On Vulnerability: A Philosophical Anthropology

Miquel Seguró Mendlewicz

doi:10.5771/9781666945485

Summary

We tend to understand vulnerability in one of two ways: (1) the measure of everything that happens to us, or (2) that it legitimizes the current discourses and the halo of authority that fashion grants. However, we should think of vulnerability as being affectable both to and by others. In On Vulnerability: A Philosophical Anthropology Miquel Seguró Mendlewicz projects vulnerability as a condition of human life and the central concept to understand our existential position in the world. The philosophical journey is structured around two fundamental areas: the existential reality of vulnerability (its pathos) and the decision to integrate it and live it as an ethical and political reality (its ethos). Using the work of René Descartes, whose philosophy the author presents as conducive to meditating on vulnerability, Seguró Mendlewicz proposes a philosophical reflection that projects vulnerability as a condition of human life in all its magnitudes. Therefore, this book explores all facets of vulnerability, the real impact of what being vulnerable means, and the dangers implied when something becomes trendy.