Generative Fiduciality and Experience

Man is given to himself through “being brought into the world by others”, thus standing, structurally and permanently, in a “sonship” position; for he is, in different ways and degrees, always generated by others. The forgetfulness/removal of this elementary and substantial truth has had, from the modern to the post-modern era, catastrophic consequences, such as the curtailment of life to production, artifice, and ownership (in terms of family relationships, birth and death, education, etc.). I am therefore convinced that a renewed anthropological perspective needs to probe into the paradigm of identity and its inter-subjective acknowledgement, as given and fulfilled in a “generative [trust] fiducial relationship”. By this expression I define, first of all, not an occasional event but a “state”, the stable and intimate human disposition that is not only an inescapable condition but also the structural need without which no individual with his or her whole (i.e., human) experience could be born or attain perfection. Such a relationship is thus simultaneously stable and dynamic, as it forms the human identity in the actual making of its history. Also, by using the term [“trust”]fiducial to describe this generative relationship, I assume that it does not just coincide with the biopsychic production of human individuals; rather, it is a specifically human generation which, as such, cannot take place outside the mutual entrusting of the subjects involved, namely, a “state of faith”. Here the term faith indicates, first of all, not the act and contents of a belief but the bond linking subjects and enabling their reciprocal acknowledgement. Therefore, “generative [trust] fiducial relationship”, understood as the constitutive essence of the person, is not a particular moment of experience but the condition enabling experience; it is in fact the anthropological locus inseparable from the exercise of reason and the will. The more perfect this locus, the more opportunities a man has to fulfil himself; the more distorted, the fewer his opportunities. Yet, this locus cannot be totally eliminated, lest man himself is. [Trust] Fiduciality is, therefore, the moment qualifying the human generative relationship and providing experience with a foundation, not viceversa (though experience contains acts other than acts of faith).