρα ἐσόμενον στέργειν, ἀλλὰ τὰ δίκαια, ἐάντε παρ’
αὑτῷ ἐάντε παρ’ ἄλλῳ μᾶλλον πραττόμενα τυγχάνῃ. ἐκ ταὐτοῦ δὲ ἁμαρτήματος τούτου καὶ τὸ
τὴν ἀμαθίαν τὴν παρ’ αὑτῷ δοκεῖν σοφίαν εἶναι γέγονε πᾶσιν· ὅθεν οὐκ εἰδότες ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν
οὐδέν, οἰόμεθα τὰ πάντα εἰδέναι, οὐκ ἐπιτρέποντες δὲ ἄλλοις ἃ μὴ ἐπιστάμεθα πράττειν,
ἀναγκαζόμεθα ἁμαρτάνειν αὐτοὶ πράττοντες. διὸ πάντα ἄνθρωπον χρὴ φεύγειν τὸ σφόδρα
φιλεῖν αὑτόν, τὸν δ’ ἑαυτοῦ βελτίω διώκειν ἀεί, μηδεμίαν αἰσχύνην ἐπὶ τῷ τοιούτῳ πρόσθεν
ποιούμενον.» («There is an evil, great above all others, which most men have, implanted in their
souls, and which each one of them excuses in himself and makes no effort to avoid. It is the evil
indicated in the saying that every man is by nature a lover of self, and that it is right that he should
be such. But the truth is that the cause of all sins in every case lies in the person’s excessive love of
self. For the lover is blind in his view of the object loved, so that he is a bad judge of things just
and good and noble, in that he deems himself bound always to value what is his own more than
what is true; for the man who is to attain the title of “Great” must be devoted neither to himself nor
to his own belongings, but to things just, whether they happen to be actions of his own or rather
those of another man. And it is from this same sin that every man has derived the further notion that
his own folly is wisdom; whence it comes about that though we know practically nothing, we fancy
that we know everything; and since we will not entrust to others the doing of things we do not
understand, we necessarily go wrong in doing them ourselves. Wherefore every man must shun
excessive self-love, and ever follow after him that is better than himself, allowing no shame
to prevent him from so doing.»). The quotes are based on Burnet 1967; we follow Bury’s
translation (1926).
2
“Ὃ λέγουσιν” (what it is usual to say, what is normally said, a saying, etc.) can allude to certain
ancient passages or expressions, like for example: “πᾶς τις αὑτὸν τοῦ πέλας μᾶλλον φιλεῖ”
(Eurípides, Medea, 86); “ἁγὼ οὔτινι θύω πλὴν ἐμοί, θεοῖσι δ’ οὔ” (Idem, Cyclops, 334); “ἐκεῖνο
γὰρ πέπονθ’ ὅπερ πάντες βροτοί· // φιλῶν μάλιστ’ ἐμαυτὸν οὐκ αἰσχύνομαι” (Idem, frag. 460,
in: Nauck 1902: 120f.).
3
It is important to stress this aspect, in order to get a minimum of understanding of the meaning of
the statements we are considering and of the analyses of Laws IV-V, together with the relation they
have to the question of care. By establishing a link between “φίλος αὑτῷ” and the topic of “care”
14 Care of the Self: The Opposition Between “Lover of Self” (φίλος αὑτῷ… 229
But, in this case, these words immediately provoke perplexity. In fact, what
characterises us (to the point that we cannot manage to conceive of how it could be
any other way) is precisely the fact that we are not indifferent to ourselves and to
(i.e. of “care of the self”), we are not in any way upholding that the passage from the Laws we are
looking at focuses exclusively on the question of care, as if the notion of φιλεῖν (φίλος, φιλία) at
stake here had only to do with this question (or was a mere synonym of ἐπιμέλεια, θεραπεία, etc.).
As we have said, the notion of φιλεῖν at stake here corresponds to something extensive, which can
adopt different forms, but which is closely associated with the phenomenon of care as a core
moment in the constitution of it. In other words, this notion includes determinations involved in the
very nature of care (i.e. care of the self) – or, to be more precise: care (i.e. care of the self) has at
its core elements expressed in the notion of φιλεῖν sensu lato, namely the idea of tension towards
something, non-indifference, attachment or dedication to something, etc. To put it in a nutshell,
when we talk here about “care” (i.e. “care of the self”) and pose this question in relation to the
analyses of Laws IV-V (and, in particular, with what is stated in 731d–732b), what we are trying to
stress is this intrinsic link between the idea of non-indifference sensu lato and the way in which
care finds itself constituted in us – a link that precisely makes the notion of “care” appear like a
much more extensive and fundamental notion than we are used to. All this in such a way that,
notwithstanding the differences between the two semantic fields (and notwithstanding the fact that
the analyses of 715e–732b do not consider at length some of the concepts the corpus platonicum
associates most directly with the question of care, that is care of the self), what gets portrayed in
these analyses ends up, in fact, emphasising certain determinations – and even fundamental ones –
of this very care of the self as such: of its structure, organisation, composition, etc. In this context,
it is also important to emphasize another point, which, as we shall shortly see, is also associated
with this formal notion of attachment to oneself or care for oneself (in being “φίλος αὑτῷ”, etc.),
as outlined in Laws IV-V. This point has to do with the circumstance that our non-indifference is
not fixed, but is rather liable to variation – and, to tell the truth, a variation regarding (a) its “object”
(its “contents” or terminus ad quem), (b) its extension (i.e. regarding the greater or lesser quantity
of the “contents” to which a given form of non-indifference refers) and, again, (c) its intensity (as
the non-indifference in question can go from “having a propensity for X”, “liking X” to “being
obsessed with X”, “not being able to do without X”, “revering” or “idolising X”, etc.). All this does
not mean that the semantic field of “φιλεῖν” only has to do with the features referred to, nor indeed
that the elements common to “φιλεῖν” and “care” are restricted to what we have just indicated; in
this brief outline we have tried to stress only those features we consider the most decisive. Lastly,
mutatis mutandis, something similar occurs regarding the concept of τιμή (honor, esteem, etc.), to
which Laws Books IV and V resort to describe the relationship we have (or could have) with dif-
ferent realities (the gods, the heroes, living relatives, etc.). In this case too it is a question of a
semantic field with its own characteristics, irreducible to others. But in this case the various pos-
sible τιμαί are rooted precisely in the non-indifference or attachment phenomenon we have briefly
tried to outline in this note (we only honor the gods or whatever it is, because we are not indifferent
to them, because we are in some way dedicated to them or want something from them, etc.). So
that, with careful consideration, notwithstanding other equally important features in the concepts
mentioned, this attachment-to-something (dedication to something, commitment to something,
fondness for something) phenomenon ends up in a wider sense expressing (1) a “common denomi-
nator” in a large part of the research on Laws IV-V and (2) a fundamental feature of this same
research. In a certain way, Laws IV-V point to this concept of attachment in a wider sense – both
in resorting to different concepts to, fundamentally, express one and the same thing (so that, at least
in some cases, the terms are practically used as synonyms) and because of the way they combine
these concepts and place them, so to say, “side by side”, thus suggesting much more the idea of a
support, reinforcement or mutual contribution for the picking up of what is at stake than the effort
of a rigid separation between different concepts (in which it is a question of putting everything in
its place). Thus, as well as φιλία and τιμή, see for example: «θεραπεύματα καὶ ὀμιλίαι» (718a8),
«ἐπιμέλεια» (720d1), «τιμὴ… τε θεραπεία» (723e4–5), «σπουδή/ἄνεσις» (724a8–b1).
230 S. Oliveira
what goes on around us. We are, in some way, involved in what appears to us on
each occasion and marked by a care for this, i.e. for the way it interferes with us
ourselves. That is, each of us is, at root, worried about himself, devoted to himself,
committed to following this or that, in some way forced to define what to do with
himself. And the question is, therefore, how, on the one hand, the very being “φίλος
αὑτῷ” can be an evil (and, what is more, the superlative evil!) and, on the other, this
“evil” (which appears to be utterly constitutive and decisive for what we are) can
ever be eradicated or modified.
What comes next makes it possible to dispel some of the perplexity we have
mentioned. Because, with careful consideration, what is said to correspond to the
worst/greatest of evils is not precisely being “φίλος αὑτῷ” (the care for the self as
such or the attachment to the self as such), but rather what gets expressed by the
adverb “σφόδρα” – which can mean much, strong or vehement, but which here
clearly points rather to the idea of excess or too much. That is, the greatest of evils,
or, as the text also says, what is responsible for all mistakes/faults («πάντων
ἁμαρτημάτων αἴτιον») is “ἡ σφόδρα ἑαυτοῦ φιλία” (731e4) sc. “τὸ σφόδρα φιλεῖν
αὑτόν” (732b2–3): an excessive self-love, a care for the self (a non-indifference or
concern for the self) that errs through excess and goes beyond what it “ought to”,
producing what is described as an obnubilation, blinding or illusion that leads to
wrongly determining and discerning (κακῶς κρίνειν) what is right/just, good, beau-
tiful, etc.4 In a nutshell, what 731dff. presents as the worst of evils refers to a par-
ticular form of relationship with the self or a particular degree of intensity in the
relationship with the self that misrepresents the meaning of both the self and all it is
in contact with (all it identifies as τὰ δίκαια καὶ τὰ ἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰ καλά: the things
just and good and noble, etc.). Or, to express it differently: the greatest of evils cor-
responds to a particular identification or understanding of the very “φίλος αὑτῷ”,
that is the very “ἑαυτοῦ φιλία” (its nature, reach, etc.). And, thus, the question we
come up against also involves trying to grasp (1) what the appropriate (not κακῶς)
form of care or attachment to the self is and (2) how this very relationship with the
self can lead to distorted or inappropriate forms of care of/for the self – and what
forms these are.
To understand what is at stake in 731d–732b, it is important to consider what
everything starts from and of what it is, so to say, the “keystone”. Fundamentally,
everything starts from what we might call a “scale”, which gets outlined during
Book V, and from the relationship between this “scale” and a “first scale”, analysed
in 717aff. We here leave aside any lengthy discussion about the link between both
4
Cf. 731e3–732a1: «τὸ δὲ ἀληθείᾳ γε πάντων ἁμαρτημάτων διὰ τὴν σφόδρα ἑαυτοῦ φιλίαν
αἴτιον ἑκάστῳ γίγνεται ἑκάστοτε. τυφλοῦται γὰρ περὶ τὸ φιλούμενον ὁ φιλῶν, ὥστε τὰ δίκαια
καὶ τὰ ἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰ καλὰ κακῶς κρίνει (…)» («But the truth is that the cause of all sins in every
case lies in the person’s excessive love of self. For the lover is blind in his view of the object loved,
so that he is a bad judge of things just and good and noble (…)»).
these “scales” and consider only the general picture that gets established based
on them.5
With these “scales” (or this “big scale”) attention is called to various possible
objects of attachment or, more exactly (as stated in 717aff. and 726aff.), to various
realities that can be the object of τιμᾶν or τιμή (esteem, honour, reverence, worship):
the gods (or god), the self, others (meaning other human beings like me), each one’s
“possessions” or “goods”, etc. Any one of these nuclei has, in turn, a formal charac-
ter, i.e. it makes possible and has involved in its own meaning a wide variety of
moments differentiating and “specifying” the τιμᾶν at stake on each occasion. Thus,
for example, the nucleus of τιμᾶν directed towards others simultaneously embraces
children and young people, relatives, friends, acquaintances, fellow citizens, for-
eigners, etc.6
However, although important, the above still does not touch on the fundamental
question. The fundamental question resides in what turns everything we have men-
tioned into something more than a mere “inventory” and depicts precisely some-
thing with the nature of a “scale”. In fact, all the wide variety mentioned has to do
with a hierarchy of status or importance – and a hierarchy of status or importance
defined in such a way that the most important (or “best”) realities have to regulate,
orientate or command the least important (or “worst”) and, conversely, the latter
have to obey or serve the best.7 In this way, the first level in the “scale” (what is
πρῶτον in terms of τιμᾶν8 or what is κράτιστον καὶ ἄριστον,9 in the sense men-
tioned) – the gods – expresses precisely something superlative and unsurpassable
and, thus, what truly orientates the other possible forms of τιμᾶν and gives them
5
We talk here about “scales”, to express the fact that, both in Book IV (especially 717a–718b) and
Book V, there is an attempt to pinpoint not only various separate determinations (as if it was a ques-
tion of just a “list”), but also an “order”, “hierarchy” or “importance”, by virtue of which some
determinations have priority over or ascendance over others, i.e. are more important than them,
have a higher status or dignity and, in this sense, come “before” them. This aspect will become
clearer in the analyses still to come.
6
See particularly 718aff.
7
In this regard, see v.g. 726a4–6: «τὰ μὲν οὖν κρείττω καὶ ἀμείνω δεσπόζοντα, τὰ δὲ ἥττω καὶ
χείρω δοῦλα· τῶν οὖν αὑτοῦ τὰ δεσπόζοντα ἀεὶ προτιμητέον τῶν δουλευόντων.» («the stronger
and better are the ruling elements, the weaker and worse those that serve; wherefore of one’s own
belongings one must honor those that rule above those that serve.»). It is precisely the fact that the
“best” performs the function of “ruler” over the rest (in such a way that what is located “this side”
of it gets defined precisely by its being at its service and by “following” it) that characterises the
τιμή, i.e. the type of attachment it has with its “object” – in this regard see especially 728c6–8:
«τιμὴ δ’ ἐστὶν ἡμῖν, ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν, τοῖς μὲν ἀμείνοσιν ἕπεσθαι, τὰ δὲ χείρονα, γενέσθαι δὲ
βελτίω δυνατά, τοῦτ’ αὐτὸ ὡς ἄριστα ἀποτελεῖν.» («Thus we declare that honor, speaking gener-
ally, consists in following the better, and in doing our utmost to effect the betterment of the worse,
when it admits of being bettered.»). It is to be highlighted, in brackets, that the said “hierarchy of
importance” does not take place only in the relationship among the various formal nuclei of τιμᾶν,
but also operates “in the inside” of each of these nuclei, arranging the many and various elements
each time at stake precisely on the basis of the greater or lesser importance they have for me.
8
Cf. 717a, 727a.
9
Cf. 726a.
232 S. Oliveira
meaning. In other words: each form of τιμᾶν is characterised, at root, by occupying

a given position in the “scale of importance” referred to – in such a way that (a) it
never has an identity, so to say, totally “closed in on itself” (“alone” with itself), (b)
the position it occupies is associated with a certain “quality” regarding something
superlative (and this also means it is defined by being at a greater or lesser distance
from this superlative) and, thus, finally, (c) the identity of any form of τιμᾶν what-
ever is marked by its relationship with the superlative itself, that is it is “traversed”
by a link with it.
It is important to differentiate as clearly as possible the various aspects at stake
here. First of all, it is a question of what we are able to express when saying that the
“minimum” of care,10 whatever the “direction” or “contents” at which it is directed,
always involves a much more comprehensive organisation and understanding of
care itself. Let us explain ourselves better. When I care for A or B, I do not care only
for this; it happens, rather, that A or B is in a relationship with something else and
occupies a particular “place” on this more extensive horizon. That is, contrary to
what we tend to think, care (at least quoad nos) does not have a fundamentally sepa-
rate or detached nature, as if it was restricted to “focusings” more or less frag-
mented and independent from each other. On the contrary, A or B is defined by
belonging to a more extensive nucleus and it is precisely this nucleus that from itself
organises A or B as “concrete” directions (or “points of application”, if one may say
so) of the type of care at stake. Thus, for example, care for fellow citizens “comes”
somehow from caring for others – and it is precisely the inclusion in this more
extensive nucleus that confers meaning to care for fellow citizens (and this also at
the same time means: to care for a particular group of fellow citizens, etc.). In a
word, if one was indifferent to care for others, it would not be possible for there to
be a care or concern for one’s fellow citizens. But, on the other hand, what defines
this or that nucleus of care (for example, care for others) is also the fact of not being
impervious and independent in relation to other possible nuclei. There are precisely
connections or links between the different nuclei of care – and this in such a way
that, in the final analysis, (1) these nuclei are, in turn, combined in a common, com-
prehensive horizon that confers meaning to everything else and (2) there is always
a certain recognition of what is at stake in the care überhaupt presupposed in the
most “concrete” aspect in care, so that it is this fundamental understanding of care
as such (of what, on the whole, has to be cared for, how this should be done, etc.)
that forms the “medium” in which care X, Y or Z occurs.
But to clearly see the complex picture that is beginning to be outlined, it is
important to look more closely at the description at the beginning of Book V,
especially 726a–729a.
The description we find in this passage is composed essentially of two things. On
the one hand, it focuses on the self sphere and “unfolds” it into three fundamental
moments: the ψυχή (i.e. the self in a strict sense), the body and goods or what one
10
We use the concept here in a wide sense, which can also be expressed by “τιμᾶν” or “φιλεῖν”, etc.
In this regard, see note 3 above.
possesses («ἡ τῶν χρημάτων καὶ κτημάτων κτῆσις»).11 On the other hand, it
concentrates on the relationship between the ψυχή and the first level in the “scale”:
the gods. That is, there is a discarding of the very great majority of determinations
that can be the object of care and a consideration especially of these two – and this
also means: of the hierarchical relationship they maintain with each other, by way
of which the gods are more important, better, etc. than the ψυχή. In this context, it
gets stressed further that, notwithstanding the circumstance that de jure this is the
correct (ὀρθῶς) relationship between the gods and the ψυχή, it turns out that de
facto practically none of us respects it, paying to each thing its due honour – although
we consider that we do («τιμᾷ δ’ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν ἡμῶν οὐδεὶς ὀρθῶς, δοκεῖ δέ·»).12
What do these words point to? What is the meaning of this “zoom” onto these
two determinations and the links between them?
At first sight, the assertion according to which the gods are “better” (or more
important) than the ψυχή and this is, in turn, “better” (or more important) than the
rest may seem arbitrary; but, in truth, it expresses exactly what happens to us.
Everything has to do with the particular features of the οἰκεῖον and ὅμοιον concepts,
i.e. not only with an idea of belonging or property, but also with an idea of affinity,
kinship, similarity, etc. Let us explain ourselves better.
The hierarchy in the internal composition of the self (ψυχή – σῶμα – κτήματα)13
is rooted precisely in what throughout the analyses in Laws V gets expressed when
saying that the ψυχή is, among all we “possess”, what is most our own, i.e. what
properly belongs to us or, as we might also say: what one is in the most precise sense
of the term, what truly defines us – in relation to which the body and goods (the
σῶμα and the κτήματα) occupy a, so to say, less “central” or more “peripheral”
position.14
11
Cf. 728e6.
12
Cf. 726e6–727a3: «οὕτω δὴ τὴν αὑτοῦ ψυχὴ μετὰ θεοὺς ὄντας δεσπότας καὶ τοὺς τούτοις
ἑπομένους τιμᾶν δεῖν λέγων δευτέραν, ὀρθῶς παρακελεύομαι. τιμᾷ δ’ ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν ἡμῶν
οὐδεὶς ὀρθῶς, δοκεῖ δέ·» («Thus it is that in charging men to honor their own souls next after the
gods who rule and the secondary divinities, I am giving a right injunction. But there is hardly a man
of us all who pays honor rightly, although he fancies he does so»).
13
Or, as expressed in 724a7ff.: «τὰ περὶ τὰς αὑτῶν ψυχὰς καὶ τὰ σώματα καὶ τὰς οὐσίας» (see
also 730b1: «ἑαυτὸν καὶ τὰ ἑαυτοῦ»).
14
In this regard, see e.g. 727d8–e3: «(…) ψυχῆς γὰρ σῶμα ἐντιμότερον οὗτος ὁ λόγος φησὶν
εἶναι, ψευδόμενος· οὐδὲν γὰρ γηγενὲς Ὀλυμπίων ἐντιμότερον, ἀλλ’ ὁ περὶ ψυχῆς ἄλλως
δοξάζων ἀγνοεῖ ὡς θαυμαστοῦ τούτου κτήματος ἀμελεῖ.» («(…) for such a statement asserts
that the body is more honorable than the soul, – but falsely, since nothing earth-born is more honor-
able than the things of heaven, and he that surmises otherwise concerning the soul knows not that
in it he possesses, and neglects, a thing most admirable.»). See also Schöpsdau 2003: 201: «Den
Wesenskern des Selbst bildet hierbei gemäß der 959a5–b1 ausgesprochenen Anschauung sie Seele,
während der Leib dessen äußere Erscheinung ist; zu diesen beiden tritt dann (…) gemäß einer
verbreiteten Dreiteilung (vgl. 697b, 717c) der äußere Besitz, der mit dem Leib und der Seele unter
den Begriff der ureigensten „Besitztümer“ (κτήματα, 726a2 u.ö.) subsumiert wird und 730b1 als
τὰ ἑαυτοῦ gleich nach dem Selbst (ἑαυτόν) genannt wird».
234 S. Oliveira
But, this being the case, Laws V speaks of something else, which also marks our
ipseity and plays a role in what we are, that is, what gets expressed as “τὸ θεῖον”
and similar terms (see e.g. 726a3, 728b1, 716aff.): “the divine” or, if one can say
this, “superhuman”. Now, when it is said that this determination is present in the
form in which ipseity is constituted, this makes various interpretations possible. Tὸ
θεῖον can correspond to something merely “accidental”, in such a way that ipseity
does not get substantially transformed by the presence of this element and, at the
end of the day, does not depend on it to be what it is. But τὸ θεῖον can also be under-
stood as something that gets added to our own ipseity like a mere addition to it (so
that, instead of being only “A”, this ipseity is equivalent to something like an
“A + B”).
Nevertheless, if we are not mistaken, it is not this that Book V points to. When
talking about “θεῖον”, Laws V is not calling attention to something merely “super-
vening” and “contingent” regarding the very constitution of ipseity, as if this could
in some way be independent of the divine element and thus had a margin of non-
connection with it (of non-belonging to it). On the contrary, when it talks of θεῖον,
Laws V describes something that shapes at root the way of being of the self – some-
thing that, right from the start, constitutes the “medium” in which care of the self
(both in the subjective genitive sense and in the objective genitive sense) takes place.
In this sense, τὸ θεῖον is not a determination amongst others, but a determination
that is absolutely fundamental for the very constitution of ipseity: a determination
that marks it “from one end to the other”, so that being oneself involves at root this
being-in-a-relationship-with-τὸ-θεῖον (sc. with nothing less than the utmost or the
superlative in terms of quality, status, importance, etc.). Book V of Laws clearly
expresses the absolutely intrinsic role of τὸ θεῖον in the constitution of ipseity, not
only when identifying the most divine (τὸ θειότατον) we possess with what is most
our own (οἰκειότατον),15 but also (as we shall shortly see more clearly) when stress-
ing that, when one loses sight of this (when one does not realise that it is in fact like
this), everything else falls apart.
15
See, for example, 726a2–3: «πάντων γὰρ τῶν αὑτοῦ κτημάτων [μετὰ θεοὺς] ψυχὴ θειότατον,
οἰκειότατον ὄν.» («Of all a man’s own belongings, the most divine is his soul, since it is most his
own.»); 728a8–b2: «(…) οὐκ οἶδεν ἐν τούτοις πᾶσιν πᾶς ἄνθρωπος ψυχὴν θειότατον ὂν
ἀτιμότατα καὶ κακοσχημονέστατα διατιθείς.» («(…) such a man knows not that everyone who
acts thus is treating most dishonorably and most disgracefully that most divine of things, his
soul.»). There is a problem with establishing the text as regards “μετὰ θεούς”. England 1921: 472
brackets the expression, unlike, for example, Schöpsdau 2003. England notes: «below at 727 a 1
and b 4 these words are quite in place as a qualification of δευτέραν, but I cannot believe that the
author put them in here. They involve the twofold absurdity of implying that the Gods are (1) pos-
sessed by mankind, and (2) godlike (…).». While not wanting to take a position on this question,
it is nevertheless important to stress the following fundamental point of the passage. In fact, what
seems decisive in 726a2ff. is to emphasize the essentially “divine” character of the ψυχή – that is,
it is precisely a question of calling attention to the special features of the identity of the ψυχή in
that it is defined by its relationship with the “divine”, in such a way that a) the “divine” is a deter-
mination inscribed in the very way of being of the ψυχή and b), in the final analysis, everything in
the ψυχή depends greatly on how it interacts with the “divine” (how it sees it, how it dedicates
itself to it, etc.). In the rest of this paper, we shall look at these aspects in greater detail.
But here it is important to highlight a point to which what we have just

mentioned is intimately linked. Laws V emphasizes that the relationship each one of
us has with the “divine” sc. with the superlative, is intrinsically affected by what we
could term confusion. And, among the various aspects involved in this phenomenon,
there are two that stand out in the analyses of Book V: (1) the possibility of the
“divine” going unnoticed (i.e. the possibility of “misting over” as a result of which
the “divine” does not figure as a condition sine qua non of our ipseity and seems to
not play a decisive role in it) and, especially, (2) the possibility of an erroneous and
illusory recognition of the identity of the “divine” sc. of the superlative, that is, the
possibility of ψευδός (falsehood), 16 ἄγνοια (ignorance), 17 ἀμέλεια (negligence), 18
ἀμαθία (folly/ignorance/stupidity), 19 etc. in relation to the superlative, which results
precisely in a completely defective (non-ὀρθῶς) understanding of its meaning.20
But there is more. Laws V upholds that with us there is not only a wide variety of
possible deviations. In truth, all the possible forms of defective relationship with the
superlative have, so to say, a common stem, of which they constitute developments
or derivations. That is, there is something like a sole, fundamental deviation of the
“superlative” underlying all the others and to which all the others, at the end of the
day, are related: this deviation is presented in 727a–b as a «considering oneself
capable (ἱκανός) of knowing everything and thinking that by lauding one’s ψυχή
one is in fact honouring it».21
What does this mean and what are its implications?
Firstly, this passage talks of a claim to ἱκανότης (of one being ἱκανός), i.e. a
claim to efficacy or ability by virtue of which one considers one is already able to
know everything. But, secondly, this claim (this “ἡγεῖσθαι πάντα ἱκανὸς εἶναι
γιγνώσκειν”) is linked to a particular form of relationship that each one of us tends
to establish with himself. According to this passage in 727a–b, part of this claim to
16
Cf. 727e1.
17
727e2.
18
727e3.
19
732a5.
20
With due consideration, it is the fact that care has always gone hand-in-hand with the idea of
“quality” (more exactly, of superlative, complete quality: what is more important, has a higher
status, is more worthy of being the object of dedication, etc.) that raises an adequacy/inadequacy
problem and results in care not being neutral in relation to this. That is, it is the circumstance of a
given conformation of care being eo ipso marked by the idea of “quality” – in such a way that it
does not only refer to A or B as objects of the care in question, but also has a “gerundive” relation-
ship with them, if one can say this: A or B is what one has to look for and attend to, what it is
important to take care of, etc. – that opens the door to the possibility of this conformation being
suitable, adequate, “accurate” (in line with what is indeed at stake in care), but also of suffering
from some defect and, thus, corresponding to something “malformed”, deviant, erroneous (i.e.
something that neglects what it is really important and constitutes the meaning of care).
21
Cf. 727a7–b1: «αὐτίκα παῖς εὐθὺς γενόμενος ἄνθρωπος πᾶς ἡγεῖται πάντα ἱκανὸς εἶναι
γιγνώσκειν, καὶ τιμᾶν οἴεται ἐπαινῶν τὴν αὑτοῦ ψυχήν (…)» («Every boy, for example, as soon
as he has grown to manhood, deems himself capable of learning all things, and supposes that by
lauding his soul he honors it (…)»). In this regard, see the whole passage in 727b–728b.
236 S. Oliveira
know everything is the fact of also assuming that, in lauding the self, one is really
honouring it («καὶ τιμᾶν οἴεται ἐπαινῶν τὴν αὑτοῦ ψυχήν») – and this in such a
way that one understands the ψυχή (its meaning, its determination or identity) as
something that should precisely be “lauded” or “esteemed” more than anything. In
this sense, the said claim to know is at the same time a claim regarding the self (a
claim to know what the ψυχή is) and regarding the “place” it occupies in the hori-
zon of all that can (or should) be the object of lauding (dedication, appreciation,
honour, esteem, attention, care, etc.).
If we try to translate what we have just seen into the “scale” we looked at before,
it stands out that the self occupies not the second place, but the very top of the
“scale”, i.e. the position belonging de jure to the gods, sc. to the “divine”. Now, this
means that the superlative – and it also means: this something-still-missing and
below which one is – is as it were “forgotten” and relegated to a secondary position.
But, after due consideration, this “forgetting” has very special features. For it does
not occur purely and simply that the superlative disappears; it occurs, rather, that it
is understood or recognised as something it actually is not. That is, in “forgetting”
the superlative, the self adopts the identity of it, puts itself in its place and usurps
that place.22 We can also express this swapping of identity with the “joking” (and at
the same time “tart”) tone with which Laws IV reworks Protagoras’ theory: when
“forgetting” the “superlative” one considers “man the measure of all things” – when,
in truth, it is to the “divine” (to “God”) that this status belongs («ὁ δὴ θεὸς ἡμῖν
πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἂν εἴη μάλιστα, καὶ πολὺ μᾶλλον ἤ πού τις, ὥς φασιν,
ἄνθρωπος·»).23
From now on it is possible to clarify an aspect that is decisive throughout the
analyses of Laws IV-V. The particular form of “idolatry” of the self we have just
22
In this sense, one can correctly talk about something like a «ὕβρις» (a putting oneself in the place
of “God”, while not recognizing one’s condition of inferiority when compared to him), i.e. about a
perspective that Book IV characterises as follows (cf. 716a4–b1): «(…) ὁ δέ τις ἐξαρθεὶς ὑπὸ
μεγαλαυχίας, ἢ χρήμασιν ἐπαιρόμενος ἢ τιμαῖς, ἢ καὶ σώματος εὐμορφίᾳ ἅμα νεότητι καὶ ἀνοίᾳ
φλέγεται τὴν ψυχὴν μεθ’ ὕβρεως, ὡς οὔτε ἄρχοντος οὔτε τινὸς ἡγεμόνος δεόμενος, ἀλλὰ καὶ
ἄλλοις ἱκανὸς ὢν ἡγεῖσθαι, καταλείπεται ἔρημος θεοῦ (…).» («(…) but whoso is uplifted by
vainglory, or prideth himself on his riches or his honors or his comeliness of body, and through this
pride joined to youth and folly, is inflamed in soul with insolence, dreaming that he has no need of
ruler or guide, but rather is competent himself to guide others, – such an one is abandoned and left
behind by the God (…).»). Our italics.
23
«In our eyes God will be “the measure of all things” in the highest degree – a degree much higher
than is any “man” they talk of.» (716c4–6). See Schöpsdau 2003: 211: «Die Versicherung, daß
Gott mehr als irgendein Mensch (τις … ἄνθρωπος) das Maß aller Dinge sei, enthält eine Spitze
gegen den sog. Homo-mensura-Satz des Protagoras “aller Dinge Maß ist der Mensch” (πάντων
χρημάτων μέτρον ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος Vors. 80 B 1), der im Theaitet 151d–179c einer kritischen
Prüfung unterzogen wird. Während dort “Maß” allerdings primär als Wahrheitskriterium verstan-
den wird, muß hier mit dem “Maß” die Ordnung und Zusammenhalt stiftende Maßhaftigkeit des
Göttlichen gemeint sein (…). Ein weiterer sprachlicher Unterschied zum protagoreischen Satz
liegt im Zusatz von τις zu ἄνθρωπος. Offenbar denkt der Athener an einzelne Menschen, die
sich zum Maß aller Dinge aufwerfen möchten: es liegt nahe, hierbei an den eben (716a5–b1)
geschilderten Typ des selbstherrlichen Menschen zu denken».
mentioned results, at the end of the day, in one not in fact caring for the self – or, in
the terminology of 727a–c, the ἔπαινος of the ψυχή does not lead to any type of
increase or improvement in it, but the opposite: it causes harm, distorts, defiles,
misleads, damages («βλάπτει»).24 The care for oneself that considers the self to be
the “superlative instance” loses sight of its own identity – it does not realise how the
self is marked by a lack of the superlative and, at the same time, by the need for an
effort or tension towards it (for an authentic attachment or dedication to it). Laws V
describes this state of things as a sort of “inflammation”, “swelling” or “over-
boldness” (φλέγμα, 25 χαυνότης, 26 θρασύτης, 27 etc.), 28 which results precisely in
the ψυχή adopting an improper, “artificial” determination, which is “too much” –
and which, in this sense, “contaminates” (“makes ill” or “spoils”) what it really is.
The terms are used by the text of Laws itself, when it talks of the ψυχή thus consti-
tuted as being an ἀκάθαρτος ψυχή (i.e. an “unclean” or “impure” ψυχή)29 or again
when it resorts to expressions such as «κακῶν καὶ μεταμελείας ἐμπιμπλὰς [τὴν
ψυχήν]», 30 pointing therewith not only to the idea of “filling it full” or “being
loaded” (“ἐμπίμπλημι” in a neuter sense), but also to the idea of a “being filled” that
in some way damages or causes degeneration of the ψυχή.
What we have just seen makes it possible, meanwhile, to throw light on another
fundamental point. From what we have described it appears relatively clear, we
believe, that the said phenomenon of “forgetting” the “divine” by usurping its iden-
tity (the “idolatry” of oneself phenomenon, with the meaning we mentioned) is very
far from corresponding to a merely “quantitative” defect, as if, among the many and
various potential objects of care, there was one (the “divine” sc. θεός) which remains
in a blind spot, but in such a way that everything else is not in the least affected. In
truth it is precisely the opposite that occurs.
In fact, in characterising the possibility of this “foulness” or “defiling” of the
ψυχή, Laws V at the same time stresses what we might express by saying that the
“defiling” in question has an “overflowing” character. That is, the “inflammation”
of the ψυχή is constituted in such a way that it does not remain in it alone (if one
can say this, closed or contained in the sphere of the self in the strictest sense); it
24
In this regard, see especially 727a3ff.
25
716a6.
26
728e4.
27
728e4.
28
In this sense, see also 716a4ff.: «(…) ὁ δέ τις ἐξαρθεὶς ὑπὸ μεγαλαυχίας, ἢ χρήμασιν ἐπαιρόμενος
ἢ τιμαῖς, ἢ καὶ σώματος εὐμορφίᾳ ἅμα νεότητι καὶ ἀνοίᾳ (…).» («(…) but whoso is uplifted by
vainglory, or prideth himself on his riches or his honors or his comeliness of body, and through this
pride joined to youth and folly (…).»). Our italics.
29
Cf. 716e2.
30
Cf. 727c1–4: «οὐδ’ ὁπόταν ἡδοναῖς παρὰ λόγον τὸν τοῦ νομοθέτου καὶ ἔπαινον χαρίζηται,
τότε οὐδαμῶς τιμᾷ, ἀτιμάζει δὲ κακῶν καὶ μεταμελείας ἐμπιμπλὰς αὐτήν [sc. ψυχήν].» («Again,
when a man gives way to pleasures contrary to the counsel and commendation of the lawgiver, he
is by no means conferring honor on his soul, but rather dishonor, by loading it with woes and
remorse.»). Our italics.
238 S. Oliveira
happens, rather, that it spreads or co-extends to what is beyond this sphere. The
defective understanding of the self and of the role it plays in the whole horizon of
care thus distorts eo ipso the relationship with one’s body and results in one lauding,
admiring or honouring the fact that it is fair (καλόν) or strong (ἰσχύρον) or swift
(ταχύ) or large (μέγα), etc.31 But something similar takes place with regard to the
goods or things one possesses: in this case too what seems worthier is wealth or
money.32 And the same type of misrepresentation or distortion also has a place in
relations with others.33
It is not the place here to look in detail at all these defect elements and try to
understand how a specific form of misrepresenting the self corresponds to each of
these cases. It is important only to stress that all this opens the door to the possibility
of care being constituted in such a way that it produces a distancing from its own
meaning, placing the self each time further from the relationship with the “divine”
that in effect defines it and making way for what Laws V describes as different
forms of identification (οἱμοιοῦσθαι)34 of the self with something κακόν, with
ἀδικία, etc. That is, the fundamental distortion of the recognition of the self leads to
me becoming ὅμοιος – like, resembling or similar – not to the “divine”, 35 but instead
to what is far from it and features qualities opposite to those of it. And this gives
rise, fundamentally, to two things interconnected with each other: on the one hand,
an inversion of the very meaning of care, of τιμᾶν, etc., in that this consists in going
after what is better and striving as much as possible to correct or improve the worse
in us.36 Or, to paraphrase the terms with which Laws V expresses this aspect: the
defective understanding of care of the self gives rise to a sort of “short circuit”, by
virtue of which what one should avoid or escape from (φεύγειν) becomes some-
thing one pursues or chases (διώκειν).37 And, thus, on the other hand, all this ends
up producing a confusion or disorder (ταραχή) regarding nothing less than every-
thing with which one is in contact,38 from which ensues what 716b also presents as
31
See especially 728e.
32
Cf. 727e–728a, 729a.
33
In this regard, see notably 730e1ff.
34
See, for example, 728b.
35
Cf. “ὅμοιος θεῷ”, 716d1.
36
As said in 728c6–8: «τιμὴ δ’ ἐστὶν ἡμῖν, ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν, τοῖς μὲν ἀμείνοσιν ἕπεσθαι, τὰ δὲ
χείρονα, γενέσθαι δὲ βελτίω δυνατά, τοῦτ’ αὐτὸ ὡς ἄριστα ἀποτελεῖν» («Thus we declare that
honor, speaking generally, consists in following the better, and in doing our utmost to effect the
betterment of the worse, when it admits of being bettered.»).
37
Cf. 732b2–4: «διὸ πάντα ἄνθρωπον χρὴ φεύγειν τὸ σφόδρα φιλεῖν αὑτόν, τὸν δ’ ἑαυτοῦ
βελτίω διώκειν ἀεί, μηδεμίαν αἰσχύνην ἐπὶ τῷ τοιούτῳ πρόσθεν ποιούμενον.» («Wherefore
every man must shun excessive self-love, and ever follow after him that is better than himself,
allowing no shame to prevent him from so doing.»).
38
Cf. 716b1ff.
a total collapse or ruin («(…) ἑαυτόν τε καὶ οἶκον καὶ πόλιν ἄρδην ἀνάστατον
ἐποίησεν»).39
Based on everything we have seen, it is easier to understand, we hope, the mean-
ing and implications of the thesis in Laws V we mentioned at the start of this study.
In effect, when in 731d–732b it is upheld that there is a fundamental form of “care”
of/for the self that produces the greatest of evils and that this form of “care” can be
identified with «τὸ σόδρα φιλεῖν αὑτόν» (i.e. with excessive dedication to the self),
what is, in the final analysis, being pointed to is the possibility of a defect in the
relationship with the “divine” sc. with the superlative – a defect that produces pre-
cisely a particular blindness, clouding or confusion («τυφλοῦται»).40 With due con-
sideration, this blindness is what is at stake in the usurping of the superlative sc. in
the claim to possess it already, resulting at the same time in a “concealing” of the
real “whereabouts” of the “superlative” and of the situation in which the self finds
itself: one that can only illusorily be seen as being really cognoscitive or knowledge-
based – when, in truth, it is no more than an ἀμαθία sc. an ἄνοια disguised as σοφία.41
39
In this sense see also the description of this state of things in 717eff., which talks of the ἀκάθαρτος
ψυχή as something the πόνος (endeavor, effort, toil, labor, “bustle”) of which is nothing but sense-
less, idle and in vain (μάτην).
40
The term used to express what “τὸ σόδρα φιλεῖν αὑτόν” and the evil coming from it consist in
is “ἁμάρτημα” sc. “ἁμαρτάνειν”. Ἁμάρτημα, ἁμαρτάνειν makes the link with the idea of “divine”,
etc. particularly clear in so much as it means not only an error, deficiency or mistake, but also
contains a “religious” connotation, as it can mean an error or deficiency vis-à-vis something divine,
an offence towards “god” or something godlike (in this regard see e.g. Bailly, Dictionnaire grec-
français (2000, sub voce): «commettre une faute, faillir, pécher», «τὰ περί τι εἰς τὰ θεῖα
ἁμαρτανόμενα, Plat. Leg. 759c, les fautes que l’on commet en qqe ch. à l’égard de la religion, les
manquements en matière de religion»; Liddell, Scott and Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (1996,
sub voce): «a sinful action», «do wrong, err, sin».
41
This is what gets expressed very clearly in the passage already mentioned in 732a5–b2; «ἐκ
ταὐτοῦ δὲ ἁμαρτήματος τούτου καὶ τὸ τὴν ἀμαθίαν τὴν παρ’ αὑτῷ δοκεῖν σοφίαν εἶναι γέγονε
πᾶσιν· ὅθεν οὐκ εἰδότες ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν οὐδέν, οἰόμεθα τὰ πάντα εἰδέναι, οὐκ ἐπιτρέποντες δὲ
ἄλλοις ἃ μὴ ἐπιστάμεθα πράττειν, ἀναγκαζόμεθα ἁμαρτάνειν αὐτοὶ πράττοντες.» («And it is
from this same sin that every man has derived the further notion that his own folly is wisdom;
whence it comes about that though we know practically nothing, we fancy that we know every-
thing; and since we will not entrust to others the doing of things we do not understand, we neces-
sarily go wrong in doing them ourselves.»). The idea of a groundless, illegitimate pretension to
knowledge (i.e. of “οἴεσθαι γιγνώσκειν/εἰδέναι” in the negative sense these passages of the Laws
point to) appears throughout the corpus platonicum and is highlighted through various concepts
and expressions – see also e.g.: «οὐκ εἰδότες ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν οὐδέν, οἰόμεθα τὰ πάντα εἰδέναι»
(Leges, 732a6–7); «ὡς εἰδὼς παντελῶς περὶ ἃ μηδαμῶς οἶδεν» (ibidem, 863c5–6); «δοκεῖν μὲν
εἶναι σοφὸς ἄλλοις τε πολλοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ μάλιστα ἑαυτῷ, εἶναι δ ̓ οὔ» (Apologia Socratis,
21c6–7); «οἰόμενος μέν τι εἰδέναι, εἰδὼς δὲ μή» (Charmides, 166d2); «οἴεσθαι νοῦν ἔχειν (…)
οὐκ ἔχοντας» (Cratylus, 406c5-6); «ἡγούμενοι μὴ εἰδέναι ἃ μὴ ἴσασιν» (Lysis, 218b1); «οἴεσθαι
εἰδέναι οὐκ εἰδώς» (Meno, 84c5); «οἰησόμεθα εἰδέναι ὃ μηδαμῇ ἴσμεν» (Theatetus, 187c2); «τὸ
μὴ κατειδότα τι δοκεῖν εἰδέναι» (Sophista, 229c5); «δοξάζωμεν μανθάνειν μὲν τὰ λεγόμενα παρ
̓ ὑμῶν, τὸ δὲ τούτου γίγνηται πᾶν τοὐναντίον» (ibidem, 244a9–b1); «οἳ περὶ τὰ πολιτικὰ κατ ̓
οὐδὲν γιγνώσκοντες ἡγοῦνται κατὰ πάντα σαφέστατα πασῶν ἐπιστημῶν ταύτην εἰληφέναι»
(Politicus, 302b1–3); «οὐ μόνον ἀγνοεῖς τὰ μέγιστα, ἀλλὰ καὶ οὐκ εἰδὼς οἴει αὐτὰ εἰδέναι»
(Alcibiades Ι, 118b1–2).
240 S. Oliveira
But, in this case, the analyses in Laws V end up portraying something apparently
paradoxical. Because, with due consideration, what they call attention to is that one
is all the more “φίλος αὑτῷ” all the more one has a notion of the insufficient and
flawed character of the self, i.e. the more one sees that, in truth, one still falls short
of a really correct acknowledgement (purged of κακία and ἄνοια) of what one is (of
“where” one is, so to say). Thus, only the comprehension of this (i.e. only the com-
prehension of this flaw as a result of which one is still not able to know and, there-
fore, not «ἡγεῖται πάντα ἱκανὸς εἶναι γιγνώσκειν») leads to each of us being
“closer” to the “divine” (and being, to tell the truth, «θεῷ ὅμοιος», similar to God
or like God) and «θεῷ φίλος» (dear to God).42
In this context, it is still important to highlight two points, which we cannot dis-
cuss here in detail, but which also play an important role in all we have tried to focus
on in this brief study. Firstly, the “divine” talked about in Laws IV-V already
expresses a precise, defined determination: the “utmost”, the “unsurpassable”, the
“top” of the “scale”. At first sight, it seems obvious that this term describes an entity
or group of entities (the θεός, viz. the θεοί) dwelling in a “place” above us, more or
less distant from where we live, and with which we make contact through sacrifices,
offerings, etc. (see e.g. 715eff.). But, on the other hand, “θεῖον” also describes a
property of the ψυχή itself43 (and indeed a property without which the ψυχή could
not (erroneously) understand itself as being the most important thing). In this sense,
the analyses of Laws IV-V involve a certain ambiguity and, even if indirectly and
silently, raise the question of knowing (a) to what extent Plato’s analyses of the self,
the divine, the most usual understanding of the self (which tends to distort the true
nature of self-care) and, furthermore, the self/divine relationship do not, fundamen-
tally, modify the most “traditional” (and apparently most obvious) understanding of
the divine – or if, on the contrary, they diverge from it and in some way challenge it;
and, thus, (b) what is, at the end of the day, the meaning of these terms – self and
divine – that play a central role in Plato’s analyses in Laws IV-V.
All this leads us to a second point. As we have seen, Laws IV-V stresses the pos-
sibility of a “liberation” of the usual identification of the “superlative” (the self
perceived as being already a knowledgeable, self-sufficient point of view, capable of
correctly understanding everything going on), in such a way that one, at least to
some extent, stops being entangled with the “greatest of evils” and a sort of “clean-
ing”, “purification” of it emerges. On the one hand, the condition of possibility for
there being such a “cleaning” involves precisely the awareness of the very “con-
tamination” produced by a particular interpretation of the “superlative” (and, in
42
Cf. 716c6–d4: «(…) τὸν οὖν τῷ τοιούτῳ προσφιλῆ γενησόμενον, εἰς δύναμιν ὅτι μάλιστα καὶ
αὐτὸν τοιοῦτον ἀναγκαῖον γίγνεσθαι, καὶ κατὰ τοῦτον δὴ τὸν λόγον ὁ μὲν σώφρων ἡμῶν θεῷ
φίλος, ὅμοιος γάρ, ὁ δὲ μὴ σώφρων ἀνόμοιός τε καὶ διάφορος καὶ <ὁ> ἄδικος, καὶ τὰ ἄλλ’ οὕτως
κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον ἔχει.» («He, then, that is to become dear to such an one must needs become,
so far as he possibly can, of a like character; and, according to the present argument, he amongst
us that is temperate is dear to God, since he is like him, while he that is not temperate is unlike and
at enmity, – as is also he who is unjust, and so likewise with the rest, by parity of reasoning.»).
43
As explicitly stated in 726a2–3, for example.
particular, by the usual interpretation) – which, in turn, opens the door to the
possibility of launching the correction of the flaw (or “contamination”) at stake.
But, on the other hand, nothing of what we have tried to highlight here makes clear
how this “cleaning” of the ψυχή arises, at what distance it is (if it involves various
“disinfection” steps or takes place “in one sole leap”), what type(s) of transforma-
tion (or transformations) get(s) generated along the way, etc.
Bibliography
Burnet, J. 1967. Platonis Opera. Vol. 5. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bury, R.G. 1926. Plato: Laws, vol. 1: Books I–VI. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
England, E.B. 1921. The Laws of Plato. Vol. I. Manchester: University Press.
Nauck, A. 1902. Euripidis tragoediae. Leipzig: Teubner.
Ritter, C. 1896a. Platos Gesetze: Kommentar zum griechischen Text. Leipzig: Teubner.
———. 1896b. Platos Gesetze: Darstellung des Inhalts. Leipzig: Teubner.
Schöpsdau, K. 2003. Platon: Nomoi (Gesetze). Vol. 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Solmsen, F. 1980. Some passages in Plato’s Laws (IV and V). Illinois Classical Studies 5: 44–48.
Van Camp, J., and P. Canart. 1956. Le sens du mot θεῖος chez Platon. Louvain: Presses Universitaires
de Louvain.
Chapter 15
Cura personalis: The Care of the Person
and the Roots of Jesuit Pedagogy
Cristiano Casalini
Abstract The value of cura personalis has enjoyed a meteoric rise in usage in the
last few decades and is now considered emblematic of Jesuit philosophy of educa-
tion. The meaning of this expression, though, is still ambiguous. The first to use this
expression was Father General Ledóchowski, who addressed the colleges and uni-
versities run by the Jesuits in the United States in 1934. Contrary to a tradition that
traces back to the first Jesuits, who mostly adopted the expression “souls” instead of
“person” as the target of “care”, Ledóchowski claimed that a culture of persona was
deeply enrooted in the spirit of the Society of Jesus, and particularly in the spiritual-
ity of Ignatius of Loyola. This paper aims to show the background of Ledóchowoski’s
usage of the expression “cura personalis”, the meaning of it, and how such an
expression so easily made roots within Jesuit educational culture.
Keywords Cura personalis · Education · Jesuit pedagogy · Colleges · Whole

person education
A very popular assumption in the contemporary Jesuit educational discourse is that

“cura personalis” is a long-standing – and perhaps even, along with “magis,” the
most important – tenet of the Jesuit philosophy of education. This recurrent pre-
understanding is often accompanied by a historiographical claim (that couples with
the allure of a Latin expression in post-postmodern times), according to which the
distinctively Jesuit cura personalis is enrooted in the spiritual origins and even the
early teaching practices of the Society itself. Now, if one takes it literally, this claim
is not true, as Barton Geger convincingly proved in a recent article (Geger 2014).
No evidence has been found that any Jesuit used such an expression in official docu-
ments before the instruction letter that Father General Włodzimierz Ledóchowski
addressed to the American Jesuits in 1934 concerning crucial characteristics of
C. Casalini (*)
Boston College, Boston, MA, USA
e-mail: casalini@bc.edu

Switzerland AG 2021
244 C. Casalini
Jesuit education.1 However, what is still surprising is how easily this new conceptual
category entered both the self-understanding and the practice of a religious order
that, regarding education, had been solidly attached to the “monument” of the Ratio
studiorum (1599) for centuries, a monument in which the expression “cura persona-
lis” does not occur at all.
The goal of this essay, though, is not to “brush history against the grain,” provid-
ing a circumstantiated history of further appearances of the expression within Jesuit
literature and correcting current commonplaces with the frown of the philologist.
Rather, this essay will inquire into the theoretical conditions that allowed such an
imagined Wirkungsgeschichte to develop and reveal the philosophical threads that
connect current practices relating to the care of the person in Jesuit schools to the
cultural origins of the Society of Jesus.2
15.1 Ledóchowski’s Instructions
In his “New Instruction,” Ledóchowski affirmed that the ultimate end of Jesuit edu-
cation is to help students know and love God more deeply. As General Roothaan had
done in the nineteenth century by issuing the revised Ratio studiorum (1832),
Ledóchowski made it very clear that this philosophy of education was rooted, if not
in the letter, then in the very spirit of the old Ratio.3 In fact, a list of four bullet points
under the sub-heading “Iuxta spiritum rationis studiorum” (According to the Spirit
of the Ratio studiorum) was meant to summarize and revive that long-lasting tradi-
tion. As means to attain the goals of Jesuit education, Ledóchowski listed a solid
grounding in Catholic doctrine and Scholastic philosophy and “an approach to
1
The Instructio was prefaced by a letter from Fr. Ledóchowski in English, “Letter to the Fathers
and Scholastics of the American Assistancy Announcing the New Instruction on Studies and
Teaching,” dated August 15, 1934 (Geger 2014: 1–4).
2
An excellent survey on current practices and the core values of Jesuit pedagogy is offered by a
collective volume recently published in Portugal and edited by José Manuel Martins Lopes, SJ
(Martins Lopes: 2018). Martins Lopes provides an engaging reading of the historical and theoreti-
cal tenets of Jesuit pedagogy in his contribution, entitled “Linhas caracteristicas da pedagogia da
Companhia de Jesus,” (Martins Lopes 2018: 5–72). For what concerns the concept of care of the
person, Luiz Fernando Klein, SJ, tracks it in the culture of the first Jesuits, who built their educa-
tional model upon the pedagogy of the university of Paris. See Klein 2018.
3
Ledóchowski’s aim was that of “reorganizing our educational institutions, leaving untouched the
inviolable principles of our Institute and its Ratio studiorum, but combining them with approved
modern methods, so that our standard may be equal to the best in the country.” See Ledóchowski,
“Instructio,” 6. A century before this letter, Ian Roothaan addressed the commission he had sum-
moned to revise the Ratio studiorum with the following words: “It is easy to understand how much
reverence must be shown in handling this matter, and with what great care and prudence the slight-
est change is to be introduced into a work which was the result of long, thorough consultation and
deliberation on the part of very eminent men, a work which has been tested by the successful
experience of almost two centuries and which has not infrequently received the very highest of
praise even from the enemies of our Society themselves.” Cf. O’Connor 1935: 5.
15 Cura personalis: The Care of the Person and the Roots of Jesuit Pedagogy 245
e ducation that looks beyond intellectual learning to the development of the faculties
[in Latin, formatio) of the ‘whole person’ (meant by the Latin expression, totus
homo].” The fourth (and last) bullet point states the following:
Personalis alumnorum cura, qua Nostri, praeter doctrinam et exemplum in scholis praesti-
tum, singulos consilio et exhortatione dirigere et adiuvare satagant.
(The personal care of students, by which [Jesuits], beyond the teaching and example
provided in the classes, endeavor to direct and help individuals by means of [good] counsel
and exhortation.) (Geger 2014: 7).
Given the structural context of the expression (a sub-heading in a bullet-point list),

it should not surprise that it went apparently unnoticed among the American Jesuit
community. However, after some decades, Fr. Laurence J. McGinley, outlining the
draft for a homily that Superior General Pedro Arrupe was expected to give during
his visit to St. Peter’s College in New Jersey in 1972, recovered the expression “cura
personalis” and attributed its origin to the spirit of the first Jesuits: “what Jesuits 400
years ago called [sic!] ‘cura personalis’ [was] the concern, care, attention, even love
of the teacher for each student – in an atmosphere of deep personal trust”(Geger
2014: 7).
In 1986, the International Commission on the Apostolate of Jesuit Education
published a document entitled The Characteristic of Jesuit Education, where “cura
personalis” was strongly reaffirmed as a value that “remains a basic characteristic of
Jesuit Education” (Duminuco 2000: 181). Given the institutional role that the author
of this document had for the Society, the phrase became universally recognized by
the global network of Jesuit schools and universities as a central tenet of what made
them distinct in the educational landscape. References to “cura personalis” became
more frequent, and there sprouted an educational literature that sought to elucidate
that expression within the context of the theory and practice of Jesuit pedagogy.
How could a subtitle in a bullet-point list become so pivotal for the self-
understanding of contemporary Jesuit education? And is the adoption of such a
concept revealing of anything deeper than a bureaucratic stylistic need? What
underlying philosophy of education explains the success of the concept and made it
so popular among Jesuit educators?
A warning should be raised here, as bumping into false friends is always a pos-
sibility for the historian of ideas: there is unfortunately no evidence in any of the
hundreds of documents and letters collected in the Acta Romana Societatis Iesu that
could enable one to track the appearance (and the causes for it) of “cura personalis”
during Ledóchowski’s generalate. And almost certainly, the “cura personalis” that
Ledóchowski highlighted as a characteristic of Jesuit education did not derive from
any exposure of his to the phrase as it appeared in the pugnacious articles that
Mounier had been churning out in the French journal Esprit during those very
same years.4
4
According to Wictor Gramatowski, Ledóchowski’s concern was to build a uniform system out of
what was common and shared among Jesuit schools rather than introducing educational concepts
drawn from contemporary philosophical movements: “L deseaba introducer un Sistema uniforme
de educación en toos los centros educativos de todas las provincias. (…) La Ratio studiorum fue
246 C. Casalini
Nonetheless, Ledóchowski’s adoption of “cura personalis” does not seem to be

accidental, as it is rooted in a specific philosophy of education that he shared.
Indeed, the superior general understood the distinctiveness of Jesuit schools to
reside in their peculiar form of pedagogy, a method that was being challenged by
recent developments in educational practices around the world. Jesuit colleges, he
believed, had thrived over the centuries not merely because of their excellent trans-
mission of knowledge in specific disciplines but also because of their refined method
and their particular culture of education, which was still valid in the 1930s. Such
trust in the Jesuit method was not a mere matter of practices, the best of which
Ledóchowski felt bound to defend; in his mind, it was also a matter of educa-
tional theory.
In a letter on Jesuit formation and the Jesuit magisterium, Ledóchowski opposed
to contemporary “false” philosophies of education the long-standing Jesuit
pedagogy:
Ne hoc in gravissimum Collegiorum nostrorum detrimentum et sanae paedagogiae dam-
num cedat, oportet ut habeamus homines qui educandae juventuti se totos perpetuo appli-
cant, qui rei paedagogicae assidue et impense studeant, qui theoriam cum rerum usu
coniungant, qui conventibus de hac re digne interesse possint.
(So that this does not end up doing serious harm to our colleges and damage to
sound teaching, we need to have people who uninterruptedly [perpetuo] apply
themselves completely [totos] to educating the youth, who devote themselves
steadily and generously to teaching, who join theory with real experience, who can
make valuable contributions in assemblies on this subject.) (Acta Romana Societatis
Iesu 1933: 468).
Pedagogical formation was essential for the Jesuit teacher, according to
Ledóchowski. This preparation could not be the result of mere experiential acquisi-
tion but required a process of learning that was both theoretical and practical. In
fact, Ledóchowski was clear on the point that, to form a good teacher for Jesuit col-
leges, intellectual education in the discipline to be taught was not enough; Jesuits
who were trained to become teachers had to undergo a “pedagogic and practical
training” as well.5
When Ledóchowski used the expression “cura personalis”, he evidently had this
art of conducting the pupil in mind. As with any other art, pedagogy had grounds in
both practice and theory. Therefore, in his mind, the care of the person that made
Jesuit education so practically successful over time must also have had theoretical
roots stretching back to the very origins of the Society. And also as with any other
revisada con miras a la promoción de los métodos educativos en los colegios y para que el plan de
estudios tuviese en cuenta los adelantos en las diversas ramas del saber” (Gramatowski 2001: 1688).
5
Addressing the Italian Province in 1935 on the issue of Jesuit formation, Ledóchowski remarked:
“Ma oltre a questa preparazione puramente intellettuale, si deve pure pensare a dare ai Nostri una
conveniente preparazione pedagogica e pratica. Accade invece il più sovente che I nostril giovani
Scolastici vengono inviati a fare da sorveglianti o prefetti, a sostenere cioè la parte più difficile e
ingrate della educazione, senza che abbiano avuto il più elementare concetto dell’arte di condurre
di giovani.” AR 1935: 8, 320.
art, this theory was not merely found in philosophical treatises or specified by intel-
lectual essays. One might rather detect it in the underlying mentality of the order’s
founders and track it in the developments of the Society’s institutional culture as
well as in the longue-durée attitudes of Jesuit educators. In this sense, the history of
“cura personalis” is not different from the history of Jesuit pedagogy, as they both
indicate the very same philosophical concern.
What, then, were these based on? What are the theoretical roots of the Jesuit
“care of the person” and pedagogy? Can they be traced using Ledóchowski’s men-
tion of “cura personalis” as a starting point?
In my opinion, the answer is yes. Indeed, Ledóchowski’s references to the forma-
tion of the whole person, combined with attention to the particular characteristics of
each and every individual, echo a strongly humanistic approach to education hear-
kening back to the sixteenth century. In this paper, I won’t claim that such an
approach is exclusive to Jesuit education, especially given the entire history of edu-
cation. As Geger said, “implying that ‘holistic education’ and ‘respect for the indi-
vidual’ are values unique to Jesuit education (…) is like trying to copyright the
alphabet” (Geger 2014: 20). But I will reveal how such an approach could arise in
early Jesuit education; show how it was implemented in practice and how this
implementation made the Jesuit philosophy of education different, in some respects,
from that of the humanists; and finally, claim that it is at least possible that it was
this distinctive interpretation of humanistic pedagogy that made Jesuit schools more
successful than any other in the sixteenth century and beyond.
In short, I think that the encounter of a humanistic educational model with
Ignatius of Loyola’s spirituality generated a distinctive philosophy of education that
early Jesuit schools successfully reflected in their practices. This philosophy was
rooted in a specifically Jesuit culture of care, the dynamic and goals of which were
intertwined with those of transmitting knowledge (tradere disciplinas) and educat-
ing a broad array of students. This pedagogic “surplus,” which was a defining char-
acteristic of Jesuit schools and required of Jesuit teachers, produced a model that
successfully competed with those of medieval universities and elitist humanist con-
versari all across Europe.
15.2 A Humanistic Philosophy of Education
A large literature exists addressing the historical distinctiveness of humanism. In

particular, the impact of humanistic culture on, and its development within,
sixteenth-century education has been a source of controversy and disputation among
historians.6 Given that humanists used to lash out against universities and any tradi-
tional form of schooling that smelled of the Middle Ages, many scholars have
6
This debate can be traced back at least to Gilson’s studies on the philosophical roots of Descartes’s
thought. A milestone was Paul O. Kristeller’s Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic, and
Humanistic Strains (Kristeller 1961). For the rest of the story of this debate see Garin 1957:
248 C. Casalini
argued that a distinctive humanist model of education gave rise to practices and
institutions that were in evident competition with medieval universities. Others have
tried to reveal how the humanist model, though distinct in its origins and goals from
that of the universities, had an impact on the latter and brought about developments
that affected the education of university students during the Renaissance and on the
eve of modernity. Did humanists generally share a common philosophy of educa-
tion? Did they consistently implement it in their schools? Did their philosophy enter
the structure of universities? And, if so, how did it affect educational practices?
Finally, how did the Jesuits come in contact with such a philosophy, and how did
they react to it?
Three great masters turned the idea of humanism into a pedagogy. These masters
were Gasparino Barzizza, Vittorino da Feltre, and Guarino Guarini. As masters,
they founded schools – which turned out to be boarding schools. Their pedagogy
was based on the so-called studia humanitatis.
These schools were pivotal to fostering humanism as a leading intellectual move-
ment first in the courts of Italy and then throughout Europe. They educated genera-
tions of students using a completely different model from that which either medieval
schools or universities had provided.
Medieval schools provided some education for those students who were seeking
jobs as administrators and functionaries. Their pedagogy was based on the ars dic-
taminis (the art of writing letters) and on textbooks, which were nothing but anthol-
ogies of texts drawn from the auctores octo morales (eight moral authors).
The goal of the studia humanitatis was the formation of an upright character for
the common good through the study of the ancient classics (whose texts humanists
had only recently rediscovered). As John O’Malley has said, these works of poetry,
drama, oratory, and history were assumed not only to produce eloquence in those
studying them but also to inspire noble and uplifting ideals (O’Malley 2000a: 58).
They would, if properly taught, render the student a better human being, imbued in
particular with an ideal of service to the common good, in imitation of the great
heroes of antiquity – an ideal certainly befitting the Christian. Early humanists, such
as Pier Paolo Vergerio, Leonardo Bruni, and Aeneas Silvio Piccolomini, sought to
win elite public opinion to this vision by writing pedagogical treatises praising the
studia humanitatis for building character, teaching eloquence, and training future
leaders of society. The purpose of this schooling was not so much the pursuit of
abstract or speculative truth, which is what the universities were engaged in, as the
character formation of the student, an ideal the humanists encapsulated in the word
pietas – to be translated not as piety, though it included it, but as upright character
(Grendler 1989).
To instill such an upright character, Vergerio, Guarino, and Barzizza looked to
the works of Quintilian and Cicero’s De oratore for inspiration, wishing to substi-
tute Cicero’s letters and orations for the ars dictaminis (the medieval art of
137–52; Grafton and Jardine 1989; Scaglione 1986); O’Malley 1993; Grendler 1989; Grendler
2002; and Kallendorf 1999.
composition), and insisted on the importance of the ancient Greek language. While
the study of Logic stood at the core of university curriculum and method, Rhetoric
was at the center of the humanist curriculum; that is, it taught oratory, the power to
move others to action – specifically, action in a good cause.
Humanist pioneers eventually succeeded in winning the support of political lead-
ers, and their schools – which, as noted above, were also boarding schools – became
the schools of choice for the sons of princes, nobles, and wealthy commoners in
Italy. As Paul Grendler pointed out, the boarding-school experience compounded
the teachers’ influence over students and considerably aided the spread of the studia
humanitatis (Grendler 1989: 130). Master and student sought to forge a lifetime
bond in the years that they lived and learned under the same roof. The boarding-
school experience might generate stronger and more intimate ties than those that
existed between parent and child. A boy of ten or twelve left his parental home to
live in a pedagogical family. The master corrected the boy’s lessons in the class-
room, chided his manners at the table, and improved his morals everywhere.
To sum up, the humanists believed that they could recreate in their boarding
school a miniature ancient world whose youthful inhabitants would become respon-
sible and upright leaders of society. A close connection between the studia humani-
tatis and later Jesuit education can be seen in what Grendler points out about the
ideal profile of a humanist teacher: “The presence of the boarding school as the
ideal learning environment helps explain why Renaissance pedagogical literature
insisted that the teacher must be good as well as learned, and that an affective bond
must unite teacher and student” (Grendler 1989: 132).
By the early decades of the sixteenth century, these secondary schools had begun
to spread outside Italy to many other countries of Western Europe. Boosted by the
prestige of leading intellectuals of what was called Northern Humanism, such as
Erasmus and Juan Luis Vives, the model of the studia humanitatis had particular
success in France, where it affected the practices of sixteenth-century university
colleges such as Montaigu and Sainte Barbe (Lécrivain 2011: 55–6).7 It was in these
colleges that we find the first Jesuits meeting each other and sharing those educa-
tional experiences that would influence the culture of their religious order.8
According to O’Malley, such was the influence of the humanistic culture of edu-
cation on the Jesuits that
if you are looking for the Jesuit philosophy of education, you will not find it explicitly
articulated in that document [the Ratio studiorum]. The Plan assumed that the strictly intel-
lectual goals of the universities was a good worth pursuing. More important, it took for
granted the humanists’ philosophy as undergirding the whole program, and therefore felt no
need to repeat it or to elaborate a philosophy of its own (O’Malley 2015: 25).
7
See also Conwell 1997.
8
An extensive literature covers this topic. See Farrell 1938; Ganss 1954; Lukács 1960, 1961;
Codina Mir 1968; Bireley 1999. And more recently, see O’Malley 2015; Macau Ricci Institute
2014; and Grendler 2014.
250 C. Casalini
Unlike some of their contemporaries, the Jesuits did not oppose humanistic educa-
tion to scholastic (university or professional) education, as if these were two incom-
patible systems or cultures. They saw them, rather, as complementary (O’Malley
2015: 11). They esteemed the intellectual rigor of the scholastic system and the
power of the detached analysis it provided, and they believed in its goal of training
highly skilled graduates in the sciences and in the professions of law, medicine, and
theology. They saw this graduate training, specifically in theology, as especially
appropriate for their own members and even for a few select students of the dioce-
san clergy. This was because they considered it useful in the establishment of a more
“professional” and doctrinally reliable ministry, for they shared the goal of both
Protestant and Catholic leaders to produce a literate, more learned clergy.
At the same time, Jesuits esteemed in the humanist system (primary and second-
ary education) the potential of poetry, oratory, and drama to elicit and foster noble
sentiments and ideals, especially in younger boys; they believed in its potential to
foster docta pietas (learned as well as upright character) (O’Malley 2000b: 8).9
15.3 Ignatius’s Spirituality of Education
The second element I mentioned is spirituality. What were the themes of Ignatius’s
spirituality that could be coupled with a humanist philosophy of education? Of
course, too much literature has been produced on Ignatius’s spirituality for this
paper to do more than scratch the surface. I will content myself with pointing out
two phases in Ignatius’s biography (his own conversion and his acting as the general
of the order) that I believe were especially significant in this regard. Moreover, I will
stick to those sources that directly and explicitly reveal Ignatius’s thought on the
formation of the whole person, its holistic process, and taking care of the individual
qualities of the person within that context. These sources are primarily letters. I will
leave an analysis of the Spiritual Exercises aside, as it has already been the subject
of many layers of interpretation and did not dramatically enter – as such – the world
of Jesuit school practices.10
At the beginning of his conversion at Loyola in 1521 and during his early months
at Manresa, Ignatius gave himself over to severe fasting and other penances, let his
hair and his fingernails grow, and dressed himself in rags.11 But as his spiritual
enlightenments continued, he began to modify this behavior and then give it up
altogether, as he grew to love and see as a gift of God the things he had earlier
feared. He changed from a disheveled and repulsive-looking hermit to a man
9
On the Jesuit commitment to docta pietas, see Claude Pavur 2019.
10
From a different perspective, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, superior general of the Society of Jesus,
tracked how cura personalis was drawn from the Spiritual Exercises and applied by the very first
Jesuits in their initial ministries and, later, to Jesuit education in general. See Kolvenbach 2007.
11
For an interpretation of Ignatius’s reconciliation with the world, see O’Malley 2000b. For the
implications of such a reconciliation on the practices of Jesuit education, see Casalini 2014, 2016.
d etermined to pursue his education in the most prestigious academic institution of

his day, the University of Paris. He was on the way toward developing what might
be called a world-friendly spirituality.
As Saint Ignatius evolved from hermithood to reconciliation with the world, he
simultaneously developed the third aspect of his spirituality that is pertinent to our
topic. The world was meant to be the great stage upon which God’s drama was
played out, His ineffable plans brought to fruition. Every person was an actor in that
drama; everyone had a unique role in the story. The goal of every Christian was to
perform as well as possible in order to let the drama develop and attain the glory it
deserved. With this spiritual theology in mind, Ignatius came to believe that the
primary mistake (and sin) that a person could commit was that of harming his or her
own performance and that any excess in punishing one’s own body was clearly such
a sin. To state it in other words, God required all humans to be in good shape, or else
His divine plans could not be appropriately aided and enacted by them.
Ignatius’s spirituality had commonalities with Thomas Aquinas’s positive
anthropology, for sure. But it found even stronger support in humanist culture, par-
ticularly in the classical ethical rule of the aurea mediocritas (golden mean), as
stated by Aristotle and echoed everywhere in ancient Rome (O’Malley 2000a: 248).
Ignatius’s own spiritual reconciliation to the world was clearly at work even
when he acted as the first general of the Society. The mature Ignatius always claimed
that self-care was the basic ground on which Jesuits could build their own spiritual-
ity. “As the years wore on,” John O’Malley pointed out, “he also evolved into a
believer in social institutions as especially powerful means of ‘helping souls’”: the
more effective the institution through which he took care of his neighbours’ souls,
the greater the glory of God (O’Malley 2000a: 250).
The glory of God and the help of souls are the two principal aims of the Society
of Jesus. All of the ministries of the Jesuits derived from the working out of what
this “help” was supposed to mean. As one of the most important ministries of the
Society, education could not avoid sharing these same goals. Since the “help of
souls” was the main task of the Society of Jesus, as stated in the Formula Instituti
(1540), the first thing a Jesuit had to do was to take care of himself, otherwise he
could not be of help to anyone else. When rumors arrived in Rome that the Jesuit
scholastics in Coimbra were becoming exceedingly inclined to act like “fools for
Christ,” that is, practicing self-flagellation, half-nude preaching on the streets of
Coimbra, and loud nocturnal summoning of the population to penitence, Ignatius
wrote a letter (May 7, 1547) to bring them back to the original mission of the
Society – a letter that we can consider to be one of his clearest statements on Jesuit
spirituality. In it, he says:
If you thought carefully about how deeply you are bound to defend the honor of Jesus
Christ and the salvation of your neighbor, you would see how much you are obliged to
dispose yourselves for every toil and labor to make yourselves apt instruments of God’s
grace for this purpose (Ignatius of Loyola 2006: 170).
To describe how one can make himself an “apt instrument”, Ignatius returns to
the metaphor of the Jesuit as a soldier of God, enjoying a special title and special
252 C. Casalini
wages. This metaphor is crucial for us to understand what Ignatius thinks of as the
whole person and the holistic way to take care of that person. Ignatius states:
His wages are everything that you are and possess in the natural order, for he gave to you
and preserves for you your being and life, with all qualities and perfections of body and soul
and all exterior goods. His wages are the spiritual gifts of his grace [. . .]. Finally, his wages
are the entire universe and every material and spiritual reality that it contains (Ignatius of
Loyola 2006: 169).
This passage reveals Ignatius’s attentiveness to the differences between human

beings, each of whom is endowed with peculiar qualities (bodily attributes, cogni-
tive powers, and material conditions) and gifts (Ignatius here echoes Saint Paul on
the “gifts of the Spirit”, a reference commonly taken to mean individual talents).
Forming the Jesuit as an apt instrument of God means for Ignatius taking care of
such qualities and gifts and working on them while the Jesuit scholastic is studying.
To address the concern of the spiritually zealous scholastics of Coimbra that the
pursuit of studies was detrimental to the growth of the spiritual person, Ignatius
made it clear that studying was an essential activity that helped a person advance in
knowledge, spirit, and all kinds of virtues:
For [while studying] you are preparing a no less fit instrument, but even a fitter one, for
imparting grace to others by means of a good life than by the acquisition of learning
(although both are required for a perfect instrument) (Ignatius of Loyola 2006: 173).
It is clear from this note that the educational framework of studies (please bear in
mind that by “studies,” it is here meant “studies that Jesuit scholastics made at both
their own college and at the university in Coimbra”) was the setting in which the
formation of the whole person and his individual talents had to be addressed. This
was the pedagogic “surplus” (value-added) generated by the encounter between
Ignatius’s spirituality and humanistic culture.
But what goes for the formation of the perfect instrument of God’s grace – that
is, the Jesuit – goes also for the external student in a Jesuit school.
Ignatius was extremely consistent in adopting the same vision for Jesuit scholas-
tics and lay students. In a letter to Everard Mercurian (June 1552) with instructions
about the nature, goals, and method of a Jesuit college, Ignatius wrote that students
had to be formed in all aspects of their persons, rather than merely instructed. He
said that students “must observe decorum in word and deed, and let themselves be
formed in good behavior and in interior and exterior virtues [emphasis added]”
(Ignatius of Loyola 2006: 373).
It was important that every Jesuit teacher take care of himself as well as of his
students, according to his and their qualities. Instructing the Jesuits who were sent
to Clermont to run the college (May 11, 1556), Ignatius recommended the superior
to take care that “everyone is properly occupied, taking as his goal their own and
others’ aid in learning,” (Ignatius of Loyola, 2006: 656) and that “everyone stays
healthy and strong enough in body to sustain the toil of God’s service. Hence, the
superior should not let them get overtired in their studies or other devotions or spiri-
tual exercises in the aid of souls; everything must be moderated according to the
quality of persons, places, and times” (Ignatius of Loyola 2006: 657).
Relating specifically to the term “cura personalis,” Superior General Peter-Hans

Kolvenbach pointed out the roots of this expression in Ignatian spirituality as
follows:
The tension contained in “cura personalis” may be described in this way: it was Ignatius’
experience that on the path to God a person needs “cura”, the help of a companion on the
way, even if this spiritual adventure will be, in the Spirit who is always strictly personal
“cura personalis” (Kolvenbach 2007: 10).
15.4 The Early Jesuits and the Ignatian Care of the Person
Having traced the two core elements that combined to build an “Ignatian” philoso-
phy of education (a humanist background and a spiritual reconciliation with the
world), we can now turn to the question of its impact on Jesuit schools. Indeed, it
has often been claimed that the development of the Jesuit network of schools, and
of their rules and practices, had less to do with Ignatius’s spiritual direction than
with the efforts of the great Jesuit educational administrators such as Jerónimo
Nadal, Diego Ledesma, and General Claudio Acquaviva – to the last of whom we
owe the publication of the Ratio studiorum.
In fact, we find strong evidence of the very same concerns for the formation of
the whole person and the care of individual talents all over Jesuit documents in the
early modern period.
As Kolvenbach noted, the first Jesuits had the Ignatian cura personalis – as out-
lined in the Spiritual Exercises – before their eyes at every step of both their pastoral
and social and their educational and intellectual ministry (Kolvenbach 2007: 16).
This led the early Society of Jesus to transform the scholastic manner, which was
then characteristic of traditional preaching as well as other traditional apostolates of
the word, by placing cura personalis at the core of Jesuit education.12
I will limit my references to the “Constitutions for the German College” that
Giuseppe Cortesono outlined in 1570, where an entire chapter is entitled “How to
Know and Deal with Diversity in the Natures of the Students.” Cortesono wrote that
“knowing and dealing with everyone according to his own nature is very important
for the good governance of the college. And although this is the charge for all of
those who will be assigned to this governance, it still particularly belongs to the
office of the rector, who has to have a special talent for knowing and directing
12
Kolvenbach summarizes this “transformation” as follows: “The Ratio studiorum of 1599 takes
this personal solicitude to heart with respect to the vocation of each pupil, the personal history of
each one. The educators and teachers must grasp that the example of their personal lives brings
more to the formation of the students than do their words. They are to love these students, knowing
them personally [. . . and] living a respectful familiarity with them. This personal knowledge ought
to allow the adaptation of study time, the programs and methods, to the needs of each one”
(Kolvenbach 2007: 16).
254 C. Casalini
everyone according to his nature, taking care to make himself omnia omnibus”
(Cortesono 1570: 124).
Moreover, Cortesono provided nine special rules for what one should know
about someone else’s nature, which encompassed physical complexion, tempera-
mental and psychological attitudes, behavioral analysis, and so forth (Cortesono
1570: 126). He also admitted that “the way to handle such a diversity of natures to
the help and satisfaction of each one is very difficult and calls for special help from
God” (Cortesono 1570: 127).
If this was the task of the rector, who was in charge of an entire college, the same
pedagogic skills were expected from Jesuit teachers, who were not considered to be
mere dispensers of knowledge but were in fact viewed as leader figures who could
take care of each of their students in such a way as to form the student’s whole
personality.
Benet Perera (1535–1610), a great natural philosopher and a theologian at the
Roman college, offered the following profile of such a teacher:
The teacher should be the sort of person whom the student trusts because of his learning and
ability to exercise, understands because of his skillful fluency in teaching, loves for his
enthusiasm and diligence, respects for the integrity of his life, and, when the occasion
arises, feels he can approach freely for advice because of his humanity and personal warmth
(Perera 2016: 193).
The role as a “formator” was so important to Perera – perhaps one of the most
renowned philosophers of the society – that he himself admitted that, as a character-
istic of the good teacher, he “would prefer some lack of precise knowledge to a lack
of interest and care in moving his students forward in their education” (Perera
2016: 192–3).
Within the landscape of sixteenth-century education, such profiles were, if not
completely novel, at least the most powerful examples of the pedagogic “surplus”
that was required of the Jesuit teacher. Everything in a Jesuit school was meant to
be devoted to care for students. We find this concept everywhere in the sources, but
especially in the relentless repetitions of expressions such as the “required help,”
“zeal for,” or “progress of” students’ souls. The Ratio studiorum exemplifies this in
a rule for the professors of lower classes:
[The teacher] should be diligent and persistent and deeply interested in the progress of the
students (...). He should take good care of the progress of each one of his own students in
particular” (Pavur 2005: 155).
The difficulty of this task was so apparent to the Jesuits that the Ratio requires
the rector to establish an academy for the training of teachers, where those who
were about to complete their studies could be taught the arts of giving lessons, writ-
ing, correcting, and – most of all – “performing the other duties of a good teacher”
(Pavur 2005: 33).
It is important to note that this diligent inclination towards attending to the indi-
vidual needs of each of their students led Jesuit teachers to consider the special care
that could be required for students from diverse social backgrounds as early as in the
early modern period. In his important description of an exhortative treatise on Jesuit
pedagogy (said treatise being a manuscript written by Tommaso Termanini

(1730–97) that is conserved at the Roman archive of the Society of Jesus), Paul
Grendler highlighted Termanini’s interpretation of the the New Testament passages
in which Jesus urged children to come to him for his blessing (Matthew 19:13–15;
Mark 10:13–16; Luke 18:15–17). This interpretation was highly revealing of the
pedagogical surplus that a Jesuit teacher was expected to supply when dealing with
disadvantaged students: “He [Jesus] did not call children who were disciplined and
well-educated, but uncouth and unlearned children.” They needed special help, not
the rich student. Termanini concluded with his overall message: “The schoolmaster
truly imitated his divine teacher if he showed partiality toward poor students, and if
he gave special help to the most needy students” (Grendler 2016: 41).
15.5 Conclusions
If we consider again Superior General Ledóchowski’s emphasis on totus homo and

cura personalis, we can say that early Jesuit education consistently pursued these
goals and methods by means of a distinctively Jesuit philosophy of education. Even
if we focus solely on the terms and raise the question of to what extent the early
Jesuits were even aware of the concept of the “person,” given that they always
referred to “souls,” (Padberg et al. 1996: 77n10) I might point out what Perera
reminded his audience of in the above-mentioned document: that “we are each com-
posed of intellect and body, and so we must therefore take account of each of these
in our studies” (193). I might further point out that Ignatius himself, in the letter to
the fathers and scholastics at Coimbra, urged them to see their neighbors (might
they be students, teachers, or whatever else) as “images of the Most Holy Trinity”
(170) and “living temple[s] of God” (171).
“Images of the Trinity” – that is, prosopon (form, image) of the three divine
hypostases (Persons): this phrase points directly to a conception of the neighbor as
“a person of the three Persons”. The goal of the good Jesuit teacher was to take care
of the person as if taking care of the Trinity, or – if you will – to form the whole
person as if forming a living Trinity. This is probably not enough to speak of
Personalism, but it is certainly much more than someone like Mounier would have
expected from a man of the sixteenth century.
Rather than faulting a commonplace for its own nature, this essay tried to provide
sufficient philosophical evidence to justify, from the point of view of the historian
of ideas, the “cunning of reason” that led to the emergence of cura personalis as the
core of Jesuit education’s self-concept. The philosophical origins of the concept
stretch back to the mentality that framed the Society of Jesus at its inception and the
pedagogy that Jesuit schools theorized and implemented from the very beginning.
The practical “art of conducting the pupil in their process of growth and learning”
found its theoretical expression when the phrase “cura personalis” appeared in the
instructions that Ledóchowski sent to his fellows in the fourth decade of the last
century. The superior general recognized that the key to the success of Jesuit schools
256 C. Casalini
had historically lain in the excellence of the care that such institutions devoted to
their students. Excellence in other areas – including the teachers’ extraordinary
mastery of their disciplines, the perfection of the bureaucratic machinery, and even
the beauty of the system of rules that let that machinery do its work – was not
enough. Rather, what made the Jesuit schools so successful over time was their care
for the whole person of each of their students, a process that had as its goal the for-
mation a fully-fledged spirit, an upright character, a sound body, and a learned per-
son, in support of the common good.13
This ideal anthropology was certainly drawn from the humanists’ philosophy of
education, but it was also derived from Ignatius’s spirituality of education, rooted in
a positive view of the powers of humankind, as well as from a theology of education
that brought the concepts of person, conversation, and care down to the level of the
discourse between the Jesuits and their neighbors.
The care of the person, as pursued through a pedagogy that focused on the for-
mation of the student rather than the transmission of knowledge, can be understood
as a perennial commitment of the Jesuits. In a remarkable letter that Peter Jan
Beckx, superior general of the restored Society, wrote to the Austrian minister of
worship in 1854, he specifically re-affirmed the value of formation over the mere
acquisition of knowledge:
The gymnasium must remain what it is proper for it to be, a gymnastic of the mind, consist-
ing, not so much in material as in formal maturation [Bildung], not at all in the gathering
together of multitudinous, heterogeneous knowledge, but in the right, natural, and gradual
unfolding and improvement of mental power.14
Although this was clearly the ultimate goal of education, as much for the early
Jesuits as for Ledóchowski, the means to attain it could not be improvised or merely
developed through some kind of practical experience. They had to be learned; they
13
This anthropology for the common good is apparent in the words of Fulvio Cardulo (1529–91),
a Jesuit who had very clearly in mind what the teaching of the humanities was to be directed
toward: “The intent of the Society should not be the teaching of grammar and Latin in any way we
like. Rather, we ought to strive for a nobler goal, that is, forming good citizens who can contribute
to society, and instructing so many of the youth and nobility in a way that with time they may show
what they can do in pulpits, senates, secretariats, and ambassadorships – these students that our
companions subject to school-discipline throughout the world. So the prudence and eloquence that
we should be teaching in our schools will serve the Christian commonwealth and produce good
preachers, senators, secretaries, nuncios, ambassadors, and others who serve the common good”
(Casalini and Pavur 2016: 218).
14
Originally quoted in Huber 1873: 373. It is not surprising that this passage has often been mis-
quoted in anti-Jesuit literature as evidence for the anti-humanistic culture of the Society. Beckx’s
emphasis on formal maturation as opposed to material learning has often been understood as praise
for void, amoral imitation of the ancient classics (the so-called Jesuit “formalism”), but it is evident
that he was referring to the classic philosophical distinction between form and matter, assigning
primacy to the form (the soul, for rational psychology) in Jesuit Bildung. Which means that rather
than simply stuffing a student’s memory, one had to cultivate a student’s habits – which was
exactly the goal of the humanists who wanted their students to go through the ancient classics for
the purpose of acquiring an “upright character” (i.e., nobler habits). For the anti-Jesuit interpreta-
tion of Beckx’s work, see, for example, Compayré 1904: 191.
had to be theorized. This is exactly what happened during the editing the Ratio stu-
diorum, which, although it does not make any reference to the concept of cura
personalis as such, does refer to the need for Jesuit teachers to undergo a period of
pedagogic studies before beginning to teach – a passage that is often, quite regret-
tably, neglected. The profound and extended discussion that occupied the Jesuits for
more than 30 years in the second half of the sixteenth century gave birth to a Jesuit
philosophy of education that was based upon the care of the person – as the fullness
of time would reveal.
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Chapter 16
From Charity to the Care of the Self:
Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici
Simone Guidi
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have charity,
I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal
(St. Paul, I Cor. 13, 1)
Abstract This chapter deals with Thomas Browne’s most famous work, Religio
Medici (written between 1635 and 1640 and published in 1642), and especially with
his account of Charity. The first paragraph focuses on Browne’s specific account of
the relationship between natural and supernatural. This view is inspired by Bacon,
Sebunde, and Montaigne, and is crucial to understand the background of Browne’s
view about the virtue of Charity. The second paragraph is about Browne’s specific
understanding of Charity, which seems to be a middle stage between the traditional,
Scholastic doctrine, and the Kantian idea of moral law, independent from the practi-
cal law and the desire of the subject. The third paragraph deals with Religio Medici’s
reversal of the traditional “order” of Charity, as well as Browne’s accounts of abne-
gation and friendship as an effective way for a charity to the self which meets many
aspects of Foucault’s ἑπιμέλεια έαuτου. The fourth paragraph is about Browne’s
analogical understanding of medicine and morality, as well as his use of the medita-
tio mortis.
Keywords Virtue ethics · Thomas Browne · Philosophy of charity · Disinterested

morality · Care of the self · Spiritual exercises
S. Guidi (*)
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per il Lessico Intellettuale Europeo e Storia delle
Idee (CNR-ILIESI), Rome, Italy
e-mail: simone.guidi@cnr.it

Switzerland AG 2021
260 S. Guidi
16.1 Religio Medici and Its Foundational Divorce
Thanks to its originality Religio Medici attracted over the centuries the interest of
many prominent writers and philosophers, among whom are Robert Boyle, Samuel
Coleridge, Virginia Woolf, Carl Gustav Jung, and Jorge Luis Borges. This bestowed
on its author, Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), the reputation as one of the most
fascinating and brilliant writers of Early Modern England, making Religio Medici
even the paradigm of a popular way of treating religion in England (see
Havenstein 1999).
A physician and a philosopher, Browne studied Medicine in Oxford, Padua,
Montpellier, and Leiden, spending most of his life and medical career in Norwich,
in Norfolk. From there, he gained a considerable reputation as a physician and – in
a cultural context which was strongly influenced by Baconism – he became famous
as an expert on natural and human history, as well as for the unique cabinet of rari-
ties he built in his house.
As is known, Religio Medici has a bizarre editorial history (Post 1985). Written
in a first draft in 1635, and then revised from 1638 to 1640, it circulated as a manu-
script among Browne’s friends, until it was published without Browne’s authoriza-
tion in 1642. This forced him to quickly publish a new version in 1643, removing
some controversial passages. In 1645, Browne published a second version, just two
years before he published another of his most famous works, the Pseudodoxia
Epidemica (1647), a large encyclopedic work on natural history, deeply influenced
by Francis Bacon (1561–1626).
Placed between the moral treatise and psychological, autobiographical intro-
spection, Religio Medici is a masterpiece of erudite eclecticism and a significant
case of the impossibility of separating the Darstellung and the Vorstellung.
According to the incisive description by Cadman Seeling (2008: 16), “Browne
treats rhetoricity as an arena of symbolic action”. The stage of his Baroque theatre
joins together many different writing styles and methodologies (those of medicine,
theology, natural science, hermetic alchemic symbolism), as well as Browne’s spe-
cial taste for the bizarre and for antiquity (see Parry 2008).
According to Conti (2008), the special urgency of Religio Medici is that of
removing all suspicious about Browne’s morality and orthodoxy, after his studies in
the Universities of Padua and Leiden, often associated with heresies and heterodox-
ies. Nevertheless, we know that the medical profession was often accused of athe-
ism, in accordance with the popular saying: “Ubi tres Medici, duo Athei” (“Two out
of three doctors are atheists”). This is why in the first lines of his work, Browne
excuses his faith from the
Generall scandall of my profession, the naturall course of my studies, the indifferency of
my behaviour, and discourse in matters of Religion, neither violently defending one, nor
with that common ardour and contention opposing another (Browne 1645: 1, I, s. 1).
Browne is a man of faith, even though it is hard to say what is his actual perspec-
tive. However, he declares himself a true Christian and a Protestant, as by “the
ambition and avarice of Prelates, and the fatal corruption of times”, Christian
16 From Charity to the Care of the Self: Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici 261
religion, has “fallen from its native beauty, that it required the careful and charitable
hands of these times to restore it to its primitive integrity” (Browne 1645: 3, I, s. 2).
Anglican Protestantism looks indeed to Browne like the most perfect form of
Christian faith, even if he does not reject at all the authority of the Roman Church.
According to him, the Roman and the English Church conflicted due to historical
but not due to moral divergences (Browne 1645: 7–8, I, s. 5).
This perspective encouraged some readers to discuss Browne’s possible close-
ness to the faction of the Laudians (Shuger 2008), the supporters of the English
Archbishop William Laud (1573–1645). The core of Laud’s reform of Protestantism
consists in rejecting Predestination in favor of free will, and so in encompassing the
idea of a real possibility of salvation for everyone (against especially the Calvinists).
Laudianism was also characterized by a strong emphasis on the liturgical ceremony
and the clerical hierarchy, not so differently from Counter-Reformed Catholicism.
However, Browne’s religiosity is based especially upon a complex understanding
of the relationship between natural and supernatural. From the perspective of natu-
ral philosophy, he indeed embraces Bacon’s skepticism about metaphysical expla-
nations of nature, as well as his pragmatic natural and epistemological historicism.
The latter includes enthusiasm for the model of the arts, instead of believing in
metaphysical access to nature. Yet from a theological point of view, he still believes
in a Christian-Platonic hierarchy of reality, and, speaking of religion, he is a hetero-
dox Anglican moralist, who often thinks like a theologian.
Hence, Browne’s view is a perfect expression of the Baroque chaotic synthesis
between the Book of natural philosophy, open to reason, and the Book of supernatu-
ral Revelation, which can be grasped by faith. This is ambiguity is very well por-
trayed by a passage from Section I, 11 of Religio Medici:
In my solitary and retired imagination, I remember I am not alone, and therefore forget not
to contemplate him and his attributes who is ever with me, especially those two mighty
ones, his wisdome and eternity: with the one I recreate, with the other I confound my under-
standing (Browne 1645: 20, I, s. 11).
For Browne, God himself can therefore be taken twofold. On the one hand, he is
pure intellection and wisdom, which is perfectly understandable by the created
intellect. On the other hand, his eternity remains, for us, enigmatic. Accordingly, in
Section I, 16, Browne retraces the classic topic of the distinction between two books:
there are two Bookes from whence I collect my Divinity; besides that written one of God,
another of his servant Nature, that universall and publike Manuscript, that lies expans’d
unto the eyes of all (Browne 1645: 20, I, s. 16).
Even though the image of the two books might suggest a direct quote of Galileo’s
Assayer, Browne’s reference should rather lead us to other sources. For instance, to
Raymond of Sebunde (1385–1436)’s Natural Theology (1434–36), made famous in
the sixteenth Century especially by Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)’s Essays (as
well as by his French translation in 1580):
There are two books given by God to us, that is the Book of the totality of creatures, or the
Book of Nature; and the other, that is the Book of the Holy Scripture. The first one was
given to Man from the beginning, as the totality of the creatures was created, since each
262 S. Guidi
creature is but a certain letter, written by God’s finger; and the unique book called the book
of creatures is made up of many creatures, as by many letters. And within this book is
included Man himself, and he is especially a letter in the same book. And as the letter and
the words, made of letters, involve and include the science and different meanings and
wonderful sentences, likewise, the creatures, joined together and mutually combined,
involve and mean different meanings and sentences, and contain the science needed by Man
(Sebunde 1434: Prologus).
It is no accident that one can find a direct calque of Sebunde’s Prologus – which
was forbidden in 1595 by the Index Librorum Prohibitorum – in a famous passage
of Religio Medici:
The finger of God hath left an inscription upon all his workes, not graphicall or composed
of Letters, but of their severall formes, constitutions, parts, and operations, which aptly
joyned together doe make one word that doth expresse their natures (Browne 1645: 131,
II, s. 2).
Here Browne seems to retrieve Sebunde’s complementary opposition between

the two Books to argue that “natural things are nothing but hieroglyphs, symbols of
a higher spiritual reality” (Grant 1985: 109). Uncertainty in Nature paves the way
for the mystery and the Revelation of Faith. Or, as Conti (2008: 157) remarked with
a beautiful analogy, “Browne’s version of the harmonious coexistence of faith and
reason is not a marriage, but a divorce settlement”, given that “each faculty gets
custody of the issues proper to it – and so long as each stays out of the other’s way,
all is well”.
Nevertheless, by his peculiar understanding of the opposition between the two
books, Browne follows the steps of Bacon. In his Advancement of Learning (1605)
he indeed noticed that
out of the contemplation of nature, or ground of human knowledges, to induce any verity or
persuasion concerning the points of faith, is […] not safe […] So as we ought not to attempt
to draw down or submit the mysteries of God to our reason, but contrariwise to raise and
advance our reason to the divine truth (Bacon 1884: 195, II, 2).
As regards Browne, one can even better find such complementarity expressed in
a Platonic-like structure (see especially Dunn 1950) that sustains his metaphysical
view of the world. It appears very clearly in Religio Medici’s I, Section 14:
There is but one first cause, and foure second causes of all things; some are without effi-
cient, as God; others without matter, as Angels; some without forme, as the first matter; but
every Essence created or uncreated, hath its finall cause, and some positive end both of its
Essence and operation; This is the cause I grope after in the workes of nature; on this hangs
the providence of God to raise so beauteous a structure, as as the world and the creatures
thereof, was but his Art, but their sundry and divided operations with their predestinated
ends, are from the treasury of his wisedome (Browne 1645: 27, I, s. 14).
Nature – Browne claims by words that would draw Alexander Ross’ fire (Calasso
2008: 36–39) – is the outcome of God’s art:
nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature; they being both the servants of his
providence: Art is the perfection of Nature: Were the world now as it was the sixt day, there
were yet a Chaos: Nature hath made one world, and Art another. In briefe, all things are
artificially, for Nature is the Art of God (Browne 1645: 33-34, I, s. 16).
Another passage that looks like a quote from Sebunde’s Natural Theology:
the world’s being was produced as artificial things are produced by art, as artificial things
do not have the nature of the author, and even their being is outside the author. Therefore,
world’s being has not God’s nature: and even it is extraneous to it. And so the whole being
of the world is almost an artificial being: or a household, or a palace that God produced by
his art. And therefore, as the maker produces the house voluntarily and not by necessity, nor
naturally, God produces the world voluntary and artificially, and not naturally (Sebunde
1434: Titulus XVII).
However, according to Browne, nature reflects God’s wisdom in disposing ends

aimed at theological, irrational scopes:
our ends are as obscure as our beginnings, the line of our dayes is drawne by night, and the
various effects therein by a pencill that is invisible; wherein though wee confesse our igno-
rance, I am sure wee doe not erre, if we say, it is the hand of God (Browne 1645: 92,
I, s. 42).
Hence, God’s plan is everywhere in Creation, and this pushes Browne to claim
that “in some things there appears to me as much divinity in Galen’s Books De usu
partium, as in Suarez’s Metaphysics” (Browne 1645: 28, I, 14).
16.2 The Nature of the Virtues
Within this doctrinal context, it is significant that Browne articulated his work into
two parts, in accordance with the classic theological ethics of virtue. The first part
of Religio Medici is dedicated to Faith and Hope, whereas the Second is entirely
devoted to Charity. The three virtues – Faith, Hope and Charity – famously consti-
tute the Pauline group of the “theological virtues” (fides, spes, caritas) in addition
to the already Platonic (see Rep., 427b–432d) and Aristotelian group of the “cardi-
nal virtues”. For the Christian tradition – starting at least from Paul of Tarsus (Ep. II
Petri, 1, 3–4) – the theological virtues (in contrast to the cardinal ones, having their
origin in the very soul), have a supernatural source, the direct infusion by God, who
inclines man towards supernatural happiness.
According to Thomas Aquinas (1225–74)’s Summa Theologiae – probably the
remotest Scholastic source that Browne learned in his education (and he owned in
his library, see Finch 1986: 24) – Charity is a specific kind of friendship, that to
God, extended to his creatures too:
Friendship extends to a person in two ways: first in respect of himself, and in this way
friendship never extends but to one’s friends: secondly, it extends to someone in respect of
another, as, when a man has friendship for a certain person, for his sake he loves all belong-
ing to him, be they children, servants, or connected with him in any way. Indeed, so much
do we love our friends, that for their sake we love all who belong to them, even if they hurt
or hate us; so that, in this way, the friendship of charity extends even to our enemies, whom
we love out of charity in relation to God, to Whom the friendship of charity is chiefly
directed (ST, IIa-IIae, q. 23, art. 1).
264 S. Guidi
Charity is furthermore unselfish and disinterested. And this is why, for Aquinas –
who retraces another famous statement by Paul of Tarsus (I Cor., 13, 13) – it is more
excellent than Faith and Hope:
faith and hope attain God indeed in so far as we derive from Him the knowledge of truth or
the acquisition of good, whereas charity attains God Himself that it may rest in Him, but not
that something may accrue to us from Him. Hence charity is more excellent than faith or
hope, and, consequently, than all the other virtues (ST, IIa-IIae, q. 23, art. 6).
In the Scholastic view, a crucial point is that Charity is not inspired by God as
“when a body is moved by some extrinsic motive power”. Charity is rather a volun-
tary act, and “given that the will is moved by God to the act of love, it is necessary
that the will also should act efficiently in causing that act”. But, just because this act
is natural for the will, it means that “God, Who moves all things to their due ends,
bestowed on each thing the form whereby it is inclined to the end appointed to it
by Him”.
However, the act of Charity “surpasses the nature of the power of the will” and,
therefore, “there should be in us some habitual form superadded to the natural
power, inclining that power to the act of charity, and causing it to act with ease and
pleasure”. According to Aquinas “it depends, not on any natural virtue, but on the
sole grace of the Holy Ghost Who infuses [it]” (ST, IIa-IIae, q. 24, art. 3).
In Seventeenth-Century England, Bacon himself underlined the role of Charity
as a moral virtue, which is needed to correct the possible hubris of scientific knowl-
edge. This view can be found again in the Advancement of Learning:
there is no danger at all in the proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large soever, lest it
should make it swell or out-compass itself; no, but it is merely the quality of knowledge,
which, be it in quantity more or less, if it be taken without the true corrective thereof, hath
in it some nature of venom or malignity, and some effects of that venom, which is ventosity
or swelling. This corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge so sovereign, is
charity, which the Apostle immediately addeth to the former clause; for so he saith,
“Knowledge bloweth up, but charity buildeth up [(I Cor. 8, 1)]” (Bacon 1884: 163, I, 2).
Likewise, Browne’s natural symbolism, which especially for Dunn (1950) plays
with Montaigne’s natural skepticism, is also complementary to a philosophy of
Charity. As Browne claims, the latter is the virtue “without which Faith is a mere
notion, and of no existence” (Browne 1645: 125, II, s. 1).
By contrast, according to the metaphysical scheme I mentioned above, for
Browne, Charity is nothing but the consequence of God’s ordered creation, and
particularly of a moral end of Nature that he introduced by the specific ends of crea-
tures. Browne introduces this concept by an autobiographical and sympatheti-
cal view:
I have ever endeavoured to nourish the mercifull disposition, and humane inclination I bor-
rowed from my Parents, and regulate it to the written and prescribed Lawes of Charity; and
if I hold the true anatomy of my selfe, I am delineated and naturally framed to such a piece
of vertue: for I am of a constitution so generall, that it consorts and sympathizeth with all
things; I have no antipathy, or rather Idiosyncrasie, in diet, humour, aire, any thing (Browne
1645: 125, II, s. 2).
As with Aquinas, such a nature is not enough to define Charity. Browne declares
himself happy “to be born and framed unto virtue, and to grow up from the seeds of
nature, rather than the inoculation and forced grafts of education”, but he is con-
scious that “if we are directed only by our particular Natures, and regulate our incli-
nations by no higher rule than that of our reasons, we are but Moralists” (Browne
1645: 129, II, s. 2).
According to the classic distinction between theological and cardinal virtues,
and the same definition of Charity, a moral action cannot be considered as Charity
when inspired only by the principles of our nature, instead of by the theological
friendship to God (infused by Him). Therefore, “this great work of charity”, must
have, for Browne, “other motives, ends, and impulsions” (Browne 1645: 129, II, s.
2), namely the moral, but not natural inclination to act according to God’s will.
Browne explains this concept with a passage that seems to be a middle stage
between Aristotle’s rejection of “useful love” (Nic. Eth. 8, 3, 1156a), the consequent
Scholastic concept of Charity, and Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)’s idea that “in a
practical law, reason determines the will immediately, not by means of an interven-
ing feeling of pleasure or displeasure […]; and that it can as pure reason be practical
is what alone makes it possible for it to be lawgiving” (Kant 2015: 22; KPV: 5:25):
I give no almes to satisfie the hunger of my Brother, but to fulfill and accomplish the Will
and Command of my God; I draw not my purse for his sake that demands it, but [for] his
that enjoyned it; I relieve no man upon the Rhetorick of his miseries, nor to content mine
own commiserating disposition, for this is still but morall charity, and an act that oweth
more to passion than reason. He that relieves another upon the bare suggestion and bowels
of pity, doth not this so much for his sake as for his own: for by compassion wee make oth-
ers misery our own, and so by relieving them, we relieve our selves also (Browne 1645:
129, II, s. 2).
One can easily identify in Protestant ethics – here sketched by Browne’s beauti-
ful lines – at least the remote source of Kant’s idea that the true morality of the
categorical imperative
must therefore abstract from all objects to this extent: that they have no influence at all on
the will, so that practical reason (the will) may not merely administer an interest not belong-
ing to it but may simply show its own commanding authority as supreme lawgiving. Thus,
for example, I ought to try to further the happiness of others, not as if its existence were of
any consequence to me (whether because of immediate inclination or because of some
indirect agreeableness through reason), but simply because a maxim that excludes this can-
not be included as a universal law in one and the same volition (Kant 1998: 48; GMS 4:441).
Browne calls interested Charity “sinister and politick”, thinking of it as extrinsic

and oriented towards the judgment of others. Conversely, he opposes such morality
to his personal form of Charity, which begins instead in a real unselfish self (see next
paragraph). Religio Medici even provides us with the description of a “private
method” that Browne employs to exercise such an authentic Charity:
I borrow occasion of charity from mine owne necessities, and supply the wants of others,
when I am in most neede my selfe; for it is an honest stratagem to take advantage of our
selves, and so to husband the act of vertue, that where they are defective in one circumstance,
266 S. Guidi
they may repay their want, and multiply their goodnesse in an other (Browne 1645: 170,
II, s. 14).
Accordingly, Browne also attacks, at the end of Religio Medici, the Platonic and
Aristotelian idea of a summum bonum (“the highest good”), understood as human
happiness. For Browne, even if refuting Plato’s Ideas, Aristotle himself fell indeed
into a likewise contradiction, since
his summum bonum, is a Chimæra, and there is no such thing as his Felicity. That wherein
God himselfe is happy, the holy Angels are happy, in whose defect the Devills are unhappy;
that dare I call happinesse: whatsoever conduceth unto this, may with an easie Metaphor
deserve that name; whatsoever else the World termes happines, is to me a story out of Pliny;
an apparition or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of happines, than the name (Browne
1645: 174, II, s. 16).
Aristotle’s εὐδαιμονία leads us to a moral illusion, given that true happiness is

nothing but God’s happiness. It never is our subjective happiness. Once more, one
could explain such a concept through Kant’s claim that “the principle of making this
the supreme determining ground of choice is the principle of self-love” (Kant 2015:
20; KPV: 5:22) and
although the concept of happiness everywhere underlies the practical relation of objects to
the faculty of desire, it is still only the general name for subjective determining grounds,
and it determines nothing specific about it although this is all that matters in this practical
problem and without such determination the problem cannot be solved at all. That is to say,
where each has to put his happiness comes down to the particular feeling of pleasure and
displeasure in each and, even within one and the same subject, to needs that differ as this
feeling changes; and a law that is subjectively necessary (as a law of nature) is thus objec-
tively a very contingent practical principle, which can and must be very different in differ-
ent subjects, and hence can never yield a law because, in the desire for happiness, it is not
the form of lawfulness that counts but simply the matter, namely whether I am to expect
satisfaction from following the law, and how much (Kant 2015: 23; KPV: 5:25).
16.3 T
he Objects of Charity and the Care
of the Unselfish Self
Both Browne and Kant reject the Aristotelian idea that subjective happiness is the
foundation of ethics. And, in both cases, this rejection entails a limitation of the
Selbstliebe. Notably for Kant
the moral law, which alone is truly objective (namely objective in every respect), excludes
altogether the influence of self-love on the supreme practical principle and infringes with-
out end upon self-conceit, which prescribes as laws the subjective conditions of self-love.
Now, what in our own judgment infringes upon our self-conceit humiliates. Hence the
moral law unavoidably humiliates every human being when he compares with it the sensi-
ble propensity of his nature. If something represented as a determining ground of our will
humiliates us in our self-consciousness, it awakens respect for itself insofar as it is positive
and a determining ground (Kant 2015: 62; KPV: 5:74).
By contrast, in the theological context of the Schools, Aristotle’s εὐδαιμονία was

still thought of within the coordinates of the ethics of the virtue. This appears clear
in the classic understanding of the order of Charity, which developed an actual
moral hierarchy in the exercise of the highest virtue. According to Aquinas, for
instance, the first object of Charity would be God. And, immediately after Him,
regarding the spiritual beings, it is the self:
a man is said to love himself by reason of his loving himself with regard to his spiritual
nature […] so that accordingly, a man ought, besides God, to love himself more than he
loves any other person. […] God is loved as the principle of good, on which the love of
charity is founded; while man, out of charity, loves himself by reason of his being a partaker
of the aforesaid good, and loves his neighbor by reason of his fellowship in that good (ST,
IIa-IIae, q. 26, a. 4).
It is worth noting that, answering if we should love more those with which we
have a natural connection (that is, relatives), Aquinas also explained that
that friendship among blood relations is based upon their connection by natural origin, the
friendship of fellow-citizens on their civic fellowship, and the friendship of those who are
fighting side by side on the comradeship of battle. Wherefore, in matters pertaining to
nature we should love our kindred most, in matters concerning relations between citizens,
we should prefer our fellow-citizens, and on the battlefield our fellow-soldiers (ST, IIa-IIae
q. 26, art. 8).
Still, he also added that

if however we compare union with union, it is evident that the union arising from natural
origin is prior to, and more stable than, all others, because it is something affecting the very
substance, whereas other unions supervene and may cease altogether. Therefore the friend-
ship of kindred is more stable, while other friendships may be stronger in respect of that
which is proper to each of them (ST, IIa-IIae q. 26, a. 8).
Aquinas’ presentation reflects very clearly the Scholastic view, according to

which Charity must be exercised in the following order: (1) God; (2) ourselves; (3)
family; (4) friends, fellow-citizens and fellow-soldiers.
Now, Browne intentionally upsets this order, which he likely found in a large
catechetical tradition. He lists three objects of Charity, i.e. God, the country and
friends, at the end of which finally comes the self. Moreover, intentionally discard-
ing the natural bonds of family and blood, he declares:
I confesse that I doe not observe that order that the Schooles ordaine our affections, to love
our Parents, Wifes, Children, and then our Friends, for excepting the injunctions of Religion,
I doe not find in my selfe such a necessary and indissoluble Sympathy to all those of my
bloud (Browne 1645: 143, II, s. 5).
Here Browne brings into play the etymology of ‘Charity’ (from the Latin carus,
friend), considering selflessness as the actual form of the virtue, and placing friend-
ship before the self in the order of Charity:
There is I thinke no man that apprehends his owne miseries lesse than my selfe, and no man
that so neerely apprehends anothers. […] It is an act within the power of charity, to translate
a passion out of one breast into another, and to divide a sorrow almost out of it selfe; for an
affliction like a dimension may bee so divided, as if not indivisible, at least to become
268 S. Guidi
insensible. Now with my friend I desire not to share or participate, but to engrosse his sor-
rows, that by making them mine owne, I may more easily discusse them; for in mine owne
reason, and within my selfe I can command that, which I cannot intreat without my selfe,
and within the circle of another (Browne 1645: 141, II, s. 5).
To appreciate Browne’s view, it is however important to understand how he looks

at friendship as a primary form of relationship between two subjects. Friendship is
a relationship that requires the mutual annihilation of self-love, in order to exercise
an actual love of the other.
This is why Browne even defines friendship as an enigma, in which “two […]
become one, as they both become two”. And he even dwells on the great misery of
forgetting the look of “whom we truly love like our own”, explaining that “there is
no wonder, for they are ourselves, and our affection makes their looks our own”.
The bound of friendship even entails a mystical dimension, as Browne suggests list-
ing three kinds of “most mysticall unions”: “two natures in one person”, like Christ;
“three persons in one nature”, like God; and “one soule in two bodies”. Speaking of
which, Browne remarks: “for though indeed they be really divided, yet are they so
united, as they seeme but one, and make rather a duality then two distinct soules”
(Browne 1645: 140, II, s. 5).
In such a mystic unity, to practice disinterested Charity to neighbors is, first of
all, the same as exercising Charity towards ourselves: “how shall we expect charity
towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves?”, asks Browne. “Charity
begins at home, is the voice of the World, yet is every man his greatest enemy, and
as it were, his own executioner” (Browne 1645: 141, II, s. 4). Paradoxically, the
greatest form of Charity towards the self – and of what we might refer to employing
the notion of “care of the self” (Foucault 1986: 37–68 and Foucault 2005) – lies in
inverting the traditional order of Charity. Such a reversal consists in placing the self
at the bottom of a moral hierarchy, and friendship at the top of it. Or, as Browne
effectively says, “the truest way to love another, is to despise our selves” (Browne
1645: 147, II, s. 7).
Abnegation is hence an act of mutual recognition, within a mystery of the other-
ness that is the very mystery of the self. For Browne, “no man can justly censure or
condemne another, because indeed no man truely knowes another”, and he con-
fesses to being “in the dark to all the world, and my nearest friends behold mee but
in a cloud”. And yet, at the same time, “no man can judge another, because no man
knowes himselfe” (Browne 1645: 140, II, s. 5).
It would be worth stressing also how Browne’s rhetorical theatre still retains a
Socratic and Stoic notion of the self. This fact contradicts (or, at least, limits) Michel
Foucault (1926–1984)’s idea that, as the consequence of the hegemony of the
Cartesian model, in the modern age “what gives access to the truth, the condition for
the subject’s access to the truth, is knowledge and knowledge alone” (Foucault
2005: 17). Browne’s subject is, for the most part, obscure and confusing even to
himself, but such an obscurity works like an access door to a peculiar form of under-
standing of the self. Yet, at the same time, here Browne perfectly fits a crucial
scheme, identified by Foucault in the Christian tradition of the self:
We have to sacrifice the self in order to discover the truth about oneself. And we have to
understand this sacrifice not only as a radical change in the way of life, but as the conse-
quence of a formula like this: you will become the subject of the manifestation of truth
about yourself on the condition you renounce being the subject of your own will, be it by
the obedience to the others or by the symbolic staging of your own death in the publicatio
sui. Facere veritatem, to make the truth about oneself, is impossible without this sacrifice
(Foucault 2016: 74n).
From this perspective, the autobiographical approach of Religio Medici seems to

intentionally constitute a modern, typographical form of publicatio sui or
ἐξομολόγησις. Browne’s is a penitential, apologetic, and symbolic mise-en-scène,
in which the truth of the self appears through the sacrifice of writing about the self.
Still, Browne’s account of subjectivity also helps us in a critical understanding of
another idea of Foucault. Foucault notices that modern theology discloses, by a
“work of disconnecting”, the tendency of a separation between “the access to the
truth […] and the requirement of the subject’s transformation of himself and of his
being” (Foucault 2005: 26), getting rid of any spiritual, esoteric and non-theological
methodology, which was already at work in alchemy (Foucault 2005: 27). In fact,
for Browne – who was a close a friend of Arthur Dee, the son of John Dee, and is
thus influenced by the alchemical tradition (see Calasso 2008: 42–48) – hermetic
theology plays a crucial role in the development of moral thought. It allows Charity
to be thought of as a moral practice, giving us the access to the self without passing
through a complete understanding and knowledge of it. Thus, in the heart of
Foucault’s opposition between spirituality and theology it seems to remain room for
moral philosophy. And, if it is true that the latter is probably ready to be involved in
“the liquidation of what could be called the condition of spirituality for access to the
truth” (Foucault 2005: 190), it still provides the human subject with an access to
himself which is not shaped on the scientific paradigm of clearness. But, in a way,
Browne’s simultaneous closeness and difference from the Kantian model, seems
this time to confirm Foucault’s idea that, with Kant,
what we cannot know is precisely the structure itself of the knowing subject, which means
that we cannot know the subject. Consequently, the idea of a certain spiritual transformation
of the subject, which finally gives him access to something to which precisely he does not
have access at the moment, is chimerical and paradoxical (Foucault 2005: 190).
For Browne, such a transformation is still possible. His philosophy of nature

considers human knowledge as always incomplete and hermeneutical, but the inner
subject’s mystery is thought of as the source of a different, spiritual, understand-
ing of it.
As for this process of transformation, it is not by chance that Browne’s view lies
on an original account of identity and similarity (and these may be other alchemical
echoes) that he sketched just a few paragraphs before defending friendship. For
Browne, the inner variety of Creation should not surprise, since it rather points out
a necessary feature of created nature; or, rather, a general mold in which all crea-
tures have been made. Diversity is everywhere in the world, and “even in things
alike […], and those that doe seeme to accord, doe manifestly disagree” (Browne
270 S. Guidi
1645: 133, II, s. 3). This leads Browne to an important remark, not so far from
Leibniz’s law of the identity of indiscernibles:
There was never any thing so like another, as in all points to concurre, there will ever some
reserved difference slip in, to prevent the identity, without which, two severall things would
not be alike, but the same, which is impossible (Browne 1645: 133, II, s. 3).
Therefore, friendship is for Browne the unique “mystic” relationship that is able
to consider both and simultaneously the likenesses and the differences between two
persons. And the model of such a relationship is, metaphorically, that of an enigma:
There are wonders in true affection, it is a body of Enigmaes, mysteries and riddles; wherein
two so become one, as they both become two; I love my friend before my selfe, and yet me
thinkes I do not love him enough; some few months hence my multiplied affection will
make me beleeve I have not loved him at all; when I am from him, I am dead till I bee with
him, when I am with him, I am not satisfied, but would still be nearer him: united soules are
not satisfied with embraces, but desire to be truely each other, which being impossible, their
desires are infinite, and must proceed without a possibility of satisfaction (Browne 1645:
144–45, II, s. 6).
It is important to notice that, in these lines, Browne recalls a passage of

Montaigne’s Essays. There Montaigne spoke about a “perfect” and “indivisible”
friendship, in which “each one gives himself so entirely to his friend, that he has
nothing left to distribute to others” and each one “is sorry that he is not double,
treble, or quadruple, and that he has not many souls and many wills, to confer them
all upon this one object” (Montaigne, Essays, I, XXVIII). Such a conception of
friendship is crucial for Browne’s understanding of personal identity too. Indeed,
the play of identity and difference can even be applied to the inner fight of the self
with its own conscience, which in a way is “someone else”. With great modernity,
Browne explains that
there are many pieces in this one fabricke of man; this frame is raised upon a masse of
Antipathies: I am one mee thinkes, but as the World: wherein not withstanding there are a
swarme of distinct essences, and in them another World of contrarieties; wee carry private
and domestick enemies within, publick and more hostile adversaries without. […] There is
another man within me that’s angry with mee, rebukes, commands, and dastards mee
(Browne 1645: 147–48, II, s. 7).
Here Browne seems to play with the traditional opposition friend-enemy. This
allows him to embody, on the level of the inner sight of the subject, the idea of an
internal enemy (the Devil) that, as Foucault himself has well pointed out, charac-
terizes Christian practices of the self:
What man needs if he does not want to be the victim of his own thoughts is a perpetual work
of interpretation, a perpetual hermeneutics. The function of this hermeneutics is to discover
the reality hidden inside the thought. This reality which is able to hide in my thoughts, this
reality is a power, a power which is not of another nature than my soul, as is, for instance,
the body. The power which hides inside my thoughts, this power is of the same nature as my
thoughts and as my soul. It is the Devil. It is the presence of somebody else in me (Foucault
2016: 69–70n).
Hence, as a middle stage between the ancient and the modern, Browne’s fasci-
nating suggestion of “another man within me” continues the tradition of the
Christian self. But it also merges it with the modern idea of a private and autono-
mous space of the subject. Still, such a space is not, already, that of an apodictic
knowledge, but rather that of a personal hermeneutic and understanding, which
employs the instruments of spirituality. For Browne is crucial that this internal fight
within us is simultaneously an exercise of Charity towards ourselves and a way of
taking care of the self:
It is no breach of charity to our selves to bee at variance with our vices, nor to abhorre that
part of us, which is an enemy to the ground of charity, our God; wherein wee doe but imitate
our great selves the world, whose divided Antipathies and contrary faces doe yet carry a
charitable regard unto the whole by their particular discords, preserving the common har-
mony, and keeping in fetters those powers, whose rebellions once Masters, might bee the
ruine of all (Browne 1645: 150, II, s. 7).
Through abnegation, we appear to ourselves as if we were others, namely, as a

multiplicity. This fact allows us to harmonize the various parts of the self. Yet in
such a process there still is a “hegemonic” part, appointed for the command over the
others, but also for the “common harmony” of what looks like a political, internal,
coexistence of the many “selves”.
16.4 Appendix: Browne and the Death
A last remark that it is worth stressing is that about Browne’s account of the rela-
tionship between Charity, the self and the medical profession. And this is a point
that should be examined especially in the light of the fact that medical culture has
been largely intersected with the history of the technologies of the self (see espe-
cially Foucault 1986).
Having reversed the preeminence of otherness over the self in the understanding
of the self as another, as well as of the other as the self, Browne provides us with a
few interesting remarks about his work as a physician. He writes:
Let mee be sicke my selfe, if sometimes the malady of my patient bee not a disease unto me,
I desire rather to cure his infirmities than my own necessities, where I doe him no good me
thinkes it is scarce honest gaine, though I confesse ’tis but the worthy salary of our well-in-
tended endeavours: I am not onely ashamed, but heartily sorry, that besides death, there are
diseases incureable, yet not for my owne sake, or that they be beyond my art, but for the
generall cause and sake (Browne 1645: 157, II, s. 9).
The weakness of medicine mentioned by Browne is still structural, since it

depends upon human moral weakness. He recalls that by remembering the real and
common source of Medicine, Theology and Law:
those three Noble professions which all civil Commonwealths doe honour, are raised upon
the fall of Adam, and are not any exempt from their infirmities; there are not onely diseases
incureable in Physick, but cases indissoluble in Lawes, Vices incorrigible in Divinity: if
General Councells may erre, I doe not see why particular Courts should be infallible, their
272 S. Guidi
perfectest rules are raised upon the erroneous reasons of Man, and the Lawes of one do but
condemne the rules of another (Browne 1645: 158, II, s. 9).
Human reason is indeed intrinsically infirm and built on the grounds of Original
Sin. This makes weak, and potentially erroneous, all human efforts to repair such a
condition. As Browne explains at the beginning of the Pseudodoxia Epidemica,
The First and Father-cause of common Error is the common infirmity of Human Nature; of
whose deceptible condition, although perhaps there should not need any other eviction, than
the frequent Errors we shall our selves commit, even in the express declarement hereof; yet
shall we illustrate the same from more infallible constitutions, and persons presumed as far
from us in condition, as time, that is, our first and ingenerated forefathers. From whom as
we derive our Being, and the several wounds of constitution (Browne 1658: 1).
Hence, this condition forces man to constantly start and move from an ἑπιμέλεια
έαuτου and overall from an ἑπιμέλεια τῆς ψυχῆς, given that the actual sickness of
human beings is that of the spirit, much more than that of the body. Indeed, as
Browne notices, “we all labour against our own cure, for death is the cure of all
diseases”. The end of the bodily life is, hence, wholly natural, and even desirable for
the subject that wants to know himself and take care of himself.
Once more, we find in Browne another traditional element in the history of the
care of the self (Hadot 1995: 93–101). It is the (this time Platonic) idea that “a true
lover of wisdom” and a true philosopher will be willing to depart with joy from this
world, since “he will have a firm conviction that there and there only, he can find
wisdom in her purity. And if this be true, he would be very absurd […] if he were
afraid of death” (Phaedo, XII, 67 d12-e2). A very famous statement, that Montaigne
restated like this:
The end of our race is death; this is the necessary object of our aim, which, if it frights us,
how is it possible to advance a step without a fit of ague? The remedy the vulgar use is not
to think on it; but from what brutish stupidity can they derive so gross a blindness?
(Montaigne, Essays, I, 20)
Browne too thinks that, if the bodily condition is the true cause of all the diseases
(including those moral ones of the soul) death cannot be but a freeing. Or, to use a
beautiful image from Religio Medici, though death is “nauseous to queasie stom-
achs” it is, “to prepared appetites”, “a Nectar and a pleasant potion of immortality”
(Browne 1645: 159, II, s. 10).
It is important to notice, with the help of Pierre Hadot (1922–2010), that, since
its first Platonic formulation in the Phaedo, “the goal of this philosophical separa-
tion is for the soul to liberate itself, shedding the passions linked to the corporeal
senses, so as to attain the autonomy of thought”. Thus, we should understand it
especially
as an attempt to liberate ourselves from a partial, passionate point of view – linked to the
senses and the body – so as to rise to the universal, normative viewpoint of thought, submit-
ting ourselves to the demands of the Logos and the norm of the Good. Training for death is
training to die to one’s individuality and passions, in order to look at things from the per-
spective of universality and objectivity (Hadot 1995: 94–95).
In introducing death as a part of medicine Browne recalls an Epicurean under-

standing of the meditare mortem, already circulating in Later Roman Stoicism:
I will take a loan from Epicurus, who says: “Practise death in advance”, or if it is easier to
convey his meaning, something like this: “It is a great thing to learn how to die”. Perhaps
you think it superfluous to learn something that can only be implemented once. This is the
very reason we have to practise; we must always learn anything that we cannot test to see if
we know it. “Practise death!” (Seneca 2001: 46; Letters 26, 8–10).
Following precisely this warning, Browne thinks of death as a form of medicine,

not only for the body’s sufferings but even for the soul’s pains. Accordingly, the
corruption that one might be afraid of is not that of body, but rather that of the soul.
As Browne explains by another analogy with his personal medical experience, “I
can cure the gout or stone in some sooner than Divinity [can cure], Pride, or Avarice
in others” and “I can cure vices by Physics, when they remain incurable by Divinity,
and shall obey my pills, when they contemn their precepts” (Browne 1645: 158–159,
II, s. 9). And such a medical-moral practice intersects again an opportunity for the
care of the self, once more as an internal fight with the traces of the Original
Sin in us:
…but it is the corruption that I feare within me, not the contagion of commerce without
mee. ’Tis that unruly regiment within me, that will destroy me, ’tis I that doe infect my
selfe, […] I feele that originall canker corrode and devour mee, and therefore Defenda me
Dios de me, Lord deliver mee from my selfe, is a part of my Letany, and the first voice of
my retired imaginations (Browne 1645: 160, II, s. 11).
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Chapter 17
Philosophy of Care
and the Bildungsroman: Words and Facts
in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre
Laura Madella
Einem gelang es, – er hob den Schleier der Göttin zu Sais;

Aber, was sah er? Er sah, – Wunder des Wunders – sich selbst.
Novalis
Abstract Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–1796) is inextricably tied to

the birth of the Bildungsroman and stands at a critical moment in the history of
European philosophy of education. The concept of self-care permeates Goethe’s
theory of the self-formation, insomuch as he displayed the latter as the consequence
of one’s knowledge of the self and the world. In particular, the novel materializes in
its threads the main features of what Foucault described as the historical turning
point in the European idea of the care of the self. The paper aims to highlight this
topic through the examination of three characters and the representation of their
dealings with self-knowledge and self-care.
Keywords Bildungsroman · Self-care and self-knowledge representation · Ethical

turn · Goethe’s theory of education · Foucault’s hermeneutics of the self
German Proto-Romanticism1 is so full of “selfs”. Essential beings, individualities,

identities, egos that are bulkily present in its authors and their creations as well.
Agathon, Anton Reiser, Hyperion, Franz Sternbald, Albano da Cesara and of course
1
I guiltily merge under the same label Sturm und Drang, Pre-Romanticism and Early Romanticism,
pleading their constant drawing up of themes and stylistic features for the Romanticism-to-be.
L. Madella (*)
Department of Education, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
e-mail: laura.madella@unipr.it

Switzerland AG 2021
276 L. Madella
the oversensitive Heinrich von Ofterdingen,2 each of them and each of their stories
could tell us interesting things about the literary representation of self-care in the
critical decades between the end of the Seven Years’ War and the Restoration.
They are all stories of self-education written in non-metrical discourse,
Bildungsromane, using the term of a category that is as traditional as it is
controversial.
The historical evidence of the Bildungsroman had been underpinned in such an
authoritative way that made it difficult to escape its employment. In the years
between 1791 and 1794, Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote his most significant text on
the theory of education, definitely relating the German idea of Bildung to self-
education and self-cultivation (Bruford 1975 and Sorkin 1983). In 1819 Karl
Morgenstern, a professor in Tartu (Livonia, at that time), created the word
Bildungsroman (and its category) during his rhetoric lessons (Morgestern 2009, first
published in German in 1820). Around fifty years later. Wilhelm Dilthey retrieved
Morgenstern’s locution and stated that Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre was its repre-
sentative model (Dilthey 1870). The German compound became popular when
Dilthey enhanced it in Das Erlebnis und die Dichtung (1906), and worldwide with
that work’s English translation.
However, the legitimacy of the Bildungsroman, as a proper genre, has been called
into question in literary criticism since the late twentieth century. If we stick to the
content requirements of a self-education fiction with a pedagogical purpose, too
many novels should be included in the group; conversely, the crowd of scholarly
works that agreed in identifying its ideal paradigm with Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters
Lehrjahre fixed so many parameters, that it is rare to meet them in any novels other
than Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. At the same time, we still lack an updated histori-
cal and philosophical comprehension of Bildung applied to contemporary coming-
of-age fiction, so Bildungsroman has become old-fashioned with no newer label to
replace it (Sengle 1972; Steinecke 1991; Redfield 1996).
Nor have contemporary philosophers ever abandoned the Bildungsroman as a
privileged area for their literary joyrides, making the category more and more influ-
ential. Just think of György Lukács and his Theory of the Novel (Lukács 1971), first
published in Germany in 1920, or Bakhtin’s The Bildungsroman and its Significance
in the History of Realism (1986).3 Richard Rorty reversed the terms of the relation-
ship between reality and novel, assuming that the history of Europe could be seen
“as portions of a Bildungsroman” (Rorty 1978; Voparil 2005), while in the last
decade the whole category has been observed through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu’s
theory of fields, revealing that the research on the canon (Wieland, Goethe, Novalis,
Tieck) is all but remote from the present day and, at the same time, young novelists
2
The “heroes” of as many novels: Wieland (1766–67), Geschichte des Agathon; Moritz (1785–90),
Anton Reiser, Ein psychologischer Roman; Hölderlin (1797–90), Hyperion oder der Eremit in
Griechenland; Tieck (1798), Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen; Richter, (1800–03), Titan.
3
The paper is a fragment of a wider essay on the German novel, a book that Bakhtin had written in
the ‘30s and delivered to be printed to a publisher in Moscow. This manuscript got lost, probably
destroyed, during the German occupation.
17 Philosophy of Care and the Bildungsroman: Words and Facts in Goethe’s Wilhelm 277
keep publishing novels of formation with a high degree of theoretical self-con-

sciousness (Böhm and Dennerlein 2016). For all these reasons, we are inclined to
comply with Tobias Boes’ conclusions: “While the term Bildungsroman continues
to vex literary criticism like very few others, it has also proven to be an unparalleled
success as a model by which writers and critics alike can understand the world
around them” (Boes 2006: 242).
German Bildungsromane of that time seem to display one of those historical
forms “between the ‘subject’ and ‘truth’” that, according to Michel Foucault, histo-
rians have not addressed enough. In particular, the famous archetype Goethe’s
Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–1796)4 materializes in its threads the main fea-
tures of what Foucault describes as the historical turning point in the European idea
of the care of the self.5
In his 1982 lectures at the Collège de France (Foucault 2005), Foucault identified
a historical phase, extended from Descartes to Kant, in which the identification of
knowing oneself with the care of the self, derived from the ancient non-Aristotelian
Western philosophy, faded. Descartes’ “cogito” implied that the subject could know
himself for the mere reason that he existed. Kant went further, assuming that the
same structure that allowed the subject to know himself also fixed the limits of this
knowledge. That is to say, the cura sui as a philosophical action and practice of
spirituality no longer had the cogency to change one’s own being and give him
access to the truth, and what the subject by himself could know was not necessarily
the truth, because of the subject’s structural limits (3rd February 1982: 190). Thus,
knowing oneself was no longer a matter of truth (i.e., it no longer had an intrinsic
morality) but became a matter of knowledge “of a domain of objects” (192) and
gradually in the contemporary age, all the determinations of the cura sui,6 despoiled
from the virtue of knowledge, tended to be seen as egoistic or deviated demonstra-
tions of vain individualism (12) and lost the positive connotations they had had
since antiquity.7
In the economy of Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjare the relation
between the subject and knowledge (and truth) holds a weighty position and seems
to endorse Foucault’s reading about its dissociation from the cura sui. But this latter
and all the related “practices of spirituality” preserve a strong beneficial connotation
and are seen as instruments to reach a moral goal that, however, is outside the sub-
ject. We will inquire into this topic through three characters and their attitudes: the
4
Kant’s Metaphysik der Sitten was published in 1797.
5
Besides the wide perusal in the 3rd volume of The History of Sexuality (1984), at the beginning
of the Eighties Foucault focused his lectures on the history of the care of the self as a Western
philosophical topic and practice. See Foucault 2017 and 2016; Khoruzhiĭ and Stoeckl 2015; Wong
2013; Strozier 2002; Marshall 1997.
6
“Taking care of the self”, “withdrawing into oneself”, “retiring into the self”, “finding one’s plea-
sure in oneself”, “seeking no other delight but in the self”, “remaining in the company of oneself”,
“being the friend of oneself”, “being in one’s self as in a fortress”, “looking after” or “devoting
oneself to oneself”, “respecting oneself”, etc. (Foucault 2005, p. 12).
7
Against Foucault’s interpretation, see Sluhovsky 2017.
278 L. Madella
protagonist and his idea of knowledge, the physician and his philosophical task, and
the care of the self in the Fair Soul (die Schöne Seele).
17.1 “ You Know Nothing, Wilhelm Meister”. Or,

the Inconceivability of Truth
Let us briefly summarize the plot of Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship:8 young

Wilhelm Meister, a trader’s son, dreams of becoming a playwright and actor. His
father sends him on a journey with the purpose of getting him acquainted with the
family business (first apprenticeship, given up), but Wilhelm exploits the opportu-
nity to follow his ambition and joins a penniless theatre company (second appren-
ticeship, failed). After many encounters and experiences, Wilhelm seems to
understand that his way is different from the one he had dreamt of, as well as from
the one his family had planned for him (third and effective apprenticeship). The
reader does not witness in this book Wilhelm’s fulfilment of his alleged projects and
a second novel will later follow – Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (1821) – in which,
after many further metaphorical trips, Wilhelm will clearly establish himself as the
creator of his future.
From the outset of the novel, it is crystal clear that Wilhelm’s problem is a matter
of knowledge. Without being dramatic and even less tragic, Wilhelm is a quite mod-
ern young man, troubled, unquiet, somewhat emotionally dissociated, but, in a
romantic way at which Goethe grins (quoting Carlyle’s expression),9 he admires the
sentimental posturing of his own person. Every aspect that he believes constitutive
in himself is actually grounded on childhood memories and sentimental states of
mind, and almost totally lacks theoretical insight. That is the case of his passion for
the theatre, and this was his theatre library:
Works of taste alone, poets and critics, were as acknowledged friends placed among the
chosen few. Heretofore he had given little heed to the critical authors; his desire for instruc-
tion now revived, when again looking through his books, he found the theoretical part of
them lying generally still uncut. In the full persuasion that such works were absolutely
necessary, he had bought a number of them; but with the best disposition in the world, he
had not reached midway in any. (Goethe 1824, vol. I: 48)
8
The novel was so entitled in its first English translation by poet Thomas Carlyle (1824), from
which we quote.
9
Carlyle on Goethe’s detachment (1824, vol. I, X): “The author himself, far from ‘doing it in a
passion’, wears a face of the most still indifference throughout the whole affair; often it is even
wrinkled by a slight sardonic grin. For the friends of the sublime, then, for those who cannot do
without heroical sentiments and ‘moving accidents by flood and field’, there is nothing here that
can be of any service”.
Since the young Meister dreamt not only of becoming a man of the theatre, but
also of creating a brand new theatre for the German nation,10 a theoretical deepening
should be obvious. Rather, he overlooks it, except requiring it from the last persons
interested in such questions: actors.
Ever busied in being idle, they seemed to think least of all on their employment and object;
the poetic worth of a piece they were never heard to speak of, or to judge of, right or wrong;
their continual question was simply: How much will it bring? Is it a stock-piece? How often
will it run? (vol. I: 87)
Wilhelm has no idea of how the theatre works. In the same way, he has no idea
of how love works, and falls for Mariane just because she is an actress, and repre-
sents for him all the ideal, sentimental and passionate world that, in his mind,
revolves around it. But never once will he be able to understand the girl’s real mood
or interests, he cannot even notice how shabby she is, nor those little bits of evi-
dence that reveal that she is in fact a cocotte. The limits in knowing the objects of
his passion are not marked by a technical inability to understand, or to learn; rather
his behavior with books causes us to suspect some sort of intellectual laziness. He
also flaunts an obsession for the object itself that undermines every other aspect
related to him, such as for example its exterior shape and structure. In this passage
he talks to Werner, his philistine counterpart:
Pardon me – said Wilhelm, smiling – you begin by the form, as if it were the matter; you
traders commonly, in your additions and balancings, forget what is the proper net result of
life. (vol. I: 51)
Werner is a young, pragmatic, promising businessman who dared to criticize a

piece of theatre written by Wilhelm and who, by the way, was right.11 Later, a more
significant passage clarifies the nature of Wilhelm’s unfitness to attain to a complete
form of knowledge. Around the end of Book I he meets a stranger who, he will
discover, helped his father to sell away his grandfather’s art collection when Wilhelm
was a child:
The Stranger: “You had, if I mistake not, a favourite piece among them, to which you
were ever calling my attention”.
Wilhelm: “O! yes; it represented the history of that king’s son dying of a secret love for his
father’s bride”.
The Stranger: “It was not, certainly, the best picture; badly grouped, of no superiority in
colouring, and executed altogether with great mannerism”.
10
“In his comfortable prudence, he beheld in himself the embryo of a great actor; the future founder
of that national theatre, for which he heard so much and various sighing on every side” (Goethe
1824, vol. I: 46).
11
In the first book, all the philistines who criticize Wilhelm are right – his father, Mariane’s maid,
Melina the actor – at least when they argue over Wilhelm’s understanding of reality. Criticizing
Wilhelm’s personification of commerce as an old wicked beggar woman, Werner of course
defended his category but, from an aesthetic point of view, the representation was quite simple and
shallow.
280 L. Madella
Wilhelm: “This I did not understand, and do not yet; it is the subject that charms me in a
picture, not the art”.
The Stranger: “[…] most probably you too, had the cabinet continued in your family,
would by and by have acquired a relish for the works themselves; and have learned to see
in the performances of art something more than yourself and your individual inclinations”.
(vol. I: 103–105)
The stranger draws Wilhelm’s attention and ours to a first aesthetic issue, the
connection between the subject (der Gegenstand) and its external image, which is
intrinsic in the idea of Bildung, in its etymology; a subject cannot be either perused
or judged leaving aside its form.12
Wilhelm seems to approach the world’s realities in the same way he approaches
the arts, casting upon them his own “inclinations”, which date back to the most
emotional moments of his childhood, in both positive and negative ways. The
stranger ascribes this attitude to a lack of experience: had Wilhelm been able to
learn from his grandfather, he would have acquired in turn a proper competence as
an art critic. But this is a pure assumption: it has been seen that he knows perfectly
well that an art criticism exists, though he neglects this. Throughout the whole
novel, there is no reason to doubt the honesty of his purposes; on the contrary, his
judgment often fails and seldom is he able to reach the truth on his own. Thus, the
reader is allowed to suppose that Wilhelm’s problem with knowledge is inherent in
himself, a result of his limits. So, if, intrinsically, he does not feel the need to
improve his judgement (not his knowledge) through a speculative device such as
critical reasoning, the solution could be outside himself:
Wilhelm: I easily content myself, and honour destiny, which knows how to bring about
what is best for me, and what is best for everyone. […] Do you then believe in no destiny?
No power that rules13 over us, and directs all for our ultimate advantage?
The Stranger: The question is not now of my belief; nor is this the place to explain how
I may have attempted to form for myself some not impossible conception of things, which
are incomprehensible to all of us: the question here is: What mode of viewing them will
profit us most? The fabric of our life is formed of necessity and chance; the reason of man
takes its station between them, and may rule them both. (vol. I: 105–106)
Young Meister does not worry too much about the truth, because he believes it is
determined, and provided, by a superior power. The stranger replies that one’s belief
has little importance, because it attends to things so far from human understanding
that it could hardly comprehend something true, at the very least something possi-
ble. One must not focus on what things are but on how things work and try to obtain
the best he can (in a spiritual, moral sense) using his most effective human instru-
ment – reasoning. He suggests one should overcome the impossibility of knowing
12
Das Bild at the source of die Bildung is the image of God (Cocalis 1978: 400; Redfield 1996:
44–56; Horlarcher 2017: 1–31).
13
Goethe uses the verb “beherrschen”, somewhat stronger than “rule”, because it stems from
“Herr”, “lord/Lord”, and implies an absolute sovereignity.
the truth by applying oneself to the possibility of doing good, through all those
activities of mind that constitute the care of self. The stranger seems here to reveal
a Kantian gnoseologic mindset, which separates the domain of truth from the
domain of practical reason, so that human intellectual instruments are able to pursue
what is good (or, at least, what is useful, in the circumstances that call for an aes-
thetic judgment) on the basis of its perceivably moral causes and ends, this phenom-
enon remaining ontologically unattainable by the cognitive power of pure reason.
We shall now pay attention to the German original, where “necessity” and “chance”
are “Notwendigkeit” and “Zufall”. These terms are also two Urworte (that is to say
“primal, primordial words”) inserted by Goethe in his homonym poem; there were
also “Daemon”, “Love” and “Hope”, the latter closing the song like a plea for opti-
mism, the condition sine qua non for man to succeed in dealing with the other
four terms.
In 2008, Pierre Hadot published N’oublie pas de vivre. Goethe et la tradition des
exercices spirituels. The French philosopher addresses a wide range of Goethian
texts (Faust, Die Wahlverwandtschaften, poetry, the Conversations with Eckermann,
Goethe’s Correspondence) showing Goethe’s proximity to the non-Christian tradi-
tion of spiritual exercises developed in classical Rome and, before that, in Hellenistic
Mediterranean lands. The notorious quote from Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship,
“Bedenken zu Leben!” (Book VIII, Chapter 5), summarizes the essay’s
conclusions.
The poem Urworte, in particular, in Hadot’s opinion, would reaffirm the writer’s
positivity in his old age, the faith in the potential of human beings to arbitrate
between necessity and fate to their own advantage (Hadot 2008: 163 ff.). Human
beings would improve this skill through the regular practice of some fundamental
“spiritual exercises” that Hadot extracts from the works of the Ancients (Homer,
Epicurus, Diodorus Siculus, Horace, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca the Younger,
Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lucian of Samosata) and groups in two behavioral cat-
egories. Firstly, the attitude of focusing on the present moment and its significance;
in the Apprenticeship this lesson is symbolically conveyed by the above-mentioned
motto, “memento vivere”.
The second category of exercises teaches men to distance themselves from
events, so as to maintain a calm behavior and be able to think serenely and ratio-
nally. More than once, in the Apprenticeship, we recognize such approaches and
more than once young Meister and his companions talk (dialogues or monologues)
and act and travel following this spiritual training, giving us some precious meta-
phorical scenes.14 However, it is understood that the supreme detachment belongs
here to the author.15 Goethe had already got us used to his cruel and ironic aloofness
toward Young Werther, and kept sharpening his weapons for Elective Affinities and
especially Faust, where God’s dialogue with Mephistopheles offers the supreme
14
In Book IV, chapter 6, on the top of a hill (detachment), Wilhelm and his theatre company are
ambushed by bandits just while enjoying some convivial and thoughtful moments (double out-
come: inwardness, narrative turn of the events).
15
See n. 9.
282 L. Madella
demonstration of how wise detachment can be. Yet self-care, exactly because of all
its bonds with one’s individuality, endures a steady exposure to emotional states and
irrational moods that seriously jeopardize its effectiveness. Appropriately, the reac-
tions of the most important novel’s characters to disasters and tragedies never dis-
turb the course of their thoughts and lives; a woman’s gaze may apparently upset
Wilhelm’s mind, but the heartbreaking death of the poor girl Mignon does not pre-
vent him from continuing to search his soul and plan his future. Obviously, this
detachment is neither realistic nor exemplary, it has no ethic but a mere “mechani-
cal” function, it allows Wilhelm and friends to continue a demonstration that a real-
istic reaction would stop or delay, requiring moreover further details and digressions
in a heretofore complicated story.
Returning finally to our dialogue, its subject has to be observed. That painting
represented the history of Antiochus and Stratonice, told by Plutarch in his Parallel
Lives: Antiochus, son to the Macedonian King, lies in bed near to death, struck by
the secret love for his father’s young bride, Stratonice.16 An essential element in the
painting, as well as in Plutarch’s tale, is the presence of a doctor, Erasistratus, the
only one able to guess Antiochus’s secret. An easy pre-romantic reading of the plot
would first connect love, or passion, and illness. But, possibly, a more serious con-
nection is between illness and knowledge: Antiochus fell ill because he had realized
the existence and the consequences of his love, and he could not face it. And here
the physician steps in, to help people to acknowledge reality and solve the conun-
drum, one of the most typical figures of care in one of the most typical philosophi-
cal tasks.
17.2 T
eaching to Care, Learning to Care. The Physician
and the Fair Soul
In Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, the doctor apparently blends the pagan tradi-
tion of spiritual exercises praised by Hadot with the Christian soul-searching devel-
oped by Pietism.
This physician has no name but just a role. He is the Doctor (German “Artz”, and
occasionally the more formal “Medikus”) and he is a true model. The doctor comes
forth at the right time, in the right place, to care for both body and mind, and to teach
others to care for body and mind. The subjects of his treatments are never simply
wounded or ill people; he always appears when a suffering spirit needs him. Not
without reason as Wilhelm lies injured in the forest, after the bandit’s ambush,17 a
surgeon shows up (German “Chirurg”) – not the doctor.
16
A very popular subject in the eighteenth century, represented by many painters throughout
Europe. Goethe referred to Antonio Bellucci’s work (ca. 1700) which he saw in Kassel, now at
Kassel’s Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen.
17
See n. 14.
We encounter the physician for the first time through Wilhelm’s eyes. He helped
a priest to cure melancholic (insane) people, among which is the Harpist, Wilhelm’s
friend and one of the poetic characters in the novel.18 Wilhelm introduces him to us
as an ancient philosopher:
The physician was an oldish man, who, though in weak health, had spent many years in the
practice of the noblest virtues. He was a strong advocate for country life, being himself
scarcely able to exist except in the open air. […] For man, he used to say, there is but one
misfortune: when some idea lays hold of him, which exerts no influence upon active life, or
still more, which withdraws him from it. (vol. II: 240–241)
This very concern for the “active life” is the focus of the care he performs. The
doctor is an arch-enemy of every state of soul and mind and every way of life that
make a person inert and counters, in so doing, the “memento vivere”. His proximity
to the religious environment does not depend on any denominational faith; he needs
rather to be sure that, whatever the faith or the religiousness is, it grants, or assists,
or triggers, people’s active life:
Withal he was extremely active and companionable. For several years, he had shown a
special inclination to make friends with all the country clergymen within his reach. Such of
these as were employed in any useful occupation, he strove by every means to help; into
others, who were still unsettled in their aims, he endeavored to infuse a taste for some prof-
itable species of exertion. (vol. II: 241)
In the case of these country clergymen, we are allowed to suppose that the doctor
was not worried about their own indolence but rather that of the people they were
supposed to care about. That is why he put his counsel at their disposal, as he did
with the priest who hosted melancholics.
We could also infer that his goodwill and services made him sufficiently respected
by all those “country clergymen” to grant him a certain degree of freedom, as we
witness him bestowing religious guidance too. In this way, he talks to Aurelie, an
actress consumed by passion and self-pity, but hardly acquainted with spiritual
solaces:
Her new friend [the doctor] related many anecdotes of persons who, in spite of lingering
disorders, had attained a good old age; adding that, in such cases, nothing could be more
injurious than the intentional recalling of passionate and disagreeable emotions. In particu-
lar he stated, that for persons labouring under chronic and partly incurable distempers, he
had always found it a very happy circumstance when he chanced to entertain, and cherish
in their minds, true feelings of religion. (vol. II: 244)
Aurelie’s life was not literally inactive; she was not mad, had a job and certainly
did not spend her time in meditation. But, amidst the turmoil of her disordered exis-
tence, her mind never grew up, just because its spiritual and intellectual nature had
never been exerted. Thus the doctor suggests that Aurelie should read a manuscript
18
According to the priest, the relation between a person and his exterior image attains a great sig-
nificance for insane people: “Yet if I could get his [the Harpist’s] beard and hood removed, I should
reckon it a weighty point; For nothing more exposes us to madness, than distinguishing ourselves
from others, and nothing more contributes to maintain our common sense, than living in the uni-
versal way with multitudes of men”.
284 L. Madella
containing that “true feeling of religion”, which he considers the best example of the
care of self, no less than the famous Bekenntnisse einer schöne Seele.19 Nothing but
this text would help Aurelie to recover. She does read it, or rather, Wilhelm reads it
to her, and she dies shortly after.20 That sounds so cruel and unlikely as to seem
comical. It is; it is also ruthless and nevertheless undeniably rational, since poor
Aurelie, psychologically weak and unwilling to be self-confident or independent,
could never live according to the spiritual (but read: psychological) standards of the
Fair Soul, who for a lifetime had trained herself to think, decide and live on her own.
This fictional autobiography, written according to the pattern of the
Erkenntnisliteratur,21 and in part modeled on the autobiographical manuscript of a
true Pietist,22 serves in the novel as Book VI and tells of the life and spiritual unfold-
ing of a woman, the Fair Soul indeed, from her childhood to late maturity. Her
religiousness led her to join the Moravian congregation of Herrnhut for a while, but
she finally left and chose to pursue her spiritual existence in an entirely individual
dimension.
Actually, the Fair Soul was not only good at soul-searching and other philosophi-
cal practices of self-care, but also had always known herself or, at least, she remem-
bered the moment she realized knowing herself:
About the beginning of my eighth year, I was seized with a hemorrhage; and from that
moment my soul became all feeling, all memory […] I suffered and I loved. (vol. II: 259)
Once more the perception of knowledge is strictly connected with a state of

physical disease, even if one cannot tell in which direction the causal relationship
moves: did the girl become aware of herself because of the bleeding, or was it an
unconscious consequence of her awareness’ disclosure, like a sudden revelation? At
any rate, that knowledge was already complete and throughout the entire Confessions
she built up an identity around it, taking advantage of it, as her uncle remarks:
I reverence the individual who understands distinctly what he wishes; who unweariedly
advances, who knows the means conducive to his object, and can seize and use them […] If
you, my friend, whose highest want it was to perfect and unfold your moral nature… (vol.
II: 329)
Yet such a sophisticated level of self-knowledge and care of the self, such a
moral awareness, did not prevent the woman from misconceiving the essence of art.
19
It has often been remarked how Carlyle’s translation, Confessions of a Fair Saint, misses the
platonic heritage of the original expression and, therefore, the special significance it acquired in
German and European enlightened milieus (Argyle 2002: 30).
20
As a matter of fact, emaciated and neurotic, Aurelie died from pulmonary complications after
having recklessly run under a downpour, and held the reading of the Bekenntnisse for a last conso-
lation that was shown to have converted her at the last minute to some form of sincere religion.
21
A typical writing of German Pietism where storytellers tell their own life, looking thoroughly
into every motion of the soul, sometimes in a verbose manner. This was, roughly, a particular varia-
tion of the Christian autobiography combined with a sensitive soul-searching out of the ordinary,
with the main purpose of knowing oneself to know God and his will.
22
Suzanne von Klettenberg (1723–1774), a dear friend to Goethe’s mother.
By chance, the Fair Soul’s uncle was an art collector. Admiring his paintings, the
Fair Soul yielded to the same temptation as Wilhelm: she was impressed by the
subjects that showed the utmost moral content, she judged art within the parameters
of her own self-knowledge and sensibility, although morally upright.23
All that self-awareness notwithstanding, even the Fair Soul needs the physician.
As she met him at her uncle’s home, she suddenly noticed his concern for the “active
life”, like Wilhelm, but with a further shade:
“To be active” he would say “is the primary vocation of a man; all the intervals in which he
is obliged to rest, he should employ in gaining clearer knowledge of external things, for this
will in its turn facilitate activity”. (vol. II: 334)
“To be active”, it has been said, did not necessarily mean to do something fac-
tual. It was also meant as the opposite of “passive”, as a state in which a person
consciously controls his life. Rather it is interesting that, according to our physician,
the most fruitful attitude to reach this goal is learning how the exterior world works.
In the essential practice of the care of the self he includes also one’s relations with
nature and, as a consequence, with one’s own body. The reason could be seen as the
vexed matter of the equilibrium of interior/exterior, body/mind etc. But we could
also take into consideration that “external things” represent the only field through
which the human being can act on himself and investigate or direct his moral nature,
while a unique reasoning on one’s own soul and moral will reveal nothing and prove
to be unproductive.24 In a painful moment of her existence, the Fair Soul ran the risk
of disregarding what was outside her:
It was as if my soul was thinking separately from the body: she looked upon the body as a
foreign substance, as we look upon a garment. (vol. II: 333)
The physician taught her to rebalance the two dimensions, spiritual and physical,
and once more there is not only equilibrium at stake, but something more practical.
Without the proper assistance of the body, no active life can be achieved, not even a
spiritual one.
The physician, he showed me how much these feelings, when we cherish them within us
independently of outward objects, tend to undermine the whole foundation of our being.
[…] He now carried forward my attention from the human body, and the drugs which act
upon it, to the kindred objects of creation: he led me up and down as in the Paradise of the
First Man; only, if I may continue my comparison, allowing me to trace, in dim remoteness,
the Creator walking in the Garden in the cool of the evening. (vol. II: 344–345)
As outcomes of Creation, the body and environment are both natural events, and
God, whom somewhere else she called “the Great Physician”, strolls among his
23
Subject is only the surface of art, its ethical content must be construed through historical research
about the subject’s representation, about the author and his technical choice etc. (see Goethe 1824
vol. II: 333).
24
“…those do not act properly, who follow moral cultivation by itself exclusively. On the contrary,
it will be found that he whose spirit strives for a development of this kind, has likewise every rea-
son to improve his finer sentient powers”, admonished the Fair Soul’s uncle before the paintings
(vol. II, 333).
286 L. Madella
creatures rather than supervising them from heaven above (among the studies
inquiring into the nature of Goethe’s reception of Spinoza, see Michael Mack 2010:
139–167; Stieg 1999: 63–75; Schings 1986: 118–121).
The Fair Soul finally learned to deal with an issue that had troubled her life since
her youth, the legitimacy of the sensorial experience in the sight of moral virtue.
The thorny problem was not the content of the sensorial experience, which she was
perfectly able to control, as for her own life, and to understand, as for the world’s
necessity. Complications arose when she was required to accomplish any “institu-
tionalized” code of behavior – formally established by the Pietist, or informally by
her family and the society.25
After the physician has helped to reconcile her mind with its physical home, she
definitely abandons the Moravian community and every sort of institutional guid-
ance to commit herself to no-one’s judgement but to her conscience, and the
Confessions keep a record of her struggle and labor, a sort of diary of how to suc-
cessfully pursue the care of the self.26
Perhaps we could say that the Doctor acted like a modern life-coach. But some-
times he could not succeed and his treatments were not effective. This happened to
the Harpist and Mignon, par excellence the quaint, poetic characters in the novel.27
The attempts to cure and care for both the old man and the girl test a stage of seem-
ing success, to eventually fail, as they must face alone their darkest fears. Once
again, literary convenience is well supported by a plain explanation: the Harpist and
Mignon, from the novel’s beginning to its very end, did not even know their real
identity,28 neither their origin nor their names. The lack of this fundamental, primary
knowledge makes any further consciousness incomplete and any rational-dialectic
activity a fake, while one’s instinctual effort to restore the lost wholeness leads to
insanity. Such human beings cannot learn to care for themselves.
25
Her mother forbade her to read “books of a corruptive tendency” (Goethe 1824, vol. II: 261) and
she readily obeyed, but then Carlyle censors what follows. We quote from Grove’s translation (von
Goethe 1873: 93–94): “I knew more of the natural history of our race than I allowed any one to
perceive. Most of this I had gained from the Bible. I compared doubtful passages with words and
things that came before my own eyes, and so, with the help of my own desire for information, and
my talent for combination, succeeded in finding out the truth”.
26
In a 1923 lecture in Munich, Thomas Mann postulated that the German disposition toward
inwardness, grounded in the tradition of Bildung, substantiated by Lutheranism from a religious
point of view and refined through the expressive means of the Pietism, influenced the German
perspective in perceving political world and democratic instances (translated and quoted in Bruford
1975, VII).
27
Mignon is the voice behind the Lied “Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn?” Several
songs from Wilhelm Meister, among which this one, were set to music by Franz Schubert.
28
The Harpist and Mignon were father and daughter, but human dullness and superstition separated
one from the other before the girl’s birth; many years later they met and lived together, but the
writer’s treachery condemned them to a horrible and dramatic death before they learned the truth
about their parentage.
17.3 Conclusions
In Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, the Fair Soul is a bright exception, an exem-

plary model of the power of the cura sui, which nonetheless is possible thanks to her
advanced, though not perfect, self-knowledge. But many of the novel’s characters
lack what is needed to pursue such a satisfying experience. This is the case of
Wilhelm, whose self-knowledge is undermined by a wrong perception of his skills
and desires. In the novel, he seems to walk through the plot to serve as a pupil for
Goethe’s lessons, but we never see him do his homework. At the end of his
Apprenticeship, symbolically, Wilhelm discovers he is a father of one, that he has a
child, but this epiphany gives the reader the impression that he “receives” parent-
hood and the child just as well as he “received” any other teaching, with no specific
demonstration of having understood what he is dealing with. Throughout the novel,
every direct and indirect teaching about self-knowledge and self-care is meant for
him, but no one demands that he factually proves to have really learnt. Goethe’s
“realism” is not of the same kind as one can find in the French or Russian literature
of the nineteenth century, nor should we expect that the narrative display of a topic
so closely related to education, as the cura sui is, could bend poetical and artistic
reasons in the direction that educational practices require.
In Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, the novel’s sequel, the reader will better
appreciate how good young Meister learned the lesson, as he will become – surpris-
ingly? – a physician.
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70 (4): 399–414.
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Khoruzhiĭ, Sergey S., and Kristina Stoeckl, eds. 2015. Practices of the self and spiritual practices:
Michel Foucault and the Eastern Christian discourse. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans
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Cornell U.P.
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Chapter 18
Care of Oneself and the Psychological
Clinic: Kierkegaardian Contributions
Myriam Moreira Protasio
Abstract Foucault takes up the notion of care of oneself from the Greek world,
showing that amidst the tendency to consider the epiméleia heautoû (care of one-
self) from the perspective of the gnôthi seautón (know thyself), little by little a for-
getting of the sense of caring for oneself. Kierkegaard also beckons to forgetfulness
of care of oneself operated by the philosophy and theology of his time, in a dis-
course entitled For self-examination, although it refers to care through expressions
such as self-examination or judge for yourself. The aim of this work is to consider a
proposal of psychological clinic in dialogue with the notion of self-care, pointed out
by Foucault and, more specifically, by Kierkegaard. The text concludes by showing
that this clinic constitutes a privileged listening that opens a field where everything
is possible, including the possibility of transformation.
Keywords Care of oneself · Attention to oneself · Clinical psychology · Clinical

thinking · Søren Kierkegaard
Initially, I would like to clarify that I speak as a psychologist. More precisely as a

clinical psychologist who exercises her craft directly and indirectly, that is, serving
people and teaching and supervising students in training. My need to provide this
clarification is due to the fact that I want to support Kierkegaard’s research from
psychology take and to recognize that much of the research on Kierkegaard’s think-
ing is based on philosophy and theology. I point out, however, that in a horizon in
which the disciplinary order that establishes the cutting lines on the subjects stud-
ied, I work from the understanding that the background of Kierkegaard’s work is the
existence and not the disciplinary orders, since what is in question is the existent in
his existence. That is, in addition to the disciplinary orders, it is important to think
M. M. Protasio (*)
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia Social, UERJ – IFEN, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
e-mail: myriam@ifen.com.br

Switzerland AG 2021
290 M. M. Protasio
with Kierkegaard and from Kierkegaard life or, as Campos (2014: 26) says, the
“word of life”, which is what psych-ology means: “psiké (life), logos (word)” . In
this sense, and inspired by Foucault, I understand Kierkegaard as a parrhesiast, the
one who tells the truth about himself and in this exercise helps others to find their
truth (Wellausen 2011), understanding truth not as something of the order of
thought, but of life or of my life and the way I deal with it, with my time, my city,
with others, because it is not about life as an abstraction, but a life lived. It is in this
sense that the Kierkegaard’s Existential Science is psych-ology, life-knowledge.
And it is in this direction that I propose to contemplate on the relationship between
the care of oneself and the psychological clinic.
Foucault (2010: 4), while investigating the notion of care of oneself, regains the
original meaning of the Greek epiméleia heautoû (care of oneself): “the care of
oneself, the self-conscious, attention to oneself, etc.”, drawing attention to the fact
that we habitually relate the sense of epiméleia heautoû (care of oneself) with the
famous Delphic description of gnôthi seautón (know thyself), promoting a sum-
mary of its original meaning. He quotes Socrates who, in Apology, appears as the
one who worries about himself, cares for himself and, in this gesture, also worries
about others, devoting his life to exhorting men to take care of themselves. For
Socrates, caring of oneself is the way to attain virtue. Kierkegaard also moves in the
direction of oblivion of the most original sense of self-care, subjected to the system-
atic thought of philosophy and the theology of his time. For us, these reflections
inspire the constitution of a comprehensive field for the exercise of clinical psychol-
ogy as the care of oneself.
Let us see how this occurs in the Christian discourses organized under the title:
For a self-examination, where Kierkegaard (1990, 1851/2011) sustains the problem
of man’s relation to his truth, stating that the question that matters is whether a man,
knowing the truth, takes it as truth in his existence. From this element, Kierkegaard
will question the need for men of their time to recover this mode of care in which
self-examination refers to self-care: the man listens and sees himself, judges himself
and can transform himself in the face of this listening or reading (in the case of the
text). Kierkegaard begins the speech by the following exhortation: “My dear reader!
Read loud, if possible” (...) “By reading aloud you will gain the strongest impres-
sion that you have only yourself to consider, not me, who, after all, am ‘without
authority’, nor others, which would be a distraction”. (Kierkegaard 1990: 3; 2011:
23) He is warning the reader not to see the text, and neither be distracted by the
author of the text, not even with the truths present in the text, but to think of the text
itself. He says, “The first requirement is that you must not look at the mirror, observe
the mirror, but must see yourself in the mirror” (Kierkegaard 1990: 25; 2011: 43),
so that you can say to yourself, while looking at the mirror/text: “It is I to whom it
is speaking, it is I about whom it is speaking” (Kierkegaard 1990: 36; 2011: 59). In
this way, the text is already in the place of the intersection between the reader and
the text, between the judge and his own existence.
The tone in this text refers to the exercises of the self, recovered by Foucault
(2010) in his reflections on the way of care of oneself (epiméleia heautoû) since the
Greco-Roman tradition. The foundation of these reflections is “something
18 Care of Oneself and the Psychological Clinic: Kierkegaardian Contributions 291
somewhat disturbing” (Foucault 2010: 13) in self-care that shows that a man can
know the truth and yet exist outside of it. For Foucault, this “somewhat disturbing”
thing was, little by little, becoming knowledge of oneself, a knowledge that sought
to ensure for itself a knowledge that softens everything by not measuring itself with
reality. Kierkegaard also pointed out at length the problems of an abstract existence
(systematic, doctrinal) that has distanced man from the totality of his existence. In
an edifying 1844 speech, Kierkegaard argues that it takes patience for a man to align
himself with the whole of his existence. He says: “to preserve the soul in patience-
that is, to preserve it united to patience so that it does not get out of it and thereby
lose itself when the long battle with the indefatigable enemy: the time; and with the
multiform enemy: world.” (1844/2007: 250). What is at stake is the danger that the
existing one will lose its own existence, for, “every moment of your life is tempted,
that is to say, you have this possibility at your disposal, to consider your vocation in
vain” (Kierkegaard 2011: 77).
Kierkegaard starts from this point, this disturbing thing or this danger of being
lost to recommend to his contemporaries an examination of oneself from the read-
ing of the text, since its as an existing individual that the reader can be interpellated
by the text and its for the existing individual that possibility matters and, conse-
quently, the reality during the kind of life one lives. In this respect, and according to
Ferro and Carvalho (2007: 316), the one for me has an interpellant character: “it is
for me because it puts me in the center of a challenge and a responsibility” for the
requisition. When questioning for me own or my own in existence, Kierkegaard is
asking for the existential articulation of the reader in his own existence. To always
articulate, it already implies relation, tension with the given, with was seen. The
emphasis lies not on what, but on who and how, because who is the very mode (the
how) of articulation or, in other words, is what gives consistency to existence, one
way and not the other.
By emphasizing the disturbing tension between the thought and action, between
the knowing and caring, Kierkegaard (2011) shows, in the three texts that constitute
this work of 1851, that it is because an existing one that the restlessness can wake
the man to the danger of continuing to live without putting himself into question. It
is because he is an existent that he cannot walk two paths at the same time, believing
himself to be what in fact he is not. The problem then becomes whether or not man
submits to his measure, if he has the courage and patience to listen to himself and
judge himself and if, knowing the measure, knowing what it is and what he should
be, effectively, preserving what needs to be preserved and breaking with what needs
to be broken.
Caring for oneself, therefore, is not an abstraction, but a guidance in existence, a
task to be experienced by each one in their daily existence. In other words, with
Kierkegaard the self confuses itself with the care and interest of the individual with
his own relation to the conditions of his existence. In this sense, Climacus
(Kierkegaard 1992: 193; 2013: 203) asks us not to forget that “it is an existing spirit
who is asking, simply an individual human being”, a thinking subject who, upon
discovering his thought, discovers to himself, for he himself is an existent that
remains in existence.
292 M. M. Protasio
With the “It is I to whom it is speaking, it is I about whom it is speaking”

Kierkegaard (1990: 40; 2011: 59) shows a way of relating text and reader that we
believe is fundamental to think about a psychological clinic. We understand that the
clinical relationship has its support in the way the relationship happens and where
the question is questioned by the me of each one of the involved as constituted in
that relation. The question of the self in relation implies the question of the mode of
articulation, of the way in which the tension of the existent with the reality of its
existence occurs in the way it articulates oneself in that clinical relation. Still accord-
ing to Ferro and Carvalho (2007: 309), the I shows the limit or dominion of what is
for each one, that with which each one has to be, without forgetting that we are
already thrown into a set of things that we have to face, that is, we are our modes of
relationship. The for me apostrophizes in so far as it puts me at the center of a chal-
lenge and a responsibility that always has a bearing on me (Ferro and Carvalho
2007: 316). Therefore, what matters now is to consider the connection between this
way of understanding man’s relation to his existence and the thought that would
support a psychological clinic.
Kierkegaard affirms the instability of existing through various texts, authors or
pseudonyms. Basically, what is at issue is the tension between reality and the pos-
sibility in a world in which the relationship of man with his own existence and the
precarious character of his existence has already appeared. But how does the pre-
cariousness of its existence appear to exist? It will be announced through categories
such as irony (1991), anguish (2010a), despair (2010b), restlessness (2011), which
support the possibility of an examination of the self that is not only self-knowledge,
but self-care and possibility of transformation.
According to Anticlimacus (Kierkegaard 2010a) the precariousness of existence
is in the impossibility of man placing himself or determining himself. To this he
calls despair, because one cannot put oneself, what he has is desire for measure, to
know the limit of what is and what can be. But, Anticlimacus (Kierkegaard 2010a)
states that the measure is always before man, which means that man is always from
the measure of the relationship he is. The element to be highlighted is that the mea-
sure of man appears in the relationship that he establishes with the relation that he
is, and that it is only in this dimension that the measure opens up for him. We
emphasize here the always in which points to the totality of my life, that is to say, of
the singular life: the measure is not an abstraction, but it is shown in the determina-
tions of a time and in the way in which the existent singular articulates its possibility
in relation to the whole of his life. The self is not abstract, but it is always this that I
am in the same measure that I am and always in tension with the possibility.
Ferro (2012: 107) states that “the self relates to itself as something that has eter-
nal validity, in such a way that the relation with itself is the relation to the whole of
its life and, therefore, is something that has the meaning of being decisive”. In this
sense, “the subject relates to himself as something that takes care of, protects, pre-
serves, cares for”. In this way, the relationship sustains itself not only within the
scope of the gnôthi seautón (know thyself), but also as epiméleia heautoû (care of
oneself). Kierkegaard (2011) shows in the speech of 1851 that man tends to escape
from the narrowness of his own path in many ways: taking refuge in the crowd,
18 Care of Oneself and the Psychological Clinic: Kierkegaardian Contributions 293
reason, rule, doubt, tormenting himself by thinking he might not do what he does
and everything would be different ... But says Kierkegaard (2011: 79): “the way is
narrow from the beginning” (...) and “his work is to work against himself”, hence-
forth, being yourself is care, work, and accomplishment.
When we draw inspiration from Kierkegaard to construct a thought that supports
the psychological clinic, we are seeing that the background of the statements that
are articulated in the clinical environment, even when the requests are directed to
more immediate problems, they have to do with the possibility and with what
Kierkegaard announces as the constant danger that the task of existing is taken
vainly, incompletely, insufficiently in relation to the demands of existence itself. In
this sense, the clinic we are thinking of constitutes a privileged listening or, accord-
ing to Campos (2014: 26), as an “essential view” that supports the possibility.
The basis of the clinical relationship is, then, the participatory dialogue that, just
as the reading aloud of the text, can constitute a field in which the relation mirrors
that existential event, that specific way of articulation. The relation is consolidated
as that relation, and this is what sustains the space for the individual (the singular)
to appear for himself and to judge himself in the relation, not in terms of an objec-
tive truth of the facts or reports, but in relation to the way in which, in existence, in
the relation, thought and action are united. Or, according to Campos (2014: 20), the
open space in communication “opens in silence in order to listen to the salvific word
that comes out of the pain of life” and where a leap or transformation can happen.
The clinical environment is constituted by the participatory dialogue that accom-
panies the design of the articulation itself established between consultant and con-
sultant. By not getting carried away by the gossip of common sense, by getting
involved in the established relationship, these modes of articulation can appear in all
its force and legitimacy, clarifying what its meaning, that is, what it speaks and what
it speaks for. The how and the what for gives the dimension of the happening of this
that exists and examines itself. In our opinion, the clinic must stand there, in the
silence and in the emptiness of the situation that shelters the possibility. To dwell in
this space, in this emptiness, is to dwell on the possibility of where a transformative
articulation can come.
It is worth asking: how can a relationship have silence and emptiness as a brand?
It is worth emphasizing the sense we are taking, when we think of silence and emp-
tiness as elements that support the clinical relation. We believe that, with Kierkegaard,
what is initially disunited can unite in a dialogue that is both silent and empty, and
which does not necessarily occur without words, but is an atmosphere. Clinical
dialogue is more of a silencing, of being emptied, for, as we know, the relationship
cannot place itself, which means to say that it cannot be dominated or self-dominated,
cannot be determined or self-determining. Thus, the clinic is more than any tech-
nique and theoretical model. The clinical psychologist, inspired by care of oneself
according to Kierkegaard, takes care of the clinical relation in the way of accompa-
nying, participating and waiting, for he knows that in the silence (awaiting) the
transformative meeting of what appears initially disunited can occur. As we have
tried to show, it is not possible to find an objective or definitive answer to the ques-
tion of existence.
294 M. M. Protasio
In our understanding, a psychology inspired by Kierkegaard’s thinking is a psy-

chology of possibility that has its center in the existential, constituting itself as a
psychological experimentation. We find the field of the possible as an indelible
mark of Kierkegaard’s thought and central element to think of an “existential sci-
ence” (Protasio 2015), a psychology whose foundation is life, field of restlessness,
anguish, despair, worry ... Or, as says Feijoo, a psychology that dispenses the intra-
psychic, the objective and empirical, and constitutes itself as an “exercise of know-
how” (Feijoo 2017: 166 et seq.).
References
Campos, Eduardo da S. 2014. Psicologia de Kierkegaard: um jeito de ver à margem. In Angústia e

Repetição: da Filosofia à Psicologia, ed. Ana Maria Feijoo and Myriam Protasio, 17–37. Rio
de Janeiro: IFEN.
Feijoo, Ana Maria L.C. 2017. Existência & Psicoterapia: da psicologia sem objeto ao saber-fazer
na clínica psicológica existencial. Rio de Janeiro: IFEN.
Ferro, Nuno. 2012. Estudos sobre Kierkegaard. São Paulo: LiberArs.
Ferro, Nuno, and Mário Jorge Carvalho. 2007. Notas e Posfácio. In Adquirir a sua alma na paciên-
cia, ed. Søren A. Kierkegaard, 37–316. Lisboa: Assírio & Alvim.
Foucault, Michel. 2010. A hermenêutica do sujeito. Trans. M. A. Fonseca, & S. T. Muchail. São
Paulo: Martins Fontes.
Kierkegaard, Søren A. 1990. For Self-examination/Judge for Yourself. Trans. H. V. Hong and
E. H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 1991. O conceito de Ironia. Trans. Á. L. Valls. Petrópolis: Vozes.
———. 1992. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments vol. I. Trans.
H. V. Hong and E. H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 2007. Adquirir sua alma em paciência dos Quatro discursos edificantes. Trans.
N. F. Carvalho. Lisboa, Portugal: Assírio & Alvim.
———. 2010a. O Conceito de Angústia. Trans. Á. L. Valls. Petrópolis - São Paulo, RJ – SP:
Vozes – Editora Universitária São Francisco.
———. 2010b. O desespero humano. Trans. A. C. Monteiro. São Paulo, SP, Brasil: Editora Unesp.
———. 2011. Para un examen de sí mismo recomendado a este tiempo. Trans. A. R. Albertsen, &
colaboradores. Madrid: Trotta.
———. 2013. Pós-Escrito às Migalhas Filosóficas vol. I. Trans. Á. L. Valls. Petrópolis: Vozes.
Protasio, Myriam M. 2015. O si mesmo e as personificações da existência finita: Comunicação
indireta rumo a uma ciência existencial. Rio de Janeiro: IFEN.
Wellausen, Saly. 2011. A parrhésia em Michel Foucault: um enunciado político e ético. São Paulo:
LiberArs.
Part V
Care and Therapy
Chapter 19
Acedia and Its Care
Cláudio Alexandre S. Carvalho
Abstract The present article attempts to provide a philosophical understanding of ace-

dia and expose some of the requirements for its care. 1. The concept of acedia is deci-
sively determined by its origin in religious practice. From the eremitic ordeal provoked
by the ‘daemon meridianus’ to the demands of monastic closure, acedia refers the sup-
pression of joy and involvement in the performance of one’s duties in view of a spiritual
perfectioning. 2. We maintain that, despite its near absence from modern psychiatric
textbooks, if we reframe the concept of acedia as a process, it may encompass a particu-
lar kind of moral suffering. 3. We explore the hypothesis that, in order to treat contem-
porary forms of acedia, we must acknowledge the way they are weaved by the conditions
of the social bound and generate meaningful ways of dialogue and self-expression.
Keywords Acedia · Care · Therapy · Melancholy · Ethics
The attempt to understand the troubles of our “epoch” circumscribing our inquiry to
its (own) experiential and conceptual frameworks can be too narrow or even mis-
leading, foreclosing their constitutive genesis, attempted resolutions and (re)con-
figurations. This assertion is generally accepted, but it is doubtful whether it applies
to acedia, not by virtue of its poor or simple history, much to the contrary, but due
to the fact that it tends to be considered, if not a resolved trouble, at least a forgotten
one. In order to clarify in what sense may acedia be relevant for the observation of
contemporary life projects, and how it may be “cared for”, both theoretical and
therapeutically, we must first grasp its conceptual unity.
The present article is part of my post-doctoral project devoted to the “Constitution of the therapeu-
tic medium of melancholy”, integrated in the research group “Aesthetics, Power and Knowledge”
of the Institute of Philosophy (IF) of the University of Porto. I am grateful for the financial support
provided by a fellowship granted by the FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) with refer-
ence: SFRH/BPD/116555/2016.
C. A. S. Carvalho (*)
Universidade do Porto, Instituto de Filosofia, Porto, Portugal
e-mail: kraftcasc@gmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
298 C. A. S. Carvalho
Aware of the difficulties in defining acedia, both due to its religious grounding
and divergent instantiations along history, I propose its provisional characterisation
as a self-referent process, characterized by a form of meta-emotion of sadness
towards one’s lack of motivation or loss of vocation, which may cause an abandon-
ment of one’s spiritual projects. Nonetheless, as it will become clear, acedia always
holds a positive side as it is not pure distraction or dispersion without internal
awareness. It presupposes a certain resistance to abandon a constitutive relation, in
a process that, by virtue of the demands it imposes on the subject, can be consid-
ered, at least retrospectively, part of one’s personal growth.
The present reconsideration of acedia is propelled by the shallow character of
some of its putative succedaneums, mostly recurrent emotions like ennui and bore-
dom or mental conditions without firm contours, such as mild depression. These
“dysfunctions” consisting in contemporary crisis of individual life-projects, tend to
lack both the interiority that entails the singular relation to God or to precious goals,
and the insertion in a “spiritual project”. My hypothesis is that, distinguished from
those problems, whose scientific status is equally dependent on the observation of
the relation between the social structure and the emotional life, we can think of a
contemporary differentiated form of malaise of the same strain of acedia. I argue
that, despite the considerable difference between modern social structure and the
religious context where acedia first appears as a distinct emotion or condition,
today’s treatment of the new forms of acedia, mostly related with socio-professional
expectations under the “empire of the norm” (Gori 2013: 21), should not make a
blank slate of the pedagogical and therapeutic knowledge gathered by those indi-
viduals and organizations who first experienced it.
19.1 Experience
In exposing the genesis and evolution of the Latinised term acedia, H. Cochin noted
how, already in ancient Greek, the substantive xῆδος appears always related to
“care, solicitude, and particularly mourning, bereavement” (1903: 208).1 In the
Homeric poems the privative α, forming the adjective ἀχηδής (and later ἀχηδεία)
denotes negligence towards the deceased, the lack of funerary rites and sepulture.2
The term ἀκηδία figures in the Corpus Hippocraticum, however it is unclear whether
it refers lack of care or if it necessarily implies an experience of sorrow understood
as the cause of that negligence.3 Similarly to Empedocles,4 in the Laws (XI, 913 c),
1
The Greek-English Lexicon refers the act to “care about” (Liddell and Scott 1896: 946).
2
Hom. Od. 17.319. Also in Hesiod: Hes.Th. 489.
3
Cf. De Gland. 12 (Littré, T. VIII: 566). Although it must be referred that a similar meaning can be
found in other texts of the Corpus Hippocraticum, resorting to alternative expressions that relate to
anxiety (Pigeaud 1989: 123–125).
4
“Will you not stop discordant bloodshed? Do you not see that in reckless [ακηδειησι] folly you
are devouring each other?” Frag. 136 in Sextus Empiricus adv. math. 9:129.
19 Acedia and Its Care 299
Plato uses it as neglect, when specifying the legal requirements of the formation of
offspring. Cicero will apply the term in its Greek form to address the weariness of
Atticus, even if the presentation of aegritudo in chapter III of the Tusculanae dispu-
tationes is closer to the later semantics of acedia.5
Already in the II century, in Lucian’s Hermotimus or Concerning the Sects, we
find that same sense preserved, referring to an excessive self-consuming care:
“[y]ou take all that trouble, wearing yourself out, and so much of your life has
slipped away in torpor [ἀκηδία] and weariness, slumped in sleeplessness” (1931,
77, l. 15). Around the same time, in the Historiae Romanae, Cassius Dio mentions
the deeds of Viriathus, using the term acedia to designate dire conditions and
deprivation.6
Concerning the unwritten laws for proper mourning, particularly insistent in the
tragic texts (Gilbert 2005: 201–220), the carefree attitude towards one’s obligations
causes self-reproach not only for the failure in performing the required ritual, caring
for the one who remains unburied [ακηδεστος], but primarily due to how such neg-
ligence affects one’s integrity. From its beginning, acedia concerns the neglect of
oneself as part of a larger comprehensive whole and the consequences of misalign-
ment with what is considered one’s natural οἰκείωσις.
In De Principiis, Origen placed acedia between the daemon’s temptations of
sleepiness and cowardice, considering it a form of indolence that causes the fall
from the contemplation of God (Guillaumont and Guillaumont 1971: 71). However,
only in the Septuagint will the term acquire a distinct Evagrian tone, assuming the
verbal form ἀκηδιά-ω and referring a “heart that faints” which, subsequently, comes
to experience feelings of sorrow and discouragement (Guillaumont and Guillaumont
1971: 85).7
Leaving aside its remote similarities with the initiatic path towards the revelation
of the mysteries in pagan religions, anachoresis can be interpreted as a radical con-
frontation with the paradox of religious devotion, consisting in the fact that the rela-
tion to the transcendent can only be achieved through the immanent, ie. requires
various levels of contact with the world of things and others, thus marking a seces-
sion from their ordinary existence. The eremitism of the first fathers and its austere
conditions are an attempt to escape this constitutive and productive paradox. In that
sense, the act of renunciation [Apotaxis] to the world displayed by the first Christians,
whose extremism should initially appeared “more like a holy perversion than a gen-
erally respectable praxis” (Sloterdijk 2009: 338), is the “root of the very structures
and processes that we call monasticism, orders or sects” (Fuchs 1989: 26). The
eremitic life in the desert requires if not a complete rebirth, certified by the
5
“`Aκηδία tua me movet, etsi scribis nihil esse.” [I am worried about your listlessness, though you
say it is nothing] Cicero, 1961, 12.45.1.
6
The Lusitanian hero “was superior to any heat or cold, and was never either troubled by hunger
nor annoyed by any other privation [ἀκηδία]; for he found full satisfaction for all his needs in
whatever he had at hand, as if it were the very best” (XXII 73, 2).
7
Cf.: Ps 102, 1; Ps 119, 28; Ps 143, 4 and Is 61, 3.
acquiring of a new identity, it demands a distancing and independence from the joys
and burdens of the previous life.
One can say that the Christian practice updates the previous puzzle regarding
άναχωρεϊν [retreat]; “how to distinguish between philosophical retreat and melan-
cholic misanthropy?” (Pigeaud 1989: 132).8 Fasting, praying and silence are the
conspicuous signs of an exile from the ordinary world accompanied by the “fuga
saeculi” [flight from the world] and the sustained attitude of contemptus mundi
[contempt of the world], which commences with the abandonment of one’s home-
land and family (patriam et parentes relinquere). The hardships of this form of
distancing “horizontal into the desert, vertical in the pillars” (Fuchs 1989: 30–31),
would soon raise the Church’s suspicion, for in “the spontaneous and solitary con-
version” Rome saw a “dangerous and incontrollable phenomenon” (Gradowicz-
Pancer 1992: 5).
Contrasting with a free and unguided pursuit of God in the “networks of orga-
nized escapism” (Sloterdijk 2009: 342), the cenobitic model that Cassian aims to
import to the west, settling in Marseille, implies a certain curtailment of that origi-
nal form of ascetism. The cenobitic communities are marked by an increasing regu-
lation of his inmates’ property, identity and conduct, conforming to one of the five
types of “total institutions” considered by E. Goffmann (1961: 5); “establishments
designed as retreats from the world even while often serving also as training stations
for the religious”. Monastic life imposes economic and devotional requirements,9
concrete rules that ensure both severance and autonomy from the outside world.
The exile from the world corresponds to the “wilful desire to be stripped and
cleansed of personal will” (Goffmann 1961: 47). But due to the “civic” nature of
one’s membership to a monastic order, the physical frontier that protects from
worldly pollution must be reinstated by the formation a new psychic claustrum
marked by humble obedience (Gradowicz–Pancer 2003).
It is in the narrations of the anchorites and cenobitic monks of the “Desert of
Cells” that acedia acquires a stable reference, pointing to a particular experience. As
it happens with Evagrius Ponticus, some of these monks enrolled in an ascetic prac-
tice in the deserts of Egypt and Syria, are fleeing from an important position in the
Church. The reduction of the shared goods to the bare minimum, the constant
prayers and fasting, enabled them a very acute introspection on the dynamics of
inner thought and passions. Contrary to the men of the world [kosmikoi] “[t]he
anchorites (…) who have given up not only material things, but largely also associa-
tion with others, are tempted mostly by ‘thoughts’, that is, by all the images, repre-
sentations, and so forth that are inevitably left behind in their memories, not only of
8
Independently of the reasons for the retreat, which in Evagrius’s case imply a path of reconver-
sion, the ambiguity involved in philosophical work withdrawn from public life -of which in De
tranquillitate animi Seneca himself shows to be aware and Lipsius will renew- is attenuated in the
case of monasticism. In the latter, what is pursued is not concentration for its own sake, but the
conditions for disciplining oneself in order to contemplate the One.
9
Namely: “that the individual monastery be a self-sustaining unit for whose support the individual
monk had to contribute his share” (Wenzel 1967: 22).
material things but also of inter-human connections and their problems.” (Bunge
2011: 32).
They referred to the so-called noonday demon [δαιμονίον μεσημβρινού] which
personifies multiple forms of temptation,10 an entity that tries to discourage the
monk from his work and prayer.11 The sequence of this assault is exposed in
Evagrius’ influential guide to ascetic life, the Praktikos (Pr 12, pp. 523–527):
[the demon] instils in him a dislike for the place and for his state of life itself, for manual
labour, and also the idea that love has disappeared from among the brothers and there is no
one to console him. And should there be someone during those days who has offended the
monk, this too the demon uses to add further to his dislike (of the place). He leads him on
to a desire for other places where he can easily find the wherewithal to meet his needs and
pursue a trade that is easier and more productive; he adds that pleasing the Lord is not a
question of being in a particular place. (…) He joins to these suggestions the memory of his
close relations and of his former life; he depicts for him the long course of his lifetime,
while bringing the burdens of asceticism before his eyes; and, as the saying has it, he
deploys every device in order to have the monk leave his cell and flee the stadium.
When the daemon strikes, the monk begins to experience “the reverse side of
special and originally beneficial qualities of life in the desert: loneliness, silence,
renunciation of the life of luxury” (Bunge 2011: 118).12 He starts attributing his
10
With erudition and depth, R. Caillois (1937a, b) pointed out that, in various cultures, the “démons
de midi”, tended to be associated with temptation and deceit. In classical Greece, the Sirens are a
clear instance of this “archetype”, and Plato (Phaedrus 259a) refers how they attack at midday
with chants that lure into sleep. “It is admirable that, in such dissimilar external circumstances, in
spite of such a gap of epochs and civilizations, the action of the hour of noon was powerful enough
to crystallize in the same sense, under the guise of the sailor’s fatigue or the monk’s discourage-
ment, the same human tendencies by offering them an image of themselves and their realization in
the heavy and burning sleep of nature, justification, illustration and exaltation, in this high position
of the star of light, of the incoercible demand of a fullness which supposes all resignations.”
(Caillois 1937b:172).
11
Hugo Ball considered the “heroic and frequently adventurous life of the monks”, particularly
Athanasius’s presentation of the Life of St. Antony, as evidence of the emergence of a higher form
of heroism. In Bizantine Christianism, he will consider it a prefiguration of alternatives to the
search of power and honour that characterizes “natural heroism” (2010: 271), exposing the inner
battlegrounds and conquests of John Climacus, Dionysius the Areopagite and Symeon the Stylite.
12
Early anchorites and monks adapt the stoic path to wisdom through ataraxia (Maier 1994), also
opposing the pursuit of luxury by which the rich and powerful of the world tried to escape teadium,
cf. Seneca, Ep. Mor. 18. “The fundamental attitude of the Stoic philosopher was prosochè: atten-
tion to oneself and vigilance at every instant. For the Stoics the person who is awake is always
perfectly conscious not only of what he does, but of what he is. In other words, he is aware of his
place in the universe and of his relationship to God. His self-consciousness is, first and foremost,
a moral consciousness. / A person endowed with such consciousness seeks to purify and rectify his
intentions at every instant. He is constantly on the lookout for signs within himself of any motive
for action other than the will to do good. Such self-consciousness is not, however, merely a moral
conscience; it is also cosmic consciousness. The “attentive” person lives constantly in the presence
of God and is constantly remembering God, joyfully consenting to the will of universal reason, and
he sees all things with the eyes of God himself. / Such is the philosophic attitude par excellence. It
is also the attitude of the Christian philosopher (...). Such attention to oneself brings about amerim-
nia or peace of mind, one of the most thought-after goals in monasticism (Hadot 1987: 63).
thoughts of despondency to monotonous everyday chores, that “under normal con-

ditions (…) left the spirit free for prayer and contemplation, and indeed directly
called for such spiritual activity” (Bunge 2011: 117).13 Evagrius uses the symbol of
the window to express the obsession that disrupts inner tranquillity, both in practical
tasks and in cult (O. sp.: 6,14; Pr.: 12; 98). The demon “compels the monk to look
constantly towards the windows, to jump out of the cell, to watch the sun to see how
far it is from the ninth hour [3 p.m.], to look this way and that lest one of the broth-
ers…” (Pr.: 12).
Even if the lower parts of the soul have an important part in this process, for
Evagrius their insubordination is primarily due to the wandering thoughts [λογισμοι]
and the weakness of one’s will. He sustains that, the logismoi14 are pre-emotional
thoughts that incline towards sin. In that sense, they are “equivalent to the Stoic pre-
passions in that they could be resisted — not consented to — by other ‘thoughts’
equally dangerous in their own right but rendered null and void in battle” (Rosenwein
2016: 69–70). As it happens in acedia, these wayward thoughts are always initiated
by a spiritual entity (a demon) that, due to its pneumatic nature, is able to interfere
with one’s intellect (νους), which results on the debilitation (ατονία) of his faculties.
Philautia, expressed in pride or anger, is the ultimate source of acedia. It imposes
thoughts of self-realization that are reinforced on the horizontal relation with envy
directed to the achievements of the brothers and the recrimination of the superiors.
In the Antirrhetikos, a synthesis of apothegmatic formulas organized around the
eight evil thoughts with which the monk is tempted by the demons, Evagrius pro-
vides suitable counter-thoughts for each provocation. To counter hopelessness he
refers to passages of the bible that extol the virtues of patience and perseverance
[ὑπομονήν] in view of larger achievements. He notes how the oppression of the
mind tends to invert the ritual confirmations of the secession from the ordinary,
namely the disgust over the ancient affects:
on all sides by the [tempting-]thought of acedia, sometimes driven away from places by
anger; and at other times forced to fantasize [literally “dragged by the throat to”] places
near the brethren, or its relatives, or the secular world which has so often shown it contempt
and humiliation (Ant VI, 57.).
Even without the presence of the sensible objects of representation and their
affordances, those thoughts retrieve the images stored in the memory, inciting affec-
tive imagination. The memories of the past life provide the material for the demon
to construct temptations of various natures, mostly related to thoughts of lust, mate-
rial comfort and recognition, diverting from the pursuing of the ascetic way.
13
The valuing of work for work’s sake is well express in the famous story of Abbas Paul whose
weaving of baskets with palm tree prevents him from disturbing thoughts. In the deep desert, with-
out any living soul with which to share those artefacts, he would “every year burnt with fire all the
works of his hands” (IC, 10:24).
14
They are, according to Evagrius listing: γαστριμαργία [Gluttony], πορνεία [Fornication],
φιλαργυρία [Avarice], ὀργή [Anger], λύπη [Sadness], ἀκηδία [Acedia], κενοδοξία [Vainglory] and
ὑπερηφανία [Pride].
The daemon is perceived as a real entity whose activity is not restricted to wake-
ful periods of the monk’s life. The accumulated resentments of the monk are magni-
fied in dreams, and when the attacks become more striking since, in the oneiric
world, the monk is passive, unable to repress or divert those thoughts of temptation.
In Cassian, we already find the idea of a gradual obsession that can be under-
stood as a self-referential affection, which concerns one’s becoming. This self-
referential affection is both caused and reinforced by the transformation of the
spatial, temporal and social dimensions of experience. He tells us that, once:
[t]his demon has taken possession of some unhappy soul, it produces dislike of the place,
disgust with the cell [horrorem loci, cellae fastidium], and disdain and contempt of the
brethren who dwell with him or at a little distance, as if they were careless or unspiritual. It
also makes the man lazy and sluggish about all manner of work which has to be done within
the enclosure of his dormitory. It does not suffer him to stay in his cell, or to take any pains
about reading, and he often groans because he can do no good while he stays there, and
complains and sighs because he can bear no spiritual fruit so long as he is joined to that
society; and he complains that he is cut off from spiritual gain, and is of no use in the place,
as if he were one who, though he could govern others and be useful to a great number of
people, yet was edifying none, nor profiling any one by his teaching and doctrine (Inst. X, 2).
In his fourth Conference, Cassian accounts how he and his colleagues come to
enquire Abba Daniel regarding the causes of Acedia. They are puzzled by an abrupt
transition “with no apparent cause” from a blissed state of joy in religious praying
and meditation, in the solitude of their cells, where “effectual and swift prayers
were attaining to God even during sleep”, into a state characterized by feelings of
sadness and dejection, where one is dragged to a “slippery digression to wandering
distractions” (Conf. IV, 2). Of particular importance is that, besides sensing his
reading activities to be worthless, the monk’s clear speech becomes hindered, his
prayers being “uttered in an unstable, tottering, and somehow drunken manner”
(Conf. IV, 2).15
Cassian’s description of this uncaused sadness stirring disordered imagination
fits perfectly into a case of “monastic melancholy”, but the fluctuation of the moods
is not a direct product of the corporeal humours. Acedia has three distinct causes.
Among these, Cassian maintains the demon, which tempts with distracting and
demotivating thoughts, but he also highlights the importance of “our own negli-
gence” and “Lord’s design and trial” (Conf. IV, 3). By distinguishing the more lit-
eral sense of acedia as lack of care with oneself, Cassian is targeting the central
problem of vocation and its relation with the prescribed practices and goals of the
monastic life. As to acedia designed by God, a theme that was central in St.
Chrysostom’s treatment of αθυμία in the Exhortations to Stagirius, Cassian points
that some symptoms, particularly the anxiety felt regarding God’s abandonment, are
essential in the process of a full fortification of the soul and rediscovering one’s
15
Following the account of John Climacus in the Scala Paradisi, Paget highlights weak psalmody
[ατονία ψαλμωδίας], “[s]o peculiarly does it [acedia] tell upon the voice, that when there is no
psalmody, it may remain unnoticed; but when the Psalms are being sung, it causes its victim to
interrupt the verse with an untimely yawn.” (1903: 12).
yearning for the participation in the One. Here Cassian describes how noxious pas-
sions like pride, sloth and anger can be cured by the monk’s experience of despair
for being forsaken by God (Conf. IV, 4).
Already in the first teachings on monastic acedia, there is a clear connection
between the carelessness or negligence towards one’s spiritual duties and the order
of the monastery. The transgression of rules that enable work and devotion is one of
the most notorious consequences of acedia, to which both Evagrius and Cassian
attended. It is frequent that it results in a superficial relation towards others, moved
primarily by disgust with one’s place and work. As already referred, that disen-
chantment is frequently reinforced by passions of envy and hatred. If unguided, the
sharing of one’s temptations and failures, through multiple complaints on the char-
acteristics of the place, the demanding tasks, the harshness of treatment…, can
become a source of contagion on the community.
In one of his Epistolae, Evagrius stresses that, “[e]ven in reclusion”, the monks
“life is communitarian: in Egypt, the monasteries were built by means of many
[separate] cells, and each of the brethren makes his way alone for himself in his cell,
working with his hands and praying. But they assemble in one place at the hour of
refreshment and at the time of [common] prayer, scheduled in the morning and
evening hours” (Bunge 2011: 29).
Besides his comrades, the monk also blames his superior, complaining that he
“does not console the brothers, that he is harsh in his relations with them, and that
he has no sympathy with them in their distress” (Ant VI, 2). This deeply affects
“constant and uninterrupted perseverance in prayer” (Conf. IX, 2) which define the
monastic life and the office of the monk. It becomes an unbearable burden, particu-
larly at night, in the synaxis [Σύναξις], when he tries to hurry the recitation of the
psalms and the meditation. The fervour and constancy in the expression of com-
plaints and the urge to chatter are in deep contrast with the dullness of the acedic in
liturgy and psalmody.
Reputed interpreters of acedia noted how its translation as sloth is misleading
(Pieper 1976: 393–394). The idleness, which ensues from the burning of despair, of
not living up to one’s obligations, is one among other manifestations of the process
of acedia, a form of abandonment to the world. When the pressures to rest or leave
one’s cell and, ultimately, swerve from his spiritual project, overcome the monk, his
attention disperses on mundane things, adhering to the regular, safe and reassuring
pleasures they provide.
Besides the alternation between weekly reclusion on their cells (and everyday
praying) and weekend’s assembly gatherings, the monks are allowed to perform
other activities, but Evagrius notes how most of the times these are a way to post-
pone the necessary confrontation with the “noonday demon”.
Sometimes the taedium sive anxietatem cordis [weariness or distress of the heart]
by which Cassian Latinised the concept (Inst., x, I), a conjunction of boredom and
anxiety, are expressed in a restlessness that transmutes on what the Swiss theologian
Gabriel Bunge calls “untiring activism” (2011: 123). In his treatise On the Eight
Thoughts, Evagrius refers as typical the situation where the monk affected by acedia
insists on visiting and caring for others not moved by charity, but in an attempt to
escape the burden of his duties.
A person afflicted with acedia proposes visiting the sick, but is fulfilling his own purpose.
(O. sp. VI, 6).
A monk given to acedia is quick to undertake a service, but considers his own satisfaction
to be a precept. (O. sp. VI, 7.).
The results of one’s behaviours, its fruits, turn it possible to distinguish between
instrumental engagement, which perverts monastic hospitality16 and charity,17 and
the authentic love of neighbour.18
The brothers should support those who are struggling with the demon’s tempta-
tions, in the formulation of Cassian one should never “desist from doing good and
encouraging them both by words of consolation and by rebuke as well as by ordi-
nary kindness and civility” (Inst. X,15).
Anticipating the Benedictine rule (2008), created to instruct the directors of the
monastery of Mount Cassino on how to identify any acedic brother [frater acedio-
sus] that could disturb the lectio divina, both Evagrius and Cassian are committed
with the pre-emptive control of unrest, particularly since manifestations of impa-
tience or frustration, may demote other monks. They point to how individual distur-
bances would affect the social equilibrium between orare and laborare, stirring
something similar to an epidemic. In that sense, their observations, based in knowl-
edge gathered from both their own practice and the guidance of others, are decisive
for the later compilations of dispositions against monastic dysfunctions, recom-
mending segregation and punishment of those displaying signs of acedia (e.g. Inst.
X.16). Here again, their tone is not simply condemnatory, for the monk is character-
ized as despaired, blinded by his inner emptiness and sorrow.
The acedic is far from being an outcast. On the contrary, the struggle of acedia,
at least in the theology of the desert fathers, more than a “occupational hazard” is a
necessary stage in their demanding task of care. The activity that is affected or para-
lyzed is not an indifferent one. It concerns a particular kind of optimizing perfor-
mance, going beyond the “external realization that the indifferent or boring always
implies a contrario, the interesting or engaging”.19 The teadium implied in acedia is
16
Cassian remarks that “the disease suggests that he [the monk] ought to show courteous and
friendly hospitalities to the brethren, and pay visits to the sick (…)” (Inst. 10.2). On the topic of
monastic hospitality, focusing on its organization as a service to the social body, see: Risse
1999: 69–109.
17
The monk tries to convince himself that “it would be a real work of piety to go more frequently
to visit that religious woman, devoted to the service of God, who is deprived of all support of kin-
dred; and that it would be a most excellent thing to get what is needful for her who is neglected and
despised by her own kinsfolk; and that he ought piously to devote his time to these things instead
of staying uselessly and with no profit in his cell” (Inst. 10.2).
18
In the words of G. Bunge (2011: 124): “True love makes one lovable; by contrast, “charitable
activism,” born from despondency, renders one bitter and intolerant.”
19
“The interesting (in its modern version) and the boring imply one another. Without the concept
of engagement, disengagement has no meaning. Interesting means not boring; the boring is not
interesting” (Spacks 1995: 116).
intrinsically related to what would be, under another spiritual disposition, engaging
and open to inspection.
Evagrius already acknowledged both the humoral influence on the appearance of
evil thoughts and the resources to re-establish one’s temperament. He remarked that
“the [tempting-]thought (…) does not realize that singing the Psalms changes the
temperament of the body [την σωματος κρασιν] and drives away the demon touch-
ing one on the back and cutting at the nerves and troubling every part of the body”
(Ant. IV, 22). In his rewriting of Evagrius’s eight evil thoughts into a corresponding
list of vices,20 Cassian will deepen the similitudes between acedia and ancient mel-
ancholy, something evident on his resort on medical imagery (e.g. Inst. X, 7). But at
the same time, by focusing on the bad habits of the monks, the symptoms of acedia
begin to diverge from the feelings of sorrow and become closer to the semantic field
of the idleness [otiositas] and drowsiness [somnolentia] (Wenzel 1967: 22).21
19.2 Understanding
In his work from 1996, the Vorentwürfe von Moderne, M. Theunissen showed how,
along with melancholy, acedia can be seen as a foregoing project of modernity. It
concerns a permanent retreat of God and its difficult mourning. The German phi-
losopher tried to extract the theological and philosophical meanings of what seems
to be a purely negative phenomenon.
Theunissen centres on Saint Thomas Aquinas’ work, particularly in the questio
35 of the Summa Theologica, Secunda Secundae Partis, for its encompassing expo-
sure. Like other libri poenitentiales, in Aquina’s magnum opus the phenomenon
acedia “loses a great part of its disordered character of affectivity in order to radical-
ize into a moral problem” (Peretó Rivas 2017: 784), but Theunissen deems this to
be “the price to pay for his equidistant positioning on the matter” (1996: 25).
The monk collapses when considering the spiritual heights to which he is
summed to by God. Instead of following the appeal to realize that project, he experi-
ences “tristitia de bono spirituali inquantum est bonum divinum” [sorrow towards
spiritual good in as much as it is a Divine good] (ST II-II, q. 35, a 3). This inner
refusal expresses a form of “perverted humility”.22 By rejecting a mission he under-
stands as being his own, the monk affirms to be unworthy of it, not because he
perceives himself to be unable to perform it, but because the mission became hard
20
According to the Institutes: Gulae concupiscentia, fornication, avaritia, ira, tristitia, acedia, vana
sive inanis gloria and superbia (Inst. V, 1).
21
Which are the main passions derived from acedia, followed by importunitas, inquietudo, perva-
gatio, instabilitas mentis et corporis, verbositas and curiositas (Conf. V, 16, 5).
22
“What afflicts the slothful [accidioso]”, Agamben (1993: 28) writes, “is not therefore the aware-
ness of an evil but, on the contrary, the contemplation of the greatest of the goods: acedia is pre-
cisely the vertiginous and frightened withdrawal [recessus] when faced with the task implied by
the man before God”.
or demanding. At issue is a process of abdicating from what was considered to be

one’s mission and good, the actualization of one’s potential (Snell 2015: 64–66),
leading to a contrary movement of dispersion: “importune ad diversa se diffundere”
[rushing after various things] (ST II-II, q. 35, a 4).
Following the Thomistic conceptual scheme, and accepting its inherent limits, in
his circumscription to canonical texts, Theunissen sketches three distinct perspec-
tives on the experience of acedia -the external, the theological and the philosophi-
cal - which, he sustains, have an epistemic hierarchy (1996: 30).
The external view of acedia considers it a purely negative form of anxiety, lead-
ing to a debased experience of apathy or dispersion. Following John Damascene’s
De fide orthodoxa (II. XIV), which sees acedia as a form of sadness [λύπη] corre-
lated with despondency, envy and mercy,23 Aquinas understands acedia as negative
humour, a “quaedam tristitia aggravans” [an oppressive sorrow] that steals the
pleasure over spiritual work, leading towards full impotence: “torpor mentis bona
negligentis inchoare” [sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good] (ST
II-II, q. 35, a. 1). By debilitating the body and the spirit, this impotence affects the
ability to express oneself, another cardinal feature of acedia, which preserves the
original sense of ἄχος, the Greek word for affliction. That is why, similarly to
Albertus Magnus,24 Aquinas equates acedia with a “tristitia vocem amputans” [sor-
row depriving of speech] (ST I-II, q. 35, a. 8). When considered from this perspec-
tive, there is nothing edifying in acedia.
In the fourth article of questio 35, Aquinas exposes the unfolding of the typical
process of acedia. Subscribing Gregory’s view that the initial sorrow and the unwill-
ingness to withstand higher demands, acedia is considered a capital sin, becoming
the root of a concatenatio vitiorum [concatenation of vices]: “malice, spite, faint-
heartedness, despair, sluggishness in regard to the commandments, wandering of
the mind after unlawful things” [malitia, rancor, pusillanimitas, desperatio, torpor
circa praecepta, vagatio mentis circa illicita.].25 The ensuing wandering of the mind
[vagatio mentis] illustrates the dispersive movement from his participation in the
One.26 Importunitas, verbositas, instabilitas and curiositas are behavioural
23
According to Wenzel (1967: 52–54), acedia wasn’t present in the original text of John Damascene.
Aquinas reference is grounded on the (mis)translation of the term ἄχος provided by Burgundio
de Pisa.
24
In the Doctor Universal “acedia is a sadness that burdens (tristitia aggravans) because it derives
from the Greek ἄχος which, in Greek means losing one’s voice” (Paretó Rivas 2013: 131).
25
Moralia in Iob, 31,45,88. In his Sentenciae (II, 37, 2), Isidore of Seville unfolded these daughters
of acedia in: importunitas mentis, curiositas, verbositas, inquietudo corporis and instabilitas.
26
In Agamben’s hedeggerian reading the “Evagatio mentis becomes the flight and diversion from
the most authentic possibilities of Dasein; verbositas is the gossip that everywhere incessantly
dissimulates that which it should disclose and that maintains Dasein within equivocation; curiosi-
tas is the curiosity that seeks what is new only to jump once again toward what is even newer, and
that, incapable to taking care of what is truly offered to it, obtains, through this impossibility of
sustaining attention (the instabilitas of the fathers), the constant availability of distraction”
(Agamben 1993: 5).
responses to the deep boredom that ensues, retroacting on the initial feelings of
anxiety.
Gregory (Mor. XXXI, 45) fittingly assigns the daughters of sloth [filias acediae]. For since,
according to the Philosopher (Ethic. viii, 5,6) “no man can be a long time in company with
what is painful [tristitia] and unpleasant,” it follows that something arises from sorrow in
two ways: first, that man shuns whatever causes sorrow; secondly, that he passes to other
things that give him pleasure: thus those who find no joy in spiritual pleasures, have recourse
to pleasures of the body, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. x, 6). Now in the avoidance
of sorrow the order observed is that man at first flies from unpleasant objects, and secondly
he even struggles against such things as cause sorrow [tristitiam ingerunt] (ST II-II, q.
35, a. 4).
The theological perspective acknowledges acedia as a vice but, at the same time,
it sustains that, at its core, is a negative experience of God. According to St. Thomas
Aquinas, every vice is characterized by a distaste for the spiritual good since, at
some point, its pursuit becomes toilsome and hinders sensitive pleasures.27 However,
since inverse of caritas, a special virtue, which consists in a rejoice over divine good
itself, acedia is somewhat distinct.
The acedic cannot be entirely separated from the once known Love and Joy of
God, and theologically he is always involved in the experience of God in the mode
of negation. In that sense, the “quaestio 35 on acedia must be read in light of the
quaestio 28 on Gaudio” (Theunissen 1996: 27). Acedia is not entirely positive, since
it involves an intense affliction, but it has definitely a positive core which “has been
removed by all philosophy that rediscovered the phenomenon through its very nega-
tion in the Renaissance, without attending to its systematic reference” (Theunissen
1996: 28).
As a “burden of existence” [Lastcharakter des Daseins], Acedia reveals the real-
ity of world and God. In §68 of Sein und Zeit it reappears as tedium [Überdruß],28
as a form of being out of tune -“Befindlichkeit der fahlen Ungestimmtheit”- which,
along with boredom and angst, are modes of revelation of the Dasein. As athymia,
lack of feeling, acedia accesses the blind spot of melancholic dysthymia, confront-
ing the Dasein with the temporality of existence. But Theunissen argues that,
accordingly to this Heideggerian perspective, the lifeform of the subject engaged in
a “high spiritual ambition”, seems to fall on the same position as lethargy or indif-
ference. Unlike melancholy, acedia does not consist in a self-enclosure with one’s
objects, which dispenses the Other(s).29 It always accounts for the precedence of
27
Acedia is no exception for it “shuns spiritual good, as toilsome, or troublesome to the body, or as
a hindrance to the body’s pleasure” [laboriosum vel molestum corpori, aut delectationis eius
impeditivum] (ST II-II, q. 35, a. 2).
28
Later, Heidegger will develop these considerations, focusing on the concept of boredom
[Langeweile] which he declines in three modes of disengagement (Heidegger 2004: 111ff.).
29
Here Theunissen is pointing to the tradition that considers the melancholic temperament a condi-
tion to accomplish the highest achievements of humankind. Based on a strict physiological under-
standing of the qualities of the black bile, the famous Problem XXX exposes the eccentric nature of
the melancholic in its impossible duplicity, distinct from the masses and from himself (Theunissen
1996: 27).
God and the World, a precedence that, since the teachings of the early fathers, has
been mobilized in order to pursue consolation and curatio (Ward 1984). However,
beyond the exploration of the similarities and distinctions between melancholy and
acedia, the later must be addressed by itself.
The disgust provoked acquires “itself a force that it cannot receive with the exter-
nal negation” (Theunissen 1996: 30). In his inquiry Aquinas acknowledged this
contradiction in formal terms. But in the Divina Commedia (1814), probably
humankind’s most beautiful sublimation of a midlife crisis, Dante will flesh out that
particular suffering in an experiential ground. Immersed in the murky and muddy
waters of the infernal river Stige, the accidiosi, attempt to express their regret, but
unable to articulate full words they can only gurgle: “[s]uch dolorous strain they
gurgle in their throats./ But word distinct can utter none” [“Quest’inno si gorgoglian
ne la strozza, / ché dir nol posson con parola integra”] (Inf. VII, 124). Their impeded
speech, which Cassian and Gregory the Great had emphasised, only allows them to
complain regarding a lost past: “Sad once were we/In the sweet air made gladsome
by the sun” [“Tristi fummo nell’aere dolce che dal sol s’allegra, / portando dentro
accidïoso fummo”] (Inf. VII, 121). They combine the contradiction, consisting in
the sorrow over the good, and the sin of a blameable neglect, paralyzed in a trun-
cated past.
Aquinas inquires about the sadness over God, but his rector question consists in
determining if acedia is indeed a sin. Recognizing the influence role of the physical
temperament in the inferior parts of the soul, Aquinas must determine if it is a kind
of natural sin that “happens to us without any further qualification” (Theunissen
1996: 32)30 or it is a consequence of one’s action. The fixed characteristics of temp-
tation and physical symptoms seem to consist in a type of sin distinct from those
acquired by virtue of one’s wrongful conduct. Cassian says that acedia becomes
“specially disturbing to a monk about the sixth hour, like some fever which seizes
him at stated times, bringing the burning heat of its attacks on the sick man at usual
and regular hours” (Inst. X, 1). In his answer to the objection that sin cannot be
something that happens to the monk irrespective of his will, through the body and
occurring “at fixed times” [qui statutis horis accidit],- Aquinas attributes the infir-
mity of one’s disposition to previous excesses of fasting and vigil [ieiunia et
vigilias].31 Remarkably, instead of praising such excessive sacrifices, Doctor
Angelicus characterizes them as a form of spiritual stealing.
Additionally, Aquinas addresses the paradoxical case of a “blameable careless-
ness”, properly called negligence (Theunissen 1996: 31), attempting to resolve the
contradiction by pointing to the responsibility of the accidiosi themselves, for a
“levi apprehensione” [trivial consideration] of God, unable to access its joy. Sadness
30
Similarly to Hildegard of Bingen’s understanding of melancholy as temperament of the post-
lapsarian human.
31
He is raising the subject of the excesses of religious enthusiasm that will be repeatedly kindled
in renaissance and modernity. Burton expresses this idea citing Guianerius: “Anchorites, monks,
and the rest of that superstitious rank (…) through immoderate fasting, have been frequently mad”
(Burton 1932: 1.2.2.2).
derives from the self-exemption from that Joy of a life in God. He seems to conclude
that acedia is not a sin related to action but to the heart, a path of self-separation
from the spring of Joy, subsequently generating prostration and idleness. Therefore,
contrasting with melancholy, acedia is a sin resulting from freedom.32
Finally Theunissen presents the philosophical perspective according to which
acedia implies an interior relation with something constitutive of oneself.
In the quaestio de Gaudio the self-retreat of God and its consequences to devo-
tion are explored. Aquinas asks if, given the abandonment of God, it is possible that,
besides Joy, also sorrow derives from God. This sorrow is conceived a result of
empty intentions, efforts that lack their prospective object and lead to hopelessness.
According to Theunissen, by refusing to acknowledge God’s retreat as a mitigating
factor of sin, Aquinas evidences the deficit of his concept of experience
[Erfahrungsdefizit]. “Thomas acknowledges the self-retreat of God only in its con-
tours, because he is distanced from the original experience, for which the concept of
trembling exposed the foundations of its existence” (Theunissen 1996: 34). Aquinas
could have promptly resolved the qualification of the sin by pointing towards a sub-
stitution of a first rank object by a second one (Worldly/mundane).33 However, this
would obscure the consequences of God’s self-retreat. The sadness of acedia shall
not be identified as a mere absence of joy, which is followed by a dispersion in com-
mon goods.34
Only those who were at the heights of this Joy can fall into the abyss of Acedia. But in
Acedia the first is the abandonment of God. And it determines the process (Theunissen
1996: 36).
This processual understanding is expressed by Jesus Ben Sirac command not to

be sadden in the bonds of spiritual wisdom: “non acedieris in vinculis ejus” [and be
not grieved with her bands] (Eccl. 6.26; ST II-II, q. 35, a. 1). The forbidden lethargy
(drowsiness, idleness) of the “phase” subsequent to sorrow is no longer an act but
the result of that first event that instils “fugam et horrorem et detestationem boni
divini” [horror and detestation of the Divine good] (ST II-II, q. 35, a.3).35 Cogitatio
perseverans presents the alternative to an immediate flight from God, but once its
patient efforts prove unable to regain spiritual joy (ST II-II, q. 35, a.1, ad 4), hope-
lessness is installed and, along with it, a dispersion in the world.
32
In the words of Bunge, acedia “hardly fits melancholy; melancholy may rather be traced to a
personal tendency. It is not infrequently conditioned by heredity and is thereby a “destiny,” some-
thing fated, which man has to bear without having to blame himself for it.” (2011: 97). For a phe-
nomenological account of this relation, see: del Castello 2009: 93–96.
33
“He could well have said that we feel no joy in the divine good, because we are pleased with a
worldly one. His ethic invites us to such conclusion. It teaches us that we reject a first level good
for a second level one.” (Theunissen 1996: 35).
34
This was made more evident in the experience of the first hermits. Since they had no alternatives,
in the battle with the daemon, they were looking for God only.
35
Therefore, Theunissen states that “The lethargy forms, if we will, the secondary gravity point of
acedia, the middle, that organizes everything in petrified forms” (1996: 38).
As Aristotle affirmed (EthN VIII, 5), no one withstands sorrow indefinitely. The
monastic fathers focused on the force of routines, work and prayer as the way to
re-establish a broken continuity of an experience that menaces the unity of personal-
ity. The challenge becomes how to respond to the need to be active in a meaningful
way. Only then can the monk regain the ability to metaphor, to transcend the all-
pervasiveness of immanence and its promises of fulfilment.
19.3 Fading and Reappearance
The theological teachings of the early fathers departed from the existence of an
ultimate foundation of truth and value ordering reality. But the theological and onto-
logical order that grounds the axiological linearity of the ascension of Johannes
Climacus’ Scala Paradisi or the considerations of Aquinas over the dammed condi-
tion of the acedic, have been challenged by the advent of modernity. New sources of
observation and interpretation of reality, not only scientific method but also a wide
variety of practices, open to primacy of the novel and the virtual, come to contest the
consistency of the great chain of being and its symbolic mediations. The diagnostics
of a disenchanted reality lead some of its discontents to consider that “the historical
and social space of contemporary Western life is a stance of bored sloth” (Snell
2015: 60). In fact, if there is no ultimate source for a final observation and valuation
of reality, acedia needs to be reconsidered as an existential and social problem.
Acedia cannot be dissociated from the dizziness of freedom and responsibility,
emerging when the individual becomes disenchanted with what he projected as his
self-actualization in a life-project. The denunciation of the “unbearable lightness of
being” as a symptom of a larger degradation and relativism of the modern world,
presupposes a derailment from the realm of God’s law, grantor of an authentic free-
dom and enjoyment. Society still grants the preacher that condemns other’s freedom
as unfulfilling, weightless and trapped in the arbitrary, the possibility to retreat from
the ordinary world and live an authentic life. Alternatively, his recurrent diagnoses
of the negative transcendence entailed in some forms of pleasure or fashion, may
themselves constitute the antidote to his professed discontent. This shows us the
main distinction between the medieval and the modern problem of acedia. In medi-
eval times, the religious individual troubled with acedia could consider the possi-
bilities of existence to be severely menaced. But instead of resulting from a
restriction of one’s possibilities, in modern times, the trouble of acedia concerns the
weighting of possibilities and divergent life-paths. Despite the experience of sorrow
and anxiety, the management of personal and social expectations, only exception-
ally conforms to a simple alternative between realization or damnation. And, with
the exceptions of forms of authoritarian education in cases of mental breakdown,
when the subject considers that alternative, it is as a result of his own values and
commitment with a certain project.
The concept of acedia will subsist not only in the Christian catechism, but also in
some literary writings of the fourteenth century, which, like in Chaucer’s A Parson’s
Tale and Langland’s Piers Plowman, center on the diverse forms of idleness and
sleepiness affecting the performance of personal and social duties. Petrarca will
transpose the term and its wide range of symptoms, from the religious to the amo-
rous ordeal. In the De secreto conflictu curarum mearum, the Italian poet provides
a philosophical discussion of the concept describing it as kind of sweet sorrow, an
aegritudo that enables the maintenance of an idealizing bound with the lost object
of love. The poet remarks the similitudes with the bodily and imaginative manifes-
tations of melancholy. This pathologization of acedia, Ficino’s recovery of a bright
side of melancholy, the melancholia generosa, and the emergence of new terms that
“flattened” it as idleness, contribute to its conceptual erasure.
If we consider the increasing regulation involved in the transition from asketeria
to the monasterium regime, acedia, as a symptomatic reaction to “achievement” in
devotion, may be read as a way to introduce novelty in the scheme that P. Sloterdijk
(2009: 392–396) termed a “curriculum vitae a priori”.36 The restrictions on devotion
targeted the excesses of self-referentiality in the relation with God. However, since
the interior eccentricity of the self was the original source of revelation, the regula-
tion of the exercises, also stirs resistances. In early modern mysticism they will
culminate in an attempt to transcend religious faith, i.e. the mediated forms of belief,
restituting a direct knowledge of the mysterious. In his work, Theunissen ignored
the importance of Devotio Moderna as a last locus of resistance of the transfigura-
tion of acedia into sloth. Within religious practice, the dark night of the soul, part of
the passive purification of the soul, presents the last great landmark of acedia as part
of a path towards complete spiritual union with God. After his ascent of Mount
Carmel, a path of active purification of the senses and the spirit, in La Noche Oscura
del Alma John of the Cross reinstates Aquino’s considerations of “accidia”, present-
ing it as “tedium over the more spiritual things” (NOA I, 7, 2). The mystic underlines
the tendency to pervert what is understood as a spiritual good so that it comes to
coincide with one’s corporeal enjoyment or inclinations. Albeit its signs are care-
fully distinguished from the dryness that characterizes humoral unbalances, inserted
in the passive of purgation of sensory appetite, acedia only covers an inferior part of
the night of the soul. In the models of mystic awakening, its daemon strikes in an
incipient phase of corporeal mortification, when the pleasures granted in the spiri-
tual pursuit are suppressed. Again, an inner dialogue must assure a double move-
ment. It reinstates the disgust over ordinary pleasures and calls for the perseverance
of the soul moved by an heart anxious for the union with God.
The vanishing of acedia from Renaissance and early modern philosophy is para-
doxical since in modern society identity comes to dependent more on personal
effort and achievements, than on natural or civil affiliations (Svendsen 2008: 27).
This disappearance is inseparable from a gradual engulfment of the interpretation of
acedia through the humoral semiology of melancholy, a tendency that dates back to
Cassian’s indistinction between the physiological and the moral (Jackson 1981: 64
Since he questions a closed world where nothing is lacking, in accordance with Földényi (2016:
36
77–81), the acedic may be considered one of the figures of medieval negativity.
ff.). On the other hand, by the time Philippe Pinel addresses the subject in his
Réflexions médicales sur l´état monastique (1790), apropos the revolutionary legis-
lation for the suppression of monastic orders and religious vows, the term is revived
in order to point the deleterious effects of segregation, supporting the conclusion
that monasteries are a source of unreason. This view will be reinstated and deepen
by other alienists like Brierre de Boismont. A further explanation for it may be
found in acedia’s flattening as a mere sloth, indicating, within theological discourse,
a new understanding of devotional practices. Work, previously distinguished from
the practices of devotion, conceived as a relief from the pressures and demands of
the vertical tension, will serve to designate the ordinary religious practices.
Similarly to St. Thomas Aquinas, in Kierkegaard’s thought, the absence of ace-
dia would be an absolute debasement, sign of the absence of the experience of los-
ing a constitutive relation, in the expression of R. Guardini, a “constitutional sorrow”
(1983: 27) at the core of the subject.
Kierkegaard’s approach involves the relation between the ethical conviction (rea-
sons for care) and the motivation for action. In Either/Or, the Ethical figure affirms
that his Schwermut is inspired by the ancient doctrine of the sins. But he radicalizes
the view of St. Thomas Aquinas in considering acedia to be not just a capital sin, but
the instar omnium [that stands for all] sin (1988: II, 171), the origin of the unholy.
According to this view, with parallels with Nietzsche’s dual model of melancholy,
the absence of a sufficient will is the origin of all sin.37
Defining Schwermut as “hysteria of the Spirit” Judge William affirms that:
There comes a moment in a person’s life when immediacy is ripe, so to speak, and when the
spirit requires a higher form, when it wants to lay hold of itself as spirit. As immediate
spirit, a person is bound up with all the earthly life, and now spirit wants to gather itself
together out of this dispersion, so to speak, and to transfigure itself in itself; the personality
wants to become conscious in its eternal validity. If this does not happen, if the movement
is halted, if it is repressed, then depression sets in (…).38
This conceptualization of acedia as a trauma of missed opportunity has resem-

blances with the temporal paralysis of melancholy. But instead of an unresolved
conflict with the worldly other, the heartbreak is a consequence of a shattered rela-
tion with the higher which implies a revision of one’s vocation.
In The Origin of German Tragic Drama, Benjamin noted how acedia must be
accounted for as a condition that ignites imaginative recreation of a world that lost
its religious foundations. According with his reading, the loss of the previous pos-
sibilities of earthly accomplishment structures the action of early modern drama.
Benjamin sustains that the Lutheran theology of the Deus absconditus empties the
37
According to Theunissen’s reformulation of Kiekegaard’s thesis: “a human being succumbs to
Schwermut if he lets the instant pass in which the spirit wants to emerge in him/her. So that every-
thing that he was summoned to achieve is left undone. Therefore, in that moment, he loses him-
self.” (Theunissen 1996: 48).
38
(…) “one can try a great many things to consign it to oblivion; one can work, can snatch at more
innocent remedies than a Nero, but the depression continues” (Kierkegaard 1988: 170–171).
world and stimulates new forms of joy that attempt to fill that void.39 There is a
short-circuit provoked by the absence of a “redemptive meaning” for one’s works, a
disjunction between effort and grace. The “taedium vitae of richer natures”
(Benjamin 1977: 139), and their indifference, derives from the absence of an ulti-
mate goal. Instead of an inability to accept the load of God’s election, the agents
experience the inability to decide (1977: 71), proper of a world marked by “the total
disappearance of eschatology” (1977: 81).
In his lessons on L’amour et la haine (Collège de France 1924–1925), devoted to
the analysis of social affections, P. Janet, the philosopher that became physician and
psychologist, sustained that acedia is a particular form of suspension of action due
to loss of emotion:
They have not lost the belief; they have lost the emotion of belief. ‘I no longer have, they
say, will to pray, to have an élan in my praying, no drive to say to God: I love you, of feeling
consoled’. Once the previous efforts for making God speak, to hear him, or at least to pre-
tend, have ceased: it is the animi remissio, the cardinal sin so frequent in the convents
(2007: 115).
The latent expectation that connects the present longing to a future realization,
particularly evident in phases of biographical transition or maturation, becomes sus-
pended. Hereafter, it seems impossible to revive the original affective bound and the
ability to receive comfort. However, Janet’s inquiry did not receive much attention
from the psychiatric community.
In fact, a significant part of the recovery of the concept of acedia in the twentieth
century uses it to categorize an emergent form of adaptive behavior. Acedia will be
considered a particular type “retreatism”, a form of social and personal withdrawal
after continually experiencing the impossibility of approaching one’s goals, due to
social and individual conditions, “while the supreme value of the success-goal has
not yet been renounced” (Merton 1968: 207). One’s retreat becomes complete when
the conflict is dissolved by the complete rejection of prescribed means and goals.
Acedia is addressed as weariness with one’s professional role, originating forms
of soulless or pro-forma performances. The term was used by the philosopher Lewis
Mumford to refer the emergence of managerial perspectives which, in the context of
the industrial mode of production, considered human labour to be a liability:
“[f]or the fact is that standardization, organization, automatism, which are the real and
special triumphs of modern technics, tend with their very perfection to produce routineers:
people whose vital interests and activities lie outside the system to which they have com-
mitted themselves. The vice that dogged the regularities and automatisms of monastic life
in the Middle Ages, the vice called acedia, or lethargic indifference, already tends to creep
into the older, staler departments of our technology. (…). Unless extraneous jolts and chal-
lenges awaken such people, as war awakens an army from its paper-shuffling and
button-polishing, their indifference, and their more active boredom, may in time produce an
over-all loss of efficiency.” (Mumford 1954: 55–6).
39
In this context, the dramatist tends to recreate the world through mourning, a “state of mind in
which feeling revives the empty world in the form of a mask, and derives an enigmatic satisfaction
in contemplating it” (Benjamin 1977: 139).
This socio-economical problem was also addressed by Robert Merton, which

considered acedia to be the unique concept to reflect a particular kind of adaptive
response to anomie, a dysfunction that cannot be accommodated by the available
classifications of mental disorders nor criminal deviancy. The American sociologist
proved attentive to the importance of the institutional and normative dimensions of
the problem. Complexity and change lead to a subjective pressure to adapt to
“numerous conflicting norms and goals, until the person is literally dis-oriented and
de-moralized, unable to secure a firm commitment to a set of norms that he can feel
as self-consistent” (Merton 1968: 248). Merton noted how abrupt biographical
shifts, particularly those imposed upon individual labour (e.g. retirement) or famil-
iar life-projects (e.g. widowhood), may contribute to this form of abandonment of
cultural practices and values once desired.
We see that the existential dimension can no longer be conceived strictly from
the point of view of the individual situation and temporality. The descriptions of the
symptoms of a new form of acedia in industrial society already pointed to the
importance of working conditions and social opportunities of self-realization. But
their conclusions on dynamics of acedia are narrow and outdated.
When investment on one’s performance becomes a source of disillusion and dis-
interest, we face what might be consider the “inverse” condition of the typus melan-
cholicus, a kind of adaptive behaviour that displays over-identification with one’s
role as a way to protect from change and normative uncertainty.40 But it is precisely
the stressing of a necessary coincidence between psychic motives, values and goals
and the normative scheme of expectations concerning a particular role that seems
misleading in Merton’s understanding of acedia. Without considering the way the
individual himself comes to mold his own goals, how these are inserted in a life-
project, determining their personal meaning and an inner account of the efforts they
demanded, we are not considering acedia but “mere” alienation. On the contrary, as
we saw: “Acedia is never a simple depression since it is, at least in its native concep-
tion, always linked to a high model, to a persistent spiritual (or professional) ambi-
tion.” (Forthomme 2001: 2). At the same time, the so-called “acedic state”
presupposes the maintenance of the severed link with the object. The subject knows
what he has lost, recognizes it as valuable, but is no longer involved in its pursuit.
19.4 Requirements of Caring
Not far from a personal register,41 Barthes acknowledged the self-referential nature
of acedia, understanding it as a “[f]eeling, state of the monk that withdraws from
ascesis, that has nothing more to invest in it (≠ the one who loses faith). It is not a
On the typus melancholicus, see the classical work of H. Tellenbach (1983).
40
Zetterberg (1967) proposed an historical overview and typification of the various guises that
41
acedia can assume in academic careers. He delineated three major forms of acedia, the first one
loss of belief; it is a loss of investment. State of depression: vague of the soul, las-
situde, sadness, ennui, discouragement” (Barthes 2002: 53).
The relevant point made by Barthes reading is the loss of investment in an object
that, for the subject himself, remains unaffected as a source of belief. It is this self-
referential nature of acedia that makes it impervious to external panegyrics, ie. those
forms of relief unable to work on the source of sorrow. Similar to melancholy, the
suppression of investment does not mean a complete cut of the bound with the
object. It is a source of unordered negativity, with schisms and rumination over
disengagement. The relinquished aim for the object subsists as an open wound pre-
venting new attachments, in particular those that can provide care and relief. The cut
on the existential project, produces an hardness of the heart which afterwards is only
able to grant the other(s) a superficial form of trust.
Accordingly with the original narrative of the monks, spiritual troubles origi-
nated in thought or in affections of the inferior parts of the soul, take place in a
personal experience that “derailed” from the relation to the One into a self-relation.
As we saw, despite its individual incidence, acedia cannot be abstracted from the
communitarian context of religious work, marked by austere practices and norms.
Due to their shared difficulties in the pursuing a common goal, the themes of prob-
lematic thoughts/sins become the reference centre not only of the monk’s self-
narration and confession but also of the community. The monastic institution created
ways to identify and manage those spiritual and occupational hazards, presenting an
alternative, or at least a complement, both to the dominant dietetic approaches to
medical conditions and the punitive methods.
A substantial part of that institutional method is prophylactic and consists in the
inoculation the soul of the novices towards the temptations to refrain from one’s
duties. A first step in this capacitation of the monks precedes their entering into the
monastic community and the acquisition of a new identity, entailing a series of tests
to assess the novice’s commitment, reinforcing their humility and prompt obedi-
ence. These rites of passage are the condition to enter into the regular practices of
monastic life, but due to the long periods of reclusion on one’s cells and the austere-
ness of work and pray, that first moment of withdrawal must periodically be renewed,
also through the abjuration of ordinary life.
The religious writings of the Christian Fathers focused on the lifestyle and atti-
tudes that may prevent the temptations to abandon one’s vocation towards an aus-
tere and lonely spiritual project. When it comes to remedies, they acknowledge that
distraction and amusement can soften those feelings, but in the long run they prove
deriving from a perversion of success, the second from requirements of specialization and the third
from processes of differentiation.
to be illusory.42 Monastic regulation recognizes the unbearable strain that its pre-
scribed tasks may cause accordingly with both the constitution and the present con-
dition of the individual monk. The article 48 of The Rule of Benedict, entitled “Daily
manual labour” calls for a difficult equilibrium in the enforcement of labour:
Brothers who are weak or delicate should be given a task or craft that prevents them being
idle but does not cause them to feel oppressed by the difficulty of the task or to try to avoid
it. The abbot should have consideration for their weakness.
Besides the requirements of patience and perseverance in manual labour and

psalmody,43 the fathers and mothers of the desert relied on a personal connection
with the Abbas or spiritual father, to account their challenges and difficulties.44 The
“revealing” word was restricted to this relation.
What was prohibited was the unfortunate tendency to ‘spiritual indiscretion’, that embar-
rassing “talkativeness” which can keep for itself neither the manner of God’s grace nor the
attacks of the adversary. Prohibited was every type of unhealthy familiarity (parrhēsia)
which, like a scorching wind, burns real friendship and trust. (Bunge 2011: 156–7).
This account, a form of “self-analysis” and dialogue, sharing difficulties and

griefs, should fulfil particular requirements, namely full exposure and openness to
any remark or advice.45 As a complement to persistent praying, it is a way to regain
an image of oneself, to re-evaluate one’s goals and the rightness of one’s project.
Various works have highlighted the pedagogic importance of the teachings of the
experienced fathers not only through oral communications but also by the written
medium. As remarked by P. Hadot (1987: 175–182), these practices of self-
knowledge shall not be understood in the modern sense of the term. Instead of a
pursuit of oneself for its own sake, through their exceptional performance, they
strive to open to a redemptive connection with the divine.
Complementing the guidance by a more experienced monk, there are emotional,
behavioural and cognitive resources to relieve one’s sorrow. The role of tears was
highlighted by Evagrius:
42
“The generally accepted treatment for depression, with or without pharmaceutical intervention,
is gentleness. Eat well, avoid stress, do not feel guilty; be kind to yourself, seek quiet but real
amusement, rest a lot. But such a regime would find little sympathy with the spiritual directors of
those afflicted with accidie. The classic cure for accidie is penance, a strict ‘rule’ of life, self-dis-
cipline and hard work” (Maitland 2008: 113).
43
This valuing of labour, both physical and intellectual, as the antidote for boredom was also sub-
scribed by St. Jerome, so well expressed in Dürer’s engraving Saint Jerome in His Study (1514),
the maximum epitome of organized and concentrated work.
44
Evagrius himself, though he was a famous Abba, had such a close friend [Albinus], in whom he
confided, relying in his judgment and advice.
45
“self-analysis, the revealing word of the hidden thought and fluid dialogue with the Abbas (…)
can cure the illness or disease of the soul that succumbed the complexes of its narcissistic affectiv-
ity” (Vazquez 2015: 696).
When we come up against the demon of acedia, then with tears let us divide the soul and
have one part offer consolation and the other receive consolation (Pr. 27).
This resort to a self-division favours a reassessment of what is deemed to be lost

and an amendment of the self injured by that condition. Instead of self-commiseration,
consolation must reinstate the sense of agency once paralyzed by sadness. Tears are
said to soften a heart petrified by disgust, they are the occasion for the past experi-
ence of sadness to be reframed by the perspective of an orienting goal, i.e. to insti-
gate hope.
Not only the narration and self-interpretation, but also the regular framing of the
personal experience in the discourse of the others has a curative function since it
provides validation of the experienced troubles, ways to manage them and a rein-
statement of the monk’s spiritual goals. This consolatory dimension of the commu-
nitarian life, was highlighted and proposed by scholastic authors,46 but will
summarize the recourse to liturgical chant as a form of curatio verbi in the poetical
register.
Dante inaugurated a sequence of texts composed in romance languages that con-
sider the incidence of acedia in laymen. The accidiosi reappear in the Divine
Comedy no longer stuck in the mud, but in forth terrace of the Mount Purgatory, in
a restless longing [restar non potem (Purg. XVIII, 116)] to ascend to God. Instead
of remaining trapped in their own sourness, which Dante sees as the result of sorrow
[tristitia] or anger [ira],47 they are now able to articulate their loss, work through
mourning.48 Right from the first chants of Purgatory, we find the resort to the psalm-
ody that is singed by all, at one voice – “cantavan tutti insieme ad una voce” (Purg.
II, 47) – as liberating. Collective hymns injunct the individual to re-enact a frag-
mented speech, one that became blocked by what remains a traumatic loss. No
longer prey of the demon or the humours, the accidiosi have the opportunity to
assume an active role, remediating their languish and fragmented praying and reci-
tations, enthusiastically praising God. This collective chant contrasts with the self-
enclosed complaint of the infernal acedic that is with the others but by himself.
Speech becomes communicative, its demands address the Other that provide it with
meaning. At the same time, the collective validates the expressions and reorients
them offering symbolic resolution.
These forms of prevention and remedies cannot be totally discredited. Among
other things, they point to the need to establish a deep connection with the others,
46
See, for instance, the work of Gianfrancesco (2008), where it is shown how the precedence of the
communitarian and scriptural Other is mobilized in order to relief and cure various dysfunctions of
monastic life. More recently, focusing in the treatment of acedia, scholars such as Rushworth
(2016) and Paretó Rivas (2017) explored the way liturgical chant, based in scriptural and textual
sources, acquired a consolatory and curative dimension precisely by virtue of the reenactment of
the blocked emotions it provides.
47
Dante is coping with what had become a dense and sometimes contradictory tradition of inter-
pretation of acedia.
48
This seems to be recognized by Dante himself when he refers to the blessed that mourn (Purg.
XIX, 49–51).
recognizing oneself within the community. However, the horizontal bound may be
insufficient or even adverse to the process of recovery the sense of personal fulfil-
ment. As we saw, ascetic tradition indicates the tendency to fall onto superficial chat
about casual themes, and particularly the resort on the oblivion provided by enter-
tainment. These are ways to obliterate or evade the serious problem posed by ace-
dia, but they systematically risk the losing of one’s ultimate purposes, reinforcing a
sense of false or empty self. The deep connection will turn possible to be open to
others care/love, first of all in order to readdress the significance of a project and
possibly to readjust the self-imposed achievements.
Modern and contemporary figures of boredom and ennui are no longer supported
on an ordered cosmos where one “simply” needs to accommodate to an ascribed
identity and performance. They are a form of unhappy consciousness or reluctance
to become oneself in a contingent world, a form of defense mechanism against nor-
mative pressures that urge one to act.
Some aspects of the functional differentiation of modern society contribute to
restrict the incidence of acedia. A full overlap between self-identity of the psychic
subject and the communicative expectations associated with his roles, particularly
one’s career, is very rare. At the same time, contrary to previous societies, alterna-
tive paths of self-realization are open to the subject. This may be a demotivating
factor for pursuing a vocation since there is a “temptation” to idealize another role.
On the other hand, it mitigates the devastating effects of the withdrawal from a com-
munity or career.
Despite its origin in the extreme (austere) conditions of the life of fathers and
mothers of the desert, marked by a rigid routine of fasting, working and praying,
acedia seems inherent to the human condition. In the words of Bunge, that trans-
lated it as Despondency, we need to “look into this particular situation from the
inside, in order to recognize in this extreme situation the fundamental vulnerability
of the human being” (2011: 128). However, the acknowledgement of the “fatal mis-
conception” which consists in arguing that acedia is completely stranger to us, does
not does imply that it preserves its original characteristics.49 Beyond a commitment
with a transformative practice of the self, its reappearance still concerns the problem
of vocation but already in a context of generalized objectivation of the goals of one’s
project.
Emotions of ennui and boredom and the experience of mild depression could be
considered the succedaneums of acedia. Lethargy and abandonment of commitment
are both the result of a retroaction of a meta-emotion, which makes one restless,
In his theological reading, Bunge falls in this absolutization of the concept, considering acedia
49
as: “an omnipresent phenomenon linked to being human. Time, place, and life circumstances
change its concrete manifestations, but of its nature, the phenomenon is timeless” (Bunge 2011:
142). Contemporary accounts of its incidence, such as the one provided by Sara Maitland’s Book
of Silence (2008, chap. 3), no longer present a trembling of the whole being, but a diffuse sense of
boredom and anxiety, calling for of a reconfiguration of one’s purpose in life.
unable to persist with patience and perseverance.50 Besides the “killing of time” and
distraction, they can instigate a need to abandon oneself in work, falling into another
form of lack of care, namely in what has been described as burnout syndrome (see
e.g. Jehl 2005). Along with the echoes of spiritual exhaustion, the anxious sorrow to
which acedia refers seems also to propitiate forms of abandonment to soulless work,
an update of the activist interest described by Evagrius or the overexertion in devo-
tion in order to conceal the feeling of inner emptiness.51
Only the attention to the subtle forms of acedia, mainly subclinical manifesta-
tions of discontent, enables their adequate treatment. Since the original sadness over
the inability to care for the spiritual things produces such a wide range of manifesta-
tions, both in intensity and types, it summons the therapeutic tasks that P. Fuchs
designates the “management of vague things” (2011). It must be able to discover in
each individual the process of dis-interest on the higher aims or one’s inability to
cope with the self-imposing demands. To the desert fathers and mothers it was
already clear that this requires the ability to open one’s heart by a honest presenta-
tion of one’s thoughts. In any case, the confrontation with the deviation from the
higher achievements is an irreplaceable step towards the relief of both acedia’s
insidious manifestations (distraction, dis-interest, loss of feeling/engagement) and
the devastating despair.
19.5 Concluding Remarks
This brief exposition of acedia, from its original experience towards the delineation
of its contemporary avatars points to a meta-emotion of anxious sorrow over the loss
of enjoyment on a meaningful spiritual or professional projects. In view of the reval-
uation of acedia as a distinct form of malaise related to one’s more valuable proj-
ects, one of the present challenges is not to “psychiatrize” what maintains the
characteristics of a spiritual phenomenon (Peretó Rivas 2011: 15–16). On the other
hand, this may also be a call to reassess the role of the “spiritual dimension on the
modern classification of disorders” (Pérez-Rincón 2014: 172).
Contrary to the majority of its interpretations, Acedia shall not be understood as
a particular state or emotion, even if the consent (or resistance) to temptation and
the subsequent feelings of self-reproach play crucial role in it. Instead, acedia con-
sists in a process with a typical sequence, characterized by psychic recursion,
between the relations to the representation of a personal ideal and the withdrawal
from it, which deeply affects the ability to care for oneself and Other(s).
In spite of its similarities with melancholy and depressive moods, acedia must be
seen as a particular form of occupational hazard which affects (emotionally and
50
On the ability to endure boredom as a requirement for psychological maturation and autonomy,
see: Phillips 1993: 68–78.
51
K. Norris provided an expressive image for this type of acedia, saying it may well manifests as
“hyper-activity, but it is more like the activity of a hamster on a treadmill than action that will
enhance the common good.” (Norris 2008). R. J. Snell develops a similar argument (2015: 66).
cognitively) those that pursue long, solitary and demanding projects. One becomes
emotionally disconnected with his life project seeing it as overwhelming or dis-
interesting, although recognizing its intrinsic value. Essential to the phenomenon of
acedia is the interruption of the caring disposition, to nourish friendship, but also the
ability receive the care of others, since the feelings of moral fault tend to evolve to
feelings of uselessness and self-dejection.
We argued that this situational condition demands proper identification and care.
To assess and care for acedia, the therapeutic medium of contemporary society must
account the existential and institutional levels, distinct aspects of the motivational
dynamics regarding long, solitary and demanding projects. This must counter
today’s epidemics of helplessness, by promoting a deep form of communication
among individuals – escaping biomedical totalitarism and the so-called culture of
self-help – valuing one’s perseverance in a particular project.
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Chapter 20
The Different Modalities Of Suffering,
from Paul Ricœur’s Text “Suffering Is Not
the Pain” and Its Relevance in Non-
conventional Therapies
Catarina Rebelo
Abstract From the reading of Paul Ricœur’s text «Suffering Is Not The Pain», we
intend to show how a non-conventional therapist can do better work by being aware
that the person (patient) that requires his/her services is someone who can suffer and
endure suffering. Having this human characteristic in mind, the therapist, through
his/her work, can intervene more conscientiously in the reconstruction of the narra-
tive identity of the person, and may also be able to help recover the person’s self-
esteem, which is often affected by disease, pain, or suffering. This can sometimes
involve making the person responsible for the control of the complaints, when pos-
sible. We also want to show how sometimes experiencing pain during this kind of
treatment is often the key to releasing the pain or suffering caused by the disease
that harms the person.
Keywords Ricœur · Pain · Suffering · Non-conventional therapies · Disease ·

Narrative identity · Self-esteem
Reflecting on some ideas present in Paul Ricœur’s text, «Suffering Is Not The Pain»
(Ricœur 1992), in the communication delivered at a psychiatric colloquium in Brest,
our purpose here is to show how his thought can bring some light, not only to gen-
eral clinical practice, but especially to the practice of non-conventional therapies.
Ricœur’s purpose in this presentation is to reflect upon «the most common and
universal human experience of suffering. In addition, my contribution does not
intend to guide the therapeutic act, but only to clarify our understanding of the
human being, as someone able to suffer and endure suffering» (Ricœur 1992: 12).
We propose that this suffering «raises the very structure of medical ethics» (Ricœur
1996: 31).
C. Rebelo (*)
Institute for Philosophical Studies (IEF), Coimbra University, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: catarinadrebelo@gmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
Global Bioethics 16, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75478-5-2_20
326 C. Rebelo
The goal of our doctoral thesis is to find, philosophically, the care in the thera-
peutic encounter, based on Paul Ricœur’s philosophy and his notion of fragility or
fallibility. This notion was forgotten by all modernity and gave rise to a scientific
medicine that forgot to care about suffering.
In our view, all kinds of therapy help the patient, and also the therapist, in the
formation of his/her own identity. To think of therapy as a practice of care implies
helping the patient to fight disease. Caring aims to ease the body’s suffering in its
material and contingent aspects, and it requires empathy to be exercised.
In Classical Greece, care had a “psychological meaning since it designated the
concern and the restlessness related with the body and its needs” (Lefève 2006: 26).
By the time of Christianity, suffering was seen as an image of Christ’s suffering,
therefore, as something that redeems from sin. In this conception, there is a valorisa-
tion of the positive meaning of suffering as salvation. With the advance of modern
science, we find in the XIXth century a purely scientific medicine. This kind of
practice is no longer interested in the suffering body and therefore in the act of car-
ing. Experimental and anatomical-clinical medicine objectify the disease and pain
of the patient, making use of the organic causes of the disease.
Besides that, the scientific and social prestige of the doctor, as well as the hierar-
chy of the roles in a hospital involving the medical team and the caregivers lead to
the disinterest of the doctor in the living experience of the patient, leaving this kind
of care to the nursing team.
Ricœur begins to show in his presentation that there is some confusion in the use
of the terms “pain” and “suffering”, with which he does not identify. This confusion
happens mostly because of the Cartesian dichotomy between “body” and “soul”
that influenced, as we know, medicine until not so far ago. Thus Ricœur’s text helps
us to understand disease not only as something objective but also as a “global suf-
fering”: physical, mental, social, and spiritual pain.
Nowadays, even in molecular biology research, pain is understood differently
from Cartesian dualism, as Jorge Tavares stated in his article The Lesion That
Causes Pain And The Pain With No Lesion: “pain is not only or it is not always a
pathological event. It is also a form of normal relationship between the person and
his/her environment, and of the awareness of one’s corporeality or experience of
finiteness. The small number of people who don’t experience pain since birth pos-
sess a low life expectancy and rarely reach the adult age.” (Tavares 2001: 277).
In 1943, G. Canguilhem reminds us, in his Essais Sur Quelques Problèmes
Concernant Le Normal Et Le Pathologique, that medicine arises precisely from the
call of the patient and the attention given to his/her suffering. Caring for the person
that is suffering is the reason for medicine’s existence. Canguilhem distinguishes
the fact of being sick from having a disease, but he is not restricted to this (Lefève
2006: 28). For Canguilhem, clinical practice consists of finding the subjective expe-
rience of the disease, through the examination of the patient and his/her words;
therefore, it goes beyond scientific research.
The clinical work, namely, departs from a translation of the lived own-body
experience, that is sick, to get to the medical language of the objective-body. To do
so the doctor has to take into consideration the patient’s point of view. In this
20 The Different Modalities Of Suffering, from Paul Ricœur’s Text “Suffering Is Not… 327
author’s point of view, clinical and therapeutical aspects are not mutually separated,
thus making possible the recovery of Classical Greek medicine’s function of caring,
in opposition to the reduction of medicine to pure science.
Today, clinical practice places the person at the centre of clinical medicine as a
suffering subject that participates in the treatment along with the doctor. The phi-
losophy of care renewed by the emergence of the patient as a person must reflect on
the juridical, political and social implications of the unbridled individualism that we
live in (Lefève 2006: 28).
Since the 1980s we have witnessed the development of preventive medicine and
a regular medicalization of daily life. Chronic diseases, an increase of the average
life expectancy and the discovery of the essential vulnerability of the human condi-
tion were the great motive of the attention given to care.
Viktor von Waisäcker had already shown in the first half of the XIXth century that
disease is an event, it is a part of one’s own biography whose continuity comes to
disturb the person and whose major characteristics are: the feeling of a contradicted
life, the loss of usual references, deep isolation, a dependency on the care of others,
fear of death and a change in the intimated conscience of time (Benaroyo et al.
2010: 26). For V. Waisäcker, clinical activity can be conceived as a task of solicitude
and responsibility. The patient’s context is important to the therapist, who must take
into consideration the patient’s discourse on the suffering caused by the disease
affecting him/her. It is pain and suffering that make people go beyond themselves,
reaching the other through an outburst of words, thus coming back to themselves
and reconfiguring their own sense. By doing this, the patient can overcome pain and
suffering. On the caregivers’ side, pain brings forth the awareness of the harshness
of life, making them see beyond selfishness, helping to understand and feel compas-
sion for the other’s suffering. In this way, one can overcome pain and increase one’s
ability to give to the other.
Modern reflection divided Man between sensitivity and understanding.
Philosophical meditation about finitude can only begin, according to Ricœur, when
the body itself and its language are considered. It is in the relationship with my body
that I become aware of my finitude. However, at first, my body is not thematic, it
appears as an opening to the world, it is the «original mediator between myself and
the world» (Ricœur 1968: 37). The body is not only a vehicle of existence in the
world, it is an intrinsic part of that existence, it is pain, and it gives us the possibility
to make others feel and to feel others. The body warns us of our passivity and grants
us the possibility of ‘talking’, either verbally or bodily. The main question is that
human beings are simple in their animal nature and double in their humanity, they
are fragile and, at the same time, more than a body and a soul, they are dispropor-
tionate and ulterior. If the body limits us by confining us to space and time, it also
limits us through physical pain and disease, while also reflecting our emotions. The
negative experience that leads a patient to therapy is expressed by suffering and
constitutes a testimony (Poreé 2012: 201) that requires attention and interpretation
of signs.
In a therapeutic encounter attention to language is essential, so the long path to
access the human being is important in our research due to the hermeneutic
328 C. Rebelo
character of care in the therapies that we practice. In a therapeutic context, the per-
son’s narrative is often embodied in a language of lament. People with the ability to
do so often show that even if they’re not aware of it, disease is exacerbated by the
narrative of suspended life. When this narrative is not well understood it can affect
even further the patient‘s health condition and exasperate his/her narrative of lament.
“It’s true: suffering demands a narrative” (Poreé 2012: 210).
However, it also requires an understanding of the link between lived time and
narrative. Ricœur has devoted himself to this task in his work Time and Narrative.
Narrative appeals to the other and integrates the personal life in the collective living.
It also helps the person to understand him/herself in the construction of his/her own
narrative identity:
“Narrative identity emerges as the result of a well-examined life, which narrative clarifies
through the cultural effects and the works that make it happen. Psychotherapies show, on
the other hand, how life stories are corrected by the successive narratives that are made
about them so that a person, or a group of people, can ultimately recognize themselves in
the stories that were told about them. Therefore there is circularity between the various nar-
ratives of identity and the ulterior reception of those texts. This circle of mimesis is not,
however, vicious. On the contrary, it is virtuous. That is why narrative can keep time and
identities narrated, but always in a different way.” (Leão 2016: 103)
The inability of making sense of the identity of the self, through narrative, due to
a situation of disease, brings forth a philosophical reflection about suffering. The
person’s fragility and vulnerability thus require a kind of care and attention from the
therapist in a way that allows the patient to recover his/her health and narrative abil-
ity, but also his/her ipseity.
In a therapeutic encounter, regardless of its nature, there’s always a fragility and
a vulnerability that are worsened by the suffering, physical and/or moral, that seek
to be restored and mediated through the other that welcomes and guides the patient’s
‘self’. This guidance occurs within the therapist’s scope of work by restoring the
patient’s health and narrative reconfiguration, consequently enriching the patient’s
ipseity.
A therapist is a caregiver and should therefore be aware of the fallible structure
of the other when listening to the lament, the complaint, and the suffering of some-
one who is in a situation of disease, especially since, in our view, if Man is not
coincidental with himself, if he is fragile, a mixture as Ricœur tells us, a divided
being, disproportionate and fallible, these characteristics are further exacerbated in
a situation of illness. Here lies the value of care and the importance of a narrative
approach, where we can think of therapy as a way to enable human abilities. In this
case, the therapist’s work is made easier by taking into consideration the condition
of fallibility as the true centre of human disproportion.
These therapies are distinguished by their refusal of the mechanical and anony-
mous model of care application; they are a form of care that we can also understand
resorting to the ethics of care that have been developed in the United States and
Europe in recent years.
“The ethics of care suppose an anthropology of vulnerability, an ontology or a
world in itself, taking into account the dignity of dependency and a philosophy of
caring” (Brugère 2011: 81). The ethics of care, which were developed by a feminist
approach, pay less attention to vulnerability in itself and more attention to the impli-
cations of the relations with others. They are an ethics of relationships: “Being
vulnerable means needing others, particularly the care of others.” (Satereau 2015: 2)
In the light of Ricœur’s work, we can consider a new vision of vulnerability, differ-
ent from the one that looks at vulnerability as a condition of the weakest. Thinking
of Man as a capable being, an agent and a sufferer, Ricœur allows us to think of
vulnerability as something inherent to the human condition. When the ability of the
capable Man is harmed or somehow diminished that Man becomes a sufferer.
Human capability cannot be taken for granted. “The capable Man is one for whom
the power to act can be prevented” (Satereau 2015: 3).
Man’s fragility is therefore a call for autonomy; it is by the contingency imposed
by vulnerability that Man becomes autonomous. This powerlessness to act can be
intrinsic to the person or can be imposed by social instances that deprive people of
becoming autonomous.
Vulnerability can be attested, according to Ricœur’s text “Suffering Is Not The
Pain”, as a result of two axes: the acting-suffering axis that is related to the power to
act in the relation with the self and the relation with the other; and the self-other axis
and its relational dimension. In contrast, when one has full confidence in one’s abil-
ity there is a capacity to act and in that acting one can attest oneself: “believing that
I can is already being capable of doing” (Satereau 2015: 5).
According to Ricœur, self-esteem depends on the relation with others and this
relation is also a source of vulnerability. It appeals to our responsibility to ourselves
and others. For this author, self-esteem is “the ethical limit of human acting”
(Ricœur 1992: 23). Once again, we can’t forget how disease affects the patient’s
identity, so it becomes necessary to understand the narrative records from which the
patient expresses his/her suffering: “the caregiver should be listening to what,
through narration, makes the patient’s suffering unique” (Benaroyo 2010: 28).
Suffering, and all that comes with it, can affect and transform one’s narrative, cul-
minating in a loss of meaning and self-esteem. Therefore it is necessary to help the
patient, to achieve therapeutic success, to create a “therapeutic intrigue that con-
vinces (the patient) that the medical treatment proposed is an integral part of the
care that is given” (Benaroyo 2010: 30). With this intrigue, the caregiver helps to
relieve the patient’s suffering. The loss of meaning and self-esteem can lead the self
to a “tendency towards a lack of self-esteem, to culpability” (Ricœur 1992: 23);
Ricœur gives the example of the loss of a loved one, in which the self confuses guilt
and suffering. Another situation in which Ricœur points out the loss of self-esteem
is the one felt by the suffering person “as a theft or a betrayal by the other” (Ricœur
1992: 25), with the consequent tendency towards victimization.
Going back to the two-axis system through which Ricœur articulates “the suffer-
ing phenomena”: the axis of the relationship between each other, in which “suffer-
ing happens at the same time as an alteration of the relation to the self and the
relation to others” (Ricœur 1992: 15) and the axis of the relation between acting-
suffering where “suffering consists in the decrease of the ability to act” (Ricœur
1992: 15), conveyed by words. It seems that Ricœur intends to show to the
330 C. Rebelo
caregivers the lines of approach and the structure that they should be aware of when
they take part in a therapeutic encounter with someone who is suffering, regardless
of their form of action.
In the first axis, Ricœur identifies several negative levels in which the relation-
ship can be affected and sums them up in a word: separation. From lowest to high-
est, these levels are: first, the fact that the living experience of each “sufferer is
unique” (Ricœur 1992: 17); the second level is that of incommunicability, the
incomprehension and inability of others to help that creates the “loneliness of suf-
fering” (Ricœur 1992: 18); the third level appears through the hand of “the enemy
that makes one suffer through insults or slander” (Ricœur 1992: 18); the fourth and
more intense level is caused by the “imagined feeling of being elected by suffering”
(Ricœur 1992: 18) from which arises the question “why me?” (hell of suffering),
besides the self-inflicted suffering, of which we have already spoken when address-
ing the subject of self-esteem.
As for the second axis, to act-suffer, Ricœur registers “four levels of efficiency”
(Ricœur 1992: 19), which return “to the previous paradox of the intensified self and
the self separated from the other” (Ricœur 1992: 20), intertwining and affecting
each other. Ricœur makes a parallel in the reading made in “Soi-même Comme An
Autre” between words, actions, narration and moral imputation, and suffering and
its “wounds that affect alternately the power to say (complaint), to be able to do (to
act in the passivity of suffering), to be able to narrate oneself (an interrupted inter-
narrative), and to be able to esteem oneself as a moral agent” (Ricœur 1992: 19).
We note, with this presentation, the applicability of Ricœur’s thought to real life,
to daily situations. In this particular case, Ricœur proposes a phenomenological
approach of the malaise connected to physical disease. Suffering, as we already
have seen, is the main reason for the therapeutic relationship that is established.
Being aware of this kind of philosophy, the non-conventional therapist can act
more consciously, helping the reconstruction of the narrative identity of the patient
and restoring self-esteem, by applying techniques that are specific to his/her area of
work. This is achieved, not only by relieving the patient’s complaints, but also by
making the patient responsible for controlling the emergence or resurgence of com-
plaints, since it is frequent that some patients do not take responsibility for their
actions that contribute to their disease, and for some reason they don’t acknowledge
that they have to change their behaviour to improve their health.
Sometimes, in our professional practice, we witness painful experiences during
the treatment of patients that can generate suffering. This kind of pain can be the key
to the liberation of the suffering caused by the complaint that makes the person seek
help. In our daily life as therapists, we commonly see different reactions when we
apply several treatment techniques. From the astonishment in the patient’s face dur-
ing a painless needle application (with some exceptions, of course), to the surprising
answer to the question “am I hurting you too much?”, because the pressure of the
TuiNa massage is, in most cases, painful: “it’s a good pain”, or “it is a pain that feels
good”, “it is a pain that relieves” or even “do what you have to do, I just want to get
better”. The pain dissipates and becomes a sense of well-being as health is recov-
ered along with the treatments. Of course, some people can’t take this kind of pain
in the same way, which can reveal a lot about a person’s physical and emotional
condition.
These comments, made most of the time by people that are not aware of the kind
of reflection that we are making in our research, lead us to consider the presence of
a certain resistance to suffering, as a statement of the desire for getting better, even
though in pain. It seems that people have an internal and innate notion that bearing
a momentary pain can lead them to fight the disease that affects them. Suffering is
an experience inherent to existence and an experience of the unbearable (Ricœur
1992: 29), but not always an experience of destruction. Suffering can be an oppor-
tunity for self-reconstruction and even in the passivity and inability that affects the
sick person, there can exist forms of resistance to suffering that bring improvements
and minimize the possible weakening of the person through repeated suffering or
pain. The work of a therapist or caregiver is to help in that path, making use of the
techniques that are available to help the vulnerable person. However, we want to
state that, according to Ricœur, although the act of “building suffering into a sacri-
fice that is considered worthy” (Ricœur 1992: 29) can be adopted by some people,
“it’s not a way we can teach” (Ricœur 1992: 29–30), nor promote, in the case of this
kind of therapies. We can just observe that this kind of reaction happens with most
of the people that search for this kind of technique.
To Ricœur, a “hermeneutic understanding of suffering” is implicit in care ser-
vices. Hence the importance of attention to the language of subjective suffering,
where the subject is an agent and a sufferer, whose actions can be conditioned, and
whose narrative identity can be reconfigured according to the improvements that he/
she achieves, also influencing his/her relationship with him/herself and with others,
at the personal, professional, and social levels.
Thus, this hermeneutics should be at the core of medical or therapeutic ethics.
In the resolution of acute pain, usually we find such pain originates from a tissue
injury, accompanied by some anxiety that disappears as the person gets better. When
this pain does not respond to the treatment, one might fall into a situation of chronic
pain where the initial anxiety caused by acute pain can lead to suffering, depression,
despair, inability to act, a decrease in the ability for intimacy, for small daily tasks,
and even to work. There are even studies that point to the fact that some people who
“benefit” from chronic pain (for instance, by being able to take leave from work or
not having to do household tasks) might become difficult to treat if they are parted
from their work for too long. Indeed, in some cases, the social and professional
isolation of the sick person should be avoided (Cantista 2001).
Suffering can lead, through its decrease or banishment, to readjustments in our
habits and lifestyle, so we can live healthier. There is always something positive that
you can learn. Redefining our limits by regaining total or partial health can recon-
figure our self-esteem. There is hope in suffering.
To quote Ricœur, “the first sense of suffering, namely, to endure, that is, to per-
severe in the desire to be and in the effort to exist in spite of… It is this ‘in spite of’
that outlines the last frontier between pain and suffering, even when they dwell in
the same body.” (Ricœur 1992: 33).
332 C. Rebelo
As therapists who are affected and challenged by the suffering of the “other” and
by their demand for meaning, we can only say that we reconfigure ourselves daily
in our own narrative through the pain or suffering of the other, making it somehow
our own. Sometimes it decreases or enhances our suffering. However, we remain
attentive to listening to the suffering of others, recognizing the value of the care to
be given to a person made vulnerable by suffering or pain. Even without being able
to answer Ricœur’s question: “why does what should not be exist?”, we try our best
to minimize pain and suffering.
Bibliography
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Brugère, Fabiane. 2011. L’ethique du care. Paris: PUF.
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Porto: Campo das Letras.
Leão, Paula. 2016. Hermenêutica e Psicoterapia: da narração ao narrador. https://digitalis-dsp.
uc.pt/handle/10316.2/38785. Accessed 10 Feb 2017.
Lefève, Céline. 2006. La philosophie du soin. La matière et l’esprit 4: 25–34. http://www.
sphere.univparisdiderot.fr/IMG/pdf/256CelineLefeveLaphilosophiedusoin.pdf. Accessed 29
Jan 2016.
Poreé, Jêrome. 2012. O mal. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra.
Ricœur, Paul. 1968. Philosophie de la Volonté II. In Finitude et Culpabilité: L’homme Faillible.
Paris: Aubier.
———. 1992. O sofrimento não é a dor. http://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/textos_Ricœur/o_sofri-
mento_nao_e_a_dor. Accessed 13 May 2018.
———. 1996. Les trois Niveaux du jugement médical. Esprit 227: 21–33. https://esprit.presse.
fr/article/ricoeur-paul/les-trois-niveaux-du-jugement-medical-10677. Accessed 30 June 2017.
Sautereau, Cyndie. 2015. Répondre à la vulnérabilité. Paul Ricœur et les éthiques du care en dia-
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interdisciplinar. Porto: Campo das Letras.
Chapter 21
The Place of the Experience of Illness
in the Understanding of Disease: Medical
Discourse and Subjectivity
Amanda Barros Pereira Palmeira and Rodrigo Barros Gewehr
Abstract Recent discussions about medical discourse seek to demonstrate the

apparent and progressive oblivion of the subject as well as the notion of subjectivity
in the development of modern medicine - in its foundations in clinical practice and
basic theoretical framework. As a result, they show that medicine has evolved in the
understanding of the disease, while still keeping the experience of suffering as a
blind spot. The response is to carry out countless attempts to restore subjectivity in
the therapeutic process and medical discourse, aiming at an integral and humanized
care in contrast to what we might call an exteriority discourse. Having as reference
the analytical psychology of Jung and based on observations made in the public
health service (HUPAA/AL), we analyze how the experience of suffering is present
in clinical practice and its consequences as expression of subjectivity to theoretical
and practical fields.
Keywords Science · Physician-patient relations · Psychology · Clinical medicine
A previous version of this work was published in Portuguese in Ciência & Saúde coletiva, n. 8, v.
23, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-81232018238.15842016.
A. B. P. Palmeira
Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Epistemology and Psychological Science (UFAL), Maceió, Brazil
e-mail: amandabpp@ufmg.br
R. B. Gewehr (*)
Department of Psychology, Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL), Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil
e-mail: rodrigo.gewehr@ip.ufal.br

Switzerland AG 2021
334 A. B. P. Palmeira and R. B. Gewehr
21.1 Introduction
As an object of study, clinical practice is a never-ceasing source of concern and

research that aims at a better comprehension of the illness and healing processes,
the improvement of procedures and subsequent assistance provided to the popula-
tion. The considerations presented here are set in the background of clinical prac-
tice, as part of a multi-professional residency program in a teaching hospital. In that
context, we follow the premise of a polyphonic field that also causes all kinds of
estrangement. Although clinical practice is broad and complex, as far as the hospital
environment is concerned, it is still guided by medical practice. If we add to this the
centrality of the hospital all through the training of health professionals, we may
observe some key-elements to how clinical practice is thought, its potentialities and
limits, especially when considered only from the point of view of the biomedical
model of health. The place ascribed to subjectivity in this environment will serve as
an element for the observation of the most structural aspects ingrained in the current
health model. Based on the standpoint of the insertion of Psychology in this context,
this essay will discuss clinical practice and the centrality of the biomedical model
such as seen through our experience. According to that and while working directly
with the demands of health professionals, we propose a discussion about the rela-
tionships established in the clinical practice, as challenges to the implementation of
integrality in health and potential obstacles to considering the individual as a whole.
However, this depends on the reassessment of the epistemological basis that
guides clinical practice. Besides the difficulties that could be related to structural
and contextual issues, the very perspective of illness and health processes interferes
with how we address patients and health service users.1 While the possible solutions
in this epistemological perspective cannot go without fighting for adequate work
conditions, they also depend on the transformation of attitude and the comprehen-
sion of the demands made by the patient. The contribution of clinical psychology
will serve as the basis for reflection, not disregarding healthcare as a complex sys-
tem that includes multiple approaches and the need for permanent reflection in sev-
eral axes, including public policies, working conditions and the epistemological
level, which is our focus of debate in this paper. The choice to emphasize the psy-
chological element in this complex framework aims at highlighting the place of
subjectivity in this dilemma and suggesting the inclusion of this dimension as pri-
mordial to proceed to the idea of integrality in healthcare.
Despite discussions about humanization, the place of subjectivity is that of an
exception, especially in the hospital. Along with that, the psychologist is invited to
act in a way to complement medical practice, what does not necessarily mean
1
In Brazil there is debate on whether to call service users ‘patients’ (pacientes), ‘clients’ (clientes)
or simply ‘users’ (usuários), as part of an on-going dialogue centred on empowering health service
users and stimulating their active participation on the management and structuration of healthcare
services. While all three of those terms are equally present in the clinical practice, the traditional
‘patient’ is perceived as too passive, ‘client’ seems to hold a business undertone. In that sense,
public healthcare professionals tend to prefer the term ‘users’.
21 The Place of the Experience of Illness in the Understanding of Disease: Medical… 335
including subjectivity in the healing process. Conversely, based on science, the doc-
tor takes on the role of being impartial and objective.
Among the possibilities of recognizing the effects of subjectivity, we can state
non-adherence to the treatment, the belief in the cure, and even the act of crying. In
that sense, the patient’s discourse understood as an attempt to contextualize sickness
might represent resistance to the suppression of subjectivity. In the clinical practice,
the professional demands regarding the “comprehension of the disease” are com-
monplace, according to which the patient is apparently incapable of understanding
all aspects included in his diagnosis. Nonetheless, clinical listening allows to envis-
age that the concern with a possible lack of understanding by the patient corre-
sponds to how doctors and other health professionals get paralysed when subjectivity
shows itself in the clinical setting. In the face of these more or less evident manifes-
tations of subjectivity, more or less in accordance with therapeutic propositions, it
is a matter of questioning: what is being expressed through these demands; how
they are revealed by patients and doctors; and what are the conditions under which
the demands for a more welcoming service are directed at healthcare
professionals.
21.2 B
etween the Comprehension of Pathology
and the Experience of Illness
Pathology is one of the notions to think clinical practice, pervading many therapeu-
tic goals and discourses. It remains fundamental to clinical activity, as Canguilhem
(1991) points out. In that sense, the comprehension of pathology supports the prac-
tice and is enveloped by a specific structure of knowledge. For Tesser and Luz
(2008: 200), “pathologies were not only given theoretical and methodological cen-
trality (…), they went through a process of ontologizing which imprinted in them an
independent existence inside the scope of biomedical ideals”. However,
Canguilhem’s position includes the demand to reincorporate this independent factor
represented by subjectivity, something that can stem from the subject and the devel-
opments included in the assessment of the experience of illness. In other words, it is
a matter of addressing both the place of the comprehension of pathology and the
experience of illness, necessarily interconnected and in the core of support of all
clinical therapeutics.
Although disease maintains the character of an almost independent entity that
affects someone and changes their existence (Canguilhem 1991), there is still a
structural effect to sickness, which concerns the need to understand that experience.
According to Nascimento et al. (2013), it is possible to identify different systems of
thought inside Medicine that contribute to reflect upon the medical rationality, com-
bining notions of anatomy and physiology; health and illness; diagnostic standards
and the direction of the therapeutic intervention. Along with these pragmatic
descriptions, there are underlying philosophical frames of reference. Among these
systems, we highlight the biomedical paradigm, which “emphasises conceptions

(…) centred on illness and the control of the biological and social body, compatible
with the perspective of control over nature” (Nascimento et al. 2013: 3598). From
the epistemological point of view, the equivalence between real, rational and
Medicine is still fully inserted in this paradigm.
The criticism aimed at the political and social aspects of Medicine and the ten-
dency to question their epistemological basis seem to point to some inadequacy in
this paradigm. In its emphasis on physiology, medical practice accentuates the split
between body and psyche; and the influential character of its normativity threatens
the appropriation of the disease by the subject. All in all, both of those traits oppose
to social demands and current health perspectives.
Clinical psychology showed that the patient had something to say about their
suffering, that technological action based on biology may not be enough to promote
healing, and that there is a psychic component to be recognised in the disease. We
then reach another layer of interrogation, which concerns the expression and the
experience of suffering. If Medical Science highlights neutrality, clinical practice
must deal with the subject by practical imposition. Even if only in cases in which
treatment does not seem appropriate, the sick person speaks, and the problems arise
when there is a dissonance between what the patients says and what the doctor says.
Medicine’s body of knowledge is once more put into question through the recogni-
tion of the distance between the experience of the suffering and the knowledge of
pathology.
Taking as an example the frequent questioning of medical practice and the
increasing search for complementary or alternative Medicine, we understand that it
is necessary to recognise the patient’s presence as a part of the illness and healing
processes instead of considering the patient’s speech as incorrect.
The latter can be taken as evidence of how the presence of subjective elements
creates discomfort and ruptures inside the dynamics of treatment. Different perspec-
tives related to the place of subjectivity in the illness and healing processes might
lead to distinct therapeutic strategies, which may cause incommunicability between
fields involved in health care. The inclusion of these factors could lead to a more
integrative systematization of health, reinforced by the consequences of such open-
ing and the estrangement it might cause among several therapeutic strategies. Based
on the analysis of these ruptures and disassociations, it is possible to consider how
to re-establish the way to interdisciplinary dialogue, which is a main condition to
have health services more attuned to people’s care demands.
21.3 The Focus on Pathology
Thinking about the fields of action in health, the development and the constant
updating of knowledge aim to increase therapeutic effectiveness. The biological
data is justified in its therapeutic validation. The central core of therapeutic activity
in Medicine concentrates on technological intervention:
The methodological tendency to decompose the object in elements, to compare those and
order them in a rationally modelled and hierarchically recomposed totality remains domi-
nant at the basis of most disciplines, especially the great branches of the sciences closest to
human life: Biology and Medicine, or rather a certain rationalist and mechanistic Medicine.
(Fonseca and Stauffer 2007: 62)
Those characteristics make it possible to think health and illness in natural terms,
based on the study of different biological systems. Complementarily, it relies on a
classificatory system based on the gathering of pathological characteristics. For
Fonseca and Stauffer (2007) there is a correlation between the use of the mechanis-
tic referential and the development of classificatory models. In other words:
Pathology retains over clinical practice the leadership on theory and the privilege of science
over art, thus achieving a double objectification: of the human body that becomes a ‘centre
of illnesses’, and of diseases that become ‘pathological entities’. (Fonseca and Stauffer
2007: 64).
According to Guerra (2010), adopting Canguilhem’s point of view, medical prac-

tice is the result of a knowledge that has both technological and anthropological
aspects. The centrality of pathology, however, meant a rupture with aspects now
relegated to metaphysics – as the very notion of cure – in account of the need for
technological development inside the medical knowledge. Moreover, the techno-
logical emphasis within a biological background of knowledge seems to bring about
the transition of the human factor to a secondary place, being initially re-appropriated
as an organic individuality.
However, despite criticism, the progress and precision achieved through the
focus on the understanding of pathology is undeniable. The body is considered a
biological reality and, in the medical practice scenario, more than in any other field,
the precision and management of technique make all the difference. Therefore, as
Canguilhem (1991: 104) points out:
It would not be a question of exempting doctors from the study of physiology and pharma-
cology. It is very important not to identify disease with either sin or the devil. But it does
not follow from the fact that evil is not a being, that it is a concept devoid of meaning; it
does not follow that the pathological state is essentially nothing other than the normal state.
Consequently, the development of the sciences that consolidate Medicine deter-

mined its pathological emphasis. At the same time, it also included the enhancement
of knowledge and therapeutic applicability. Faced with such training, the doctor
prioritizes the elements that underline the nosographic classification of the patient’s
symptoms. In its own way, this approach seeks to make sense of the pathology but
fails as it marginalizes, by epistemological requirement, what cannot be objectified.
The focus on pathology implies an assessment consistent with current medical
knowledge, which narrates illness based on what was observed and what is expected
to be observed in every stage of the treatment and the typical development of each
pathology. Opposed to Canguilhem’s viewpoint, however, this seems to carry some
kind of subtlety in the way doctors and other health professionals show reluctance
to consider that different perspectives, including that of the patient himself, are not
based on concepts devoid of meaning.
21.4 The Basis for Listening to the Experience of Illness
Primarily included in the treatment by means of clinical listening directed at collect-

ing information to assist in the progression of clinical work, the patient returns to
the medical discourse represented by the pathology and is thus forced into anonym-
ity (Zamagni 2014). In this framework, there is always a tendency to think clinical
listening as an ethical rather than a technical issue. On the other hand, as Dunker
and Kyrillos Neto (2004) and Nader (2016) pointed out about the new models of
mental health assistance, the social emphasis of public policies risks producing new
forms of normativity even while criticizing the established power relations and the
prescriptive character of medical knowledge, something that in itself demands
attention. These new models of assistance assume the position of being able to
establish the best conditions for the “user”, although it may be quite relative and not
exempt from being another imposition, so as the doctor’s speech. In that sense,
humanizing health care is not synonymous with the inclusion of the subjective expe-
rience of illness in the therapeutic process.
The need for evidence and scientificity requires that we renounce our own
insights and intuitions as something inappropriate (Nettleton 1995). Therefore, the
presence of the patient’s subjectivity might cause distress and lead to the interroga-
tion of the knowledge that affects him, whether that knowledge be Psychology, the
social sciences that provide the basis for the formulation of public policies, or medi-
cal knowledge. How then can we listen to the patient taking their experience of ill-
ness as an integrative and technical component of the therapeutic process?
Beyond Psychology, it is possible to think that the act of speaking would be
enough to make the patient feel better and adhere to the prescribed treatment.
Following the same assumptions, doctors should learn to listen to their patients, as
a way to narrow the distance that separates them, faced with one’s ignorance and the
other’s hold on knowledge. Even though there are inherent possibilities in each one
of those positions, we can argue that the first does not constitute a true clinical lis-
tening and the second still needs to recognise the psychic factor present in the bond
between the patient and the doctor or other health professionals (Guerra 2010).
According to this logic, subjectivity is acknowledged as a right and listening is
recognised as a moral and ethical question for professional reflection. In current
SUS2 practice, this framework may be translated as the boost on education in health
and the preoccupation regarding the comprehension and level of information pos-
sessed by the patient. Even then those parameters are incapable of overcoming the
concession status they assume, never being able to justify themselves within the
scope of technical and scientific knowledge.
Therefore, there are different possibilities of insertion of clinical listening to the
patient’s experience. The subsequent aspects from the latter’s “clinical
2
The acronym SUS refers to Sistema Único de Saúde (Unified Health System), the public health
system in Brazil. It was created in 1989 and offers coverage free of charge to the entire brazilian
population. For further information see: https://pensesus.fiocruz.br/sus
comprehension”, just as much as its integration as a clinical theoretical referential,

are not considered scientific knowledge. In that sense, the initiatives mentioned
above cannot overcome the practice and reach medical knowledge in the epistemo-
logical dimension of its scientific knowledge.
Demands for empathy, humanization and subjectivation presuppose a fragile
position. Within this reasoning, Medicine – with the predominance of biomedical
objectivity – sees the demand for the doctor’s sensibilization as additional, and only
based on moral patterns, not on scientific prerogatives.
If we aim to accurately capture the epistemic structure of medicine, including types of
knowledge commonly relegated to the undifferentiated heap of the “art” of medicine, then
this aim motivates a reassessment and challenge of the dualist epistemology of medicine.
(Cunningham 2015: 02)
The establishment of the dualism between clinical practice and scientific knowl-
edge is based on the ideal of scientific objectivity. The attempt to include subjectiv-
ity as something more than a particular attribute of the clinical practice imposes a
critique of the epistemological structure of medicine, as we currently see it. For that
reason, the foundation of the clinical listening of the patient must meet both aspects.
The recognition of the need for ethical, moral and social adjustments is unsatisfac-
tory from an epistemological point of view, which directly impacts the resulting
therapeutics. By remaining on this dichotomy, the practice replicates and perpetu-
ates the opposition between objectivity and subjectivity, being followed by the
exclusion of the latter if they are understood as absolute counterpoints. This radical
opposition ends up feeding the naïve vision of a necessary and sufficient profes-
sional objectivity.
In the first place, we could be inclined to agree with traditional medical logic and
question the importance of discussing subjectivity, especially regarding the compre-
hension of the disease, when faced with cases such as injuries or organic patholo-
gies. If someone breaks their arm, it is for the doctor to simply make it regain
functionality. Even if there was a psychological perspective that could have led to
that event, it does not change the concrete fact that the broken arm needs to be fixed.
Consequently, we do not put into question the attribution of a psychogenesis but
the recognition that even a broken arm activates concurrent processes in the psychic
system. That implies a subjectivity that always takes part in the processes of illness
and healing, whether it may be recognised or not, included or left out of the thera-
peutic process.
It seems important to emphasize that the criticism represented by the insertion of
patient and doctor’s subjectivities in the treatment does not reach the epistemologi-
cal foundation of this approach to health care, since the biomedical discourse does
not acknowledge the patient’s discourse nor the doctor’s own subjectivity. The rec-
ognition of the subject’s status and the legitimacy of their speech seem to present
themselves as distinct achievements in this case.
21.5 Jung and the Clinical Practice
One of the complaints against Medicine concerns its impersonality, based on which
it is presumed to be sufficiently objective to evaluate the needs for therapeutic inter-
vention. The suppression of subjectivity is the consequence of a cultural tendency to
extensive generalisations, which is reinforced by the implementation and the spread
of scientific knowledge. Following another references, Jung (1976: 102) exempli-
fies one of the attributes of the healing process in Ancient Egypt by saying that “(…)
in ancient medicine it was well known that the raising of the personal disease to a
higher and more impersonal level had a curative effect”. Through mythological nar-
rative, the patient was led to a healing process. Although this degree of identification
has been abandoned, generalization persists in the construction of biological knowl-
edge, and “the ability to apply a general point of view is of great therapeutic impor-
tance” (Jung 1976: 102). Though retaining its role in the healing process, the
displacement of the generalization, now introduced as an objective premise and no
longer as a unifying potential regarding the unconscious, can have the opposite
effect in terms of therapeutic worth. In other words, while generalization at a sym-
bolic level is based on its objective effects on the patient’s experience of their ill-
ness, generalizations in terms of scientific abstraction do not seem to have the same
repercussion when it comes to the experience of illness, even if they prove more
effective in the matter of accuracy and procedures.
In the dichotomy created between medical science and medical practice, the
clinical practice was dominated by technique – as the employment of a specific
knowledge that gives especial emphasis to the diagnosis and the knowledge about
illnesses. Nevertheless, the increasing search for complementary and alternative
approaches resumes the importance of establishing a relationship between patient
and doctor in its symbolic dimension too.
We cannot understand a disease as an ens per se anymore, as something detached which not
so long ago it was believed to be. Modern medicine—internal medicine, for instance—con-
ceives disease as a system composed of a harmful factor and a healing factor. (Jung
1976: 169)
However, “a human being who is first of all an invalid is all body; therein lies his
inhumanity and his debasement” (Mann 1952: 140). At first, those words could be
taken as a reason to eliminate subjectivity. Nonetheless, in a broader context, they
could also reaffirm the experience of illness and the patient’s discourse. If, while ill,
the person is nothing but a sick body, this means their full immersion in the reality
of the disease. It is their own experience, which orientates their knowledge about the
pathology more than any attempt of medicalization through information or scien-
tific knowledge. In addition, “claims of medicalization underestimate people’s abil-
ity to resist medical ideas and still rely on their knowledge and experiences”
(Nettleton 1995: 31). Jackie Pigeaud (2010) also adds an important aspect. The
author says that no matter whether the illness is real or an illusion, there is a reality
in the suffering “even if it is an imaginary reality. Illusion causes suffering just as
much as reality” (Pigeaud 2010: 19). Medical knowledge quietens before this
intersection between what is real and the imaginary or just assigns an ethical worth
to the dimension of subjectivity, something that disregards the epistemological
aspect of the structure of the illness. If there is indeed an imperative to consider the
human being thoroughly, this dimension cannot be expelled from therapeutic rea-
soning, under the forfeit of reducing the scope of the therapeutic potential.
Jung (1985) distinguishes between Psychotherapy and Medicine and claims that
the personality of the psychotherapist is the main element to get to the healing pro-
cess in Psychotherapy. While the same logic could not be applied to the medical
practice in general, for it would be a risky undertaking, the conflict between clinical
practice and scientific knowledge inside Medicine may be taken as evidence to
reflect on the implication of the maxim Ars requirit totum hominem [art requires the
whole man]. Jung insists on the totality of the therapist in contrast to the dogmatism
ascribed to the automatic application of the theory, through the perspective that
“theories are to be avoided, except as mere auxiliaries. As soon as a dogma is made
of them, it is evident that an inner doubt is being stifled” (Jung 1985: 88). In terms
of theoretical frame of reference, these assertions cannot sustain themselves against
the biomedical knowledge of Medicine, they are in opposition to its main principles.
From the psychological point of view, however, this mechanism repeats itself in
every medical intervention.
According to tradition, the main object of Medicine is the body more than the
psyche – the latter being considered just another biological element - in which the
human being appears as a physiological and anatomical phenomenon. Thus, the
intermediate circumstances between the making of scientific knowledge and its
usage in the clinical practice are rarely spoken of. Ideally it should be enough for the
doctor to have at his disposal the most advanced technology and the most up-to-date
knowledge. Contrary to Jung’s position that considers the therapist’s personality as
a fundamental component of the healing process, Medicine regards efficacy based
on the integral appropriation of what has already been produced.
Nevertheless Guerra (2010) points out the desire to heal and to know as equally
striking in the clinical practice, and essential to the professional exercise. Considering
the ideas mentioned above, however, not recognising those aspects put them in a
position of remaining neglected, albeit inadvertently present, in the relationship
formed with the patient. According to Jung (1985) and the dynamics of the psyche
that he proposes, that implies the need to recognise the psychic processes that spon-
taneously manifest themselves over the treatment. In other words, the relationship
established between doctor and patient, as a professional and human relationship,
might illustrate and reproduce the psychic tendency to one-sidedness in which some
contents remain unconscious. The systematic avoidance of the knowledge intrinsic
to the experience of illness is something that may eliminate subtle aspects of patho-
logical conditions such as recurring sickness, adherence to treatment, greater or
lesser response to therapeutics, just as much as elements related to a greater or lesser
disposition towards this or that patient, towards this or that therapeutic technique,
their own anxieties related to the process of illness, the varieties of treatment, and
death. Consequently, Medicine admits and even requires the inclusion of subjectiv-
ity (Guerra 2010).
If the medical discourse as a systematization of thought reproduces a tendency to

one-sidedness, the consequences can be observed in its practical applicability. “The
collaboration of the unconscious is intelligent and purposive and even when it acts
in opposition to consciousness its expression is still compensatory in an intelligent
way, as if it were trying to restore the lost balance” (Jung 1969: 282). To consider
the human being in its wholeness means to understand that those compensatory
aspects of the psychic apparatus are determinant factors of the actions of every per-
son and this implies that the logic of someone’s life also expresses itself in the
experience of illness. Understanding this aspect undoubtedly amplifies and makes it
more difficult to comprehend the processes of illness and healing, but also provides
the means to understand sickness as a dimension of both biological and subjective
life. Based on that, the debate about subjectivity is placed on the very process of
awareness and integral perspective of the process of healing; a demand for the revi-
sion of not only medical knowledge’s ethical dimension but its epistemological stra-
tum as well.
It is just as possible to suppose that the great acceptance of the medical knowl-
edge can be assigned to its symbolic meaning, more than to its content (Young
1980). Usually related to the psychotherapeutic process, transference is present in
all types of relationships. It pinpoints the established dynamics between subject and
object, something that can be changed through the analytical work. In the case of
medical practice, confronting the aspects left in the background includes reflecting
about the listening, the relationship between doctor and patient and the presence of
subjectivity on sickness and healing. Otherwise, restricting itself to relationships
based on projection, the result would be the isolation of the subject – regardless of
whether this subject is recognized in the doctor or in the patient. Therefore, human-
izing relationships are only possible by the recognition of unconscious complexes
and projections, what depicts subjectivity as already inherent in the doctor-patient
relationship, and in the way each person organizes their understanding about life
and death. The impact of this subjective dynamic over the illness process and the
healing conditions still needs further research.
The patient, by bringing an activated unconscious content to bear upon the doctor, constel-
lates the corresponding unconscious material in him, owing to the inductive effect which
always emanates from projections in greater or lesser degree. Doctor and patient thus find
themselves in a relationship founded on mutual unconsciousness. (Jung 1954: 176)
But this argument may be considered another failed attempt to implement an

integrative healing perspective. Thus it would be necessary to reflect upon whether
this is enough to overcome the ontological materialism that perpetuates the perspec-
tive of a fractionated subject, and to demonstrate the insufficiency of a metaphysics
that tends to physicalism. With their objective knowledge, the doctor feels able to
diagnose and prescribe; even the possibility of recognizing subjectivity follows the
same logic. Regarding the psychologist that works in a hospital, the demand for
treatment usually comes as a demand from other professionals when having diffi-
culties to deal with their relationships with the patients, so that subjectivity is
depicted as a dissonance in the context of this dynamics and not as part of the
therapeutic process. If, on the one hand, this might indicate the rigidity of a point of
view that faces difficulties to assert its therapeutic program; on the other hand, it
also shows an affect, the evidence that in terms of relationships, subjectivity oper-
ates from both perspectives – the doctor’s and the patient’s.
In that sense, the basis of the doctor-patient relationship is not entirely under-
stood in all it unfolds. Besides, there is an apparent opposition between the required
interpersonal ability and the instrumental and technological development that would
be the primary element to the therapeutic process. Thus, healing would be con-
nected with an imaginary that requires the suppression of the human factor, even
when the final objective is to value it instead. On the contrary, in the same way
Medicine is fundamentally based on the naturalization of the medical knowledge,
the patient turns to science to substantiate his trust on the doctor. The less autonomy
the healing process relegates to the patient, the more of a bond with the doctor and
the knowledge he reproduces will be necessary, so that the patient relies less on his
own conclusions about the illness.
Clinical care is teleological (…), normative (…) and moral (…). But physicalism knows
neither purpose nor value. Materialism presupposes logic and mathematics; it does not
explain them. Eliminative materialism (…) reduces consciousness to epiphenomena. (…)
Medicine folds descriptive and normative aspects of a physicalist epistemology into one,
overarching meta-epistemology that includes all aspects of judgement, logic, knowledge
and inference involved in clinical practice without realizing its practical insufficiency for
bedside medical care. (Whatley 2014: 962–963)
Clinical practice becomes reductionist and clinical care is established in the con-
flict between human aspects and the need for objectivity.
21.6 Final Considerations
We live in a historical moment that demands humanization in health care reception

and treatment, and that insists on the return to the bond present in the relationship
with the patient. If Human Sciences criticise mechanistic reductionism and all the
standardization that takes after that viewpoint, the latter resists criticism and still
largely operates on the epistemological foundation of therapeutic practices. This
peculiarity of a theoretical and institutional model that tends to standardization
makes health care strategies more complex, and it is the reason why the task to
overcome the many reductionisms around the therapeutic field requires from all
people and discourses involved the effort to critically analyse the situation. “When
it comes to discussing the knowledge about health, illness and the care that under-
lines the importance of a comprehensive reading, we are invited to reflect upon the
epistemological order” (Desgroseilliers and Vonarx 2014: 18), which does not mean
neglecting the praxis.
In those terms, the inclusion of subjectivity as a disturbing constituent in the
therapeutic relationship is of fundamental importance; and all the more important if
we consider that it demonstrates the relativism of knowledge crystalized in the
practice, thus contributing as an analytical element of the main disagreements

between theory and practice, between good strategies of health service reception
and the way in which this reception is perceived. Any attempt to expel subjectivity
from the illness and healing processes caused by omission or technical imposition
turns out to be unsuccessful.
All through this paper we take the physician just as an example, considering that
other health professionals work in the clinical practice and can just as well repro-
duce the biomedical model. Hence, we could question the place of subjectivity in
the nursing practice, the psychological or physiotherapeutic practice, etc. But this
model has been strongly criticised primarily in relation to Medicine and the same
pattern can be observed in SUS’s guidelines, which advocates for a new and collec-
tive standpoint. Although the main criticism is held towards Medicine, as an impor-
tant representative of the biomedical model, it needs to be extended to the whole of
health professionals since they are equally susceptible to engage in exteriority dis-
courses and to have similar reactions to subjectivity, otherwise it may result in
changes at the rhetorical level without practical repercussion. To move forward on
the reflection and effectiveness of interdisciplinarity, an exercise of permanent revi-
sion of the theories and practices of all fields that make a health care working group
is necessary. This constant interrogation could contribute to avoid imperatives,
whatever they may be, that surreptitiously introduce themselves into a health con-
ception that emphasizes autonomy and social responsibility.
If Medicine reaches high levels of efficacy, supported by brand new technologi-
cal apparatuses and the whole background of scientific knowledge, does it not fulfil
its role even without focusing on the relational aspects of healing? We understand
that the emergence of subjective aspects in daily practice creates fissures big enough
so that the systematic reflection about the points brought up on this paper is funda-
mental for the revaluation of therapeutics. It is a requirement created out of the
expansion of health services, which amplify the scope of what is considered health
care and imprint the need to rethink theory and practice.
This fissure appears in the interstices of practice because the theoretical appara-
tus requires generalizations that cannot apprehend the multiplicity implied on thera-
peutic practice, unless as a type of knowledge that is less valuable from a technical
point of view. In other words, the inclusion of subjectivity mainly refers to the ethi-
cal dimension, which once more expresses a normative aspect by considering sub-
jectivity through an exterior standpoint. However, subjectivity usually reveals the
absence of continuity between the fact, practical experience and the subsequent
attempts to establish their correlation with technical knowledge. Instead of supply-
ing the element that would complement clinical practice with a perspective of the
patient as a totality, subjectivity rather exposes the misalignment established
between two types of knowledge.
Insofar as the technical knowledge about illness is mediated by the experience of
suffering, the non-inclusion of this underlying process in the theoretical body of
technical thought is the equivalent to allowing a significant part of the phenomenon
to escape, thereby limiting the access we may have to it. Subjectivity therefore
shows itself as something that persists, as something constrained by methodological
or epistemological impositions, and thus excluded or neglected in the medical dis-

course (and other types of knowledge inside the field of health care). However, it
remains concealed in the clinical practice, no matter its context. For that reason,
technical and scientific progress cannot grasp the breadth of subjective experience.
To approach this field of action and reflection through notions such as expanded
clinical practice, permanent education, humanization and health service reception
can give us a chance to break away from reductionist practices, so abundant in the
historical and epistemological paths criticised so far. Thus, to start from an episte-
mological point of view is not gratuitous, and it takes practical aspects into account.
That goes along the line of proposing the restructuration of clinical practice, which
includes the fundamental importance of professional training and the need for inter-
disciplinary working groups based on horizontal relationships. To question the
value of each of these initiatives would fall outside the scope of this paper, but we
can point out that the way in which we think health care still needs to be further
deepened in order to include a background review of its techniques; something that
could be greatly favored by the addition of the structural implications implied by the
inclusion of subjectivity.
More than an inclusive logic that incorporates aspects relegated to the back-
ground, we propose to give priority to strategies that bring together, rather than
break apart, exchange and communication channels - both epistemologically and in
the most concrete daily therapeutics; including mainly the basic attitudes that objec-
tify professional rationalities. To contextualize the initial approach that seeks to
question and revisit the biomedical model and the clinical practice, and then to
move to another perspective that perceives the relationships and dynamics estab-
lished in a healing process: a new key of comprehension that does not disregard the
understanding of disease, but also includes the experience of suffering as an intrin-
sic aspect of the clinical knowledge. This seems to be a fundamental route to accom-
plish the goal of integrality in health care.
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Chapter 22
Take Care of Your Mind: A Short
Discussion Between Clinical Hypnosis
and Philosophy of Mind
Paulo Alexandre e Castro
“The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being

can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind”.
William James
Abstract At the entrance of the Temple of Delphi, the inscription possibly best
known in the history of ideas warned about the importance of self-knowledge. In
turn, this inscription is philosophically unfolded by the argument that one can only
know oneself who cares, since caring is already in itself, to know oneself.
Accordingly, many of the ancient medical practices recommended healing through
the word (of which there are numerous examples, like for instance, the Egyptians
or the Greeks). However, only with the advent of clinical hypnosis (even that it
started with some wrong ideas such as magnetism or mesmerism) has this practice
recovered, which in theoretical terms seems to run counter to the main lines of the
philosophy of mind, whether from the physicalist or the dualistic point of view. In
this essay, we will try to show to what extent the concepts of caring and mind can
be compatible according to these areas.
Keywords Mind · Neurophilosophy · Clinical hypnosis · Empathy
For the purpose of this paper, the text has been divided into the following sections:
1 . Some remarks on the history of hypnosis;
2. A (possible) definition of mind concerning neuroscience and clinical hypnosis;
3. The concept of unconscious mind in clinical hypnosis and his effects on the
human body;
4. How to take care of your mind and solving a hard problem: entangled minds.
P. A. e. Castro (*)
Institute for Philosophical Studies (IEF), Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: paecastro@gmail.com

Switzerland AG 2021
348 P. A. e. Castro
When I first became interested in clinical hypnosis – a few years ago – I was far
from believing in the much-used and well-known premise of hypno-therapists: what
the mind wants, the body (will) do. This sentence sounded strange, and it came to
call into question much of what philosophy had shaped in me, especially if consid-
ered the field of philosophy of mind. This premise becomes a challenge for me but
it was destroyed as soon as I took my first course in the field. It was extraordinary to
realize the power that mind had over the body. So, I started searching for more
information and ask myself how to connect or establishing the legacy of philosophy
with the vision provided by clinical hypnosis, namely, concerning the understand-
ing of mind and its problems. A major challenge since it seems, at a first glance, that
there will be different uses with similar concepts. Here is what I have to say about it.
22.1 Some Remarks on the History of Hypnosis
There is a story for hypnosis that may be as old as medicine itself. In fact, this means
that hypnosis as a practice repeated in early civilizations may have occurred along-
side to what has been established as medical practice. The different forms of sha-
manism, more than mere magical or religious rites, are today considered a set of
ethno-medical practices, centred on the creation of the trance (often involving con-
tact and/or transmutation between bodies and spirits or souls) for the production of
a healing effect. Between the sacred and the profane, between disenchantment and
ecstasy, the shaman, the magician, the healer, the king base their practices on creat-
ing a vision that is not infrequently accompanied by a certain rhythm of breathing
or a touch that will perform the miracle of healing or invoking an effect,1 as many
essayists have reported.2 Reports of healing by word are also known in different and
ancient civilizations such as Egyptian, Greek and Roman. However, and in order not
to lose the intention of this essay, which could mean failing to produce an inevitably
and incomplete history of hypnosis, let us quote Michael Streeter, who says that the
fascinating story
1
Some examples of kings who by the “touch” healed and that Streeter refers: «The Greek king
Pyrrhus, of Epirus (318–272 b. C. (...) was attributed to the touch of the big toe of his foot the abil-
ity to cure diseases. At least two Roman emperors, Vespasian (9–79 a. C.) and Hadrian (76–138 a.
C.) were also known to possess similar powers. (...) Closer to our times, the ability to heal by touch
was also attributed to the English King Edward, the Confessor (1003–1066), and Philip I of France,
almost contemporaneous. These examples point to what we would now call the power of sugges-
tion». (Streeter 2004: 11).
2
For this purpose, please see: Bachelard, Gaston (1990. A Psicanálise do Fogo. São Paulo: Martins
Fontes; Eliade, Mircea (1964). Shamanism and the Archaic Techiniques of Ecstasy. London:
Routledge; Koubetch, V. (2004). Da Criação à Parusia. São Paulo: Paulinas; Lévi-Strauss, Claude
(1948). La Vie familiale et sociale des Indiens Nambikwara. Paris: Société des américanistes; Lévi-
Strauss, Claude (1955). Tristes Tropiques. Paris: Plon; Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1962). La Pensée
sauvage. Paris: Plon; Vidal, Fernando (2005). Le sujet cerebral: une esquiss historique et concep-
tuelle, Psychiatrie, sciences humaines, neurosciences 3 (11): 37–48; Vieira, Raymondo Mano
(2012), Raízes Históricas da Medicina Ocidental. São Paulo: Unifesp.
22 Take Care of Your Mind: A Short Discussion Between Clinical Hypnosis… 349
of hypnosis goes back to antiquity. The Egyptians have apparently used a form of healing
in which the priests spoke and laid hands on patients while they "slept" - or at least had their
eyes closed. This intriguing technique was used for at least 3000 years. In ancient Chinese
and Indian civilizations there is also thought to have existed a form of treatment in which
words, and only words, were used to help heal the patient. (Streeter 2004: 10)
It should be noted that this “touch” is closely linked to the development of intersub-
jective beliefs (subjects believe in their minds that with a touch of the king or the
magician they are cured) and that today we would go to the conclusive assumption
of being dealing with the power of suggestion in influencing the organism.3
Similarly, the “temples of sleep” and other practices of Hellenic civilization should
not be considered per se as pure examples of hypnosis. Of course, there is in this
conceptual framework the parallelism between sleep and sleeping as a healthy
practice,4 which came to be corroborated centuries later with the development of the
psyche sciences. Considering that the Greek civilization had in its mythology the
Hypnos daemon (in Greek Ὕπνος, whose literal translation is “sleep”) that personi-
fied sleep and somnolence (not being implied in this somnolence any kind of weak-
ness or fatigue), and that it was above all a God who interfered in the minds of
humans, such a conception would become relevant in the birth of hypnosis. In fact,
this is how James Braid coined the term “hypnotism” (around 1840) in a clear allu-
sion to the Greek God,5 trying to describe a (certain) state of trance that would be
characterized as artificial, covert sleep.
The record of the term hypnosis (although it came to recognize that it was not the
best choice and having suggested the name “monoideism”) arises, on the one hand,
as a reaction to its origins in magnetism, and on the other hand, as a clear limitation
(demarcation) to the studies of Anton Mesmer.6 However, it should be noted that,
although it is still linked to mesmerism - but already revealing a path that would
3
Cf. Valerie Austin, Self-Hypnosis (2015), about the notion that hypnotic communication is made
through suggestion, in its various forms and aspects.
4
«The Greeks, on their side, had what are sometimes called sleeping temples, where the patients,
desperate for a cure, lay down and slept. It was believed that the cure for the patient’s illness would
appear to him in a dream as he slept. Of these temples, the most popular was the one dedicated to
the Greek god of healing, Asclepius, who was probably a physician who lived around 1220 BC. The
fame of his healing powers led him to be worshiped as a god, first by the Greeks and then by the
Romans (…). These temples existed throughout the Greek world and were seen as a common and
perfectly normal way of seeking treatment. It was believed that it was the gods who penetrated the
idea of healing deep into the patient’s mind». (Streeter 2004: 10–11).
5
«In 1841, Dr. James Braid, a famous English surgeon, scholar of the hypnotic phenomenon,
ignored the term “animal magnetism” and, based on the dream principle, introduced the word
hypnotism, derived from the Greek word Hypnos, meaning sleep». (Fontes 2013: 59).
6
«A few years later, in 1847, Braid revised his thinking to give preeminence to psychological fac-
tors and somewhat minimized the physiological; thus, he advanced to the third stage. At that point
he regretted his general use of the term neuro-hypnotism, because the nervous sleep had become
for him only a special case of the more fundamental principle of exclusively concentrated attention
(monoideism, that is, single-idea-ism). But the very change from one misnomer to another, from
mesmerism to hypnotism, helped to alter mesmerism’s public and professional image». (Fromm
and Shor 2009: 25).
350 P. A. e. Castro
make a school - is with the Abbot José de Faria that the first steps in hypnosis are
taken, namely through the relevance that he attributed to the state of trance provided
by suggestion and by the hypnotic induction method of hand fixation. In 1860
Braid’s work was disclosed at a scientific meeting in Paris, and a provincial doctor
named Ambroise-Auguste Liébeault successfully applied his techniques (despite
the editorial failure of his book) and developed them to the point of merely evoking
the trance, without the fixation of an object, thus contributing to the modern
approach to hypnosis.
A professor at the University of Nancy named Hippolyte Bernheim impressed by
his work (after having treated a patient with sciatica who had sent him) invites him
to work with him, creating what would become known as the “Nancy Hypnosis
School”. A number of reactions to the hypnosis assumptions were felt, but they have
not rejected their results. Recall, for example, some of the experiences made by
Charcot and Freud,7 although directed to the origin of the hysterical symptoms,
making for this a comparative use of hypnosis in determining the degree of suggest-
ibility of the subjects.8 From this point hypnosis became world famous through
Milton Erickson and his disciples such Jeffrey Zeig or Michael Yapko, that lead to
modern psychotherapy approach.
22.2 A
(Possible) Definition of Mind Concerning
Neuroscience and Clinical Hypnosis
Many examples can be provided to attest that our way of being in the world is not
always captured through the eyes of consciousness. In fact, if conscience were to
accompany all acts of our daily life, life itself would be unsustainable. Whether it is
7
As it is known, Freud would abandon hypnosis although, according to Shor, he has never lost
interest in it. Shor emphasizes that this abandonment was due to a methodological need and to the
historical-social circumstances that the science of the psyche was assuming: «Freud’s development
of psychoanalysis began somewhat paradoxically with his rejection of hypnotism as his scientific
and therapeutic method – but he never lost interest in developing a theoretical understanding of
hypnosis. Freud turned instead to free association and the analysis of dreams as his “royal road” to
the unconscious, but hypnotism is properly recognized as the treasure map that send him forth on
his journey. (…) Freud’s abandonment of hypnosis as a therapeutic method was a wise decision if
not a historic necessity, since the authority and obedience brand of hypnotism that dominated his
era was too unwieldly, artifact-laden, and encrusted with transference and countertransference
problems to allow the slow, painstaking, detached exploration of the hidden inner world which he
needed». (Fromm and Shor 2009: 32).
8
«Referring to the already recalled distinction between verbal or direct suggestion and nonverbal
or indirect suggestion, Freud refers to the similarity between psychic processes that take place in
non-verbal suggestion and those that generate hysterical symptoms. “It is not so much a suggestion
as an incitement to self-suggestion, which, as you well understand, contains an objective factor,
independent of the will of the doctor … By virtue of this self-suggestion spontaneous hysterical
paralyzes arise, and the tendency to the self-suggestion characterizes hysteria much more than
suggestibility before the doctor (...)». (Andersson 2000: 95).
driving a car or doing any other daily activity, there is something beyond “mere”
consciousness that governs our life and which is called (the unconscious) mind.
From your waking to bedtime, it is your mind that is in charge. Rectifying: even
sleeping is your mind that is commanding. Everything that goes on in the 86,400 sec-
onds of a day is practically managed without the clear presence of your conscious-
ness (from the bloodstream to the respiratory, from your deepest thoughts to dreams
and memories). If we know this, and certainly we can agree about this way of pos-
ing these issues concerning consciousness and mind, how come everything is so
difficult to define in philosophy of mind? And to our question, to relate similar
concepts with hypnosis?
In a very general way, there are two main distinct positions in relation to the
nature of the mind: the dualists who support the thesis of the separability of body
and mind, and the physicalists (also known as monists or reductionists) who argue
for the “fvy” between mind and body. If the first ones, claim that mind is not reduc-
ible to brain activity and that therefore, mind is much more than the simple correlate
of mental states to brain states (a mental event Y would correlate a neuronal event X
in the brain), that is, subjective (or phenomenal) experience is their major argument,
the second ones rely precisely on these neuronal correlates to assert that the mind is
the result of all brain activity. But yet, concerning the first ones, there are also the
epiphenomenalists who defend the supervenience of the mind over the body.
Epiphenomenalists hold that mental events arise as an epiphenomenon of the mind
(this being a product of the brain), which would mean that the mind would have no
influence on the body although mental states were caused by physical states.9 It is
easy to see that this position would make any form of clinical hypnosis unfeasible;
however, some epiphenomenalists cannot explain what it is for a subject to feel a
pain (to have the subjective experience of pain). It is from this horizon of under-
standing, that we may call it as from the interiority of one’s own subjective experi-
ence, that some non-reductionists make sense, for there is nothing to explain how it
is to feel pain, or, in extremis, what it is like to be a subject who feels pain. Notice
that mere description (verbal or written) does not attest to the truth of any pain. And
in this content also behaviourism does not appear as a possible solution: one cannot
infer by the behaviour of a subject his mental state (be it pain, joy or any other)
because any subject can claim to feel pain without having it, or can pretend to have
a pain (to gain, for instance, secondary gains), or still have pain and not to manifest
in any form.
So, according to what we just said, there is an issue that surely was already per-
ceived: how to frame the notion of mind used in clinical hypnosis with these philo-
sophical concepts and interpretations of mind? Maybe we should try a different
approach.
9
The term epiphenomenalism appears in William James’s The Principles of Psychology (it occurs
once in the chapter entitled “The Automaton-Theory”), but some writers found the underlying
roots of the word in Thomas Henry Huxley, published in 1874 with the suggestive title “On the
hypothesis that animals are automata, and its history”. However, we think that a first formulation
is found in the Essai de Psychologie of the Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet, dating from 1755.
352 P. A. e. Castro
The human mind can be described as a set of processes that occur in a conscious
and unconscious way and that these processes are develop constantly in the inter-
connection between the neuronal activity, the environment and the socio-cultural
processes in which the individuals are subject. This definition provides a wide range
of possibilities to establish a solution for our problem, as we hope to prove. A brief
(and anticipatory) note must be placed: just as an object can have different realities
and be given in different ways - Kant’s well-known example of having coins in his
hand or imagining the coins in his hand - mind can also be constituted with different
realities. That is, subjective reality is certainly not equal to the physiological reality
of the human body as psychiatrist Daniel J. Siegel rightly points out,10 and maybe
his definition of mind can help:
By “mind” I mean everything related to the subjective experience of being alive, from the
feelings to the thoughts, from the intellectual ideas to the inner sensory immersions before
words and under them, to the connections we feel with other people and with our planet.
And the word "mind" also refers to our awareness, to our experience of being aware of the
felt sense of life, to the experience of knowing within consciousness. The mind is the
essence of our fundamental nature, the deepest sense of being alive here, right now, at this
moment. (Siegel 2017: 13)
Taking this possible definition of mind, we can see the possible links forming
between phenomenology and clinical hypnosis and therefore, to start understanding
such a concept as unconscious mind. Adding to this, one can remember what is
taught by phenomenology, and for our purpose, one of their major lessons is that
man is awareness of himself and of (his) world. However, if it is true that man can
only be in the world as being-with-others, that is, being situated in the world and
that his conscience intentionally aims to the objects of the world, it is nevertheless
true that his experience is also done in a manner, let us say, less conscious in daily
life (recall for instance what Sartre said about it in his major work). In fact, the ques-
tion about mind involves and evokes the metaphysical ground of human nature. If
we consider the ontological sphere in which beings fall, we can see that there is a
pre-objective dimension that can provide a way (and meaning) to see the existence
of a unconscious mind (take for instance the philosopher Merleau-Ponty that have
sought to explore these resonances in what is the contemporary conception of
unconscious mind used by some psychotherapists).11 But let us put the question in
another way: if phenomenologically the “object” of consciousness is in principle
10
«A partir de nuestras discusiones de que la mente es más que simple actividad cerebral y de que
es plenamente corpórea, hemos adquirido una perspectiva más amplia de lo que la mente supone.
Al considerar que la realidad subjetiva no es idéntica a la fisiológica, ni siquiera a la activación
neural en la cabeza, hemos llegado a darnos cuenta de que la vida mental no es una actividad encer-
rada en el cráneo. También estamos en un punto de nuestro viaje que nos permite considerar que la
mente puede ser más que la mera experiencia subjetiva y la conciencia de esa sensación de vida
vivida». (Siegel 2017: 220–221).
11
If the philosopher of the Phenomenology of Perception views the Freudian apparatus of the
unconscious as itself unconscious, criticizing the pretensions of unveiling a psychic apparatus that
must live by the perceptive consciousness, already in the later work The Visible and the Invisible,
the dialogue with Psychoanalysis and with Freudism will be highlighted by the analysis of the pre-
objective order of language.
what is outside it (i.e., is transcendent),12 the “object” of the mind will be the totality
of the mental states experienced by the subject in the world (which is worldly); the
phenomenal subject is always the author of the world that he produces, that is to say
that, there is only “world” because man makes it (the world only happen to man). In
this sense, what happens in his daily life, all the events perceived by his mind and
all the interactions with others will affect (somehow) the way he sees, feels, and
thinks. To summarize: taking up the premises of phenomenology, it is a question of
grasping and understanding the phenomenon as what appears to the mind. Well, not
exactly the phenomenon as what appears (contrary to what many theorists wanted
to teach), but the phenomenon itself, that is, the very intentional experience in which
something happens; it is on this level that “the lived” gains consistency and mean-
ing. The lived-experience, the “vivid” (Erlebnis) is seen as a psychic act and it is
from these kind of experiences as such, that one can establish the dialogue with
what is retained in the unconscious mind, because it is also and at the same time the
very foundation of it (the same happens with the imagination, it requires a percep-
tive background to be realized). With this, one can say that the “vivid” reflects itself
at the heart of subjectivity with ontological consistency namely to what is called
qualia, which can become by language as João de Fernandes Teixeira said, an ele-
ment of intersubjectivity experience (a communication element) in the world.13 A
controversial or paradoxical thesis that however can be dissipated if one remember
the context of psychotherapy, in which the dialogue is open to talking about feelings
and emotions without any barrier or judgment (of any kind). One should naturally
consider the critics, specially the more skeptical ones, that may retort that a query
(in a clinical setting) does not guarantee per se the validation of the truth of the
patient‘s speech; Moreover, it is known that language has limitations and, in par-
ticular, limitations to describe emotional and mental states. But also, it is no to for-
get that in modern clinical hypnosis sometimes the psychotherapist does not even
need to know what are exactly the right words to describe a feeling, an emotion or
a certain pathology, since there are different techniques that can be applied to those
12
Remember the major sentence of Husserl to define consciousness: «the fundamental property of
the modes of consciousness, which the self lives as I [self], is the so-called intentionality, which is
always to be aware of something». (Husserl 1992: 21).
The concept of intentionality is translated by the premise that all consciousness is conscious-
ness of something. The notion of intentionality defined an original character of the psychic phe-
nomenon. But, while retaining this character as one of the definitive acquisitions of psychology,
Husserl will use it for other purposes: this character will enable him, precisely, to go beyond the
limits of the psychic phenomenon given in the inner perception. In fact, according to Brentano, the
mode of relation of consciousness to its content is still understood as relating to an immanent
object, “intentional in-existence” of the object. From this definition, Husserl maintains only the
idea that consciousness is always related to something, and “that there are specific varieties of the
intentional relation: the representative, judicative, volitional, emotive, aesthetic modes” in which
the object is targeted, each in a different way». (Kelkel and Schérer 1982: 32).
13
« If all our mental states are different from each other, this also includes thought. The fact that we
feel our thoughts happening in our heads makes them a special type of qualia. The paradox is that
it can become an intersubjective qualia insofar as it can be communicated through language. (…)
So, when I ask how I can know if your anger is as intense as mine, the answer is: always». (Teixeira
2010: 104–105).
354 P. A. e. Castro
specific cases. That is why the stories, the metaphors, the anecdotes and other strate-
gies used by Milton Erickson seek the resonance in the unconscious mind of that
hermeneutical horizon in which the lived-experiences were registered. In this sense,
Milton Erickson phenomenology reinvents itself as a dynamic expression of a
(modern) psychotherapy that emerges in the essence of the human nature.
So, a possible way of understanding the concept of mind that can provide a rela-
tionship between philosophy and clinical hypnosis would be from the neurophe-
nomenological approach provided by enactivism (taking for instance the thoughts
about it from Bateson, Rosch, Thompson, Maturana and Varela) since it seems to be
closer connected to our intents. In fact, whether in neurophenomenology or in clini-
cal hypnosis, one is dealing with the nature of lived experience, and therefore, deal-
ing with the processes concerning search and “inner reflection” and the connection
between life and mind (thoughts, memories, dreams, etc.).
The lived experiences provide the mind with a set of elements that interfere in
psychic formation (but also traumas, phobias and other unpleasant experiences) and
that help to define what a subject can be. As such, mental illnesses find in this neu-
rophenomenological horizon a valid source of analysis for psychotherapies and a
point of philosophical reflection yet to be explored. And that is why Giovanna
Colombetti says that neurophenomenology is closely related to the main enactiv-
ism’s thesis14: the continuity of mind and life. And so, it should be “recall that
according to this thesis, mind shares the organizational properties of life. As
Thompson also puts it: “Mind is life-like and life is mind-like”. Neuro phenomenol-
ogy can be seen as an experimental method to explore this thesis, namely, the extent
to which mind reflects the organizational properties of the living organism (at the
neural level, but not only)”. (Colombetti 2014: 141).
22.3 T
he Unconscious Mind in Clinical hypnosis and His
Effects on Body
It is perceived that there is a strong interconnection between the world where our
consciousness is committed to main events and the inner world of mind where
everything is secretly recording and working (at all the time); but it should be also
14
The author also explains the difference between the search of neurophenomenology and cogni-
tive neuroscience: «First, as we have seen, neurophenomenology does not only search for correla-
tions between experience and neural activity. It proposes, on the one hand, to generate fist-person
data that can be used in interpreting physical activity and, on the other hand, to use third-person
data to refine first-person data (…). Second, neurophenomenology does not interpret the “dynami-
cal neural signatures” of conscious experience as “minimal sufficient” for consciousness. This
point is easy to overlook; after all, neurophenomenology has so far investigated correlations
between experience and brain processes only, and the term “neurophenomenology” itself may
suggest that brain processes are taken to be sufficient for consciousness, yet neurophenomenology,
as an offshoot of the enactive approach, is not committed to this view. According to enactivism,
brain activity is only a part of the larger biological system (the situated organism) that enacts the
mind, including consciousness». (Colombetti 2013: 142).
realized that the consciousness occupies a determined place in the global system of
mind. In saying this, we are at the same time emphasizing the significant difference
between the terms in use, since “mind” includes minimal awareness and the way in
which we are aware of our felt experiences, of our subjective life (our subjective
life).15 Moreover, as we saw earlier in this essay, consciousness is not always present
or as Libet would say, it is delayed.16 And it is from here that the scenario begins to
get interesting. This “backwardness” of consciousness (which Damasio also says
we all have) in relation to brain activity ends up putting the mind under the yoke of
the physicalist perspectives, since the “mind” is already operating “long before”
consciousness manifests itself, that is, the mind becomes thus (in this sense) reduc-
ible to brain activity. The movement seems to be, at first glance, unidirectional (neu-
ronal activity -» mind), but will it be so in fact? Let us see: being true that mind
equals the result of brain activity, any dynamics implying an opposite movement
would logically be invalid. However, as already mentioned the mind is not limited
to this and it is known that what we call “mind” influences the behaviour of the body
(one should include the brain here), or in other words, the influence of mind over
matter (not wanting by this to express any kind of religious or spiritual mysticism
but only to emphasize the mental power).
From Persinger’s famous experiments in the 1970’s to the most recent studies on
neuroenhancement, practices such as meditation, prayer, etc., allow us to state that
the mind induces physiological changes in the human body (often translatable by
the hormonal segregation that occurs), as Siegel states assertively: «the mind can
transform brain».17 In this sense, perhaps the most important is, as the psychiatrist
says, what occurs under the consciousness and where mind is present: «beyond the
consciousness of subjective experience, the term “mind” also included the process-
ing of information that does not depend on consciousness» (Siegel 2017: 14).
It is well-know the representation of “mind” as an iceberg: everything above
the water line (the small and visible part) will be the conscious, and everything
below this water line the unconscious (the large and invisible part).18 What clinical
15
Siegel, 2017: 14.
16
Eagleman thus synthesizes Libet’s experiences (in the 1960s) «[Libet] placed electrodes on the
head of a series of subjects and assigned them a simple task: to raise their finger at a time chosen
by them. The subjects looked at a high-resolution chronometer and were asked to note the exact
moment when they “felt the urge” to make the move. Libet found that people were aware of the
urge to move their fingers about a quarter of a second before they did. But this was not the surpris-
ing part. Libet looked at the records of the electroencephalogram - the brain waves - and discov-
ered something even more curious: the activity in the brains had begun to rise before the subjects
felt the urge to make the move. And it had not been lightly before. It had been more than a second
before. (...) In other words, parts of the brain were already making decisions well before the person
experienced the push consciously. (...) Libet’s experiences provoked a commotion. Could the con-
scious mind be the last link in the chain of command to receive information?». (Eagleman 2012:
180–181).
17
Siegel 2017:19.
18
This representation is also often used to describe the attributes of the imagination (as a human
mental faculty).
356 P. A. e. Castro
hypnosis seeks, and in particular the ericksonian model, is to get in touch with this
unconscious, that is, to make the unconscious “visible” (using different techniques
such as interrupting the pattern of language-thought, or overloading the conscious
mind with a story). In the glossary compiled by Harvey Kleine the definition of
“unconscious mind” is clear: «a term used by Milton H. Erickson to describe the
repertoire of life experiences and other capacities not consciously perceived, includ-
ing natural tendencies to self-preservation and to self-protection» (Klein 2010: 28).
But what is meant by hypnosis? First of all, it should be mentioned that there is
a variety of myths associated with the practice of hypnosis which had not being
helpful to clarify its meaning or definition.19 In fact, the definition of hypnosis it is
not easy. The most common definition is of an “altered state of consciousness”, and
it would have been, according to Zeig, Milton Erickson to provide this definition
(though he used a variety of definitions).20 However, this definition does not seem to
be the most truthful because it reinforces a certain idea of altered states of con-
sciousness in trance and accentuates some prevailing mysticism (at least in some
traditional hypnotherapy models of which Charles Tart seems to be a good
example).21 The most recent definition provided by the American Psychiatric
Association states that
Hypnosis is a state of aroused, attentive, focal concentration accompanied by a relative
reduction in peripheral awareness (dissociation), and heightened response to social cues
(suggestibility). It can be utilized to facilitate a variety of psychotherapeutic interventions,
including psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and exposure-based treatments. (…) The
capacity to experience hypnosis can be spontaneous or it can be activated by a formal
induction procedure which taps the inherent neural hypnotic capacity of the individual. This
capacity varies widely but is a stable trait that can be reliably measured in clinical and
research settings. Hypnosis provides an adjunct to research, to diagnosis, and to treatment
in psychiatric and other medical practice.22
19
Damian Hamil in An Introduction to Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy, devotes virtually a whole
chapter trying to demystify the wrong beliefs about hypnosis. In summary, the main points of the
2nd chapter: «Myth – hypnosis is a form of sleep; Myth – a hypnotic subject is in the power of the
hypnotist; Myth – you can get ‘stuck’ in trance; Myth – hypnosis is a battle of wills between the
subject and the hypnotist; Myth – when in trance there is a risk that you will reveal all your inner-
most secrets; Myth – you can’t remember what happens during trance; Myth – if you are hypno-
tized by one person, no-one else can hypnotize you; Myth – the power to hypnotize is a ‘gift’ you
are born with». Hamill 2012: 23.
Still on this subject, see: Battino, Rubin, e, South, Thomas L. 1997. Ericksonian Approaches.
A Comprehensive Manual. Bancyfelin: Crown House Publishing Limited; Green, J. P. 2003.
Beliefs about hypnosis: Popular beliefs, misconceptions and the importance of experience.
International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 51: 369–381; Bauer, Sofia. Manual
de Hipnoterapia Ericksoniana. Rio de Janeiro: Wak Editora.
20
«Dr. Erickson was a proponent of hypnosis as an altered “state”, but he had many definitions for
the phenomenon, some of which did not use the concept of “state” at all». (Zeig 2014: 83–84).
21
Tart published at the beginning of his career a book called, Altered States of Consciousness in
which he defined an altered state of consciousness as a state in which a subject made a qualitative
leap (of patterns) in mental functioning. Note that Tart had a greater interest in parapsychology and
for him an altered state of consciousness had a mystical, transcendental, or spiritual charge (this is
clearly visible in the essay of 1967, «Psychedelic Experiences Associated with a Novel Hypnotic
Procedure, Mutual Hypnosis», American Journal of Clinical Hipnosis, 19: 65–78.
22
Rules Committee Packet – Attachment 12, The American Psychiatric Association: pp. 96–97)
In the course of the therapeutic session we can see how mind shapes body; the
psychotherapist (hypno-therapist) is making an assessment of the conditions under
which the trance takes place, namely by checking the elements of the well-known
hypnotic constellation like literalism, change in breathing and pulsation, or even in
the behaviour of the eyes, fasciculations,23 decreased reflexes, increased responsive-
ness, etc.. Hypnotic phenomena help to validate and consolidate the efficacy of
clinical hypnosis (and here lies the essence of hypnosis itself), that dissociation,
catalepsy, ideodynamic or ideomotor responses, and time distortion are widely
accepted and recognized.
22.4 H
ow to Take Care of Your Mind and Solving a Hard
Problem: Entangled Minds
Bearing in mind the assumed position that (the concept of) a mind is more than
simple neural correlates and the relevance of mental states to the phenomenologi-
cally understanding of (unconscious) mind, and considering some recent studies in
neurosciences and cognitive sciences that have affirmed the inevitability of the
lesser physicalist status (or if one prefer, a less biologist perspective) of the mind,24
it should be given an opportunity to clinical hypnosis. Like Michael Ypako states
When people close their eyes and focus, something extraordinary happens to the brain and
mind. The rigid limits of perception that kept the person in place begin to soften. Reality
becomes less real and more negotiable. People discover through direct subjective experi-
ence that their perceptions - of time, space, body, the meanings attributed to life experi-
ences, self-awareness, and so on - are pliable. What neuroscience shows us is that the
perceptions of the mind also have consequences in the brain. This new finding had long
been expected by many experts, but was waiting for the development of technology that
could prove its truth. (Yapko 2011: 14)
23
A fasciculation is a small, local, momentary and involuntary muscle contraction that may be vis-
ible under the skin or detected more deeply with electromyography. Fasciculation occurs as a result
of spontaneous depolarizations of low motor neurons, leading to the synchronous contraction of all
skeletal muscle fibers into a single motor unit. Note that fasciculations can occur in any skeletal
muscle in the body
24
In the prologue to the work of Hanson and Mendius, Buddha’s Brain, Daniel Siegel refers pre-
cisely to this point: «Although in the past many practitioners in the field have stated that the mind
is only the activity of the brain, we can now see the relationship between these two dimensions of
life under a new perspective. If we consider the mind as a personified and relational process that
regulates the flow of energy and information, we will realize that we can actually use it to trans-
form the brain. The question is how the concentration of attention and the intentional directing of
the flow of energy and information through the neural circuits are capable of directly altering the
activity and structure of the brain. The key is to know the steps to be followed using consciousness
to promote well-being. Knowing that the mind is relational and that the brain is the social organ of
the body, we come to another point of view: relationships are not a casual part of life; are, in fact,
fundamental to determining how the mind works, as well as being essential for brain health. The
social relations we establish shape our neural connections that form the structure of the brain. This
means that the way we communicate changes the circuits of the brain, especially helping maintain
the balance of life». (Hanson and Mendius 2009: 7).
358 P. A. e. Castro
Thus, neuroscience begins not only to show a greater openness to consider mind
as a phenomenon that goes beyond the cerebral physicality, but at the same time
begins to prove the malleability of the brain under the effect of hypnosis, which
means that mental activity has repercussions on the brain. Another important reflex-
ion is about the discovery of the mirror neurons that came to produce a colossal
effect on the understanding of imitation (mimetic or mimicry), since it conferred a
neuronal (scientific) substrate to these approaches. This effect had as repercussion
to put in question the way the world was seen and constructed (the reality), and in
that sense also the way people would relate each other. In other words, this observa-
tion allowed to share the experience, to feel it as if it were ours (it would be a kind
of simulation), but as Giovanna Colombetti refers, there are two ways of interpret-
ing the function of mimicry:
a popular interpretation is that mimicry is involved in mind reading, namely, in the attribu-
tion of mental states to others to explain and predict their behavior. This interpretation has
been proposed in particular for the imitation of facial expressions and emotions. We can
distinguish two versions of it. According to one, mimicry enables mind reading via emo-
tional contagion.
The proposal here is that, by mimicking the other’s attitude (his angry facial expression
and bodily stance, e.g.), one also comes to experience what the other does via bodily feed-
back (primarily from one’s own face, but also from voice and posture). (…) According to
another, more recent interpretation, mimicry is an embodied simulation of the other’s emo-
tional state that may or may not lead to experiencing the same emotion as the other.
(Colombetti 2014: 190)
It is not simply interaction but a way of get in close touch with the other, and
Colombetti identified mimicry as a mechanism for social bonding. With this in
mind, one can understand the relevancy of empathic bonding in the clinical context
of hypnosis. So, and to get back to our question, how can it be solved this hard
problem of understanding the concept of unconscious mind between clinical hypno-
sis and philosophy? One can think by hypothesis that the solution relies on the
notion of empathy, and that furthermore will give rise to the perspective of entan-
gled minds. But, how, where and when it takes place?
Empathy (Greek empatheia, “in passion”), presupposes an effective and affect
communication between persons (the term “person” has a broad meaning) and func-
tions as an identifier of psychological and identity understanding with them. It dif-
fers from sympathy because it seems to be a response of educational and intellectual
scope (one wants to please others); but empathy have a wider meaning and mani-
fests itself by the desire to know and understand the other person (his feelings,
thoughts, etc.).
Now it is understood that empathy arises here in the context of therapeutic phe-
nomenology because it has an affective component and a cognitive component and
is thus described as a cognitive-practical-affective phenomenon which consists in
the ability to put ourselves imaginatively in place of another person and therefore,
the affective reaction that results because of it.25 In addition, empathy, according to
«Today’s psychology textbooks typically describe two different kinds of empathy: Affective
25
empathy This is about mirroring or sharing other people’s emotions. So, if you see anguish on a
Roman Krznaric - who states that “empathy is the antidote to the present state of the
world” through “otherness”26 - is naturally present in human nature (according to
various studies).27
Living in a physically shared world (if one prefers, materially shared) by sharing
information, it is plausible to suppose that the mental states of individuals intersect
through empathy. We must recall that the corollary of empathy finds its agreement
in this phenomenal subject who is always the author of the world that he produces.
The lived world is the place of emotions, the place par excellence of the affectivity
experienced, the place where (after all) the mind sketches and traces its course, and
therefore, in a shared world. The relation of individuals in the world is a relation of
co-belonging, place of encounters, as in a psychotherapeutic session. In fact, in a
psychotherapeutic session one of the major concerns is the establishment of the rap-
port, it is the empathic relation that must be consolidated. That is why it is widely
accepted by theorists of clinical hypnosis and psychotherapists that the establish-
ment of rapport (between hypnotherapist and patient) is a crucial element in the
success of psychotherapy either by using mimicry or empathic bonding.28 Milton
child’s face and you too feel anguish, that is affective empathy. If, on the other hand, you notice
their anguish but feel a different emotion, such as pity (‘Oh, the poor little thing,’ you might think),
then you are showing sympathy rather than empathy. Sympathy generally refers to an emotional
response that is not shared. Affective empathy can also include sharing positive emotions such as
joy, which distinguishes it from the concept of ‘compassion’, which does not involve positive
emotional resonance. Cognitive empathy (or ‘perspective-taking empathy’) This is where you
really try to put yourself in the shoes of another person and imagine their values, experiences,
hopes and fears – their whole mental outlook. We do this quite naturally all the time. You might
walk past a homeless person begging on the street and rather than just feeling sorry for her (which
is sympathy) you try to imagine what it might be like to ‘be her’ – to sleep out rough on a cold
winter night, or to have somebody walk straight past you without looking you in the eye». (Krznaric
2015: 6).
26
Krznaric contrasts with introspection (albeit recognizing as fundamental to self-understanding)
the “othernesspection”, that is, the idea of discovering its place and its identity and how it is to live
outside itself, in order to discover the life of others people and their cultures. Cf. Empathy: A
Handbook for Revolution.
27
«Empathy is difficult to measure, and like measures of happiness or wellbeing, quantitative indi-
ces tend to be based on self-reported ratings (and so should be treated with caution). One of the
most respected measures is Simon Baron-Cohen’s Empathy Quotient, where people rate them-
selves on a four-point scale on the extent to which they agree with 40 statements that tap into both
affective and cognitive empathy (statements include, for instance, ‘In a conversation, I tend to
focus on my own thoughts rather than on what my listener might be thinking’). What does the data
reveal? Empathy is distributed normally across the population in the familiar bell-curve shape.
Around 98% of people exhibit at least some capacity to empathize. A minority of some 2% show
‘no empathy at all’ or ‘zero degrees of empathy’, according to Baron-Cohen. These include people
with psychopathic tendencies, and also those with Asperger Syndrome (who can find it hard to
cognitively understand others’ feelings although they may still have a caring nature) ». (Krznaric
2015: 9).
28
As Colombetti states: «also, we know from therapeutic techniques, such as music therapy, that
overtly imitating and matching the other is an effective way to indicate that one is paying attention
to the other, and to “resonate” experientially with him, thus establishing rapport. Admittedly, the
therapist needs to use techniques skillfully, or otherwise the client may feel ridiculed, but the point
360 P. A. e. Castro
Erickson saw the importance of this process very clearly: rapport is a harmonious
relationship between the participants and, therefore, the correct rapport is one in
which the hypnotherapist actively participates in the trance, that is, the one in which
the hypnotherapist devotes exclusively his attention and sensitivity to the ongoing
relational process. In clinical hypnosis truly exists what we can call entangled
minds, and at the end there is the extraordinary revelation of the inner thoughts,
traumas or beliefs that result from those minds intersubjective bonding. Empathy is
a reality of the human world, made between the interiority of the “I” and the exteri-
ority of the “we”, being that there is no “we” without “I” or “I” without “Us”. Thus,
this “we-in-empathy” is both ipseity and otherness, since what one is, is always
related to others and the phenomenology of empathy is given in the relational sense
between entangled minds (one can recall Martin Buber - I and Thou - and see exis-
tence as an encounter. One can say that empathy is the main road to take care of
our minds.
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Index
A 181–209, 217, 219, 228, 230, 232, 233,

Acedia, 297–321 236–239, 243–257, 266–272, 281–286,
Anthropology of vulnerability, 19–35, 328 290–293, 297–321, 326–329, 331,
Arbitrariness, 79, 80, 85, 91, 92 332, 347–360
Attention to oneself, 290, 301 Charity, 4–6, 13, 16, 108, 110, 131, 139,
208, 259–273, 305
Childhood, 11, 122, 213, 278, 280, 284
B Children, 8, 21, 49, 100, 104, 105, 107, 108,
Bildungsroman, 275–287 126, 132, 136, 138, 174, 190–194, 212,
Body, 14, 15, 17, 20–24, 26, 27, 30, 33–35, 214–218, 220, 222, 231, 249, 255, 263,
40, 47, 49, 58, 132, 162, 174, 176, 213, 267, 279, 287
217, 221, 232, 233, 238, 251, 252, 255, China, 183
256, 264, 268, 270, 272, 273, 282, 285, Clinical hypnosis, 347–360
306–309, 326, 327, 331, 336, 337, 340, Clinical medicine, 327
341, 344, 347, 348, 351, 352, 354–357 Clinical psychology, 290, 334, 336
Buddhism, vii, 182–185, 187–188 Clinical thinking, 349, 359
Colleges, 245, 246, 249, 252–254
Communications, viii, 12, 14, 22, 34, 139,
C 140, 189, 191, 293, 317, 321, 325, 345,
Capitalism, 10, 99–100, 114, 120, 123, 124 349, 353, 358
Caregivers, vi, 34, 108, 131, 134, 137, Communities, v, 103, 108, 110, 112, 114, 122,
139, 326–331 126, 127, 139, 174, 175, 177, 182,
Care institutions, 135 197, 200, 245, 286, 300, 304,
Care of oneself, 152, 289–294 314, 316, 319
Care of others, v, vii, 167–179, 205, 321, Commutative justice, 190, 191
327, 329 Compassion, 4, 5, 7, 13, 15, 16, 132,
Care of the self, vii, 169, 227–241, 259–273, 181–188, 199, 208, 265, 327, 359
277, 278, 284–286 Confusions, 9, 13, 16, 144, 145,
Care receivers, vi, 10, 27, 113, 131, 132, 135, 154, 158, 163, 205, 235,
137, 139, 187 238, 239, 326
Cares, v–viii, 3–18, 20, 21, 25–29, 33–35, Consciousness of time, 133, 137
39–68, 79–94, 99–115, 119–127, Contemporary society, 30, 130, 133, 321
129–140, 143–165, 167, 168, 170–179, Contextualism, 6

Switzerland AG 2021
Global Bioethics 16, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71240-2
364 Index
Cosmopolitanism, 174 F
Cultures, 14, 15, 17, 104, 105, 109, 131, 134, Families, v, 21, 31, 53, 54, 68, 79, 88, 90, 101,
162, 187, 217, 246, 247, 249–251, 104, 106, 107, 110, 120, 126, 138, 147,
271, 321, 359 171, 174, 176, 177, 189–194, 203, 205,
Cura personalis, 243–257 218, 219, 222, 249, 267, 278, 280,
286, 300
Fatherhood, 190, 191
D Feelings, v, vii, 6–8, 24, 30, 108, 130, 132,
Democracy, 31, 33, 110, 113, 114 134, 135, 137, 139, 158, 169, 170, 173,
Dependencies, 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 115, 200, 208, 184, 199, 201, 203–205, 212, 215–216,
327, 329 265, 266, 283–285, 299, 303, 306, 308,
Despairs, 79–94, 292, 294, 304, 307, 314, 316, 320, 321, 327, 330, 352,
320, 331 353, 358, 359
Diseases, viii, 23, 124, 126, 131, 132, 137, Feminism, 4, 7
214–216, 220, 271, 272, 284, Fragilities, 8, 17, 21, 25, 56, 326, 328, 329
326–331, 333–345 Future, 23, 24, 29, 33, 43, 101, 105, 109,
Distances, v, 6, 15, 23, 40, 49, 50, 63, 131, 114–115, 133, 134, 147, 148, 183, 193,
136, 139, 157, 158, 187, 232, 241, 281, 248, 278, 282, 314
303, 336, 338
Doctors, 31, 113, 151, 193, 208, 215, 216,
260, 282, 283, 286, 309, 326, 327, G
335–343, 350 God, 20, 162, 191, 194, 216, 217, 231, 236,
240, 244, 250–255, 261–268, 271, 281,
284, 285, 298–300, 303, 304, 306,
308–312, 314, 317, 318, 349
Goodness, 6, 8, 16, 26, 156, 157, 204
E
Economics, vii, 7, 31, 32, 99–115, 119–127,
133, 135, 136, 219, 221, 222, 300 H
Education, viii, 4, 9, 31, 103, 105, 112–114, Health, v, vi, 4, 5, 7, 32, 33, 82, 83, 88–90,
132, 138, 145, 147–149, 199, 219–222, 103–105, 108, 134–136, 139, 151, 170,
243–257, 263, 265, 276, 287, 311, 171, 173, 214, 283, 328, 330, 331,
338, 345 334–339, 343–345
Emotions, 7, 8, 17, 20, 32, 115, 199, 201, 203, Healthcare ethics, v
212, 213, 283, 298, 314, 318–320, 327, Hermeneutics, 7, 13, 15–18, 33, 181, 270, 271,
353, 358, 359 327, 331
Empathy, 28, 199, 201, 326, 339, 358–360 Hermeneutics of the self, 35
Enlightenments, 9, 139, 182, 203, Hierocles’ circles, 49, 50, 52, 61, 67
211–222, 250 History of philosophy, 3–18
Environment, v–vii, 4, 6, 10, 15, 21, 26, Hospitals, 111–113, 130, 134, 136, 138, 326,
30–32, 40, 42, 43, 99, 102, 110, 112, 334, 342
115, 130, 249, 283, 285, 293, 326, Humanism, 124, 126, 127, 247–249
334, 352 Humanistic culture, 247, 249, 252, 256
Epimeleia, vii, 40, 52, 53, 60 Human rights, 104, 109, 115
Eristic, 144–146, 148, 154, 157–159, 162,
164, 165
Ethics of capabilities, 21, 27, 32, 33, 35 I
Ethics of care, vii, 14–16, 19–35, 102–105, Identities, 21, 22, 48, 82–84, 144, 178, 186,
107–112, 115, 132, 167, 168, 195–205, 193, 213, 221, 232, 235–237, 269, 270,
328, 329 275, 284, 286, 300, 312, 316, 319, 326,
Ethics of consideration, 21, 27–29, 31 328, 329, 351, 358, 359
Extramarital relationships, 192 Ignorance, 94, 187, 235, 263, 338
Index 365
Illnesses, vi, viii, 11, 23, 24, 282, 328, N

333–345, 354 Narrative identity, 14, 328, 330, 331
Imaginations, 6, 8–11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 24, 32, Natures, v–vii, 12, 18, 20–22, 26–28, 30, 31,
212, 215, 261, 273, 302, 303, 353 35, 43, 44, 50–53, 60, 79, 90, 94, 100,
Individualism, 101, 109, 122, 206, 277, 327 110, 120, 126, 130, 139, 153, 155–157,
Injustices, vi, 32, 102 160, 169–175, 177–179, 187, 190, 197,
Institutions, v, 5, 101, 104, 105, 108, 110, 112, 206, 207, 211–217, 219–222, 228,
115, 120, 126, 135–138, 153, 187, 190, 230–232, 240, 252–255, 261–270, 272,
194, 200, 207, 248, 251, 256, 300, 316 279, 283–286, 300, 302, 314–316, 319,
Intersubjectivity, viii, 28, 353 327, 328, 336, 351, 352, 354, 359
Non-conventional therapies, 325–332
J
Jesuit Studies, 244, 247–249, 252–255, 257 O
Justice, 8, 12, 14, 25–27, 66, 103–105, Oikeiōsis, 40, 45–60, 64, 67, 68
107–110, 115, 156, 172, 173, 191, 196, Oneself, 7, 9, 10, 16, 22–24, 27–29, 42, 51,
197, 199, 200, 204, 208 54, 55, 60, 86, 152, 171, 172, 177–179,
182, 183, 185, 186, 205, 228, 234, 235,
237, 269, 277, 281, 284, 290–292, 299,
K 303, 307, 310, 317, 319, 320, 330
Kinship, 175, 177, 233 Ordoliberalism, 124
Knowledges, vi, vii, 9, 10, 16, 17, 20, 82, 84, Otherness, vii, viii, 196, 209, 268, 271,
92, 121, 125, 148, 149, 151, 153–159, 359, 360
186, 202, 221, 239, 246, 247, 252, 254,
256, 262, 264, 268, 269, 271, 277–280,
282, 284–286, 291, 298, 305,
312, 335–345 P
Pains, 20, 21, 23, 34, 132, 183, 184, 199, 214,
215, 217, 221, 273, 293, 303,
L 325–332, 351
Life-view, 81–90, 92 Passions, 8, 19, 20, 27, 29, 84, 89, 93, 212,
Loves, 15, 20, 23, 31, 79, 83, 149, 151, 153, 213, 215, 216, 265, 267, 272, 278, 279,
160, 163, 172, 173, 175, 177, 179, 215, 282, 283, 300, 304, 358
218, 220, 221, 227–241, 244, 245, 250, Pathetics, 6–11
254, 263–265, 267, 268, 270, 279, 281, Patients, 20, 31, 108, 131, 132, 134, 135, 139,
282, 301, 305, 308, 312, 314, 319 151, 198, 271, 310, 326–330, 334–344,
349, 350, 353, 359
Perceptions, vi, 24, 40–47, 50, 52, 53,
M 55–60, 133, 137, 139, 140,
Materialism, 342, 343 203, 284, 287, 357
Medical care, vii, 17, 35, 114, 131, 132, 137, Philosophy of care, vi, vii, 4–7, 10, 12, 34,
187, 343 181–188, 275–287, 327
Melancholy, 303, 306, 308–310, 312, 313, Philosophy of charity, 264
316, 320 Philosophy of resonance, 21, 27
Minds, vi, 20–22, 31, 49, 50, 53, 54, 58, 59, Physician-patient relations, 131, 132
94, 131, 134, 148, 152, 153, 160, 168, Politics, vii, viii, 8, 17, 21, 27, 31–33, 35, 106,
179, 182, 190, 216, 246, 251, 252, 256, 119, 123, 127, 187, 198, 327
278, 279, 281–283, 285, 286, 302, Protreptic, 148, 151, 154, 155, 157, 158, 160
307, 347–360 Proximity, 10, 23, 139, 175, 176, 281, 283
Money, 81–83, 88–90, 102, 103, 112, 139, 238 Psychology, 8, 14, 106, 256, 289, 294, 334,
Moral values, v, 99, 101, 107, 140 336, 338, 358
366 Index
R 243–249, 251, 253–256, 286,

Relationships, vi, vii, 6, 14, 19–23, 25, 27, 303, 311, 312, 315, 319
30–33, 35, 47, 57, 58, 63, 65, 66, 103, Spaces, 22, 24, 30, 33–35, 103, 129–140, 155,
105, 110, 123, 127, 131–134, 136, 139, 187, 227, 271, 293, 311, 327, 357
148, 157, 185, 187, 194, 196–199, 201, Spiritual exercises, 168, 169, 250, 252, 253,
206, 215, 216, 218, 219, 222, 229–235, 281, 282
238–240, 261, 268, 270, 271, 276, 284, Stoicism, 168, 169, 273
290, 292, 293, 301, 326, 327, 329, 334, Suffering, viii, 21, 34, 182, 184–187, 215,
340–343, 345, 354, 357, 360 217, 235, 273, 282, 309, 325–332, 336,
Religions, 110, 216, 222, 260, 261, 267, 283, 340, 344, 345
284, 299
Resonances, 29–32, 34, 35, 352, 354, 359
Restitution, 190–193 T
Therapeutic studies, vi
Therapies, vi, vii, 23, 35, 326–328, 331, 359
S
Salvation, 5, 20, 33, 94, 183, 251, 261, 326
Schools, 6, 29, 111, 112, 120–122, 124, 132, V
136, 138, 183, 213, 244–250, 252–256, Violence, vi, 16, 18, 21, 106, 115, 124, 135,
267, 350 140, 220
Sciences, 3–6, 20, 21, 102, 103, 121, 122, 125, Virtue ethics, 167, 168, 171, 195–202,
190, 194, 213, 250, 260, 262, 290, 294, 204, 206–208
326, 327, 335–338, 340, 343, 349, 357 Virtues, vii, 20, 27, 29, 35, 107, 108, 130, 131,
Self-care, v, 29, 168, 169, 171, 176–179, 240, 143–165, 168, 170–175, 177, 178, 182,
251, 276, 282, 284, 287, 290–292 195–209, 235, 238, 252, 263–267, 277,
Self-esteem, 34, 329–331 283, 286, 290, 297, 298, 302, 308, 309
Sexuality, 190, 212, 221 Vulnerabilities, vi, vii, 4–9, 11, 17, 20–28,
Siderits, 186 33–35, 56, 197, 198, 200, 208,
Socialism, 99–100, 114, 120, 123, 124 319, 327–329
Social relationships, vi, 137, 139
Societies, v–viii, 6, 10, 11, 15–18, 33, 99, 101,
102, 104–113, 115, 120, 123–126, 130, W
131, 134, 135, 137, 139, 140, 162, 182, Welfare, 102, 105, 108, 119–127, 184, 186
187, 189–191, 194, 200, 215–222, Whole person education, 245, 247, 250, 252
Women Studies, 213, 214, 216, 221

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Advancing Global Bioethics 16

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/10420

ISSN 2212-652X ISSN 2212-6538 (electronic)

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

historical, philosophical, and interdisciplinary dimensions of care. In an exploratory

Coimbra, Portugal Joaquim Braga

Part I Care and Vulnerability

Part II Care and Economy

Part III Care and Otherness

10 Care and Compassion: A Buddhist Contribution

Part IV Care and the Self

Part V Care and Therapy

21 The Place of the Experience of Illness in the Understanding

Abstract The philosophy of care entertains a critical relation to the philosophical

Keywords Care · Pathetics · Pragmatics · Hermeneutics · Imagination · Caritas

Absent from philosophy dictionaries until extremely recently, nonexistent in the

J.-P. Pierron (*)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 3

renewal of the better known philosophical theme of “concern” (Heideggerian

1.1 Care: An Engaged Philosophy

which language games, the role accorded to narratives and to counter-narratives,

1.2 A Pathetics of Care

contrast, vulnerability is an openness, an exposure to the other (cf. Levinas), which

A subjective dialectic is attached to this pathic dimension of care. This dialectic

1.3 A Pragmatics of Care

languages, in the way its semantic effects reconfigure philosophical conceptuality.

concept of care in French, whereas, and this is significant, English-language phi-

us to attend to the singularity of the situation it makes visible. Narrative is elevated

Testimony, the Expectation of a Truly Ethical Communication By speaking of

It is instructive to consider here Carol Gilligan et le témoignage de la “voix différ-

1.4 The Hermeneutics of Care

A hermeneutics of care is a critical hermeneutics. It makes use of a hermeneutics of

This hermeneutics of suspicion criticizes the confusion of solicitude with sacri-

History There may be a hermeneutics of care that is compromised in its critical

to consider how they may be acculturated. This renewal of reading is necessary if

Keywords Anthropology of vulnerability · Ethics of care · Philosophy of

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

mysterious pineal gland, which translates into a relationship of objectivation with

Having established this, a tentative definition of human vulnerability (a concept

–– a human existential dimension marked by the awareness of the vulnerable per-

which it unfolds; third, transformation, which translates the somewhat autopoietic

entrelacs, to mention but a few outstanding examples attesting to the articulation of

André, João Maria. 1999a. Pensamento e afectividade. Coimbra: Quarteto Editora.

Martucelli, D. 2014. Vulnérabilité existentielle et vulnérabilité sociale. In Vulnérabilité: de la fra-

Keywords Care · Stoicism · Perception · oikeiōsis · epimeleia · Hierocles’ circles

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 39

Seneca, Ad Lucilium, 108, 23.

Sudelbücher F 879, in: Lichtenberg (1968), 585.

This brings us to a third main feature of all perception. Perception is always

perception has the structure of a compact, continuous and uninterrupted manifold –

It is no accident, therefore, that the realm of non-indifference – the realm of

In this respect, four remarks are in order.

utter exomoiōsis really possible within the sphere of “intersubjective” relations? Or

Appendix I (to Note 43)

Fuchs, Hans-Jürgen. 1977. Entfremdungund Narzißmus. Semantische Untersuchungen zur

Keywords Arbitrariness · Care · Despair · Kierkegaard · Life-view

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 79

Kierkegaard places a strong emphasis on the first-person perspective. What is at

4.2.1 The Need for a Life-View

According to Kierkegaard, a subject needs a life-view through which to under-

4.2.2 The Need for a Unifying telos (End)

4.2.3 The Need for Fulfilment

4.2.4 Some Considerations

Coimbra, Portugal Joaquim Braga

Part I Care and Vulnerability

Part II Care and Economy

Part III Care and Otherness

10 Care and Compassion: A Buddhist Contribution

Part IV Care and the Self

Part V Care and Therapy

21 The Place of the Experience of Illness in the Understanding

1.1 Care: An Engaged Philosophy

1.2 A Pathetics of Care

1.3 A Pragmatics of Care

1.4 The Hermeneutics of Care

Appendix I (to Note 43)

4.2.1 The Need for a Life-View

4.2.2 The Need for a Unifying telos (End)

4.2.3 The Need for Fulfilment

4.2.4 Some Considerations

4.3.1 The Requirement of Eternal Validity

4.3.2 The Requirement of Unconditioned Validity

4.3.4 Discussion of the Collected Data

5.1 Capitalism and Socialism

5.3 Ethics and Economics

5.4 Care and Society

5.5 The Ethics of Care

5.6 The Growing Influence of Care Ethics

5.7 Implications of Care Ethics

5.8 Care and the Economy

5.9 Care Ethics and the Future

6.1 Introduction: The Epistemological Shifts in Economics

6.2 From Methodenstreit to Soziale Markwirtschaft

6.2.1 Theory and History

6.2.2 Praxeology and Human Economy

6.3 Criticism of ‘Economism’

6.4 Goals and Imperatives of Economic Humanism

6.5 Means of Economic Humanism

7.2 Care as Relational Concept

7.3 Time in Care and Time Consciousness

7.4 Time and Space

7.5 Some Effects of Care Institutionalization

7.6 Final Remarks

8.1 Caring for Virtue

8.2 Knowledge and Virtue

8.3 Medea and Marsyas

9.1 The Apparent Neglect of Others

9.2 The Ideal Way of Caring for Others