International Workshop “Phenomenology and Emotions”: June 2-3, 2025

 

 

Programme:

June 2 (Monday): room B112.C
14.00– 14.15 Welcome & Opening Remarks

14.15– 14.50 Giulia Salzano (University of Naples Federico II): Notes for a Phenomenology of Nostalgia: Some Reflections form the Analysis of Exile and Migration in Phenomenological Sociology

14.50– 15.25 Raphaël Pierrès (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University): Empathy and Sympathy: Confronting the Perspectives of Stein and Hume

15.25– 16.00 Veronica Cohen (Universidad Nacional de las Artes, Buenos Aires): Interviewing/inter-moving: Rethinking Empirical Inquiry Through Kinesthetic Empathy 16.00– 16.30 Coffee Break
16.30– 17.05 Stefano Pinzan (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University): From Feeling to Acting. Kant’s Theory of Emotional Life

17.05–17.40 Henrique Augusto (University of Lisbon): Hate, a Moral Feeling

17.40– 18.25 Sara Heinämaa (University of Jyväskylä): “Political Emotions”: The Benefits of Phenomenological Analyses

20.00 Workshop Dinner

June 3 (Tuesday): room C017.B

10.30– 11.05 Felipe León (University of Lisbon): Trust, Affectivity, and Communication: Phenomenological Perspectives

11.05– 11.40 Yuri Ferrete (University of Lisbon): Attention and Emotions in Husserl’s Phenomenology: Between Intentional Acts and Passive Modulations of Affectivity

11.40– 12.15 Margherita Giannoni (University of Salamanca): Emotions and Social Identities: A Situated Affectivity Approach

12.15– 13.30 Lunch

13.30– 14.05 Carla Mariana da Costa (University of Lille): The Enigma of the Body in the Act of Painting: What Place for Emotion?

14.05– 14.40 Erik Lind (University of Lisbon): Fictional Emotions: A Phenomenological Approach to a Paradoxical Phenomenon

14.40– 15.00 Coffee Break

15.00– 15.35 Mariana Cordoso Puchivailo (Faculdade de Ciências Médicas da Santa Casa de São Paulo) “The Feeling of Not Feeling” – Affective Depersonalization in Melancholic Depression

15.35– 16.10 Bryan Zúñiga (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University/University of Chile): Outline of a Phenomenology of Mourning based on the Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy and Dorothée Legrand’s Psychanalysis

16.10 Concluding Remarks

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Since the early beginnings of the phenomenological movement, the topic of emotion has occupied a central position of philosophical consideration. According to phenomenological analyses, emotions play an important role in revealing the basic structures of human existence. Indeed, it is partly and, according to some thinkers, even primarily through our emotions that the world is disclosed to us, that we become present to our own experience, and that we relate to and engage with the experience of others. The study of emotions not only helps us to understand ourselves, but also allow us to make sense of our worldly and social existence.

In recent years, we have a witnessed a renewed interest in the topic of emotions among philosophers working in the phenomenological tradition, culminating in the recent publication of The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion (Szanto & Landweer, eds., 2020). The contemporary “rediscovery” of emotions in phenomenology is marked by its engagement with debates not only in analytic philosophy but also in fields such as psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and cognitive science. Alongside historical and exegetical studies of past phenomenological accounts, increasing attention is given to systematic issues. Key areas of inquiry include the intentionality, cognitive basis, and evaluative nature of emotions, as well as their personal and collective variations. In addition to normative and axiological considerations, emotions are also being investigated in their embodied and social embeddedness, shedding new light on the affective constitution of personhood and on various forms of sympathetic sharing of experiences. Finally, there is also a growing interest in psychopathological disruptions of emotional experience and expression, as well as in the epistemic role of empathy in understanding the emotions of others. These developments reveal that phenomenology’s approach to emotion extends far beyond mere “felt quality” or “what it is like” to experience an emotion, addressing its deeper existential and relational significance.

The aim of this workshop is to prolong the rediscovery of emotion as a topic of phenomenological interest. The list of potential topics to be discussed includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Emotion in the history of phenomenology (including individual phenomenological philosophers)
• The intentionality of emotions
• Phenomenological approaches to the ontology and epistemology of emotions
• Individual emotions (whether self-directed or other-directed)
• Social and collective emotions
• Emotions and embodiment
• Emotions and cognitivism
• Sympathy, shared emotions, and the intersubjectivity of feeling
• Empathy
• Aesthetic feelings, emotion and aesthetic perception, fictional emotions
• Phenomenological approaches to contemporary philosophical debates and controversies on emotions
• Phenomenology in dialogue with other approaches to emotions (contemporary or historical)
• Political emotions
• Emotion and morality
• The normativity of emotions (appropriateness or authenticity)
• Axiological considerations (emotions and values)