The emotions occupy a fundamental place in philosophy, going back to Aristotle. However, the phenomenology of the emotions has until recently remained a relatively neglected topic. The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion is an outstanding guide and reference source to this important and fascinating topic. Comprising forty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook covers the following topics: historical perspectives, including Brentano, Husserl, Sartre, Levinas and Arendt; contemporary debates, including existential feelings, emotion, affectivity, art and morality; self-directed (...) and individual emotions, including happiness, grief, self-esteem and shame; social emotions, including sympathy, collective emotions, political emotions and aggressive emotions; borderline cases of emotion, including solidarity, trust, pain, and forgiveness and revenge. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy studying phenomenology, ethics and moral psychology and philosophy of psychology, The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion is also suitable for those in related disciplines such as Religion, Sociology and Anthropology. (shrink)

The emotions occupy a fundamental place in philosophy, going back to Aristotle. However, the phenomenology of the emotions has until recently remained a relatively neglected topic. The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion is an outstanding guide and reference source to this important and fascinating topic. Comprising forty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook covers the following topics: historical perspectives, including Brentano, Husserl, Sartre, Levinas and Arendt; contemporary debates, including existential feelings, emotion, affectivity, art and morality; self-directed (...) and individual emotions, including happiness, grief, self-esteem and shame; social emotions, including sympathy, collective emotions, political emotions and aggressive emotions; borderline cases of emotion, including solidarity, trust, pain, and forgiveness and revenge. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy studying phenomenology, ethics and moral psychology and philosophy of psychology, The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion is also suitable for those in related disciplines such as Religion, Sociology and Anthropology. (shrink)

This paper outlines a philosophical approach to emotional abilities. It sets out by charting different dimensions of emotional abilities, emphasising the distinction between the ability of an agent to develop an emotional repertoire and the ability to appropriately adapt specific emotions to specific situations. The paper elucidates this latter ability by focusing on two distinct varieties of it. First, there is a more active, explicit modulation of emotions. Second, there is also an implicit mode of emotion modulation that is habitualised. (...) This implicit mode will then be characterised more precisely by means of a phenomenological differentiation between feeling and emotion and by means of the concept of an affective position-taking (Stellungnahme) towards one’s own bodily affectedness. Only the implicit mode can appear on its own, while the explicit mode aims to be habitualised and thus to transition into the implicit mode. By means of the implicit mode, emotionally competent agents can adapt elastically to the situation. The concept of emotional change of aspect is explained by way of an example. Finally, further consequences for a philosophical approach to emotional abilities are formulated. (shrink)

Failure is a dramatic experience to be distinguished from mere lack of success. As a social process, failure is measured against the norms of the institutions within which failure occurs. The article uses four examples to examine whether failure necessarily involves self-attribution. When is it merely an external attribution? Failure would then be associated with self-deception, which initially protects the person who fails. The text identifies five phases that are typical of failure processes.

This article seeks to contribute towards the emergent field of law and emotion by offering a multi-perspectival study that combines legal, philosophical and empirical considerations into an interdisciplinary research on shame in the German courts of lower and middle instance. On the basis of this joint theory, the study proposes the existence of law-relevant emotions, whose relevance could be argued phenomenologically and validated empirically; hence, the main claim of this study: in the courtroom emotions are communicated for specific procedural purposes. (...) The interdisciplinary nature of the study enables us to determine the role and function of shame in an institutional setting, its relation to other emotions and, more importantly, obtain the sense of shame as it acquires a specific institutional relevance. (shrink)

: This work argues from a social-theoretical perspective for the view that every concept of 'gender' remains bound to reproduction. As every culture is interested in its continuity, it distinguishes individuals according to their assumed possible contribution to reproduction and so develops a fundamental dual classification. Subsequent gender categories are necessarily derived from this one. The conceptual and empirical arguments for this thesis are illustrated through an imagined dystopia. There I envision under what conditions a complete dissociation of the concepts (...) 'sex' and 'gender' from the old dual distinction would be possible and in what way a multiplicity of genders would be accomplished. (shrink)

This work argues from a social-theoretical perspective for the view that every concept of 'gender' remains bound to reproduction. As every culture is interested in its continuity, it distinguishes individuals according to their assumed possible contribution to reproduction and so develops a fundamental dual classification. Subsequent gender categories are necessarily derived from this one. The conceptual and empirical arguments for this thesis are illustrated through an imagined dystopia. There I envision under what conditions a complete dissociation of the concepts 'sex' (...) and 'gender' from the old dual distinction would be possible and in what way a multiplicity of genders would be accomplished. (shrink)

This work argues from a social-theoretical perspective for the view that every concept of 'gender' remains bound to reproduction. As every culture is interested in its continuity, it distinguishes individuals according to their assumed possible contribution to reproduction and so develops a fundamental dual classification. Subsequent gender categories are necessarily derived from this one. The conceptual and empirical arguments for this thesis are illustrated through an imagined dystopia. There I envision under what conditions a complete dissociation of the concepts 'sex' (...) and 'gender' from the old dual distinction would be possible and in what way a multiplicity of genders would be accomplished. (shrink)

Wenn das Erleben immer leiblich ist, welche Rolle spielt dabei das Geschlecht? Wie gehen Machtverhältnisse, Normen und Diskurse in die Beschreibungen des eigenen Erlebens ein? Wie kann dennoch der Eigensinn des Erlebens zur Geltung kommen? Mit Fragen wie diesen bindet die Phänomenologie die Philosophie an die Lebenswirklichkeit zurück. Sie geht dabei vom Leib aus, der die Voraussetzung aller Erfahrung ist. Wissenschaftliche Disziplinen wie die Geschlechterforschung nutzen phänomenologische Kategorien und entwickeln sie außerdem praktisch und theoretisch weiter. Der Band stellt Ergebnisse dieser (...) Forschungen aus feministischer Sicht vor. Dabei steht die Suche nach einer Sprache für die leibliche Erfahrung im Mittelpunkt. (shrink)

Wegen des großen Erfolgs der gebundenen Ausgabe wird dieses Handbuch nun in einer günstigen Broschurausgabe neu aufgelegt. Emotionen sind in den letzten Jahren als zentraler Gegenstand der Ethik, philosophischen Anthropologie und Philosophie des Geistes wieder entdeckt worden. Dieser Band stellt die wichtigsten Emotionstheorien von Platon bis Wittgenstein vor. Für die aktuelle Philosophie der Gefühle soll er neue Anschlussmöglichkeiten aufzeigen.

Are mass emotions and shared feelings two different phenomena? In this paper, I investigate two different forms of corporeal interaction; one bipolar and one unipolar. In the bipolar type, two individuals give different impulses, which are aligned with each other. In the unipolar type, the impulse derives from a thing, a task or a person. This impulse creates an identical corporeal dynamic in those involved. This synchronization of the corporeal directions leads to corporeal resonance and a reciprocal intensification. The shared (...) experience of feelings is a part of unipolar corporeal interaction since the impulse for the corporeal dynamic of the individuals departs from one and the same feeling. According to Max Scheler’s analysis of emotional contagion, contagion comes about through imitation; it is merely a fallacy to believe the other person’s feeling is one’s own. In this paper, I argue that emotional contagion and shared feelings cannot be distinguished by virtue of this criterion of genuineness and instead belong to the same type of corporeal interaction. On the whole, I question the assumption that feelings are solely personal states. Individual and collective feelings can only be distinguished unambiguously through concepts, whereas affective phenomena are always tied to others, to norms and discourse. (shrink)

Summary The paper argues that all emotions possess a spatial and objective, social character. We can gain access to them only insofar as we are affected by them in a felt-bodily way. Therefore, we need a conception of felt embodiment if we are to achieve a philosophical understanding of the spatial character of emotions. Different phenomena, ranging from the atmospheres of landscapes to shared and individual emotions, illustrate the theses concerning the spatiality of emotions and atmospheres, exemplified by the social (...) contrast of emotions, among other things. The next step clarifies why we should distinguish between the emotion itself and the felt-bodily affection by the emotion. By means of distinctions between two types of felt-bodily or corporeal interaction, a unipolar and a bipolar form, we can gain a better understanding of the spatial character of emotions but also how resonances of emotions work. One result of our examination is that we can explain why positive collective emotions become more intense through shared bodily experience. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of co-presence in the emergence of collectives with reference to corporeal communication in online conferences and seminars. It emphasizes the importance of feelings of togetherness and demarcates them from feelings of mere affiliation. The emergence of shared feelings depends on corporeal communication, and specifically on the solidary form of corporeal communication as opposed to its antagonistic counterpart. Under online conditions, both forms tend to generate illusions, since a genuine exchange of glances, which opens up corporeal (...) communication in the first place, is not possible. The missing exchange of glances must therefore be compensated online by imagination and the concentration on linguistic meanings. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 3 Seiten: 470-474.

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 3 Seiten: 504-519.

ZusammenfassungIn Schnitzlers Erzählung „Wohltaten still und rein gegeben“ geht es zentral um das Betteln. Die Hauptfigur erhält eine größere Geldgabe, will aber die Dankesschuld nicht übernehmen, die damit verbunden ist. Der Empfänger der Gabe glaubt, durch das Akzeptieren der Dankesschuld den Status eines Bettlers zugewiesen zu bekommen. Der Beitrag interpretiert Schnitzlers Erzählung neu, und zwar stärker gabentheoretisch. Dies erlaubt eine andere Perspektive als die von Nisters auf die Asymmetrien, die durch Wohltaten entstehen, und wirft die Frage auf, in welchen Fällen (...) sie ausgeglichen werden sollten, falls sie überhaupt ausgeglichen werden können.Beim Betteln gibt es auf beiden Seiten Unsicherheiten über die Bewertung der Größe der Gabe; in der Erzählung kippt die Bewertung von „zu groß“ in „zu wenig“. Allgemein ist beim Geben, so die These, „zu viel“ ebenso problematisch wie „zu wenig“: Im ersten Fall verpflichtet der Gebende den Empfänger in unstatthafter Weise, nämlich so, dass er sich nicht revanchieren kann und sich dadurch erniedrigt fühlt. Im zweiten kommt der Geber einer unausgesprochenen Verpflichtung nicht nach, dem Anderen vom eigenen Wohlstand in angemessener Weise abzugeben und demütigt den Empfänger durch die Geringfügigkeit. Beim Ausgleich von Gabe und Gegengabe, auch durch Dankbarkeit, geht es nicht um exakte Symmetrie, sondern um Angemessenheit an die Situation.Eine Dankesschuld, zu der man sich gegen den eigenen Willen und damit zu Unrecht verpflichtet fühlt, kann als dunkle Seite der Dankbarkeit verstanden werden. Eine solche Schuld verwandelt das Gefühl von Dankbarkeit in Ärger. (shrink)

Wenn das Erleben immer leiblich ist, welche Rolle spielt dabei das Geschlecht? Wie gehen Machtverhältnisse, Normen und Diskurse in die Beschreibungen des eigenen Erlebens ein? Wie kann dennoch der Eigensinn des Erlebens zur Geltung kommen? Mit Fragen wie diesen bindet die Phänomenologie die Philosophie an die Lebenswirklichkeit zurück. Sie geht dabei vom Leib aus, der die Voraussetzung aller Erfahrung ist. Wissenschaftliche Disziplinen wie die Geschlechterforschung nutzen phänomenologische Kategorien und entwickeln sie außerdem praktisch und theoretisch weiter. Der Band stellt Ergebnisse dieser (...) Forschungen aus feministischer Sicht vor. Dabei steht die Suche nach einer Sprache für die leibliche Erfahrung im Mittelpunkt. (shrink)

Biographical note: Hilge Landweer, Freie Universität Berlin; Ursula Renz, ETH Zürich, Schweiz.