This discussion of pride, shame, and guilt centers on the beliefs involved in the experience of any of these emotions. Through a detailed study, the author demonstrates how these beliefs are alike--in that they are all directed towards the self--and how they differ. The experience of these three emotions are illustrated by examples taken from English literature. These concrete cases supply a context for study and indicate the complexity of the situations in which these emotions usually occur.

This paper develops the thesis that personal identity is neither to be taken in terms of an unchanging self-sufficient ‘substance’ nor in terms of selfhood ‘without substance,’ i.e. as fluctuating processes of pure relationality and subject-less activity. Instead, identity is taken as self-transformation that is bound to particular embodied individuals and surpasses them as individuated entities. The paper is structured in three parts. Part I describes the experiential givenness of conflicts that support our sense of self-transformation. While the first part (...) develops an inter-subjective topography of emotional movements, the second part pays attention to their temporal dimension. We work with conflicts and get transformed by them also in the way we remember them. Part II focuses on the process of self-understanding that accompanies conflicts and their metamorphosis in memory. Part III compares and discusses different models of a ‘relational ontology’ of the person, which question the idea that we are defined only by how we define ourselves—just as they question the idea that one’s identity is independent of how one relates to one’s having changed. (shrink)

Since Socrates, and through Descartes to the present day, the problems of self-knowledge have been central to philosophy's understanding of itself. Today the idea of ''first-person authority''--the claim of a distinctive relation each person has toward his or her own mental life--has been challenged from a number of directions, to the point where many doubt the person bears any distinctive relation to his or her own mental life, let alone a privileged one. In Authority and Estrangement, Richard Moran argues for (...) a reconception of the first-person and its claims. Indeed, he writes, a more thorough repudiation of the idea of privileged inner observation leads to a deeper appreciation of the systematic differences between self-knowledge and the knowledge of others, differences that are both irreducible and constitutive of the very concept and life of the person.Masterfully blending philosophy of mind and moral psychology, Moran develops a view of self-knowledge that concentrates on the self as agent rather than spectator. He argues that while each person does speak for his own thought and feeling with a distinctive authority, that very authority is tied just as much to the disprivileging of the first-person, to its specific possibilities of alienation. Drawing on certain themes from Wittgenstein, Sartre, and others, the book explores the extent to which what we say about ourselves is a matter of discovery or of creation, the difficulties and limitations in being ''objective'' toward ourselves, and the conflicting demands of realism about oneself and responsibility for oneself. What emerges is a strikingly original and psychologically nuanced exploration of the contrasting ideals of relations to oneself and relations to others. (shrink)

Kants Anthropologie (1798) galt lange als eine bloß popularphilosophische Schrift von allenfalls propädeutischem Wert. Dabei erfüllt sich die Leistung der Anthropologie keineswegs nur in einer vorphilosophischen Verständigung über das theoretische und praktische Vermögen des Menschen. Nur die anthropologische Reflexion verleiht Gewißheit, daß der Mensch "sein eigener letzter Zweck ist". Dies gibt dem Leben seinen Sinn.

English summary: When we are ashamed, we are ashamed of something in front of somebody. We can also be made to feel ashamed by others and can make others feel ashamed. We can be ashamed for others and be ashamed of ourselves. In her phenomenological studies, Hilge Landweer establishes the relationship between such everyday experiences and the social character of shame. Under what circumstances does shame originate and how does it change? Can shame be understood as a sanction? How closely (...) are shame and power connected? Hilge Landweer shows that the recognition of norms of action can be described as a process of power and that it is expressed by shame. German description: Wenn wir uns schamen, so schamen wir uns fur etwas vor jemandem. Wir konnen von anderen beschamt werden und unsererseits andere beschamen. Wir konnen uns fur andere und vor uns selbst schamen. An solche Alltagserfahrungen knupft Hilge Landweer in ihren phanomenologischen Untersuchungen der Sozialitat von Scham an. Unter welchen Bedingungen kann Scham entstehen und verandert werden? Kann Scham als Sanktion aufgefasst werden? Wie eng sind Scham und Macht verbunden? Hilge Landweer zeigt, dass die Anerkennung von Handlungsnormen als Machtprozess beschrieben werden kann. Normen werden uber Scham leiblich im Individuum verankert und dadurch bestatigt. Die Hauptwirkung der Machtprozesse besteht dabei weniger in akuter Scham als in der Schamvermeidung. In genauen Beschreibungen und Strukturanalysen der Scham untersucht Hilge Landweer Grenzen der Veranderbarkeit dieses Gefuhls. Dabei verbindet sie unterschiedliche Diskussionsfelder der Philosophie, auf denen Gefuhle thematisiert werden: die Phanomenologie der Gefuhle, die analytische Debatte um die Rationalitat der Gefuhle und die moralphilosophische Diskussion um deren normenfundierende Rolle. Mit ihrem erweiterten phanomenologischen Instrumentarium greift sie klarend in die interdisziplinare Diskussionen von Ethnologie, Soziologie und Psychoanalyse der Scham ein. (shrink)

Jon Elster has written a comprehensive, wide-ranging book on the emotions in which he considers the full range of theoretical approaches. Drawing on history, literature, philosophy and psychology, Elster presents a complete account of the role of the emotions in human behaviour. While acknowledging the importance of neurophysiology and laboratory experiment for the study of emotions, Elster argues that the serious student of the emotions can learn more from the great thinkers and writers of the past, from Aristotle to Jane (...) Austen. He attaches particular importance to the work of the French moralists, notably La Rochefoucauld, who demonstrated the way esteem and self-esteem shape human motivation. The book also maintains a running dialogue with economists and rational-choice theorists. Combining methodological and theoretical arguments with empirical case-studies and written with Elster's customary verve and economy, this book has great cross-disciplinary appeal. (shrink)