IL FILOTTETE DI SOFOCLE: UNA RIFLESSIONE SU VULNERABILITÀ E POLITICA

Abstract

Sophocles’ Philoctetes is a play about vulnerability. The wretched hero became the symbol of human frailty. The social vulnerability adds to the ontological vulnerability, when Philoctetes’ companions abandoned him in Lemno for ten years, because of his smelly wound and loud cries. But Atrides needed Philoctetes and his bow for winning Troy war. The plot of Odysseus of taking back Philoctetes to Troy with the understanding of young Neoptolemus is foiled because of the pity arisen in the young man from his encounter with wounded Philoctetes. The discovery of vulnerability will be the source of new duties and a new moral approach, and it will lead to abandon political utilitarianism, inaugurating an ethic approach based on care. Heracles final apparition shows that care for vulnerability and political utility can coexist, if the former helps to achieve inclusion, and the latter doesn’t exploit the other for its own ends.