Tra cura e agire tecnico. Linee per una riflessione filosofica

Drawing upon Martin Heidegger’s philosophical reflections on the concept of care and developing a theoretical framework that may rethink the concept itself, this paper explores and outlines the different forms and meanings that caring takes in a technological society. Specifically, the aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship-based care in its ontological, anthropological and ethical aspects, with a special focus on two fundamental and paradigmatic concepts: Besorgen and Fürsorgen. These Heideggerian concepts, defined by their theoretical opposition, are still alive as they continue to provide significant contributions to current ontological, ethical and political debate. Heidegger refused to produce an ethics and rather focused, in an almost exclusive way, on the question of Being; likewise, the German philosopher never referred to moral virtues to analyze the technological society. However, Heidegger’s thought is still necessary to investigate the relationship-based care within complex scenarios such as those of modernity. As matter of fact, with the advance of specializations and professionalism, we have witnessed an overturning of the therapeutic relationship, which is no longer ‘a two- way relationship’ because of the interference of a medium: the machine. Too much specialization combined with hyper-medicalization processes have thus undermined the practice of caring; as a result, an urgent problem of justice has become a political issue.