Rediscovering the Dynamic of Self-gift and Reciprocity from a Place of Vulnerability

For Aristotle, happiness (eudaimonia) would constitute the end of all human action, whether contemplative, practical, or moral. In such a teleological approach, human nature is realized to the extent that it attains the state of happiness. Moreover, this state should be subjectively apprehended by the person him or herself as a feeling of fulfillment. The experience of vulnerability stood out with the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, whose consequences extend to the most diverse areas of human societies, from economics to mental health. Despite the technological and economic progress achieved, especially in the West, science has not been able to predict and prevent the emergence and spread of the virus. Thus, in a world surprised by the rapid and deadly spread of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, the feeling of insecurity has come to inhabit people’s lives. Forced to wear a mask and deal with continuous confinements in order to mitigate the spread of the virus, we feel life changing regardless of the wealth produced and knowledge achieved. We want to show how this experience of vulnerability may constitute an opportunity. In order to do so, we will expose an ontology of the We, a metaphysics of love, based on four authors—Simon L. Frank, Ferdinand Ulrich, Elena Lasida, and Minouche Shafik—who tend to be neglected by the current philosophical landscape. In doing so, instead of deconstructing the paradigm of modern scientism, which after the crisis fell into disrepute, we will rather show the possibility of establishing a dialogical approach that sees dependence and vulnerability not as something that must be overcome: this is precisely the human condition from which a person can realize his or her life in this world, reaching its fullness. This is possible in the horizon of the communion of love between different people and not so much from a reason that each subject holds and that allows him to know, predict, and dominate the world.