2013 Programme
EVENT #31
Laura Boella
Empathy, sympathy and compassion: resources for a threatened world?
Human beings are incapable of remaining indifferent to other people’s suffering and to share experiences, but they also have an ability to humiliate and de-humanize others. Empathy, this deep human feeling, is closely intertwined with the conflicts of contemporary life. This is why the study of empathy is no longer confined to philosophy departments or to neuroscience labs and is taking on a decisive role in ethics and politics. Certain crucial aspects of the ongoing crisis – the deterioration of our environment, the triumph of greed and corruption in finance and politics, the erosion of social bonds – can only be overcome by recognizing and caring for others, and by solidarity. We are witnessing the lack of an education to empathy within the household and in school, not to mention the contempt of empathy in the spheres of the economy and politics.
is a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the Università Statale of Milan. She has studied the major 20th-century female thinkers and is an expert on Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Maria Zambrano and Edith Stein. She has focussed on interpersonal relationships and on the feelings of sympathy, empathy, compassion. Among her most recent books are: Sentire l’altro. Conoscere e praticare l’empatia (2006), Neuroetica. La morale prima della morale (2008), Il coraggio dell’etica. Per una nuova immaginazione morale (2012) for Raffaello Cortina Editore; Le imperdonabili. Milena Jesenskà, Etty Hillesum, Marina Cvetaeva, Ingeborg Bachmann, Cristina Campo (Mimesis, 2013).
EVENT #18
Stefano Bartezzaghi, Massimo Recalcati
To inherit or to be creative? Art in the time of disoriented generations
