Íngrid Vendrell-Ferran

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.

This paper employs the concept of “transformative experience” to develop a radical version of aesthetic cognitivism, according to which engaging with literary perspectives might lead the reader to experience not only an epistemic but also a personal transformation. It is argued that the reader’s imaginative and empathic abilities when subjected to the aesthetic norms that govern a literary work can mobilize other aspects of her psychology, eliciting in this way a change in her core values and, consequently, in the way in which she engages with the world. After introducing the topic (section 1), the paper discusses the “scope” of literary perspectives in terms of the character’s subjective experiences (section 2). Next, it offers an analysis of the “depth” of literary perspectives in terms of the degree of involvement of the reader’s imaginative and empathic abilities (section 3). It proceeds to examine how the interplay between the “scope” and “depth” in the reader’s engagement with a literary perspective can explain her epistemic and personal transformation (section 4). In the final part, the paper analyzes how the personal transformation changes the reader’s value system (section 5). The main findings are summarized in the conclusion (section 6).

In contrast to mainstream accounts which explain the aesthetic experience of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in terms of cognitive abilities, this paper suggests as an alternative explanation the “emotional abilities approach”. We present an example of a person with ASD who is able to exercise a variety of emotional abilities in aesthetic contexts but who has difficulties exhibiting their equivalents in interpersonal relations. Using an autobiographical account, we demonstrate first that there is at least one precedent where a person with ASD can exercise a series of emotional abilities when engaging with art works. Second, we offer also an explanation about why aesthetic contexts might enable this person to exercise emotional abilities which in interpersonal contexts seem to be blocked.

Tener miedo del más allá, sentirse amado incondicionalmente por un ser superior, avergonzarse de la condición imperfecta del ser humano, son algunos ejemplos de emociones que no dudaríamos en calificar como religiosas. Ahora bien ¿Cómo describir su estructura? ¿Por qué llamamos a estas emociones “religiosas”? ¿Cuálos son los rasgos distintivos que sirven para diferenciarlas de las emociones “no religiosas”? En este artículo se examinan los rasgos distintivos de las emociones religiosas. Para ello, se analizan tres elementos cruciales de la experiencia emocional: su fenomenología, sus bases cognitivas y su relación con los valores. Se argumenta que las emociones religiosas poseen profundidad experiencial afectando totalmente a la persona, tienen un contenido religioso y responden a valores religiosos. Cada una de estas tres condiciones es necesaria para considerar a una emoción como religiosa, aunque por sí sola ninguna es suficiente. Son las tres condiciones conjuntas lo que explica el carácter religioso de una emoción.

This paper argues that early phenomenologists used the concept of empathy not only to refer to the direct perception of the other’s experiences – as underscored by contemporary proponents of the Direct Perception Theory – but also to describe – in a sense close to Lipps’s theory and contemporary Simulation Theory – how, by virtue of imagining, we “feel into” animate and inanimate objects. Focusing on this second usage of the term, two kinds of imagination-based accounts of empathy in early phenomenology are identified. According to “radical imaginationists”, empathy can be explained in terms of the series of imaginative processes entailed in the idea of “feeling into”, such as projecting oneself into the target, “imitating” its feelings, and resonating with it. Voigtländer’s account of empathizing with one’s own self in Vom Selbstgefühl (1910) and Geiger’s account of empathy with atmospheres in “Zum Problem der Stimmungseinfühlung” (1911) can in this sense be regarded as radical imaginationist theories. According to “moderate imaginationists”, empathy might (but need not) entail imagining. Stein’s account of empathy with others in On the Problem of Empathy (Zum Problem der Einfühlung) (1917/1989) as a three-step process which can involve imagination-like states is a good example of a moderate imaginationist account.

In meinem Aufsatz möchte ich die Frage danach behandeln, warum es so schwierig ist, mit dem Hassen aufzuhören. Um diese Frage zu beantworten, werde ich zunächst auf die Struktur des Hasses eingehen: Ich werde für die These plädieren, dass der Hass als eine Gesinnung zu verstehen ist, die aus einem Prozess der Sedimentierung feinlicher Gefühle entsteht. Der Hass hat eine Geschichte. Diese Geschichte werde ich mich danach widmen, um die Hartnäckigkeit und Beharrung des Hasses besser zu verstehen. Denn seine Geschichte macht der Hass nicht nur zu einer vorübergehenden Gemütsbewegung, sondern zu einem Teil unserer Person. Anschließend werde ich eine Antwort auf die Frage meines Aufsatzes geben, warum es so schwierig ist, mit dem Hassen aufzuhören.

This book explores the structure and function of memory and imagination, as well as the relation and interaction between the two states. It is the first book to offer an integrative approach to these two emerging areas of philosophical research. The essays in this volume deal with a variety of forms of imagining and remembering. The contributors come from a range of methodological backgrounds: empirically minded philosophers, analytic philosophers engaging mainly in conceptual analysis, and philosophers informed by the phenomenological tradition. Part 1 consists of novel contributions to ontological issues regarding the nature of memory and imagination and their respective structural features. Part 2 focuses on questions of justification and perspective regarding both states. The chapters in Part 3 discuss issues regarding memory and imagination as skills or powers. Finally, Part 4 focuses on the relation between memory, imagination, and emotion. Philosophical Perspectives on Memory and Imagination will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of memory, philosophy of imagination, philosophy of mind, and epistemology.

How to distinguish emotions such as envy, disgust, and shame from sentiments such as love, hate, and adoration? While the standard approach argues that emotions and sentiments differ in terms of their temporal structures (e.g., Ben-ze’ev, 2000; Deonna & Teroni, 2012; Frijda et al., 1991), this paper sketches an alternative approach according to which each of these states exhibits a distinctive intentional structure. More precisely, this paper argues that emotions and sentiments exhibit distinct forms of affective intentionality. The paper begins by examining the temporal criteria of duration, etiology, and phenomenology widely employed to distinguish between both states. It demonstrates that none of them provides a clear-cut distinction between emotions and sentiments. Next, it presents the intentional approach as an alternative. To this end, it discusses what I call the axiological account (De Monticelli’s 2006; 2020), before introducing my version of the intentional approach according to which emotions and sentiments exhibit different forms of affective intentionality. The main findings are summarized in the conclusion.

Drawing on Laurie A. Paul’s notion of “transformative experience”, this paper explores transformative philosophical experiences and analyses the structure of the attitude underlying them. It is argued that these experiences have to be explained not in cognitive terms but as a change in our affective attitude. More precisely, these experiences lead us to feel values in a novel manner. However, in order to make the philosophical experience epistemically transformative and provide a new perspective from which we can acquire new philosophical insights, this feeling of value must meet certain moral conditions such as being open, humble and aware of possible self-deceptive tendencies. Since affectivity is central to the person we are, epistemically transformative experiences in philosophy go hand in hand with personal transformation.

This paper explores how individuals experiencing hostile affective states such as envy, jealousy, hate, contempt, and Ressentiment tend to deceive themselves about their own mental states. More precisely, it examines how the feeling of being diminished in worth experienced by the subject of these hostile affective states motivates a series of self-deceptive maneuvers that generate a fictitious upliftment of the subject’s sense of self. After introducing the topic (section 1), the paper explores the main arguments that explain why several hostile affective states involve a feeling of diminution in the subject’s own value (section 2). Next, it offers an analysis of how the negative feeling of self-worth motivates self-deception. While in extrinsically motivated self-deception, the subject feels diminished in worth after negatively evaluating her own hostile affective states, in intrinsically motivated self-deception, the negative feelings of self-worth are constituent elements of the hostile affective state in question (section 3). Cases of intrinsically motivated self-deception are particularly intriguing because in them the motivation for self-deception is inherent to the hostile affective state, independently of external reasons. I coin the expression “self-deceptive style” to capture the distinctive form in which each hostile affective state intrinsically motivates changes in the architecture of the mind (e.g., perception, imagining, memory, judgment, attention, etc.) in order to generate an upliftment of the self (section 4). To show the descriptive and explanatory function of this concept, a comparative analysis of the self-deceptive styles of envy and hate is provided (section 5). The conclusion summarizes the main findings and explores directions for further research (section 6).

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. The importance of imagination seems to stand in tension with the assumed unique and irreplaceable role of experience in our lives. However, new arguments in various philosophical debates suggest there is a need to examine how both areas of research interrelate and can enrich one another. The chapters in this volume examine whether the traditional accounts of experience and imagination need to be challenged. They are divided into thematic sections that discuss epistemological, ontological, normative, phenomenological, and intersubjective questions related to experience and imagination.

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.

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 compares the concept of the heart in the works of Max Scheler and María Zambrano. Both authors use the heart as a metaphor for distinct human affective phenomena that have a central anthropological, epistemological, and ontological significance. The comparison between authors’ use of the metaphor is organised around three main topics: the order of the heart; the idea of a primordial feeling and its place in the affective life; and the primacy of love in relation to negative affective attitudes. Our aim is twofold: to investigate the influence of Scheler on Zambrano’s thought and to demonstrate how Scheler’s phenomenology of affectivity transformed in Spanish philosophy and, in particular, in Zambrano’s work. After introducing the topic (section 1), the paper focuses on Scheler’s model of affectivity (section 2), presents an overview of Scheler’s reception in Spain focusing on Zambrano’s knowledge of his works (section 3), and examines Zambrano’s notion of the heart tracing parallelisms in Scheler’s works (section 4). The paper concludes with a discussion on Zambrano’s extension and transformation of the metaphor of the heart in the context of Spanish philosophy.

This introduction offers an overview of Else Voigtländer´s (1882-1946) life and thought and places her work within the early phenomenological tradition. It is argued that she should be regarded as a fully-fledged member of the Munich Circle. Voigtländer developed central concepts and themes that occupied other phenomenologists of that time and, though working outside the academy, with her writing she helped to forge a particular view of self-consciousness, affectivity, and the social self. the perception and reception of her philosophical work are examined. After a first period of collegial exclusion, and a second period of historical oblivion, Voigtländer's work have been object of recent interest. It is high time that we acknowledge her as a philosopher of the twentieth century. By so doing, a new and more inclusive view on the genealogy of the phenomenological movement will emerge.

This chapter explores the early phenomenological accounts of Ressentiment provided by Else Voigtländer, Max Scheler, and Adolf Reinach. In particular, it examines the self-deceptive processes that lead to the “inversion of values” inherent to Ressentiment, i.e., how an object previously felt as valuable is denuded of its worth when the subject realizes that she cannot achieve it. For the comparative analysis of the three accounts, attention is paid to three crucial issues: 1) the origins of Ressentiment (etiology); 2) its place in the taxonomy of the affective mind (ontology); and 3) the psychological mechanisms responsible for the inversion of value (psychology). The early phenomenological accounts are then analyzed in the light of recent accounts of Ressentiment elaborated by authors close to the phenomenological tradition. It is argued that the early phenomenological accounts provide central insights on the interrelation between affectivity and value.

This paper explores Landmann-Kalischer’s analogy between the sensing of secondary qualities and the feeling of values in her work “Philosophie der Werte” (Philosophy of Values) (1910). Attention is paid to the epistemic motivation of the analogy, the distinction between pure feelings and affects, and the relation of pure feelings to value judgments. Her account is contrasted with two other accounts of the Brentanian tradition: Scheler’s approach within early phenomenology and Meinong’s account within the Graz School. I demonstrate that Landmann-Kalischer’s pioneering work helped to forge a new view of affectivity which became dominant among Brentano’s followers. According to this new view, there is a type of affective experience which is both intentional and cognitive. More precisely, she argued that the affective experience in question is a feeling. The paper also argues that her account can enrich today’s meta-ethical research. It is argued that her account of pure feelings provides arguments against the view that makes emotions responsible for the apprehension of value. Furthermore, it is shown that we need an analysis of how objective knowledge of value can be obtained from our affective intuitions.

In diesem Aufsatz werden die Fragen nach dem Ort der Werte in der Erfahrung und nach ihrer Natur als Qualität besonderer Art anhand von Ansätzen der Brentanoschule und der Gestaltpsychologie untersucht. Konkret geht es darum, diejenigen Positionen innerhalb dieser Schulen zu analysieren, welche die Werte sowohl in Abhängigkeit von den Eigenschaften des Objektes, an dem diese haften, als auch von der psychophysischen Konstitution des Subjektes, welche sich auf Werte bezieht, verstehen. Brentanos Dispositionalismus, Meinongs erste und zweite dispositionalistische Theorie der Werte und Landmann-Kalischers Theorie der Werte als sekundäre Qualitäten werden exemplarisch als Vertreter der Brentanoschule untersucht, während Köhlers These der Werte als Gestaltqualitäten die Auffassung der Berliner gestalttheoretischen Schule repräsentieren soll. Die Untersuchung dieser Positionen wird einen neuen Blick auf das Wertphänomen werfen, die sich sowohl vom Realismus als auch vom Emotivismus unterscheidet, und welche darin besteht, es in Abhängigkeit von unseren affektiven Dispositionen zu erklären, seien diese als Gemütsbewegungen, Begehrungen, Gefühle oder emotionale Wahrnehmungen verstanden.