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

June 2, 2025 9:00am

International Workshop

“Phenomenology and Emotions”

(FLUL, June 2-3, 2025)

Speakers (TBA)

Organization: Erik Lind, Yuri Ferrete

For more information, contact: eriklind@edu.ulisboa.pt, yuriferrete@gmail.com.

 

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)