Leader: Francesca De Vecchi (UniSR); Other collaborator(s): Francesca Forle (UNISR)
A qualitative social ontology - intrinsically connected with an ontology of the person and focused on the relation between the personal and the social- suggests dealing with the intergenerational relation in terms of whole-parts. Different generations are parts existentially depending on one other, and, together, they constitute a whole that is the subjective pole of our common and socio-institutional world across the time. Under this perspective, legal provisions must consider as their addressee the transgenerational whole, even though they must distinguish different roles, and relative rights and obligations in different times, for each of the generations involved.
Brief description of the activities and of the intermediate results:
November 2023 – March 2024
During the relevant period, we have worked on the topic of personal identity and its possible modifications at older age. On the one hand we have worked on the topics of transgenerationality and vulnerability in older people affected by dementia. On the other hand we have worked on a phenomenological account of sentiments and existential feelings to investigate how the mentioned affective phenomena can become prominent at older age and can have effects on the personal transformation that older age implies. The investigated hypothesis is that older age is usually characterized by modifications in one’s existential feelings. Since the latter are background feelings able to shape other subjective experiences, we consider whether specific sentiments and emotions at older age can be explained on the basis of existential feelings’ modifications. On this background, we investigated whether specific forms of vulnerability can be implied by such existential modifications and we developed the thesis that laws and normative treatment can have a crucial role in mitigating a possible sense of estrangement in older people and in facilitating an experience of familiarity with the normative world. This research has led to an abstract to be presented at the X Conference of the European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotions (Lisbon, June 19th-21st 2024) and a paper to be presented at the Age-it General Meeting (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, May 20-22, 2024).
Moreover, we have worked at a paper on “Fenomenologia del corpo vissuto e identità personale di genere” that has been presented at the IV Conference of SWIP Italia “Genere e Biologia: dal corpo al contesto”, Turin, November 9th – 10th 2023. Such a paper gives the theoretical background for further investigation on gender identity in older people.
Finally, we have contributed to a position paper on the legal aspects of intergenerational justice between different age groups.
Main policy, industrial and scientific implications:
Coming soon
Francesca De Vecchi and Francesca Forlè have organized and attended two events related to the present project. The first is “Exploring Personal Identity. Philosophical Perspectives and Insights from Arts” (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, October 2-4 2024), which has explored the topic of personal identity also in connection to older age (cfr. the keynote presentation by Sara Heinämaa on “Transformations of Aging: An Existential-Phenomenological Account”).
The second is the workshop “Invecchiamento, demenza, vulnerabilità: una prospettiva di ricerca interdisciplinare” at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University (November 28-29, 2024).
Francesca Forlè has finalized the paper “Becoming new in old age. Bodily experience and personal flourishing” that has been accepted for publication on a special issue of the journal Rivista di Estetica.
Francesca De Vecchi and Francesca Forlè, together with Roberta Sala, have started to work at the paper “Vulnerability and existential feelings of ageing: personal traits and public implications”, to be submitted to an international journal such as Journal of Social Ontology, The European Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies.
Moreover, they have worked on the concept of “therapeutic atmosphere” as a crucial one to improve older people’s experience of medical therapies. The preliminary hypothesis of this research has been the object of an abstract submitted to the EPSSE conference 2025.
Coming soon
STATUS - 31/12/2025
July-September 2025
During the relevant period (July 2025-September 2025), Francesca De Vecchi and Francesca Forlè worked on the topic of atmospheres and their affective perceivability, in order to better understand the phenomenon of therapeutic atmospheres in the case of older patients.
Moreover, Francesca Forlè wrote and submitted the paper (co-authored with Sarah Songhorian and Maria Russo) “Empatia e cura dell’anziano migrante: una prospettiva fenomenologica ed etica” to the journal Biblioteca della libertà. She also started writing the paper “Vulnerability and existential feelings of ageing: personal traits and public implications” co-authored with Roberta Sala and Francesca De Vecchi.
October – December 2025
During the relevant period (October 2025 – December 2025), Francesca De Vecchi and Francesca Forlè continued working on the topic of therapeutic atmospheres in the case of older patients, in view of a paper to be submitted for a collected volume edited by Routledge. In relation to this topic, they co-organized and participated in the workshop “Atmosfere di cura. Prospettive transdisciplinari”, held on October 15th at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University.
Moreover, Francesca Forlè has worked on bodily expressivity and personal identity in old age. This topic has been the focus of her paper “Personal bodies. The case of old age” presented at the conference Ethics and Metaphysics of the Person. Interconnections and perspectives, University of Padova (December 10-11, 2025).
Finally, Francesca De Vecchi has been the co-supervisor of a PhD Student’s thesis on dementia and ageing (UniSR and Husserl Arkiv, Koeln University). The PhD thesis addresses a crucial problem of our ageing societies, which are increasingly characterized by population ageing and, consequently, by a growing number of individuals living with dementia. The PhD thesis successfully develops an innovative proposal that centres on the intersubjective, interpersonal, and intercorporeal relationship between the persons affected by dementia and those who care for them, whether medical and nursing staff or family members and friends. By focusing on human and personal experience as genuinely multimodal—namely, synesthetic—and at the same time as corporeally and intercorporeally lived experience, the PhD thesis shows the effectiveness – not only medical, but above all existential and human– of new relational and atmospheric therapeutic practices for older people with dementia.