This essay examines illness as an anthropological and educational experience, exploring its philosophical, historical, literary, and pedagogical dimensions. From biblical texts to Hippocratic writings, from Aquinas to Cartesian modernity, and from Canguilhem and Sontag to the medical humanities, illness is portrayed as an event linking body, language, and freedom. It disrupts life’s continuity, urging new norms of meaning and acting as a call to personal awareness. Pedagogy does not tame the enigma of suffering but guides individuals in transforming vulnerability into narrative and ethical resources, fostering an education to care that preserves the uniqueness and symbolic depth of illness.
University of Florence, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-3693-5209
Chapter Title
Oltre l’addomesticamento dell’enigma. La pedagogia di fronte alla malattia
Authors
Fabio Togni
Language
Italian
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0943-4.04
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2026
Copyright Information
© 2026 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Formare professionisti dell’educazione, della scuola, della cura
Book Subtitle
La Scuola in Ospedale e l’Istruzione Domiciliare
Editors
Vanna Boffo
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
208
Publication Year
2026
Copyright Information
© 2026 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0943-4
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0942-7
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0943-4
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0944-1
Series Title
Studies on Adult Learning and Education
Series ISSN
2704-596X
Series E-ISSN
2704-5781