Íngrid Vendrell-Ferran

Dieser Beitrag zeigt ausgehend von einem Vergleich mit Emotionen, dass nicht nur Emotionen, sondern auch Stimmungen intentionale Zustände sind. Ich vertrete in diesem Aufsatz die These, dass die „sui-generis-Intentionalität“ der Stimmungen darin besteht, uns für bestimmte Objekte und evaluative Eigenschaften empfänglicher zu machen („Sensibilisierungsthese“). Ich diskutiere Searle and Crane als Vertreter zweier entgegengesetzter Positionen zu Intentionalität in der heutigen Debatte. Danach arbeite ich zwei Argumente für die „sui-generis-Intentionalität“ der Stimmungen heraus, indem ich sie mit der Intentionalität von Emotionen vergleiche. Dafür bestimme ich die materiellen Objekte der Stimmungen, d. h. das, worauf sich Stimmungen richten, ausgehend von einem Vergleich mit den materiellen Objekten der Emotionen. In einem nächsten Schritt beantworte ich die Frage danach, ob Stimmungen analog zu den Emotionen formale Objekte haben, d. h., ob sie auch mit evaluativen oder Werteigenschaften verbunden sind. Abschließend werden die Implikationen für die Philosophie der Gefühle dargestellt.

Das Ziel dieses Beitrags besteht darin, Schelers Konzept einer Sozialität der Gefühle innerhalb des historischen Entstehungskontextes der frühen Phänomenologie herauszuarbeiten. Die Arbeit beginnt mit einem Überblick über die frühe Phänomenologie der Gefühle, um Schelers Philosophie in ihren Entstehungskontext einzubetten. Danach stelle ich Schelers Grundthesen über das Fühlen und die Gefühle dar, bevor ich mich vier Kernbereichen der Sozialität der Gefühle widme: erstens der Theorie des Ausdrucks, der universellen Grammatik der Gefühle und der direkten Wahrnehmung der Gefühle anderer; zweitens der Theorie der sympathetischen Funktionen; drittens der Theorie der sozialen Einheiten sowie viertens der Theorie der individuellen und kollektiven Ordnungen des Herzens. Anschließend fasse ich die Hauptthesen über die Dimensionen der Sozialität der Gefühle zusammen, bevor ich zu den Schlussfolgerungen komme.

Often in our everyday lives, for instance, in decision-taking, empathizing with others, and engaging with fictions, we are able to imagine what a particular emotion feels like. This chapter analyzes the structure of these imaginings as a kind of experiential imagining. After introducing the topic (section 1), I argue that these imaginings cannot be explained exclusively by their content and that a focus on the mode of imagining is required. We not only imagine having emotions, but we also imagine them experientially, and this means that we imagine feeling them (section 2). I proceed to analyze the content of such imaginings in terms of the phenomenal properties of emotions undergone from a particular subjective perspective within the imagined scenario (section 3). Next, I argue that the mode in which such emotions are experientially imagined requires other-oriented perspective-shifting and the recreation of an emotion-like state (section 4). I examine how we recreate emotion-like states in two cases: when the emotion has been previously felt (section 5) and when it has not been previously experienced (section 6). The main findings are summarized in the conclusion (section 7).

This paper explores Max Scheler’s (1874–1928) essay “On Shame and Feelings of Modesty” (Über Scham und Schamgefühl) (1913). It analyzes Scheler’s view on shame as a specifically human self-conscious emotion in which the subject becomes aware of the positive values of the self, i.e., her self-worth. It is argued that, in the context of current research, Scheler should be regarded as defending a radical revisionary approach to this emotion. First, against today’s widespread view that shame is an intrinsically social emotion that requires real or imagined others to take place and which emerges to guarantee compliance with social norms, Scheler argues that shame is an emotion about the self which requires neither a relation with others nor internalized social norms. Second, rather than regarding shame as having a negative impact on the individual and her interpersonal relations, for Scheler, shame accomplishes the valuable function of disclosing and protecting positive values of the self, even if this self is not one’s own. With both claims, Scheler challenges what Deonna, Rodogno, and Teroni (2011) have labeled respectively “shame socialism” and “shame pessimism,” and offers an alternative to understand the nature, functions, and varieties of shame which remains as innovative today as it was in his own time.

While standard definitions of envy tend to focus on the coveted good or the envied rival, this paper describes envy by reflecting on the envious self and its feelings. The paper begins by describing envy and establishing its key features and objects. It presents envy as an emotion of self-assessment which necessarily involves a sense of powerlessness and a feeling of one’s own diminishing value as a person. The second section illustrates the link between envy and the feeling of self-worth by exploring one of its most radical manifestations: the phenomenon of existential envy.

This paper explores self-envy as a kind of envy in which the subject targets herself. In particular, I argue that self-envy should be regarded as a variation of existential envy, i. e., envy directed toward the rival’s entire existence, though in the case of self-envy, the rival is oneself. The paper starts by showing that self-envy is characterized by an apparent weakening of envy’s triangular structure insofar as the subject, the rival, and the good coincide in the self. After discussing an interpretation of self-envy in terms of a splitting of the self, I present an alternative explanation in terms of the ontological possibilities inherent in our actual and past empirical selves to become our ideal self. I argue that in self-envy, an actual empirical self envies her past empirical self for having more ontological possibilities of becoming her ideal self. I proceed to show that self-envy can be interpreted as a variety of existential envy. I argue that the existential self-reproach so characteristic of self-envy can be counterbalanced by feeling unconditionally loved by others and God.

While the opposition between love and hate is a recurrent and legitimate topos of our thinking, little attention has been devoted to the question of whether other aversive affective states such as fear, anger, disgust, or contempt might be regarded as contraries of love. In this paper, I explore this issue by focusing on the particular case of fear. My aim is to argue that love and fear are asymmetric opposites. The paper begins with a discussion of “the asymmetry thesis”, as found in the works of some early phenomenologists such as Scheler and Kolnai. According to this thesis, love is a much broader, multifaceted, and ubiquitous phenomenon than hate. One important consequence of this thesis is that love might admit other aversive affective states as its opposites, fear being one of them. Next, I offer an analysis of the nature of love and fear by focusing on four central elements of both states: their targeted objects, their typical evaluations, their qualitative feel, and the action tendencies inherent to each of them. It is argued that, in several respects, love and fear exhibit contrary features so that they can be regarded as being opposite affective states despite their asymmetric nature. I proceed to analyze the phenomenon of the “fear of intimacy” as a possible case of ambivalence in which love and fear are experienced toward one and the same object. The final part of the paper summarizes the main findings and extracts some conclusions for further research.

In diesem Beitrag geht es mir darum, die Funktion der Empathie als Motivation für altruistisches Verhalten näher zu untersuchen. Konkret möchte ich Batsons „Empathie-Altruismus-Hypothese“ auf den Prüfstand stellen. Der Aufsatz beginnt mit einer Darstellung der acht zentralen Aspekten der Empathie-Altruismus-Hypothese. Ich zeige dann, wie Batsons Hypothese aufgrund eines dieser Aspekte, welcher die Kongruenz empathischer Gefühle mit den Gefühlen des anderen betrifft, dem Vorwurf des Egoismus ausgesetzt ist. In kritischer Auseinandersetzung mit Batson entwickle ich dann eine alternative Auffassung der Empathie. Konkret zeige ich zunächst, dass Empathie kein Gefühl ist, sondern eine Fähigkeit, affektive Phänomene bei den anderen zu erfassen. Anschließend lege ich dar, dass die Kongruenz nicht anhand der hedonischen Valenz, sondern eher ausgehend von dem evaluativen Charakter der Erfahrung zu bestimmen ist. Im letzten Abschnitt beantworte ich die Frage nach dem Begriff der Empathie, den wir benötigen, um die Empathie-Altruismus-Hypothese von dem Vorwurf des Egoismus zu befreien. Ich argumentiere dafür, dass die Empathie, die wir für Altruismus benötigen, eher ein Mitfühlen ist.

This paper offers a reading of Hartmann’s philosophy of literature from the perspective of contemporary aesthetics. In particular, I focus on his defense of the truth-value of literary works. After outlining the main concern of the paper (sect. 1), I place Hartmann’s view within the context of current aesthetic cognitivism (sect. 2). In the following three sections, I discuss Hartmann’s account, examining his critique of the thesis that literature is cognitively valuable because it transmits factual truths (sect. 3); his defense of the view that literature discloses life (sect. 4); and the link between cognitive value and the ontology of the literary work (sect. 5). Finally, I discuss Hartmann’s focus on the concept of “truth” in the light of recent debates on knowledge of “what it is like” and on “understanding” (sect. 6).

Natural scientists working at the intersection of virtual reality, psychology, and computer science have recently explored the question of whether Embodied Virtual Reality (EVR) can be employed to train empathy. While for some authors (e.g., Bertrand et el. 2018), EVR can enhance empathy by means of creating a series of perceptual illusions, which lead users to adopt the other’s perspective and resonate with her experience, other authors (e.g., Sora-Domenjó 2022; Sutherland 2016) have been more skeptical about the powers of EVR to increase empathy in its users. This chapter aims at contributing to this recent debate by exploring how perspective-taking contributes to empathy in EVR. After an analysis of perspective-taking in non-virtual and virtual environments, the chapter introduces the distinction between sensual and emotional empathy found in classical and contemporary phenomenology (Stein 1989 ; Sveaneus 2018). While in sensual empathy, the user empathizes with the other’s lived body, in emotional empathy, she apprehends the other’s emotional states and their related values. It is argued that while the perceptual illusions elicited by EVR can lead the user to the impression of a body swap and, in so doing, foster sensual empathy, for the apprehension of the other’s emotions, which is crucial to emotional empathy, EVR must be supplemented with a series of narrative devices which that make the other’s emotions and values accessible to her.

This introduction presents an overview of the key issues discussed in the chapters of the book. This volume brings together two philosophical research areas that have been subject to increased attention: work regarding the unique character of having an experience and studies on the nature and powers of imagination. While in recent decades, there has been an increasing interest in examining the epistemic value of experience and the nature of phenomenal knowledge, the philosophy of imagination has emerged simultaneously as a new field of research. New arguments in various philosophical debates suggest that there is a need to examine how both areas of research interrelate and can enrich one another. Our book seeks to bring together these two fields of research and, in so doing, fill a lacuna in the existing literature. The chapters of the book examine topics related to the overlap and intersection of both areas. In particular, the book explores epistemological, ontological, normative, phenomenological, and intersubjective issues common to both areas of research as well as different ways in which philosophical analyses of experience can enhance our understanding of imagination and vice versa.

This paper provides an account on how to understand “emotional depth” and applies it to the particular case of religious experiences. After motivating the topic (section 1), I turn to classical and contemporary approaches to “emotional depth”. I divide these accounts into two main groups depending on whether they interpret depth as a constitutive or a momentary feature of the affective experience. I argue that despite their descriptive power, none of the existing accounts adequately captures the depth of affective religious experiences (section 2). Next, I present and critically assess Kurt Stavenhagen’s neglected account of the depth of religious feelings. In particular, I explore his concept of “specific depth”. In my reading, this notion conveys the momentary structure of a feeling (section 3). I then proceed to develop my own account according to which emotional depth is a phenomenal quality which depends on the intentional structure of a feeling. In particular, I argue that the feature of depth is explainable in terms of the specific ways in which a feeling is directed toward an object (directedness) and evaluatively presents it (evaluative presentation). Drawing on this idea, I examine three varieties of affective intentionality and distinguish between emotions, sentiments, and moods (section 4). I then apply my model to explain the depth of affective religious experiences (section 5). The main findings are summarized in the conclusion (section 6).

Seit ungefähr Mitte der 90er-Jahre und bis heute wird der Frage nach dem Zusammenhang zwischen Ästhetik und Ethik hauptsächlich in der angloamerikanischen und der angelsächsischen analytischen Ästhetik besondere Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. In der Einleitung des Bandes Aesthetics and Ethics. Essays at the Intersection (1998), der eine der ersten Publikationen über das Thema ist, macht Levinson deutlich, dass das Buch das Ziel hat, Debatten der Ästhetik und Ethik zu verbinden, die während der vergangenen 30 Jahre isoliert behandelt worden sind (Levinson 1998, 1). Er bezieht sich dabei auf die angloamerikanische Ästhetik. Seit der Veröffentlichung dieses Bandes ist eine beachtliche Zahl von Beiträgen entstanden, die explizit Themen an der Schnittstelle beider Disziplinen behandeln. Vor diesem Hintergrund soll in diesem Beitrag die Beziehung zwischen Ästhetik und Ethik unter dem Gesichtspunkt der zeitgenössischen philosophischen Ästhetik behandelt werden. Dabei sollen die Anknüpfungspunkte zwischen der neuen englischsprachigen Literatur und den Beiträgen in der deutschen ästhetischen Tradition sichtbar gemacht werden.

In contrast to previous conceptualizations of episodic self-esteem as a cognitive assessment of one’s own self, recent proposals have categorized this phenomenon as an affective state. In this vein, self-esteem has been regarded as a self-conscious emotion (Salice 2020) and an existential feeling (Bortolan 2018, 2020). While concurring with these recent accounts on the affective nature of self-esteem, this chapter also argues that none of them fully captures its nature. It argues that self-esteem is better understood as an umbrella term for a group of intentional feelings in which the subject valuates herself and senses fluctuations in her own value. The chapter also discusses the place of self-esteem feelings within the affective mind.

Written more than a hundred years ago, Stein’s On the Problem of Empathy is, today more than ever, essential reading material for anyone interested in social cognition. In this book – which still inspires current research – Stein provides a systematic account of the empathic experience. Stein’s view of empathy as a process, and her understanding of its main forms and functions in presenting the other as a spiritual being, provide valuable insights on the intersubjective nature of the human being. Yet, it is not only from the perspective of social cognition that Stein’s book is relevant today. In fact, the book approaches a wide range of issues, from the idea of personhood to social ontology and ethics, and it exemplifies the power of phenomenology to shed light on the basic structure of human consciousness (for an overview: Calcagno 2007; Lebech 2004; MacIntyre 2006; Moran 2004). In this chapter, my aim is to explore the relevance of Stein’s book on empathy for contemporary research by focusing on three main issues which, in my view, can enrich current scholarship. The first issue concerns Stein’s understanding of empathy as a three-step process through which we become conscious of the other’s experience. The second relates to her views of the intentional structure of the emotions as revelatory of the realm of value. The third is her idea that not only emotions but also moods might have correlates, e.g., the fact that the world appears to be bathed in black for the depressive person. These three issues are not exhaustive of the ways in which Stein’s early work can be an inspiration for today’s researchers, but they are illustrative of how her insights can advance three central debates of contemporary philosophy: on social cognition, on the relation between emotion and value, and on the intentionality of moods.

According to Brentano and his followers, there is a genuine affective mode of intentional reference which consists in presenting the targeted objects imbued with value as being good or bad, and as inviting us to adopt a pro- or contra-attitude toward them. Let us call this view “the affective intentionality thesis”. In Brentano’s version of this thesis, not only do strictly affective phenomena such as feelings and emotions exhibit a sui generis affective intentionality, but so do conative ones, such as wishes, desires, and acts of the will. However, in the version defended by the majority of his early phenomenological followers, this thesis applies only to affective phenomena in the narrow sense. This paper analyzes the reception of this later version of “the affective intentionality thesis” in Edith Stein’s early works, arguing that a further transformation of the thesis took place within her work. It argues that, for Stein, the intentionality exhibited by affective phenomena comes in different forms. According to this reading, the mode in which states that are affective in the strictest sense present their object as imbued with value admits variations. As I will demonstrate, a close analysis of her views on the stratification of the affective life and the different types of affective phenomena (general feelings, moods, emotions, and sentiments) suggests that at least three different forms of affective intentionality can be identified. I call them object intentionality, horizon intentionality, and personal intentionality. Since similar views can be found in other early phenomenologists, I suggest that Stein’s views can be taken as representative of a transformation that took place within this movement.

If, as argued in some simulationist accounts, empathy aims at grasping the phenomenal richness of the other’s experience and resonating with it, it is difficult to explain our empathy with emotions that we have never experienced ourselves. According to a long philosophical tradition, imagination is constrained by experience. We have to be acquainted with the qualitative feel of the other’s experience in order to imagine it. A critical view of simulationist accounts would claim that if we cannot imagine how the other feels because we are not acquainted with it, empathy cannot take place. Contrary to such criticism, this paper takes a moderately optimistic view of the simulationist claim. It develops a model to explain how we imagine the other’s emotions by drawing on phenomenal concepts, affective memories, and imaginative scaffoldings. I argue that this model can explain how we empathize with the other’s emotions regardless of whether these are familiar or novel to us. However, in the latter case, the imagined phenomenal quality is not identical but probably only similar to the other’s emotion. This similarity suffices for us to speak about empathy.

This paper explores “existential envy” as a kind of envy in which the subject targets the rival’s entire being rather than one of her possessions, achievements or talents. It argues that existential envy is characterized by a weakening of the distinction between good and rival and by a strong focus on the envious self. In existential envy, the subject becomes aware that another person is closer to her ideal self than she is, such that the rival painfully reminds her of unfulfilled but now unrealizable possibilities inherent to her being. After motivating the topic in the introduction (section 1), the paper analyzes the intentional object of existential envy, i.e., of what it means that the envier targets the other’s being (section 2). The next section explores existential envy’s focus on the self by examining the series of feelings of diminution in the envier’s own value (section 3). The paper then turns to the set of comparisons between the self and the other and the counterfactual thought “I could have been you!” which is shown to be definitory of this type of envy (section 4). In the final part of the paper, the relation between the envier’s bad self-image, self-reproach, and self-deception is discussed (section 5), before the main findings are summarized in the conclusion (section 6).

Moritz Geiger’s 1911 article on the consciousness of feeling, entitled “Das Bewusstsein von Gefühlen,” was an object of study for Husserl in a series of manuscripts recently published in Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins II. Gefühl und Wert (1896–1925) (2020). Geiger’s article and Husserl’s remarks on it received attention from Métraux (1975), but, more recently, an increasing number of publications have been devoted to the topic (Averchi, 2015a, 2015b; Crespo, 2015; Quepons, 2017; Marcos del Cano, 2023). These new publications identify a central area of disagreement between the two authors concerning the nature of emotive consciousness, i.e., the mode in which affective states relate to their objects. For Geiger, emotions are directed toward their objects but are not regarded as intentional and, in certain forms of consciousness, can even lose their relation to their objects. By contrast, for Husserl, intentionality is an intrinsic feature of emotive consciousness. The aim of this paper is to place the authors’ disagreement in a broader historical context and to show that it reveals profound differences between their respective ontologies of the mind and the place of feeling within it.

This chapter examines Else Voigtländer’s place within early phenomenology. The chapter starts by disclosing her relation to Lipps and to prominent phenomenologists of the Munich Circle, such as Pfänder, Scheler, Geiger, and Daubert. It proceeds to offer an analysis of her work as it is embedded within the phenomenological tradition. In particular, the chapter focuses on her original application of the phenomenological method, her contribution to the emotivist theory of self-consciousness, her analysis of the social dimension of the self, her development of a concept of affectivity as intimately linked to value, and her study of specific phenomena, such as Ressentiment and erotic love. The chapter finishes with a discussion of the mechanisms that might have led to Voigtländer’s omission from the canon of phenomenology and an argument for the necessity of rewriting the history of the phenomenological movement to include her as a fully-fledged member.

This paper explores Moritz Geiger’s work on the role of emotions in aesthetic appreciation and shows its potential for contemporary research. Drawing on the main tenets of Geiger’s phenomenological aesthetics as an aesthetics of value, the paper begins by elaborating his model of aesthetic appreciation. I argue that, placed in the contemporary debate, his model is close to affective models which make affective states responsible for the apprehension of the aesthetic value of an artwork, though Geiger also makes important concessions to the intellectualist. Indeed, like proponents of the affective model, Geiger argues that a work’s aesthetic values are extracted by means of an affective state though the affective state in question is neither an emotion nor a feeling but a “liking”. In fact, like the intellectualist, he considers that a focus on the emotions might on certain occasions interfere in the aesthetic appreciation of the artwork. Next, I reconstruct Geiger’s distinction between surface and depth effects in terms of a distinction between two types of emotional responses to artworks. It is argued that Geiger’s distinction offers a powerful tool to distinguish those emotions that are intrinsically related to aesthetic values from those that are not and that this distinction can be useful to understand how different kinds of emotions contribute to aesthetic appreciation. I proceed to examine the historical sources of Geiger’s distinction between surface and depth effects in Theodor Lipps’s aesthetics and compare Geiger’s account with the works of other early phenomenologists working on values. In the final part, I illustrate the place of Geiger’s model in the contemporary discussion by means of an example.