care ethics and otherness in the tiredness society by Byung-Chul Han

Abstract

The research theme is otherness. It seeks to answer the following questions: how has the loss of otherness manifested itself on the model of society in which we live? How to resolve this loss? The hypothesis is: otherness has been attacked and weakened by the model of society that prioritizes production and performance, displacing its individuals from their ethical responses and their commitments to themselves. The research aims to show how the society of performance and production, as described by the South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han in his work Society of Tiredness, contributes to the visualization of the weakening of otherness and how this same society can offer indications to retrieve it. The method is the Literature Review, which will have as data collection the works Philosophy of Care, by Luigina Mortari; Society of Tiredness and What is Power?, by Byung-Chul Han; as well as other references of relevance to the research. The research will be developed in three parts: First, it will be explained how otherness and ethics are in convergence, presenting the way in which phenomenology has seen the human being as a being-of-care. Secondly, it will show that Han, when he sets out to describe the society of performance and production, touches precisely on the problem of the loss or weakening of otherness. Finally, the article wants to show that the loss of otherness is related to the absence of a society that thinks about itself again.