A Tragedy and a Dream: Disability Revisited

Abstract

Despite its tragic dimension, the challenge of disability has the power to serve as the catalyst towards a ‘new humanism.’ This article argues that attention to disability can reveal again the irreducible singularity that is each person, and from this, open a possibility in terms of a reconstruction of the social bond. Reflecting on the inherent mortality of all life and the creative engendering of norms, it proposes as complementary to the Graeco-Christian ‘ontology of privation’ a new and fuller appreciation of the incommensurable singularity of each person.