Mario Vergani, To see the need, between social and ethical request. Reading Simone Weil

Need represents a fundamental interpretative category for those who deal with education and particularly education from a social perspective. This essay shows the distinction between social and ethical request raised by need, by discussing some well-established theories of need, hence dwelling on the conceptualization of the issue as proposed by Simone Weil – in different historical stages of its speculation – in order to detect the possible consequences within education. The two axis of reading regarding the theme of needs and their relational part consist on the one hand of the analysis of the link between need and injunction and on the other hand of the distinction between “reading the need” and “seeing the need”.

 

 

Published on: Educating in the social N. 25 New Series – Year XIII 2017