Bengt Kristensson Uggla

Professor & Philosophical Advisor

Affiliation(s)
Professor of Philosophy, Culture, and Management at Åbo Akademi University, Finland.
Philosophical advisor at Gothenburg Centre for Person-Centred Care (GPCC), Sweden.

Title
What makes us human? …and who cares, in times of global destabilization?

Abstract
In my presentation I will elaborate on four major concepts: polycrisis, destabilization, decentering and personhood. Each of these themes force us to cope with the question: who really cares? The first theme is associated with the societal challenges of the simultaneous occurrence of a series of interconnected global crises that amplify each other with profound effects also for health care systems. The second has more specifically to do with the serious consequences of the cognitive destabilization, generated by the new digital information system but also reinforced by authoritarian political leadership, which has ruined the preconditions for science and democracy. What will happen to health care if science is being undermined? Who really cares in a post democratic society? The third theme raises questions about what it means to be human considering the extremely polarized landscape of philosophical anthropology and even sharpened by the successful development of Artificial Intelligence. In an age when health care is increasingly carried out by technological-based processes, the technological development needs to be an integral part of what it means to be human. Today we experience the dark sides of the grand success story of globalization, and simultaneously an unprecedented pace of technological development offering ever new medical treatments we never thought would be possible – but also critical challenges we are not yet prepared to cope with. So many things we have taken for granted are being challenged today, yet the most crucial has to do with what it means to be human. But instead of an exceptionalist view, where the “true” human condition is recognized as a person separated from technology, person-centered care offers an ethical approach where AI can be an integral part of a profound recognition of who the patient is as person and who the person is who cares.

Bio
Bengt Kristensson Uggla is Amos Anderson Professor in Philosophy, Culture, and Management at Åbo Akademi University (Finland), philosophical advisor and for many years visiting professor at Gothenburg Centre for Person-Centred Care (GPCC), Sweden. He has developed the field of cross disciplinary hermeneutics, mainly inspired by the work of Paul Ricoeur and is the author of fifteen books and his latest book published in English is Science as a Quest for Truth: The Interpretation Lab (2024). In 2026 he was awarded the H.M. The King’s Medal of the 8th size in the Order of the Seraphim ribbon.