Todo cuanto constituye la personalidad de un hombre proviene de la imitación de otros hombres: sus convicciones, sus anhelos, sus gestos. La personalidad puede ser calcada con todos sus atributos, hasta en los detalles más nimios, puede transferirse de un hombre a otro sin variaciones sustanciales, y también puede crearse a partir de distintos modelos. Sin embargo, no puede aspirar a la originalidad. Por decirlo con palabras de Gombrowicz, el autor más aludido en el presente ensayo, la autenticidad está fuera (...) del alcance humano. Un ensayo literario en el que el discurso expositivo se alterna y mezcla con la narración autobiográfica y la descripción. Everything that constitutes the personality of man is derived from the imitation of other men, their convictions, desires, and behaviors. Personalities can be imprinted upon us. A personality can be transferred from one person to another without any variation, though it can also be created through encountering various models. No person can aspire to be original. As Gombrowicz wisely said, authenticity is beyond the reach of man. This is a literary essay that explores a wonderful autobiography. (shrink)

In contrast with the progressive dilution of religions predicted by traditional liberal and Marxist approaches, religions remain important for many people, even in Europe, the most secularised continent. In the context of increasingly culturally diverse societies, this calls for a reinterpretation of the secular legacy of the Enlightenment and also for an updating of democratic institutions. This book focuses on a central question: are the classical secularist arrangements well equipped to tackle the challenge of fast-growing religious pluralism? Or should we (...) move to new post-secular arrangements when dealing with pluralism in Europe? Offering an interdisciplinary approach that combines political theory and legal analysis, the authors tackle two interrelated facets of this controversial question. They begin by exploring the theoretical perspective, asking what post-secularism is and looking at its relation to secularism. The practical consequences of this debate are then examined, focusing on case-law through four empirical case studies. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political theory, philosophy, religion and politics, European law, human rights, legal theory and socio-legal studies. (shrink)

This book is the first to offer a full account of the philosophical work of Else Voigtländer. Locating the sources of her thought in the philosophy and psychology of the 19th and 20th centuries in figures such as Nietzsche and Lipps, the book uncovers and examines Voigtländer’s intellectual exchanges with both phenomenology and psychoanalysis. The major themes within her work are also considered in light of more recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, self, and sociality.

This essay examines the early reception of Scheler’s anthropological thought in Spain. The article traces the two main ways of reception of Scheler’s work in the School of Madrid and the School of Barcelona. I argue that, on the one hand, the Spanish translations of the works of the early phenomenologists – Scheler was a central figure among them – contributed to the diffusion of Scheler’s thought; and that, on the other hand, the Spanish authors subjected Scheler’s thought to a (...) critical assimilation and further developments. Scheler influenced the Spanish philosophy of the human affectivity, in which the capacity to feel, the values and love as a kernel of the human being occupy an exceptional position. This reception shows the originality of Spanish authors that incorporate Scheler’s ideas to their anthropological interest and develop these ideas in the direction of their own phenomenological anthropology. (shrink)

"¿És possible que tota Modernitat estigui travessada per un model antropològic inconscient i contradictori, resultat d’aquelles interessades distorsions que les cròniques de viatges exòtics van inocular en el si de la filosofia europea des de.

Drawing on insights found in both philosophy and psychology, this paper offers an analysis of hate and distinguishes between its main types. I argue that hate is a sentiment, i.e., a form to regard the other as evil which on certain occasions can be acutely felt. On the basis of this definition, I develop a typology which, unlike the main typologies in philosophy and psychology, does not explain hate in terms of patterns of other affective states. By examining the developmental (...) history and intentional structure of hate, I obtain two variables: the replaceability/irreplaceability of the target and the determinacy/indeterminacy of the focus of concern. The combination of these variables generates the four-types model of hate, according to which hate comes in the following kinds: normative, ideological, retributive, and malicious. (shrink)

Die Beiträge dieses Bandes werfen die Frage nach dem Erkenntniswert der Literatur auf. Der erste Teil des Bandes enthält Beiträge, welche die Frage nach dem Verhältnis zwischen literarischen und anderen Weisen menschlicher Selbstverständigung diskutieren. Im zweiten Teil des Buches finden sich Aufsätze, welche die verschiedenen Argumente, die in der Diskussion um die Frage nach dem kognitiven Wert der Literatur eine Rolle spielen, einer eingehenden Prüfung unterziehen. Sie fragen danach, ob und inwieweit die Literatur Wissen vermittelt. Die Beiträge des dritten Teils (...) vertiefen die Untersuchungen zum kognitiven Wert der Literatur, indem sie verschiedene Formen des Wissens behandeln. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit erhalten die Vergegenwärtigungsleitung der Literatur, das propositionale Wissen, das Zeugniswissen und das begriffliche Wissen. Der vierte Teil des Buches schließlich enthält Aufsätze, die sich mit der Literatur als Quelle moralischen Wissens beschäftigen und den Beitrag der Literatur zu psychologischen Fragen diskutieren, welche das Verständnis der Rolle der Gefühle und die narrative Dimension der Selbstidentität betreffen. (shrink)

A vast range of our everyday experiences seem to involve an immediate consciousness of value. We hear the rudeness of someone making offensive comments. In seeing someone risking her life to save another, we recognize her bravery. When we witness a person shouting at an innocent child, we feel the unfairness of this action. If, in learning of a close friend’s success, envy arises in us, we experience our own emotional response as wrong. How are these values apprehended? The three (...) most common answers provided by contemporary philosophy explain the consciousness of value in terms of judgment, emotion, or perception. An alternative view endorsed mainly by authors inspired by the phenomenological tradition argues that values are apprehended by an intentional feeling. In this model, it is by virtue of a feeling that objects are presented as being in different degrees and nuances fair or unfair, boring or funny, good or bad. This paper offers an account of this model of feeling and its basic features, and defends it over alternative models. To this end, the paper discusses different versions of the model circulating in current research which until now have developed in parallel rather than in mutual exchange. The paper also applies the proposed account to the moral domain and examines how a feeling of values is presupposed by several moral experiences. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct Geiger’s realist and Wollheim’s projectionist accounts on expressive properties and expressive perception by considering them within the larger contexts from which they emerged, by using as far as possible a common language and by focusing on the questions of the nature of expressive properties and of how we grasp them. My aim is to show that it is possible to put into dialogue phenomenological and Anglo-American aesthetics and that this dialogue might lead (...) to new insights about how we engage with art. (shrink)

La globalización y el pluralismo cultural y nacional constituyen dos retos importantes para las democracias y el federalismo actuales. En términos generales, tanto la cuestión de la multiculturalidad como la cuestión de la plurinacionalidad han planteado una nueva agenda de temas en el debate democrático. La discusión actual de estos temas ya no se limita al lenguaje de los derechos individuales y a los valores de libertad, igualdad y pluralismo tal como éstos últimos han sido habitualmente entendidos por las corrientes (...) del liberalismo democrático y del constitucionalismo tradicionales. De hecho, podemos decir que esta nueva agenda de temas ha implicado la superación del enfoque tradicional que a menudo consistía en ver los derechos de las minorías como injustos, discriminatorios y moralmente arbitrarios. (shrink)

This chapter links a conception of global justice, moral cosmopolitanism, with plurinational democracies. After giving a brief description of moral cosmopolitanism, I go on to analyse notions of cosmopolitanism and patriotism in Kant's work and the political significance that the notion of unsocial sociability and the Ideas of Pure Reason of Kant's first Critique have for cosmopolitanism. Finally, I analyse the relationship between cosmopolitanism and minority nations based on the preceding sections. I postulate the need for a moral and institutional (...) refinement of democracies and international society that is better able to accommodate national pluralism than has so far been achieved by traditional liberal constitutionalism and cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

This book addresses the democratic accommodation of national pluralism through federal rules. The key question is: can federalism be a fair and workable way of articulating multinational societies according to revised liberal-democratic patterns? In recent years, scholarly discussion on this issue has undergone a change. Nowadays, the answer to this question is much more complex than the one that traditional political liberalism and federalism used to give us. In the past, these two political approaches usually addressed the question of political (...) pluralism without seriously including national pluralism in the discussion, a theoretical attitude that has often misrepresented and impoverished the moral discussions and the institutional practices of multinational democratic federations. _Multinational Federalism and Value Pluralism_ has been awarded the prize for the best book in 2005 by the Spanish Political Science Association. (shrink)

En este artículo abordamos la tesis de Kant sobre la insociable sociabilidad de los humanos y algunos temas conexos como la paz perpetua, el cosmopolitismo y el patriotismo, así como su continuación por parte de Hegel. En la tesis kantiana vemos un marco más adecuado para observar la realidad actual que el ofrecido por muchas de las teorías políticas y sociales más en uso. A pesar de que Kant era sin duda un filósofo moral, la tesis mencionada responde a cierta (...) desconfianza sobrevenida hacia los meros imperativos morales. Estos últimos, por sí mismos, resultan ineficaces para «humanizar a la humanidad ». La racionalidad pasada por el lenguaje es lo que más nos distingue como especie. Sin embargo, probablemente no sea esto lo que más nos constituya como individuos de esta especie. La insociable sociabilidad, que caracteriza la doble pulsión conflictiva y cooperativa de los humanos, supone un concepto- marco que permite pensar mejor las dificultades actuales de las democracias, tanto en la esfera internacional como en el de proceder a una acomodación política estable de su pluralismo interno de carácter cultural y, en su caso, de carácter nacional. Kant y Hegel son filósofos de la historia porque esta última ofrece ejemplos de la superación de muchos conflictos mediante la política. Desde una perspectiva contemporánea, la insociable sociabilidad es un concepto que complementa tanto en sus dimensiones individuales como sociopolíticas lo que también resulta ser un rasgo insuperable del mundo contemporáneo: el pluralismo de valores, intereses, e identidades que habitualmente revisten un carácter agonístico y que remiten a componentes emocionales. (shrink)

This article argues that religious emotions are variations of general emotions that we already know from our everyday life, which nevertheless exhibit specific features that enable us to think of them as forming a coherent subclass. The article claims that there is an experience of joy, sorrow, regret, fear, and so on that is specifically religious. The aim is to develop an account that specifies what makes them “religious.” The argument is developed in three stages. The first section develops a (...) phenomenologically inspired account of the emotions by focusing on three of their moments: phenomenal quality, cognitive dependency, and intentionality. Drawing on this theory, section 2 distinguishes the class of religious emotions from similar phenomena. The third and final section examines the main features of religious emotions. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag möchte ich eine Version des literarischen Kognitivismus vertreten, der zufolge Literatur uns mit bestimmten Erfahrungen vertraut macht und unsere Perspektiven auf die Welt vervielfältigt. Um diese These zu erläutern und zu begründen, werde ich zunächst für eine Erweiterung des Wissensbegriffs in der Erkenntnistheorie und Ästhetik plädieren, indem ich die Grenzen der traditionellen Wissenskonzeption und die Bedeutung des Erfahrungsbegriffs für das Verständnis des kognitiven Werts der Literatur darlege. Die epistemische Kraft der Imagination wird mich in einem nächsten Schritt (...) beschäftigen, bevor ich abschließend auf einige moralisch relevante Aspekte der kognitiven Leistungen der Literatur aufmerksam mache. (shrink)

A very basic form of experience consists in feeling energetic, vital, alive, tired, dispirited, vigorous and so on. These feelings – which I call feelings of vitality or vital feelings – constitute the main concern of this paper. My aim is to argue that these feelings exhibit a distinctive form of affectivity which cannot be explained in terms of emotions, moods, background feelings or existential feelings and to explore different paths for their conceptualization. The paper proceeds as follows. After introducing (...) the topic (sect. 1), I show that these feelings cannot be subsumed under any of the current categories of the affective mind (sect. 2). Against this backdrop, I present and critically assess Scheler’s notion of vital feelings as an alternative model for capturing their distinctive nature (sect. 3). Next, I explore varieties of vital feelings by focusing on different levels of the bodily-felt experience (sect. 4) and analyze their specific form of self-involvement (sect. 5). Finally, I conclude by showing how the study of vital feelings might contribute to phenomenological bioethics (sect. 6). (shrink)

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. (shrink)

La philosophie ne peut se contenter de parler de questions éternelles ou intemporelles. Elle doit apporter sa contribution aux problèmes de son époque. Or, aujourd'hui, comme le souligne Jacques Derrida, " jamais la violence, l'inégalité, l'exclusion, la famine, et donc l'oppression économique, n'ont affecté autant d'êtres humains dans l'histoire de fa terre et de l'humanité ". Alors que, dans le même temps, après l'éclipse des grandes utopies sociales, le capitalisme nous est présenté comme l'horizon indépassable de notre temps. Sur fond (...) de globalisation, l'accélération vertigineuse de nos sociétés brouille les repères et déstabilise ceux qui voudraient changer ce monde traversé par tant de souffrances et de blessures. Un défi se présente alors : comment comprendre ce qui nous arrive, ce qui se déconstruit? Une telle visée ne consiste pas à jeter une vieille grille d'analyse sur la réalité actuelle, mais au contraire, à mieux saisir ce qui advient de radicalement neuf. Il est vrai que notre monde a profondément changé. Il ne s'agit plus, alors, de s'engager pour une cause comme on entre dans un jeu de colin-maillard. La nécessaire générosité achoppe sur la complexité du monde. Il faut penser avec rigueur les bouleversements actuels ; et appréhender, avec davantage d'acuité, les notions de droit, de justice ou de responsabilité éthique. Derrida propose une œuvre originale et passionnante qui aborde d'une manière nouvelle les grands défis de notre existence sociale : qu'est-ce que vivre ensemble? Qu'est-ce qu'un semblable? Ne doit-on vivre ensemble qu'avec des semblables? Ou bien encore, comment articuler la sécurité, la liberté et la paix après le traumatisme du " 11 septembre 2001 "? Dans un style à la fois clair et accessible, ce livre propose une introduction à la dimension sociale, éthique et politique de l'œuvre du philosophe français le plus traduit dans le monde. (shrink)

This chapter aims to reconstruct the phenomenological theories on hatred developed by Scheler, Pfänder and Kolnai and to refl ect upon its anthropological implications. Four essential aspects of this phenomenon are analyzed, taking as point of departure the works of these authors: (1) its place in the taxonomy of the affective life; (2) the world of its objects; (3) its expression in the form of bodily manifestations and motivating force; and (4) the inherent possibilities for overcoming it. The chapter concludes (...) that hatred is a key phenomenon for understanding aspects of human nature that we generally try to ignore or overlook. (shrink)

Eine Grundmotivation, sich mit fiktionaler Literatur zu beschäftigen, liegt in ihrer Fähigkeit, uns Lebenswahrheiten zu vermitteln, die Welt aus einer anderen Perspektive zu zeigen und unseren Erfahrungshorizont zu erweitern. In all diesen Fällen handelt es sich um Metaphern, die auf die kognitive Relevanz unserer Auseinandersetzung mit literarischen Werken hinweisen. Die Erklärung dieser Metaphern kann nicht nur unsere Beschäftigung mit fiktionaler Literatur, sondern auch den Begriff der Erkenntnis und seine Vielfalt erhellen. In diesem Buch wird eine akkurate Analyse des kognitiven Werts (...) fiktionaler Literatur unternommen. Neben der Vermittlung von Wahrheiten und propositionalem Wissen steht im Mittelpunkt des Buches die Untersuchung von Erkenntnisformen, welchen bislang eher wenig Aufmerksamkeit zuteil wurde. Vor diesem Hintergrund werden perspektivische, phänomenale, empathische und ethische Erkenntnisse in Betracht gezogen. Es sind insbesondere die letztgenannten Erkenntnisformen diejenigen, die für die Literatur kennzeichnend sind und die es uns ermöglichen, über uns selbst hinauszuschauen und unsere Existenz in verschiedener Form zu bereichern. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the study of the emotions in Edith Stein’s early work On the Problem of Empathy. After presenting her work embedded in the tradition of the early phenomenology of the emotions, I shall elaborate the four dimensions of the emotional experience according to this authoress, the link between emotions and values and the phenomenon of the living body. I argue that Stein’s account on empathy remains incomplete as long as we ignore the complex phenomenology of emotions (...) underlying her work. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

L'auteur décrit l'ambivalence du rapport qu'entretient E. Levinas avec la théologie, montre que la pensée de ce philosophe ne se réduit pas à une philosophie de l'autre, de l'extériorité mais qu'elle se pose comme une véritable défense de la subjectivité, et s'interroge sur l'utilisation de cette pensée dans le cadre d'une théologie chrétienne.