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14.05.2015 | Theoretical / Philosophical Paper

Empathy, Emotional Sharing and Feelings in Stein’s Early Work

verfasst von: Íngrid Vendrell Ferran

Erschienen in: Human Studies | Ausgabe 4/2015

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Abstract

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 (depth, reach, duration and intensity), 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.

Vorheriger Artikel Empathy and the Melodic Unity of the Other

Nächster Artikel Collective Emotions, Normativity, and Empathy: A Steinian Account

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This book contains the two treatises: “Sentient Causality” and “Individual and Community” (Stein 2000).

For an overview of different theories of mind reading in the current debate, including some similarities with early phenomenological theories, see Jensen and Moran (2012).

Like Husserl and Scheler, Stein defends a direct perception account about knowledge of other minds but despite of the similarities among these phenomenological accounts there are also strong differences between them. See for a detailed discussion about the various phenomenological approaches to empathy and its actuality Zahavi (2008, 2010, 2014) and also Jensen and Moran (2012: 127). For an overview of current theories of empathy, see Coplan and Goldie (2011).

Coplan discusses this self-oriented and other-oriented perspective-taking (Coplan 2011: 9–15).

Stein does not mention in her text explicitly that empathy is limited to affective phenomena and some authors suggest that empathy, according to Stein, can indeed be directed also to theoretical acts (Moran 2004: 302; Szanto 2015).

In this point early phenomenologists follow and modify Brentano’s classification of the mental phenomena. In his Psychology Brentano states three kinds of “mental acts”: the first class is constituted by presentations, the second by beliefs and the third one called “love and hate” includes a very range of affective phenomena like emotions, tendencies, interests, feelings, desires, and volitions Stumpf and Husserl will criticize this classification and argue for a division of the third class in “emotions” and “desires”. Stein like all the other early phenomenologists will follow this modification.

For a similar discussion in Scheler, see Schloßberger (2005).

Also in Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities play feelings, emotions, and moods a crucial role in the constitution of the human being (Stein 2000: 75 and 227).

“Emotional sharing” should be understood here in a broad sense and not as fellow-feeling or in some more robust way as literally partaking the same feeling or sharing the same toke of a feeling.

In my opinion, “isomorphism” is not necessary for empathy since are able to have access to the psychic life of other individuals and have an experience of a foreign consciousness without having “the same” mental state. However, it seems to me that the mental state which arises after the act of empathy must be “congruent” with the mental state of the target, i.e., it has to be qualitatively similar. See for a similar view: Preston and de Waal (2002).

See for a different interpretation: Dullstein (2013).

Most work of current authors within the “new” paradigm of “affective intentionality” shows clear signs of crypto-influence by early phenomenological thinkers of the emotions.

A similar testimony can be found in Katz (1972).

I employ the term constellation in the sense developed by Henrich (1992). MacIntyre (2006), in his intellectual biography of Stein, also remarks on the importance of studying her work as embedded in its socio-historical context.

See for recent overviews of the early phenomenological accounts on feelings, see Vendrell Ferran (2008), Caminada (2014), Salice (2015) and Szanto (2015).

In fact, there are two possible ways of understanding the phenomenological method: in transcendental idealism there is a turn to the subject, while in phenomenological realism the turn is towards the object. Both are legitimate ways of understanding phenomenology (Geiger 1933: 15).

Stein establishes a parallelism between the Schelerian model and Pfänder’s analogous idea of a “voluminous self” and the “I-Center”. On Pfänder’s model, the I-Center has the role of a spectator, with limited power and influence over feelings and other motions that arise in the different parts of the ‘self’: it can perceive them, but it cannot fully control them. All the acts of the ‘I-Center’, hence, are embedded in a broader structure of the self that functions as background. A similar parallelism can be found in Walther (1923: 60). See for a detailed analysis of Pfänder’s theory: Vendrell Ferran (2015).

For a detailed account of Stein’s theory of values see Lebech (2009: 257–274).

See Tim Crane for similar claims regarding Brentano, Searle, and Sartre (Crane 1998).

Similar arguments have been developed by Mulligan (2009), in support of Scheler’s distinction between feeling and the feelings.

Husserl, under Stein’s influence, was progressively interested in the phenomenon of the living body (MacIntyre 2006; Zahavi 2014).

Stein elaborates this distinction following Husserl. See Vendrell Ferran (2008:176).

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Titel: Empathy, Emotional Sharing and Feelings in Stein’s Early Work
verfasst von: Íngrid Vendrell Ferran
Publikationsdatum: 14.05.2015
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Human Studies / Ausgabe 4/2015
Print ISSN: 0163-8548
Elektronische ISSN: 1572-851X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-015-9346-4

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