Advertisement

The Phenomenology of Shared Emotions—Reassessing Gerda Walther

  • Thomas SzantoEmail author
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences book series (WHPS, volume 1)

Abstract

To get an initial grip of what is and, in particular, what is not at stake in the phenomenology of SE, it is helpful to distinguish four dimensions of the sociality of emotions. As we shall see, the phenomenology of emotions, in the sense in which I will explore Walther’s account, is primarily, though certainly not exclusively, concerned with the fourth dimension. Roughly, the three first layers or levels in which social relations and facts come into play in the affective life of individuals and groups are i) the interpersonal, ii) the group and intergroup, and iii) the sociological and sociocultural dimensions. Whereas most phenomenologists, and certainly Walther, touch upon the interpersonal and group-level dimensions (especially in terms of empathic understanding (Einfühlung) and analyzing various collective and group phenomena), the intergroup and sociological and sociocultural levels have been mined extensively by sociologists, as well as cross-cultural and social psychologists. Here is how the social psychologists Parkinson, Fischer and Manstead concisely delineate these dimensions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Bibliography

  1. Ahmed, Sara. 2014. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
  2. Blomberg, Olle. 2016. Common Knowledge and Reductionism about Shared Agency. In Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94(2), 315–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Caminada, Emanuele. 2014. Joining the Background: Habitual Sentiments Behind We-Intentionality. In Anita Konzelmann Ziv and Hand Bernhard Schmid (eds.), Institutions, Emotions, and Group Agents. Contributions to Social Ontology. Dordrecht: Springer, 195–212.Google Scholar
  4. Chelstrom, Eric. 2016. Gurwitsch and the Role of Emotion in Collective Intentionality. In Thomas Szanto and Dermot Moran (eds.), The Phenomenology of Sociality. Discovering the ‘We’. London: Routledge, 248–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Collins, Randall. 2004. Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
  6. de Rivera, Joseph, and Páez, Darío. 2007. Emotional Climate, Human Security, and Cultures of Peace. In Journal of Social Issues 63(2), 233–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Gilbert, Margaret. 1989. On Social Facts. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  8. Gilbert, Margaret. 2002. Collective Guilt and Collective Guilt Feelings. In The Journal of Ethics 6(2), 115–143.Google Scholar
  9. Gilbert, Margaret. 2009. Shared Intention and Personal Intention. Philosophical Studies 144(1), 167–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Gilbert, Margaret. 2014. How we feel: Understanding everyday collective emotion ascription. In Christian von Scheve and Mikko Salmela (eds.), Collective Emotions. Perspectives from Psychology, and Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 17–31.Google Scholar
  11. Goldie, Peter. 2000. The Emotions. A Philosophical Exploration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
  12. Gurwitsch, Aaron. 1977 [1931]. Die mitmenschlichen Begegnungen in der Milieuwelt. Berlin: de Gruyter. Transl. F. Kersten, Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.Google Scholar
  13. Hatfield, Elaine, Carpenter, Megan, and Rapson, Richard L. 2014. Emotional contagion as a precursor to collective emotions. In Christian von Scheve and Mikko Salmela (eds.), Collective emotions. Perspectives from Psychology, and Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press,108–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Hochschild, Arlie. 1979. Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure. In American Journal of Sociology 85(3), 551–575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. Illouz, Eva. 2007. Cold Intimacies. The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
  16. Kolnai, Aurel. 2007. [1936]. Ekel, Hochmut, Haß: Zur Phänomenologie feindlicher Gefühle. Berlin: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
  17. Krebs, Angelika. 2015. Zwischen Ich und Du. Eine dialogische Philosophie der Liebe. Berlin: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
  18. Krueger, Joel. 2014. Varieties of extended emotions. In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13(4), 533–555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Krueger, Joel. 2016. The Affective ‘We’: Self-regulation and Shared Emotions. In Thomas Szanto and Dermot Moran (eds.), The Phenomenology of Sociality: Discovering the ‘We’. London: Routledge, 263–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. León, Felipe, and Zahavi, Dan. 2016. Phenomenology of Experiential Sharing: The Contribution of Schutz and Walther. In Alessandro Salice and Hans Bernhard Schmid (eds.), The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality. Dordrecht: Springer, 219–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. León, Felipe, Szanto, Thomas and Zahavi, Dan. Forthcoming. Emotional Sharing and the Extended Mind. In Synthese.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1351-x.
  22. Litt, Theodor. 1919. Individuum und Gemeinschaft. Grundfragen der sozialen Theorie und Ethik. Leipzig, Berlin: Teubner.Google Scholar
  23. Nussbaum, Martha. 2013. Political Emotions. Why Love Matters for Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
  24. Otaka, Tomoo. 1932. Grundlegungen der Lehre vom sozialen Verband. Wien: Julius Springer.Google Scholar
  25. Parkinson, Brian, Fischer, Agneta H., Manstead, Antony S. R. 2005. Emotion in Social Relations: Cultural, Group, and Interpersonal Processes. New York: Psychology Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Pfänder, Alexander. 1913. Zur Psychologie der Gesinnungen (I). Sonderdruck aus Jahrbuch für Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Forschung, Vol. 1, Halle: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
  27. Ratcliffe, Mathew. 2016. Relating to the Dead: Social Cognition and the Phenomenology of Grief. In Thomas Szanto, and Dermot Moran (eds.), The Phenomenology of Sociality. Discovering the ‘We’. London: Routledge, 202–215.Google Scholar
  28. Rimé, Bernard. 2009. Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion: Theory and Empirical review. In Emotion Review 1(1), 60–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. Roberts, Robert C. 2003. Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  30. Rochat, Philip, and Zahavi Dan. 2015. Empathy ≠ sharing: Perspectives from Phenomenology and Developmental psychology. In Consciousness and Cognition vol. 36, 543–53.Google Scholar
  31. Salice, Alessandro. 2016. Love and other Social Stances. In The Phenomenology of Sociality: Discovering the ‘We’. Thomas Szanto and Dermot Moran (eds.), London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  32. Salmela, Mikko, and Nagatsu, M. 2016a. How Does it Really Feel to Act Together? Shared Emotions and the Phenomenology of We-agency. In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. 16(3), 449–470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  33. Salmela, Mikko, and Nagatsu, Michiru. 2016b. Collective Emotions and Joint Action. Journal of Social Ontology 2(1), 33–57.Google Scholar
  34. Salmela, Mikko. 2012. Shared emotions. In Philosophical Explorations 15(1), 33–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. Salmela, Mikko. 2014. The Functions of Collective Emotions in Social Groups. In Anita Konzelmann Ziv and Hand Bernhard Schmid (eds.), Institutions, Emotions, and Group Agents. Contributions to Social Ontology. Dordrecht: Springer, 159–176.Google Scholar
  36. Sánchez Guerrero, Héctor A. 2016. Feeling Together and Caring with One Another: A Contribution to the Debate on Collective Affective Intentionality. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
  37. Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1991 [1960]. Critique of Dialectical Reason Volume 1: Theory of Practical Ensembles. London: Verso.Google Scholar
  38. Scheler, Max. 1926a [1980]. Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Neuer Versuch der Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus. Bern: Francke. Engl. Edition: Transl. M. S. Frings, and R. L. Funk, Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
  39. Scheler, Max. 1926b [2005]. Wesen und Formen der Sympathie. Bonn: Bouvier. Engl. Edition: Transl. P. Heath, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
  40. Schloßberger, Matthias. 2016. The Varieties of Togetherness: Scheler on Collective Affective Intentionality. In Alessandro Salice and Hans Bernhard Schmid (eds.), The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality. Dordrecht: Springer, 173–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  41. Schmalenbach, Hermann. 1922. Die soziologische Kategorie des Bundes. In Dioskuren 1, 35–105.Google Scholar
  42. Schmid, Hans Bernhard. 2009. Plural action. Essays in philosophy and social science. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
  43. Schmid, Hans Bernhard. 2014. The feeling of being a group. Corporate Emotions and Collective Consciousness. In Christian von Scheve and Mikko Salmela (eds.), Collective Emotions. Perspectives from Psychology, and Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3–16.Google Scholar
  44. Schmid, Hans Bernhard. Forthcoming a. Collective Emotions: Phenomenology, Ontology, and Ideology. What Should We Learn From Max Scheler’s War Propaganda? In Max Scheler Jahrbuch. https://www.academia.edu/17469415/Collective_Emotions_-_Phenomenology_Ontology_and_Ideology [01|08|2016].
  45. Schmid, Hans Bernhard. Forthcoming b. Collective Emotions. In Kirk Ludwig and Marija Jankovic (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality. https://www.academia.edu/17270427/Collective_Emotions [01|08|2016].
  46. Schmid, Hans Bernhard. Forthcoming c. We-Experience—with Walther. In this volume.Google Scholar
  47. Smith, Eliot R., Seger, Charles R., and Mackie, Diane M. 2007. Can emotions be truly group level? Evidence regarding four conceptual criteria. In Journal of personality and social psychology, 93(3), 431–46.Google Scholar
  48. Solomon, Robert C. 1994. About love: Reinventing romance for our times. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
  49. Stein, Edith. 2008 [1917]. Zum Problem der Einfühlung. Edith-Stein-Gesamtausgabe vol. 5 [ESGA 5]. Wien: Herder. Engl. Edition: Transl. W. Stein, Washington, D.C.: ICS Publication.Google Scholar
  50. Stein, Edith. 2010 [1922]. Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung der Psychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften. Edith-Stein-Gesamtausgabe vol. 6 [ESGA 6]. Wien: Herder. Engl. Edition: Transl. M. C. Baseheart, and M. Sawicki, Washington, D.C.: ICS Publication.Google Scholar
  51. Sullivan, Gavin. 2015. Collective Emotion. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 9(8), 383–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  52. Szanto, Thomas 2012. Bewusstsein, Intentionalität und mentale Repräsentation. Husserl und die analytische Philosophie des Geistes. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
  53. Szanto, Thomas. 2014. How to Share a Mind: Reconsidering the Group Mind Thesis. In Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13(1), 99–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  54. Szanto, Thomas. 2015. Collective Emotions, Normativity and Empathy: A Steinian Account. In Human Studies 38(4), 503–527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  55. Szanto, Thomas. 2016a. Husserl on Collective Intentionality. In Alessandro Salice and Hans Bernhard Schmid (eds.), Social Reality: The Phenomenological Approach. Dordrecht: Springer, 145–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  56. Szanto, Thomas. 2016b. Collectivizing Persons and Personifying Collectives: Reassessing Scheler on Group Personhood. In Thomas Szanto and Dermot Moran (eds.), The Phenomenology of Sociality. Discovering the ‘We’. London: Routledge, 296–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  57. Szanto, Thomas. 2017. Imagining Collectives and Collective Imagination. In Michela Summa, Thomas Fuchs and Luca Vanzago (eds.), Imagination and Social Perspectives: Approaches from Phenomenology and Psychopathology. London: Routledge, 223–245.Google Scholar
  58. Tönnies, Ferdinand. 1991 [1935]. Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundbegriffe der reinen Soziologie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Google Scholar
  59. Vierkandt, Alfred. 1928. Gesellschaftslehre. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke.Google Scholar
  60. von Scheve, Christian, and Ismer, Sven. 2013. Towards a Theory of Collective Emotions. In Emotion Review 5(4), 406–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  61. Walther, Gerda. 1923. Zur Ontologie der sozialen Gemeinschaften. In Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 6, 1–158.Google Scholar
  62. Zahavi, Dan 2015. You, Me and We: The Sharing of Emotional Experiences. In Journal of Consciousness Studies 22(1–2), 84–101.Google Scholar
  63. Zahavi, Dan, and Salice, Alessandro. 2017. Phenomenology of the We: Stein, Walther, Gurwitsch. In Julian Kiverstein (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the Social Mind. London: Routledge, 515–527.Google Scholar
  64. Zahavi, Dan. 2018. Intersubjectivity, Sociality, Community. In Dan Zahavi (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.University of CopenhagenCopenhagenDenmark

Personalised recommendations

Cite chapter

Buy options