Egoism and altruism are unequal contenders in the explanation of human behaviour. While egoism tends to be viewed as natural and unproblematic, altruism has always been treated with suspicion, and it has often been argued that apparent cases of altruistic behaviour might really just be some special form of egoism. The reason for this is that egoism fits into our usual theoretical views of human behaviour in a way that altruism does not. This is true on the biological level, where (...) an evolutionary account seems to favour egoism, as well as on the psychological level, where an account of self-interested motivation is deeply rooted in folk psychology and in the economic model of human behaviour. While altruism has started to receive increasing support in both biological and psychological debates over the last decades, this paper focuses on yet another level, where egoism is still widely taken for granted.Philosophical egoism is the view that, on the ultimate level of intentional explanation, all action is motivated by one of the agent's desires. This view is supported by the standard notion that for a complex of behaviour to be an action, there has to be a way to account for that behaviour in terms of the agent's own pro-attitudes.Psychologicalaltruists, it is claimed, arephilosophicalegoists in that they are motivated by desires that have the other's benefit rather than the agent's own for its ultimate object. This paper casts doubt on this thesis, arguing that empathetic agents act on other people's pro-attitudes in very much the same way as agents usually act on their own, and that while other-directed desires do play an important role in many cases of psychologically altruistic action, they are not necessary in explanations of some of the most basic and most pervasive types of human altruistic behaviour. The paper concludes with the claim that philosophical egoism is really a cultural value rather than a conceptual feature of action. (shrink)

In contemporary discourses, it has become common sense to acknowledge that humans and some species of animals, from their very inception, are embedded in social and intersubjective contexts. As social beings, we live, interact, communicate, and cooperate with others for a range of different reasons: sometimes we do so for strategic and instrumental reasons, while at other times it is purely for its own sake. Moreover, in one way or another, we encounter others not only as rational but also as (...) sentient beings; our interactions with others are shaped by reason, though not exclusively so. They are also affected by our emotions, feelings, moods, and environments. In this way, we seek understanding both for and by others. We are able to recognize, interpret, and categorize others’ expression and behavior; in turn, we express our emotions, desires, and motivations to act towards others and hope that others will react adequately and appropriately. Empathy is usually understood as the capacity to apprehend others’ mental states—especially emotions. In recent decades, it has become one of the most widely discussed concepts, especially in the philosophy of mind, ethics, and aesthetics. Although there is a vast array of publications on the topic of empathy, a number of controversies have persisted, particularly in relation to how the process, outcome, and value of empathy should be understood. One recent debate concerns the question of whether we directly perceive others’ mental states or whether we rather imagine their perspective. Another central discussion is ongoing regarding empathy in respect of narratives and fictional characters. The aim of this Special Issue is to interrelate these two branches—fiction and imagination—and to examine the role of imagination in the empathic process, especially in relation to the thesis of direct perception of others’ mental states. Despite the wealth of recent research into empathy that has emerged from a diverse range of disciplinary perspectives, there is still no consensus about the nature and role of imagination and whether empathizing with fictions should be categorically or just gradually distinguished from empathizing with real persons. (shrink)

In the history of philosophy as well as in most recent discussions, empathy is held to be a key concept that enables a basic understanding of the other while at the same time acting as the foundation of our moral emotionality. In this paper I want to show why empathy is the wrong candidate for both of these tasks. If we understand empathy as projection, i.e. a process of imaginary self-transposition, we are bound to presuppose a fully established interpersonal sphere. (...) If we consider empathy as synonymous with compassion it is highly questionable if we ever reach the other person in his or her otherness. Max Scheler and other early phenomenologists offer very fruitful approaches to both problems without resorting to empathy. I will present some of their thoughts and focus especially on Scheler’s claim about the connection between the experience of the real other and the intentionality of compassion. (shrink)

ABSTRACT ‘We’ is said in many ways. This paper investigates Kurt Stavenhagen’s neglected account of different kinds of ‘we’, which is maintained to be one of the most sophisticated within classical phenomenology. The paper starts by elaborating on the phenomenological distinction between mass, society, and community by claiming that individuals partake in episodes of experiential sharing only within communities. Stavenhagen conceptualizes experiential sharing as a meshing of conscious experiences infused by a feeling of us-ness. The remainder of the paper focuses (...) on Stavenhagen’s distinction of various senses of us: when individual share preferences, have mutual respect, or emotionally evaluate the world according to a cultural tradition, they elicit a sense of us of different kind and, thus, form communities of different kind. Within phenomenology, Stavenhagen should be credited with the merit of having unearthed the aggregative, we-generating force of preferences, of respect, and of (certain) emotions. (shrink)

‘We’ is said in many ways. This paper investigates Kurt Stavenhagen’s neglected account of different kinds of ‘we’, which is maintained to be one of the most sophisticated within classical phenomen...

When you and I share an experience, each of us lives through a we-experience. The paper claims that we-experiences have unique phenomenality and structure. First, we-experiences’ phenomenality is characterised by the fact that they feel like ours to their subject. This specific phenomenality is contended to derive from the way these experiences self-represent: a we-experience exemplifies us-ness or togetherness because it self-represents as mine qua ours. Second, living through a we-experience together with somebody else is not to have this experience (...) in parallel with the experience of the other. Rather, the paper argues that a we-experience is partly co-constituted by the experience of the other. After offering an account of the phenomenality and constitution of we-experiences, which traces these two elements back to the subject’s self-understanding as a group member, the paper argues for the claim that an experience’s for-us-ness is committal to this experience being co-constituted by another we-experience. (shrink)

When you and I share an experience, each of us lives through a we-experience. The paper claims that we-experiences have unique phenomenality and structure. First, we-experiences’ phenomenality is characterised by the fact that they feel like ours to their subject. This specific phenomenality is contended to derive from the way these experiences self-represent: a we-experience exemplifies us-ness or togetherness because it self-represents as mine qua ours. Second, living through a we-experience together with somebody else is not to have this experience (...) in parallel with the experience of the other. Rather, the paper argues that a we-experience is partly co-constituted by the experience of the other. After offering an account of the phenomenality and constitution of we-experiences, which traces these two elements back to the subject’s self-understanding as a group member, the paper argues for the claim that an experience’s for-us-ness is committal to this experience being co-constituted by another we-experience. (shrink)

What would be an adequate theory of social understanding? In the last decade, the philosophical debate has focused on Theory Theory, Simulation Theory and Interaction Theory as the three possible candidates. In the following, we look carefully at each of these and describe its main advantages and disadvantages. Based on this critical analysis, we formulate the need for a new account of social understanding. We propose the Person Model Theory as an independent new account which has greater explanatory power compared (...) to the existing theories. (shrink)

This article argues that Hegel’s dialectic of wealth and power in the stage of social development called ‘culture’ (Bildung) reveals that even in moments of profound social alienation, Spirit (Geist)—the labor of constructing identity and freedom— remains. This stands in sharp contrast to Heidegger’s theory of alienation and Dasein’s ‘publicity’ (Offentlichkeit), which paints modern social existence as a profound threat to the very ‘Being’ and ‘possibilities’ of human life. The supposed threats of inauthenticity and mass existence are, from a Hegelian (...) perspective, failures of adequate social phenomenology. The desiring, affective subject is not absorbed in ‘they’ (das Man) but is, instead, the negativity that constantly transforms culture and the structure of social selfhood. (shrink)

Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with a depressive disorder as men. Before trying to explain this difference, we must first understand how women experience depression. We explore the phenomenon of depression through women’s experiences, using Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method. An essential meaning structure describes the development of depression: The women find themselves entrapped in a personal mission which had backfired. Motivated by shame and guilt from the past, they overinvest in work or others’ emotions to relieve internal (...) pain. They feel deeply sensitive to, and responsible for, other persons’ distress while ignoring their own feelings and needs. Gradually their emotional body grows awry and acts in increasingly alienating and threatening ways. Ultimately they feel forced to submerge in their emotional body; they succumb to depression. We reflect on this structure on the basis of Minkowski, Scheler, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, and in relation to contemporary research on depression. (shrink)

According to Heidegger's Being and Time, social relations are constitutive of the core features of human agency. On this view, which I call a ‘strong conception’ of sociality, the core features of human agency cannot obtain in an individual subject independently of social relations to others. I explain the strong conception of sociality captured by Heidegger's underdeveloped notion of ‘being-with’ by reconstructing Heidegger's critique of the ‘weak conception’ of sociality characteristic of Kant's theory of agency. According to a weak conception, (...) sociality is a mere aggregation of individual subjects and the core features of human agency are built into each individual mind. The weak conception of sociality remains today widely taken for granted. I show that Christine Korsgaard, one of the most creative contemporary appropriators of Kant, operates with a weak conception of sociality and that this produces a problematic explanatory deficiency in her view: she is unable to explain the peculiar motivational efficacy of shared social norms. Heidegger's view is tailor made to explain this phenomenon. I end by sketching how Heidegger provides a social explanation of a major systematic concern animating Korsgaard, the concern with the importance of individual autonomy and answerability in human life. (shrink)

Volume 33, Issue 8, November 2020, Page 1185-1203.

It is sometimes claimed that we perceive people’s mental states in their expressive features. This paper clarifies the claim by contrasting two possible readings, depending on whether expression is conceived relationally or non-relationally. A crucial difference between both readings is that only a non-relational conception of expression ensures direct access to other minds. The paper offers an argument for a non-relational conception of expression, and therefore for the view that we directly perceive people’s mental states in their expressive features.

Although the topic of emotions was long ignored in British and American analytic philosophy and psychology, it remained a rich and exciting subject in Continental Philosophy. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche celebrated the passionate life. In phenomenology Martin Heidegger, Max Scheler, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean‐Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau‐Ponty, Gabriel Marcel, and Paul Ricoeur all made major contributions. Heidegger pursued a highly original thesis concerning the vital role of moods in human life, notably angst and boredom. Jean‐Paul Sartre added the tantalizing thesis that our (...) emotions are strategies to help us cope with the difficulties in life. Max Scheler gave us the stunning expression, “the emotional a priori,” the idea that emotions are basic structures of human existence. In this essay, I want to expand on the contributions of the classic phenomenologists and existentialists and do more of what they were doing by way of an “original” project of phenomenological investigation. (This follows publication of the first two volumes of a three‐part study of the emotions, Not Passion's Slave and In Defense of Sentimentality, both published by Oxford University Press.). (shrink)

Barresi & Moore do not consider information about intentional relations available within emotional engagement with others and do not see that others are perceived in the second as well as the third person. Recognising second person information forces recognition of similarities and connections not otherwise available. A developmental framework built on the assumption of the complete separateness of self and other is inevitably flawed.

This paper seeks to illuminate the nature of empathy by reflecting upon the phenomenology of depression. I propose that depression involves alteration of an aspect of experience that is seldom reflected upon or discussed, thus making it hard to understand. This alteration involves impairment or loss of a capacity for interpersonal relatedness that mutual empathy depends upon. The sufferer thus feels cut off from other people, and may remark on their indifference, hostility or inability to understand. Drawing upon the example (...) of depression, I argue that empathy is not principally a matter of ‘simulating’ another person’s experience. It is better conceived of as a perception-like exploration of others’ experiences that develops progressively through certain styles of interpersonal interaction. (shrink)

Abstract This paper proposes that adopting a ?phenomenological stance? enables a distinctive kind of empathy, which is required in order to understand forms of experience that occur in psychiatric illness and elsewhere. For the most part, we interpret other people's experiences against the backdrop of a shared world. Hence our attempts to appreciate interpersonal differences do not call into question a deeper level of commonality. A phenomenological stance involves suspending our habitual acceptance of that world. It thus allows us to (...) contemplate the possibility of structurally different ways of ?finding oneself in the world?. Such a stance, I suggest, can be incorporated into an empathetic appreciation of others' experiences, amounting to what we might call ?radical empathy? (shrink)

Many authors acknowledge that people share emotions in various social contexts. However, the deeper role of social relationships for shared emotions is poorly understood. I argue that shared emotions are affected by the social relationships in which they emerge. Moreover, shared emotions help people to bond. In order to do so, emotional experiences involve an intentional component that tracks the state of our social relationships. I introduce some new terminology that helps us to clearly distinguish between different kinds of emotional (...) phenomena. I propose to use the term social-relational emotions for emotions the subcomponents of which interact across individuals. I borrow from Helm the distinction between the target, the formal object and the focus of an emotion. By drawing insights from relationship science in general and relational models theory in particular, I elaborate on and explore the idea that shared emotions track social relationships as their foci. Sharing an emotion is experienced as rewarding even when the shared emotion itself is not a pleasant one, because it makes people feel “closer” to one another. (shrink)

The German philosopher Max Scheler defines the human person as a value-oriented act structure. Since a person is ideally a free being with open possibilities, the aim of education is to help human beings develop their potential in various directions. At the centre of Scheler's educational philosophy is the idea of all-round education, which aims towards a developed capacity for assessment, an ability to make choices and an ability to focus on the objective nature of things.

The German philosopher Max Scheler defines the human person as a value‐oriented act structure. Since a person is ideally a free being with open possibilities, the aim of education is to help human beings develop their potential in various directions. At the centre of Scheler's educational philosophy is the idea of all‐round education, which aims towards a developed capacity for assessment, an ability to make choices and an ability to focus on the objective nature of things.

What are social objects and what makes them different from other realms of scientifically studied reality? How can sociology theoretically account for the relationship between objects of social reality such as norms and social structures, and their existence as objects of experience for living human actors? Contemporary sociology is characterized by a fundamental dissensus with regard to this question. Ironically, this is the very problem Alfred Schutz tackled in his phenomenological critique of Max Weber’s sociological theory. As Schutz demonstrated nearly (...) a century ago, phenomenology’s egological method is indispensable to a non-reductionist theory of intersubjectivity, namely, one that does full justice to embodied conscious life while demonstrating the relative independence of the intersubjective (social) sphere. In the process, Schutz’s mundane phenomenology results not only in a thorough rejection of all kinds of philosophical solipsism but also warns of the dangers, one that Husserl himself succumbed to, of granting collective structures transcendental status. Through a critical reading of Schutz’s early theory in the Phenomenology of the Social World, alongside key texts by Husserl, this paper shows the continued relevance of Schutz’s phenomenological theory of intersubjectivity to serve both as ontological grounding of “the social” and a method for investigating and describing concrete social objects in their transformation into theoretico-analytical objects amenable to empirical observation. (shrink)

The importance of emotions is supported by many authors of the ethics of care in contrast to the rationalistic paradigm of justice. However, the reference to the emotions remains generic. By focusing on three paradigmatic typologies, I propose to investigate this aspect further, and distinguish between the different emotions that motivate care. I will try, first, to offer a reflection on which emotions are likely to motivate ethical action within an ethics of care; second, to survey different potential obstacles to (...) these emotions and propose how they might be overcome to more successfully achieve good care and ethical action. (shrink)

Barresi & Moore's “intentional schema” will not do the work of “theory of mind.” Their model will account neither for fundamental facts of social competence, such as the social attributions of the 10-month-old infant, nor the possibility that, though having a theory of mind, the chimpanzee's theory is “weaker” than the human's.

Barresi & Moore assume an equivalence between ontogenetic and evolutionaiy transformations of social understanding. The mechanisms of evolution allow for novel structures to arise, both through terminal addition and through the onset of novel pathways at time points that precede the end points of ancestral pathways. Terminal addition may not be the appropriate model for the evolution of human object-directed imitation, intermodal equivalence, or joint attention.

We resist Schilbach et al.’s characterization of the “social perception” approach to social cognition as a “spectator theory” of other minds. We show how the social perception view acknowledges the crucial role interaction plays in enabling social understanding. We also highlight a dilemma Schilbach et al. face in attempting to distinguish their second person approach from the social perception view.

According to ‘direct social perception’ (DSP) accounts of social cognition, perception may be ‘smart’ enough on its own to inform us about other people’s emotions. Some DSP advocates suggest that ‘smart’ social perception should be conceived along ‘enactive’ lines. In this paper, I suggest that DSP needs social perception to have representational content. This seems in tension with the main versions of enactivism, which deny that perception is representational. I thus present the following challenge to ‘enactive’ versions of DSP: either (...) they show how perception can have the requisite smartness without representational content, which I doubt that they can, or they embrace the orthodox idea that perceptual experiences have representational contents. I also suggest that DSP defenders, whether or not they want to be enactivists, can cheerfully accept the latter idea. (shrink)

Although Barresi & Moore could have grounded their framework more explicitly in existing models, they offer a provocative testbed for the assumptions of symbolic interactionism and further thinking about self-regulation, especially in autistics.

Barresi & Moore provide an impressive account of how the coordination of first and third person information about the self and other could produce an account of intentional relations. They are less explicit as to how the child comes to understand the basic epistemic relation between experience and knowledge, that is, how informational access causes belief. We suggest one route.

This article aims to present a map of consciousness studies, which consists of a list of fundamental questions about consciousness and existing approaches to them. The question list includes five fundamental categories: Definitional, Phenomenological, Epistemological, Ontological, and Axiological. Each fundamental category is divided into more determinate questions. Existing approaches to each question are also classified into a few groups, presenting principal researchers who take each kind of approach. In the final section, I demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed map of (...) consciousness studies by applying it to examine the integrated information theory and the global workspace theory of consciousness. (shrink)

The intentionality schema is an abstraction that relates phylogenetic and ontogenetic sequences of social understanding, but it also obscures the differences between humans and other primates. In particular, it ignores human social developmental and communicative history and the important roles that language plays in human understanding of others' intentional states.

There are no religious phenomena, only religious interpretations of phenomena. Religion, in other words, is a particular hermeneutic of the phenomenon. But while the religious interpretation of phenomena refers to a particular form of human activity, this activity responds paradoxically to the imposition of a fundamental curb on any possible activity. That curb is encountered to the extent to which the religious hermeneutic imposes itself in the very appearing of a phenomenon, in the event of the appearance itself. Religiosity is (...) a question not of a specific type of experience or an object of experience but, rather, concerns that in the appearing of the phenomenon that displaces the movement of interpretation from... (shrink)

Phenomenology speaks not directly of phenomena but rather of the appearing of phenomena. In so speaking it moves from the level of things with generic or proper names to the level of universal terms. In speaking and thinking the phenomenon Phenomenology comes “after” in the twofold sense of being too late and desiring for that which is to come. This paper explores this place of phenomenology with respect to the relation of faith and reason, the manner of speaking phenomenologically and (...) the affective and temporal situation of experience. Drawing on the pre-modern concept of the transcendentals and on an account of emphatic consciousness of things, this article argues that the future of phenomenology is as a form of metaphysics which remains focused on experience and the “promise” of things that guides and structures perception. (shrink)

In his later works, Merleau-Ponty proposes the notion of ‘the flesh’ (la chair) as a new ‘element’, as he put it, in his ontological monism designed to overcome the legacy of Cartesian dualism with its bifurcation of all things into matter or spirit. Most Merleau-Ponty commentators recognise that Merleau-Ponty's notion of ‘flesh’ is inspired by Edmund Husserl's conceptions of ‘lived body’ (Leib) and ‘vivacity’ or ‘liveliness’ (Leiblichkeit). But it is not always recognised that, for Merleau-Ponty, the constitution of the world (...) of perception, the problem of embodiment or incarnation, is at the very same time one with the problem of the experience of others in what Husserl called Einfühlung or Fremderfahung and indeed one with the problem of the constitution of the commonly shared world ‘for all’. As Merleau-Ponty put it in his late essay ‘The Philosopher and His Shadow’ in Signs, ‘the problem of Einfühlung, like that of my incarnation, opens on the meditation of sensible being, or, if you prefer, it betakes itself there’. In other words, the problem of the apprehension of the other is part of the overall apprehension of the transcendent world. In this paper I want to meditate on the relations between embodiment, experience of others, and experience of the world in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy. I will take particular note, as in the title of this presentation, of the claim made by Merleau-Ponty in The Visible and the Invisible that ‘there is no brute world, only an elaborated world’ (il n'y a pas de monde brut, il n'y a qu'un monde élaboré). (shrink)

The intentional schema may not be sufficiently characterized to make questions about its role in individual and species development intelligible. The idea of metarepresentation may perhaps give it enough content. The importance of metarepresentation itself, however, can be called into question.

According to a popular thought, sympathy is an epistemic phenomenon: in sympathizing with others we come to be aware of them as fellow sentient beings. This view–which I call the Epistemic View–effectively characterizes sympathy as a form of social cognition. In this paper, I will argue against the Epistemic View. As far as I can see, this view radically misconstrues the way sympathy is directed at others. I will at the same time provide some material for, and motivate, an alternative (...) proposal according to which the primary significance of sympathy is practical rather than epistemic. On this account, sympathy is a form of interpersonal acknowledgment rather than interpersonal awareness. (shrink)

The “intentional schema” seems identical to or dependent upon kinesthetic–visual matching, both of which account for similar empirical findings. The intentional schema, however, fails to account for variability in children's understanding of false belief and differences in children's understanding of self and other in pretense.

Summary In the methodology of science, intersubjectivity is usually associated with replicability of experimental results. A related, judicial conception of objectivity as impartiality has it that a theory or judgment is objective if it covers all the relevant angles of the object or phenomenon in question, ensuring that the latter is not ephemeral and the concepts referring to them are valid. Based on the assumption that in the social sciences, the researcher is also a participant, an alternative view was conceived, (...) according to the notion that intersubjectivity rests on either sharing of a lifeworld and its associated practices or on empathy, or on some form of direct social cognition. My aim in this paper is to bring some elements of the Gestalt theory – and more specifically, Rudolf Arnheim’s (1988) adapted model of field dynamics – to bear on the problematic of intersubjectivity. The proposed model suggests that intersubjectivity is a dynamic phenomenon, best described as a product of two vectors: a vector describing a movement across the circumference combined with a vector describing the movement from the center to the circumference. While the first vector corresponds to impartiality, the second represents the tension between cognitive distancing and direct experience. Overall, it is argued that intersubjectivity cannot be divorced from either subjectivity or objectivity and it amounts to skillful navigation within different frames of reference. (shrink)

This article critically reviews Colin Wringe's Moral Education: Beyond the Teaching of Right and Wrong. The book has three broad aims. The first is to illustrate the philosophical deficiencies of the conceptualisation of moral education underlying two recently published UK government documents on values education. The second is to develop a pluralistic prescriptive account of mature moral judgement, putatively as a point of reference for the educational promotion of moral development. Finally, Wringe presents his views on how certain perennially contested (...) themes such as sexuality, the family and citizenship should be handled in moral education. In laying out its central claim about the rational contestability of moral judgements and, on the basis of this claim, in building its case against traditionalist conceptions of moral education and in favour of Wringe's own particular brand of discussion‐centred progressivist moral education, there is a problem in that the book fails to position itself clearly vis‐à‐vis the vigorous contemporary debates on the proper role of character, virtue and habituation in moral education. If this is its main weakness, however, the book's strength is its unfailing persistence in keeping social control and moral education conceptually distinct, as they should be. (shrink)

This article critically reviews Colin Wringe’s Moral Education: Beyond the Teaching of Right and Wrong. The book has three broad aims. The first is to illustrate the philosophical deficiencies of the conceptualisation of moral education underlying two recently published UK government documents on values education. The second is to develop a pluralistic prescriptive account of mature moral judgement, putatively as a point of reference for the educational promotion of moral development. Finally, Wringe presents his views on how certain perennially contested (...) themes such as sexuality, the family and citizenship should be handled in moral education. In laying out its central claim about the rational contestability of moral judgements and, on the basis of this claim, in building its case against traditionalist conceptions of moral education and in favour of Wringe’s own particular brand of discussion-centred progressivist moral education, there is a problem in that the book fails to position itself clearly vis-à-vis the vigorous contemporary debates on the proper role of character, virtue and habituation in moral education. If this is its main weakness, however, the book’s strength is its unfailing persistence in keeping social control and moral education conceptually distinct, as they should be. (shrink)

This paper presents a praxiological analysis of three everyday educational practices or strategies that can be considered as being directed at the moral formation of the emotions. The first consists in requests to imagine other's emotional reactions. The second comprises requests to imitate normative emotional reactions and the third to re-appraise the features of a situation that are relevant to an emotional response. The interest of these categories is not just that they help to organize and recognize the significance of (...) what might otherwise appear to be a disparate set of ordinary moral-educational interactions between children and educators. We suggest, further, that this analysis provides some new insight into what distinguishes the broad and recurrent conceptions of moral education from one another. Rather than being straightforwardly reducible to intractable differences over core normative or meta-ethical questions they can also be seen as correlating with different suppositions about the central role of the emotions in moral life and, correspondingly, different but to a large degree compatible interpretations of what the. (shrink)