Stare di fronte alla sofferenza. La lezione fenomenologica ed etica di Scheler

This essay proposes a cross-reading of two fundamental works by Max Scheler, one devoted to the theme of suffering and the other to the forms of sympathy, with the aim of understanding how to face the pain and suffering of another in such a way as to illuminate what is truly at stake – ethically and relationally, rather than merely emotionally – in the experience of illness. Hence, this reading seeks to move beyond Scheler’s own framework without abandoning it, in order to arrive at a bioethical analysis that takes seriously the sense of existential “closure” brought about by illness, so that an “openness” may once again become possible for the suffering subject.