94

How can we maintain our humanity when faced with someone who no longer looks human? The philosopher answers this question, drawing on her experiences supporting people in palliative care and the reactions of profound distress that people disfigured by illness or disability provoke, when they are incapable of any perceptible communication. This text offers an initial answer, enlightened by a psychoanalytic reflection on the experience of a common source of humanity and by a story by Jorge Semprún. An alternative suggestion, informed by a re-reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan, will appear in another article in the next issue.