Feeling Together and Caring with One Another: A Contribution to the Debate on Collective Affective Intentionality

287 Pages·2016·2.6 MB·English

by  Héctor Andrés Sánchez Guerrero (auth.)

Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality 7
Héctor Andrés Sánchez Guerrero
Feeling
Together and
Caring with
One Another
A Contribution to the Debate on
Collective Aff ective Intentionality
Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality
Volume 7
Editor-in-Chief
Raimo Tuomela (Prof. Emer., University of Helsinki, University of Munich)
Managing Editors
Hans Bernhard Schmid (Prof., University of Vienna)
Jennifer Hudin (Lecturer, University of California, USA)
Advisory Board
Robert Audi, Notre Dame University (Philosophy)
Michael Bratman, Stanford University (Philosophy)
Cristiano Castelfranchi, University of Siena (Cognitive Science)
David Copp, University of California at Davis (Philosophy)
Ann Cudd, University of Kentucky (Philosophy)
John Davis, Marquette University and University of Amsterdam (Economics)
Wolfgang Detel, University of Frankfurt (Philosophy)
Andreas Herzig, University of Toulouse (Computer Science)
Ingvar Johansson, Umeå University (Philosophy)
Byron Kaldis, University of Athens (Philosophy)
Martin Kusch, University of Vienna (Philosophy)
Christopher Kutz, University of California at Berkeley (Law)
Eerik Lagerspetz, University of Turku (Philosophy)
Pierre Livet, Universite de Provence
Tony Lawson, University of Cambridge (Economics)
Kirk Ludwig, University of Florida (Philosophy)
Uskali Mäki, Academy of Finland (Philosophy)
Kay Mathiesen, University of Arizona (Information Science and Philosophy)
Larry May, Vanderbilt University (Philosophy and Law)
Georg Meggle, University of Leipzig (Philosophy)
Anthonie Meijers, University of Eindhoven (Philosophy)
Seumas Miller, Australian National University and Charles Sturt University
(Philosophy)
Elisabeth Pacherie, Jean Nicod Institute, Paris (Cognitive Science)
Henry Richardson, Georgetown University (Philosophy)
Michael Quante, University of Münster (Philosophy)
John Searle (Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley)
Michael Tomasello (Developmental Psychology, Max Planck Institute, Leipzig)
More information about this series at h ttp://www.springer.com/series/10961
Héctor Andrés Sánchez Guerrero
Feeling Together and Caring
with One Another
A Contribution to the Debate on Collective
Affective Intentionality
Héctor Andrés Sánchez Guerrero
Department of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
University Hospital Münster
Münster , Germany
Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality
ISBN 978-3-319-33734-0 ISBN 978-3-319-33735-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33735-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016944219
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
T his work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
T he use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
T he publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
or omissions that may have been made.
Printed on acid-free paper
This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
For Eliana

Acknowledgments
T his book is a revised version of my doctoral thesis entitled ‘Feeling Together and
Caring with One Another: A Contribution to the Debate on Collective Affective
Intentionality’ which I submitted and defended at the University of Osnabrück in
2013. There are many persons who, in different ways, made it possible for me to
complete the research from which this contribution originated and the manuscript of
this book.
F irst of all, my profound gratitude goes to Achim Stephan for continuously sup-
porting me in ways that went beyond the academic guidance provided by a good
thesis supervisor during the years I spent as a research assistant and PhD candidate
at the University of Osnabrück. In general, I would like to express my gratitude to
all the members of the group ‘Philosophy of Mind and Cognition’ of the Institute of
Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrück for providing an atmosphere char-
acterized at the same time by academic support and intellectual freedom.
A very special thanks goes out to Hans Bernhard Schmid, whose philosophical
work has always been a source of inspiration for me, for forcing me to clarify in a
number of respects the view of collective affective intentionality I articulated in my
doctoral dissertation.
I am deeply grateful to Armin Egger, Asena Paskaleva, Annika Reinersmann,
Nicolás Sánchez Guerrero, and Jan Slaby for reading one or the other chapter of my
manuscript and making helpful suggestions that allowed me not only to improve in
clarity and precision, but also to attenuate the edges of my clumsy English. In this
last respect, I particularly want to thank Rudolf Owen Müllan, who read the
complete manuscript before submission and made important suggestions concerning
a more idiomatic use of a number of expressions.
Some of the ideas I develop in this book have appeared, in a more rudimentary
stage, in contributions I made to edited volumes. Some of the thoughts that compose
the second chapter of this book (Chap. 2 ) were initially articulated (in German) in a
paper entitled ‘Affektive Intentionalität, die fundamentale Begründbarkeit unserer
Emotionen und die Unbeschreibbarkeit des depressiven Erlebens’ (2012) that
appeared in the journal P sychoanalyse: Texte zur Sozialforschung, 3/4 (30),
369–380. Considerations that are at the heart of Chaps. 4 , 5 , and 6 can be found in my
vii
viii Acknowledgments
contribution (in German) to the book A ffektive Intentionalität: Beiträge zur welter-
schließenden Funktion der menschlichen Gefühle (2011) as well as in a paper I
contributed to the book I nstitutions, Emotions, and Group Agents: Contributions to
Social Ontology (2014). I am indebted to the reviewers of these papers as well as to
the anonymous reviewer of the manuscript of this book for their helpful
suggestions.
My deepest gratitude goes to my parents and my wife’s parents for the invaluable
support they provided us by lovingly taking care of our children, Simón and Antonia,
at different moments in the course of the last years.
I dedicate this book to my whole family. However, I am particularly grateful to
my wife, Eliana, who amorously supported me throughout the long process of writ-
ing my doctoral dissertation and the manuscript of this book, and, for months, took
over many of my household responsibilities to enable me to focus on this project. I
have no words to express my heartfelt gratitude for her infi nite patience and loving
support. This book is for her.
I also would like to mention that my work would not have been possible without
the fi nancial assistance of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and Arts and
Humanities Research Council (AHRC). These two foundations supported the
research project E motional Experience in Depression in the frame of which I
worked as a research assistant at the University of Osnabrück during the time I was
completing my doctoral dissertation.
Contents
1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 1
1.1 Feeling Together: What a Discussion on Collective
Affective Intentionality Is About ....................................................... 1
1.2 A Motivation for Exploring Our Ability to Participate
in Episodes of Joint Feeling ............................................................... 13
1.3 A Way of Approaching Our Ability to Feel Together ........................ 22
Part I Feeling Together: A Philosophical Problem
2 Felt Understanding: A View of Affective Intentionality ........................ 31
2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 31
2.2 Emotional Responses: A View of Our Affective
Openness to the World ....................................................................... 32
2.3 The Complex Structure of Our Emotional Openness
to the World ........................................................................................ 48
2.4 World-Directed Feelings and Felt Understanding ............................. 57
3 Our Ability to Feel-Towards Together: Collective
Affective Intentionality Preliminarily Conceived .................................. 69
3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 69
3.2 Collective Intentionality: Some Issues
That Animate the Debate ................................................................... 71
3.3 Collective Affective Intentionality and Our Ability
to Feel-Towards Together .................................................................. 88
4 Shared Feelings and Joint Feeling: The Problem
of Collective Affective Intentionality Specified ....................................... 97
4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 97
4.2 One and the Same Emotional Feeling: The Problem
of Shared Feelings ............................................................................. 99
ix