Shared Emotions

The internet provides us with a multitude of ways of interacting with one another. In discussions about how technological innovations impact and shape our interpersonal interactions, there is a tendency to assume that encountering people online is essentially different to encountering people offline. Yet, individuals report feeling a sense of togetherness with one another online that echoes offline descriptions. I consider how we can understand people's experiences of being together with others online, at least in certain instances, as arising out of their feeling together as a we. Using Walther's phenomenological framework of communality, I explore whether the following might take place online: (i) habitual communal experiences and (ii) actual we-experiences. While neither of these sketches amount to a full account of how we find ourselves with others online, I suggest that they reveal how insights from the phenomenology of sociality can be used to deepen our understanding of online communality. What is more, I suggest that the strength of this approach is that in some cases it allows us to circumvent tricky questions about embodiment online and, in others, prompts us to ask to what extent a fully-embodied interaction is really required for we-experiences.

When surveying recent philosophical work on the nature
and status of collective intentionality and we-intentions, it is striking how much effort is spent on analysing the structure of joint action and on establishing whether or not the intention to, say, go for a walk or paint a house together is reducible to some form of I-intentionality. Much less work has been devoted to an analysis of shared affects and
emotions. This is regrettable, not only because emotional sharing in all likelihood is developmentally prior to and logically more basic than joint action, but also because it might constitute a way of being together with others, which we need to study if we wish to better understand the nature of the we. In the present contribution, my primary
aim will be to offer an answer to the following question: does the we-experience, the experience of being part of a we, presuppose, precede, preserve, or abolish the difference between self- and other-experience? In pursuing this task, I will take a closer look at emotional sharing and draw on resources that are too frequently ignored in current
social ontology, namely insights found in classical phenomenology and in contemporary research on social cognition.

We argue that important insights regarding the topic of sharing can be gathered from phenomenology and developmental psychology; insights that in part challenge widespread ideas about what sharing is and where it can be found. To be more specific, we first exemplify how the notion of sharing is being employed in recent discussions of empathy, and then argue that this use of the notion tends to be seriously confused. It typically conflates similarity and sharing and, more generally speaking, fails to recognize that sharing proper involves reciprocity. As part of this critical analysis, we draw on sophisticated analyses of the distinction between empathy and emotional sharing that can be found in early phenomenology. Next, we turn to developmental psychology. Sharing is not simply one thing, but a complex and many-layered phenomenon. By tracing its early developmental trajectory from infancy and beyond, we show how careful psychological observations can help us develop a more sophisticated understanding of sharing than the one currently employed in many discussions in the realm of neuroscience. In our conclusion, we return to the issue of empathy and argue that although empathy does not involve or entail sharing, empathy understood as a basic sensitivity to and understanding of others (rather than as a special prosocial concern for others) might be a precondition for sharing.

In several recent texts, Hans Bernhard Schmid has argued that a proper understanding of collective intentionality and we-identity requires a convincing account of the “sense of ‘us’” and that headway can be made regarding the latter by drawing on classical theories of self-awareness. More specifically, Schmid argues that the “sense of ‘us’” amounts to a form of plural pre-reflective self-awareness, and as he writes, “Plural pre-reflective self-awareness plays the same role in the constitution of a common mind that singular pre-reflective self-awareness plays in the individual mind”. At the same time, however, Schmid also acknowledges that “there are important differences to consider”, in “spite of the striking similarities between the plural and the singular mind”. In this paper, I will aim to assess these claims. How helpful is the appeal to pre-reflective self-awareness, and might the differences between the singular and the plural case ultimately overshadow their similarities?

The aim of this paper is to present an account of shared emotions and to embed it within a broader understanding of collective affective intentionality. Over the course of this paper, I will address four questions concerning shared emotions: (1) What is a shared emotion? This question addresses the specificity of the sharing of emotions in contrast to the sharing of other mental states like beliefs or intentions. (2) How is an emotion shared? This question concerns the collectivity constitutive of the sharing of an emotional episode. (3) What are the conditions of possibility for the sharing of emotions? This issue addresses the social mechanisms that need to be in place to enable the sharing of emotions. It will also concern the contextualization of shared emotions within the broader field of collective affective intentionality. Dealing with this third issue will point towards a fourth question: (4) What are the social functions of shared emotions?

Abstract In recent years, several minimalist accounts of joint action have been offered (e.g. Tollefsen 2005; Sebanz, Bekkering and Knoblich 2006; Vesper et al. 2010), which seek to address some of the shortcomings of classical accounts. Minimalist accounts seek to reduce the cognitive complexity demanded by classical accounts either by leaving out shared intentions or by characterizing them in a way that does not demand common knowledge of complex, interconnected structures of intentions. Moreover, they propose models of the actual factors facilitating online coordination of movements. The present proposal aims to enrich a minimalist framework by showing how shared emotions can facilitate coordination without presupposing common knowledge of complex, interconnected structures of intentions. Shared emotions are defined for the purposes of this paper as affective states that fulfill two minimal criteria: (i) they are expressed (verbally or otherwise) by one person; and (ii) the expression is perceived (consciously or unconsciously) by another person. Various ways in which the fulfillment of (i) and (ii) can lead to effects that function as coordinating factors in joint action are distinguished and discussed.

In this article I develop two arguments, taking Max Scheler’s phenomenology as a starting point. The first one is that emotions are not private and internal states of consciousness, but what makes us come into contact with the expressive dimension of reality, by orienting our placement in the world and our interaction with others.
The second thesis is that some emotions have an “anthropogenetic” nature that is at the roots of the ontology of a person and of social ontology: it is through practices of “sharing” certain emotions that the humanity has been born and that the various forms of social realities are established. In accordance with one of María Zambrano’s phrases,
I propose to trace these anthropogenetic emotions back to the «hambre de nacer del todo» («hunger for being fully born») of a being that never stops being born again.

Inhaltsangabe: 1) Max Scheler und der emotional turn; 2) Emotion und Ge-fühl; 3) Hunger nach Geburt und stete Geburt; 4) Philosophische Anthropo-logie und Philosophie als Umbildung; 5) Liebe und Umbildung der Person; 6) Begegnung mit dem Du als Form der Mit-Teilung (sharing); 7) Mit-Teilung der Gefühle als Fundament der sozialen Ontologie; 8) Mit-Teilung der Geburt als Fundament der Ontologie der Person; 9) Gefühle: Die selbstreferentielle, zentrische Natur und die anthropogenetische, ex-zentrische Natur; 10) Kul-tivierung der Gefühle und Vorbild; 11) Mit-Teilung und care: die Ehrfurcht; 12) Mit-Teilung der Expressivität als Grundlage der Phänomenologie der An-dersheit; 13) Die unmittelbare Wahrnehmung der Expressivität des Anderen; 14) Neutralisierung der Theorie der Expressivität?; 15) Das Tagebuch einer Schizophrenen im Lichte der Phänomenologie Schelers.

According to individualism about feelings, only individuals can experience feelings, because only individuals live under the condition of embodiment. Assuming a necessary link between emotions and feelings thus seems to justify doubt about the possibility of shared emotions. I challenge this line of argumentation by showing that feelings are best understood as enactments of a feeling body, which is a psycho-physically neutral expressive unity. Based on the body's embeddedness into a world and connectedness with others, feelings are perceivable and shareable. Accordingly, dynamics of mutual incorporation and interaffectivity are shown to be the ground for shared feelings.

A German early phenomenologist Gerda Walther (1897-1977) proposed a rich analysis of genuinely shared emotions, as part of her analysis of an intentional structure of community-membership. In this paper, we will systematically reconstruct her proposal. In addition, we will briefly discuss how, if at all, Walther’s analysis could benefit from another German early phenomenologist and sociologist Hermann Schmalenbach’s (1885-1950) analysis of the basic sociological categories.

This paper distinguishes collective emotions from other phenomena pertaining to the social and interactive nature of emotion and proposes a taxonomy of different types of collective emotion. First, it emphasizes the distinction between collective emotions as affective experiences and underpinning mechanisms. Second, it elaborates on other types of affective experience, namely the social sharing of emotion, group-based emotions, and joint emotions. Then, it proposes a working definition of collective emotion via a minimal threshold and four structural features. Finally, it develops a taxonomy of five types of collective emotion: emotional sharing, emotional contagion, emotional matching, emotional segregation, and emotional fusion.

The chapter explores the topic of experiential sharing by drawing on the early contributions of the phenomenologists Alfred Schutz and Gerda Walther. It is argued that both Schutz and Walther support, from complementary perspectives, an approach to experiential sharing that has tended to be overlooked in current debates. This approach highlights specific experiential interrelations taking place among individuals who are jointly engaged and located in a common environment, and situates this type of sharing within a broader and richer spectrum of sharing phenomena. Whereas Schutz’ route to the sharing of experiences describes the latter as a pre-reflective interlocking of individual streams of experiences, arising from a reciprocal Thou-orientation, Walther provides a textured account of different types of sharing and correlated forms of communities.

There are cases of emotion that we readily describe as 'sharing emotions with other people.' How should we understand such cases? Joel Krueger has proposed the Joint Ownership Thesis (JOT): the view that two or more people can literally share the same emotional episode. His view is partly inspired by his reading of Merleau-Ponty -- arguably Merleau-Ponty advocates a version of JOT in his "The child's relations with others." My critical analysis demonstrates that JOT is flawed in several respects: 1) It involves a vague account of joint subjects; 2) It relies on a confusion between phenomenological and ontological levels of analysis. When these are clearly distinguished, Krueger's phenomenological analysis contradicts JOT understood as an ontological claim; 3) It relies on a highly problematic coupling-constitution inference; 4) It relies on a shift from the claim that the child and the caregiver jointly realize an emotion, to the claim about joint ownership, which is a non sequitur. I argue that we can reach a better understanding of the phenomenon of shared emotions by bringing in another level of analysis: that of social relationships. I propose that shared emotions are a special case of social-relational emotions, typically arising within and/or giving rise to communal relationships.

This  article  proposes  that  interpersonal  validation  in  collective  emotions depends on a person’s possibility to share emotions with other members of a group.  This  allows  for  interpersonal  validation  of  collective  emotions  in isolation. To develop the mainargument, the article presents two claims:First, I  introduce conceptual distinctions between collective emotions, shared emotions  and  other  group  emotions.  I  argue  that  collective  emotions  are different from and cannot be reduced to shared emotions. I further argue that both  shared  emotions  and  collective  emotions  are  specific  types  of  group emotions.  Finally,  I  distinguish  between  collective  emotions  and  other  group emotions, such as contagious emotions, in order to finally clarify how collective emotions are structurally related to shared emotions. Second,  I  introduce  a  distinction  between  what  I  call  objective  group membership and intersubjective group membership. To do so, I follow Joona Taipale’s distinction between group identification and group membership (2017),  where  I  continue  to  distinguish  between  what  I  call  objective  and intersubjective  group  membership,  inspired  by  Edith  Stein’s  distinction between community and society (2000).  Intersubjective membership relates to Stein’s concept of community and depends on how other possible members of a group recognize a person’s membership in that group. I  argue  that  interpersonal  validation  of  collective  emotions  depends  on  a person’s intersubjective group membership, which in turn depends on how possible others conceive of you as a member of a group. My understanding of possible others is inspired by Dan Zahavi’s reading of Edmund Husserl’s discussions on intersubjectivity (Zahavi 1997; 2017).The  main  argument  in  the  article  is  thus  that  a  collective emotion  is interpersonally  validated  if  possible  other  members  of  a  group  would  share that emotion with the person having a collective emotion.

Fredrickson calls positivity resonance those experiences of connection in social interactions characterized by shared positive emotions, including psychophysical synchrony and mutual care. It requires the capacity of social cognition, emotional recognition, and yet more basically, the perception of the other. Based on those psychologists and some phenomenologists (mainly Scheler and Stein), we intend to clarify those concepts, understanding sympathy as a positive emotion, and highlighting our affective consciousness and capacity for social cognition.

Atmospheres of Shared Emotion
April 25-26th, 2019
University of Vienna
Department of Philosophy, Room 3D
NIG Universitätsstraße 7
Stg. III/3. Stock, 1010 Wien

Over the last twenty years or so, the concept of atmosphere has flourished within phenomenological research. Inspired by the works of Hermann Schmitz, Gernot Böhme, and Tonino Griffero, the concept of atmosphere has played an influential role in contributing to debates in phenomenological psychopathology, philosophy of mind, and aesthetics. Despite this surge of interest, the role that atmospheres play in contributing to cases of shared emotions remains neglected. This oversight is all the more surprising given the potentially powerful explanatory role atmosphere can play in helping clarify the complex structure of shared emotion. The aim of this workshop is to explore the intersection between shared emotion and atmospheres by bringing together leading and emerging scholars in the field. Possible topics include:

Defining and conceptualizing atmospheres.
The methodology of studying atmospheres.
The relation between atmosphere, mood, and aura.
The role atmospheres play in the politics of emotion.
The spatial and embodied aspects of atmospheres.
The function of contagious emotions in atmospheres.
The relation between atmospheres and the “staging” of shared emotions.

Confirmed invited speakers:

Tonino Griffero (University of Rome)
Gernot Böhme (Technical University of Darmstadt)
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (University of Westminster)
Joel Krueger (University of Exeter)
Thomas Szanto ( University of Jyväskylä)
Jan Slaby (Freie Universität Berlin)
Ingrid Vendrell Ferran (University of Basel)

Guest speakers:

Gerhard Thonhauser (Freie Universität Berlin)
Lucy Olster (University of Exeter)
Maximilian Gregor Hepach (University of Cambridge)
Valeria Bizzari and Veronica Iubei (Heidelberg University Hospital)
Mikkel Bille (Roskilde University)
Stamatina Kousidi (Politecnico di Milano)

The overall aim of this article is to provide a critical exposition of the ethnocentric worldview. In order to reach this aim, I intend to explore the nature of abusive generalization which belongs to the populist images of national identity. Secondly, the main argument of the article lies in the proposition that what supplements nationalist populism is the psychological component of xenophobia. These crucial aspects of ethnocentrism, as I intend to argue, compose the ethnocentric worldview, which shapes individual commitment to national identity by omitting the member of a different ethnic identity.

The aim of this paper is to clarify the notion of shared emotion. After contextualizing this notion within the broader research landscape on collective affective intentionality, I suggest that we reserve the term shared emotion to an affective experience that is phenomenologically and functionally ours: we experience it together as our emotion, and it is also constitutively not mine and yours, but ours. I focus on the three approaches that have dominated the philosophical discussion on shared emotions: cognitivist accounts, concern-based accounts, and phenomenological fusion accounts. After identifying strengths and weaknesses of these approaches and summarizing the elements that a multifaceted theory of shared emotions requires, I turn to the work of the early phenomenologist Edith Stein to further advance an approach to shared emotions that combines the main strengths of Helm and Salmela’s concern-based accounts and Schmid’s phenomenological fusion account. According to this proposal, the sharedness of a shared emotion cannot be located in one element, but rather consists in a complex of interrelated features.

I denne artikel foreslas det, at interpersonel validering af kollektive folelser afhaenger af en persons mulighed for at dele folelser med andre medlemmer af en gruppe. Det gor det muligt, at kollektive folelser, der haves I isolation, kan blive interpersonelt valideret. For at udvikle hovedargumentet praesenteres der i artiklen to pastande: Forst foretages en konceptuel afklaring af forskellene mellem kollektive folelser, delte folelser og andre gruppefolelser. Det argumenteres, at kollektive folelser adskiller sig fra, og ikke kan reduceres til, delte folelser. I forlaengelse heraf argumenteres det, at bade delte og kollektive folelser er specifikke typer gruppefolelser. Herefter skelnes mellem kollektive folelser og andre gruppefolelser, som eksempelvis smitsomme folelser. Slutvis beskrives, hvordan kollektive folelser er strukturelt relateret til delte folelser. Dernaest introduceres en skelnen mellem, hvad der i artiklen kaldes objektivt gruppemedlemskab og intersubjektivt grup...