Care as Key to Political Aesthetics

Abstract

The paper investigates the concept of care starting from Socrates and Plato to Italian Humanism, as the art of educating ourselves and others to live a good life. Taking into account some contemporary philosophical perspectives (Richard Shusterman; Yuriko Saito; Ellen Dissanayake) the author focuses on care in relation to the notion of sensitiveness, education and community. Then she claims that care has a key role within political aesthetics, understanding aesthetics as “theory of perception”, in line with the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten.