In this new scenario, philosophy is presented as a privileged place to analyze the dizzying transformations that have given rise to this “new normality”.
The global coronavirus pandemic has been one of the greatest shocks in our recent history and, as such, it seems to force us to rethink our modes of organization and ways of life and, even, as proposed here, to consider how we could inhabit the collapse. In this uncertain and unknown scenario, philosophy, with its multiple approaches and subdisciplines, is presented as a privileged place to analyze the dizzying transformations that have given rise to this “new normality”. This monograph brings together a series of contributions made by different researchers from the University of Oviedo, who have tried to address the global health crisis from various philosophical and humanistic perspectives. Among the topics studied in these pages are those related to the management of the pandemic and scientific communication about it, the relationships between poverty, mental health and suicide or the scope of the revaluation of the rural world. The tools of biopolitical analysis are also used to examine the management of bodies during the pandemic from three different axes: the treatment of the sick, the new control devices and the management of the pandemic in institutions of confinement. In addition, several of the chapters explicitly deal with a theme inherent to most of the reflections that make up this volume: namely, the need for a profound questioning of contemporary Western society and the unsustainability of its way of life.