Open AccessWhy the Pandemic Matters for Philosophy. Why Philosophy Matters for the Pandemic.
Author(s) -
Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo,
Slavoj Žižek,
Angélica Montes Montoya,
Gonzalo Salas
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
discusiones filosóficas/discusiones filosoficas
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 2462-9596
pISSN - 0124-6127
DOI - 10.17151/difil.2021.22.38.2
Subject(s) - pandemic , covid-19 , epistemology , normality , environmental ethics , sociology , philosophy , psychology , medicine , virology , social psychology , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , outbreak
Our common sense reaction to “pandemic and philosophy” is that we are in a medical emergency when we have to act decisively and not lose time in philo-sophical ruminations. But what if the tremendous impact of the pandemic on our economy, relations of domination, neocolonial divisions, and our mental health requires precisely a philosophical approach? To understand how the pandemic perturbed our ordinary daily lives, we need to reflect on what it means to be hu-man today, on the customs and rituals that make us “normal” human beings, on the need to invent new normality. The text deals with these basic questions through a critical overview of the existing literature on the current pandemic.