Aver cura del cuore: l’utopia possibile della pedagogia empatica di Don Bosco

This paper will analyse Don Bosco’s pedagogy in terms of what the scientific literature has identified as one of his foremost key perspectives: spiritual, inner education. According to Don Bosco, both on the theoretical and on the practical-methodological levels, such education needs to recover the heart, as it is an instance of truth, and love, as the way to educate the man’s will and feelings, so as to reach the depths of his being and foster his potential to the fullest in virtue and harmony. As we shall see, this project will need an ethical commitment on behalf of the educator. Accordingly, by claiming the primacy of practical reason and empathy in terms of mutual understanding, the educator will take it upon himself to persuade the man to goodness, as either one of them opens the way to a genuine relationship and educational care.