The art of preparing the remnants of culture - The starting point and ethical risks of social intervention - Reflections on the clinical and theoretical framework of practical experience

Aren't most quests for meaning built upon the remnants of culture? Using th e notion of futility in medical practice as his starting point, the author goes on to investigate the mechanisms which provide access to these remnant s. He discovers traces of these mechanisms in contemporary fields as varied as those of sports, war and commerce. Here he uncovers those modes of ethi cal reflection to which the relationship to these remnants give rise. This is an ethics in action, which opens up the possibility of a world that is o ther, one that breaks out of the bonds surrounding the hermetic institution s of social practice. The challenge of ethics is to run the risk of meaning when practice fails. Beginning its search at the point where rational tech nical intervention has met its limits, ethics thus transforms social interv ention into a clinical practice nourished as much by its practical experien ce as by any theoretical framework.