Chiedere scusa: un atto sociale

Apologizing: a Social Act Abstract: In my paper I dwell on “apologizing” as a social act and analyze its structure using the tools offered by Adolf Reinach’s (1913/1989) phenomenology of social acts – I therefore share the research perspective on apologizing as a social act launched by Riccardo Mazzola (2023; 2024). I focus on the sense of ‘act’ as intentional and positional lived experience and on spontaneous acts, among which apologizing, as personal position-takings that are deeply individuating and characterized by authorship. I point out that spontaneous acts can be both social and non-social acts (Reianch, 1911a). I highlight the irreducibility of social acts, included the act of apologizing, to internal spontaneous or non-social acts, and focus on the specific sociality of social acts: the social quality of their intentionality and positionality. Indeed, social acts are persons’ position-takings that open their intentional horizon to other persons: they are acts that address other persons by manifesting themselves to them, and call them to enter into a social interaction, assuming the role of counterpart of the act. Finally, I distinguish between performance and success conditions of social acts and act of apologizing.