Abstract

This essay is a review of Riccardo Fanciullacci’s book L’esperienza etica and his concept of ‘experience of narrowness’. The experiences of narrowness are situations of awkwardness and suffering, in which human subjects are not able to mediate their ideals, their desires, their practical motivations and social articulations of their life-world. Nevertheless, these forms of suffering are not mere private or psychological experiences, since they concern symbolic order of our everyday life: the human experience, the world-openness of our existence, is always and structurally woven with social habitus, lifestyles, values and cultural significations. Thus, related to ‘spiritual’ sufferings, the aim of practical philosophy is to fluidify symbolic mediations that stifle and petrify human experience, so that people themselves can solve their existential difficulties and not give up on their desires