Book for review: iii "Philosophy of Care - New Approaches to Vulnerability, Otherness and Therapy"
Before moving beyond Pierron's 1st chapter (the whole book is very worth reading), there is much that reminds me of institutional care:
https://winwickremembered.org.uk/
Recognition of the sub-standard cockroach 'co-habiting' environment away from the entrance corridor, quality of life, task oriented, de-personalising, stagnant, passive, pervasive sense of hopelessness and helplessness. There was a chink of light.
As registered mental health student's we were on a crusade. Carrying a torch, lit outside in the community to help open the doors to community care.
On trips outside, gradually the institutional skin sloughed off, to reveal the person - the individual came alive (even through medication).
'Bill' had a sense of humour, a lovely smile. He'd had the prospect of another life. So many people there for so long: too long. Potential unrealised?
"To be in contact with the other in care is not to exercise a hold over them." p.16.
The problem is - within institutions this can be forgotten and lost:
"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 and involuntary - naturalisation of roles, masculine domination, organisational violence, etc, - at work in care. Doing so politicizes care, enabling it to overcome 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)." p.16.
^The need to be aware of subtle abuse?
My notes for chapter 2 'From an Anthropology of Vulnerability to the Ethics of Care' by João Maria André, reflects a lot on relationality, and maps which I've drawn: "(identity is always dialogical identity)" and "how we map ourselves". Again this helps my (other) current reading and draft work. There's time here, plus "there is no such thing as abstract vulnerability - vulnerability is necessarily concrete". p.25. I don't think André mentions future generations but I've added a note; 'I-we' too. There's a triple axis, and more encouragement as Tronto and Gilligan feature. Heidegger's reference to 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." (Gaia?) p.26.As in chapter 1, and previously reviewed text 'General Psychotherapy', the term 'constellation' appears. In chapter 2 it is expanded (with reference to Corine Pelluchon); leading us to "appreciation of the world, and self-care as care for the world" p.29. So, planetary health too. With Hodges' model purposed (1/4) to help bridge the theory - practice gap; this perennial problem exhibits existential relevance here (p.27). We by-passed biopolitics on page 17, but the interrelation of psychosocial and other examples informs the text (philosophy). As I scribbled, Hodges' model is simultaneously a space for resonance and unconditional positive regard (pp.30-31). Authors inevitably find themselves deliberating upon dualisms, Descartes of course, plus Spinoza and others. Entralgo is nails the duality: "the aim of caring is to lead the I from being 'a body that says I' to a learning how to progressively become, and define itself as, 'a body that says we'". p.35.
Braga, J. & Santiago de Carvalho, M. (Eds.), Philosophy of care: New approaches to vulnerability, otherness therapy. Springer.
Many thanks again to Springer for my copy.
See also:
body & soul - Book: Philosophy of care: New approaches to vulnerability, otherness therapy
Individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
HUMANISTIC -------------------------------------- MECHANISTIC
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
Group
relational 'I' - mind individual vulnerability intention affection - as movement | climate change 'I' - body maps - cartography Planetary Health action - movement |
We context equity - equality social vulnerability | We policy bio-POLITICS accountability of government(s) |
See also:
body & soul - Book: Philosophy of care: New approaches to vulnerability, otherness therapy
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965
