Ageing. Looking towards life

Journal title ECONOMIA E SOCIETÀ REGIONALE
Author/s Francesco Totaro
Publishing Year 2014 Issue 2013/3
Language Italian Pages 14 P. 93-106 File size 651 KB
DOI 10.3280/ES2013-003010
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

Ageing drives to have an overview of the life and to look at its sense. The condition of that is a conversion of our mind beyond everyday business. On this way we understand that ageing is also a social production, based on stereotypes involving our perception of time, space, relationships. Nevertheless there are many kinds of ageing and we have to distinguish themselves, to avoid a misleading leveling. Despite of that, we can focus on a general way of life exerting a negative influence on the condition of old people: the reduction of life to the ability to produce and consume. The only producer-consumer person becomes unable to cultivate the other human dimensions, like acting and contemplating. The author suggests that a "good life" might encompass work, action and contemplation. Old people are necessarily less heaped with work and selective about the quantity in their acting; just for this reason they can sow the seeds of an anthropological balance in living, according to its fullness.

Keywords: Ageing, Sense, Social Production, Work, Action, Contemplation, Anthropological Balance.

Jel codes: Y40

  1. Arendt H. (1958). The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago. Trad.it. (1964). Vita activa. La condizione umana. Milano: Bompiani.
  2. Bobbio N. (2006). De senectute e altri scritti autobiografici. Torino: Einaudi.
  3. Guardini R. (1953). Die Lebensalter. Ihre ethische und pädagogische Bedeutung. Würzburg: Werkbund. Trad. it. (2011). Le età della vita. Loro significato educativo e morale. Milano: Vita e Pensiero.
  4. Martini C.M. (2010). Le età della vita. Milano: Mondadori.
  5. Totaro F. (1999). Non di solo lavoro. Ontologia della persona ed etica del lavoro nel passaggio di civiltà. Milano: Vita e Pensiero.

Francesco Totaro, Invecchiare. Uno sguardo sulla vita in "ECONOMIA E SOCIETÀ REGIONALE " 3/2013, pp 93-106, DOI: 10.3280/ES2013-003010