La nozione di abitabilità nelle cure palliative. Un’indagine fenomenologica a partire dalla riflessione di Jean Ladrière

This paper aims to be a phenomenological reflection on how the end-of-life period is experienced by subjects included in palliative care pathways. The discussion moves from the meaning and the centrality of the request to be able to live the last period of one’s existence in a context perceived as welcoming and familiar. The goals of the paper are essentially two. Firstly, the intention is to underline the ability of the phenomenological approach to intercept the concrete needs that emerge from the context of palliative care, inserting them in a theoretical-hermeneutical framework. Phenomenology, with its attention to the lifeworld and its factuality, seems able to accept the request for an evaluation of the concrete and lived experience of each patient. Against this background, the intent is to retrace Jean Ladrière’s reflection on the conditions that make an environment habitable for human being. The second goal consists in the proposal to apply the concept of habitability of Ladrière to the context of palliative care. This aims to demonstrate how this phenomenological reflection can elucidate and deepen the main ethical-practical issues related to the theme of living one’s space at the end of life. To this end, it is important to present the three intertwined essential conditions – embodiment, coexistence, lived temporality – on which the concept of habitability of Ladrière is based. More specifically, the goal is to evaluate the validity and the practical utility of their adoption in palliative care.