Dr Xavier Escribano, senior lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities at UIC Barcelona, gave a lecture as part of a series of talks entitled “A Philosophical Gaze at COVID-19” that was set up by the Catalan Society of Philosophy. Entitled “The hands and face of COVID-19: Anthropological and phenomenological perspectives”, Escribano reflected on the pandemic from a philosophical point of view, understanding this crisis as a situation that does not allow us an objective look into the distance, but instead modifies or alters our perspective.

The lecturer focused his talk on how the pandemic has transformed our experiences, particularly in terms of the different forms of sensory deprivation that the main recommendations have included to reduce the transmission of the virus: wash your hands, wear a mask and maintain social distance. In that sense, it has influenced the paradigm shift that COVID-19 has caused as regards, for example, our manual relationship with material objects, since objects that in a normal situation would not have caused any inconvenience (a door knob, the surface of a table in a classroom, a pencil, vegetables you have bought), can potentially become hypothetical transmitters of an invisible infectious agent. We thus experience the “adversity of the objects” that surround us.

Escribano also pointed out that the face is the most prominent expression of individuality, and that face masks, as well as transforming the uniqueness of the face into something generic, picks apart the two sides of the face: the intellectual and the moral. It has also led to a loss of identity. The mask causes problems when a dialogue is held between two people, when understood as the transmission of thoughts that is modulated by attitude, expectations and the interest of the person listening. Finally, the lecturer stated that most of the challenges related to social distancing were problems that existed before the pandemic, such as “fear of contact” in contemporary city crowds, as previously detected by some sociologists, but they have now worsened, and he concluded that the pandemic is an invitation to reflect on a vitally urgent situation that forces us not to stop thinking about what has happened to us, what is happening to us and what will happen to us.

The series of talks entitled “A Philosophical Gaze at COVID-19” from the Catalan Society of Philosophy proposes a philosophical reflection on the general situation caused by COVID-19 from different perspectives such as phenomenology, philosophical anthropology and ethics, in order to open the door to understand the human condition during this pandemic.