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HORIZON 8 (2) 2019 : III. Discussions : T. Sinkûnas : 725-732
ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ • STUDIES IN PHENOMENOLOGY • STUDIEN ZUR PHÄNOMENOLOGIE • ÉTUDES PHÉNOMÉNOLOGIQUES
https://doi.org/10.21638/2226-5260-2019-8-2-725-732
THE REVIEW
OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE "PHENOMENOLOGY OF EMOTIONS. THE 4th CONFERENCE ON TRADITIONS AND PERSPECTIVES OF THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL MOVEMENT IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE" (October 12-13, 2018, Kaunas, Lithuania)
TOMAS SINKUNAS
PhD in Philosophy. Vytautas Magnus University. 44244 Kaunas, Lithuania. E-mail: [email protected]
The report presents an overview of the international conference "Phenomenology of Emotions. Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe," which was held on the 12th and 13th of October at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. The report briefly summarizes the main aim of the conference as well as the aim of the conference series as such, it briefly presents keynote addresses, outlines the structure of the conference, and finally presents information about the participants and their talks.
Key words: Phenomenological movement, phenomenology in Central and Eastern Europe, emotions, embodiment, bodily feelings, intersubjectivity, affect, empathy.
© TOMAS SINKÜNAS, 2019 HORIZON 8 (2) 2019
ОТЧЕТ О МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЙ КОНФЕРЕНЦИИ «ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЯ ЭМОЦИЙ.
4-Я КОНФЕРЕНЦИЯ О ТРАДИЦИЯХ И ПЕРСПЕКТИВАХ ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЧЕСКОГО ДВИЖЕНИЯ В ЦЕНТРАЛЬНОЙ И ВОСТОЧНОЙ ЕВРОПЕ» (12-13 октября 2018 г., Каунас)
ТОМАС ШИНКУНАС
PhD, докторант.
Университет Витаутаса Великого.
44244 Каунас, Литва.
E-mail: [email protected]
В отчете представлен обзор международной конференции «Феноменология эмоций. Традиции и перспективы феноменологического движения в центральной и восточной Европе», состоявшейся 12-13 октября 2018 г. в университете Витаутаса Великого в Каунасе, Литва. В отчете вкратце излагается идея конференции, а также общая цель серии конференций, дается представление о содержании основных докладов, очерчивается структура конференции, представляется информация об участниках и их сообщениях. Ключевые слова: Феноменологическое движение, феноменология в Центральной и Восточной Европе, эмоции, телесность, телесные ощущения, интерсубъективность, аффект, эмпатия
An international conference on the topic of Phenomenology of Emotions took place on the 12th and 13th of October, 2018 at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (Lithuania). The conference was funded by the Research Council of Lithuania and organized in cooperation with the Department of Philosophy and Social Critique as well as the Lithuanian Association for Phenomenology. The organizing committee consisted of Saulius Geniusas (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Tomas Sinkunas (Vytautas Magnus University), Audrone Zukauskaite (Lithuanian Culture Research Institute), Witold Plotka (Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw), Mintautas Gutauskas (Vilnius University) and Dalius Jonkus (Vytautas Magnus University) as the chair.
Phenomenology of Emotions was already the 4th iteration in a series of conferences dedicated to the "Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe." The inaugural conference of series under the title of Horizons beyond Borders has been held in Budapest (Hungary) in
20151, the second conference under the theme of Phenomenology and Practice took place in Gdansk (Poland) in 20162, the third conference Phenomenology and Aesthetics was held in Riga (Latvia) in 20173.
Phenomenological movements in Central and Eastern Europe, as Witold Plotka notes in his initial introduction to the movement4, have mostly been shaped behind the Iron Curtain, usually within the confines of their respective countries as separate cultural movements against communism, materialism and Marxism in particular. Even under suppression, these movements developed and grew independently into unique, original and plural phenomenologies. Today, these phenomenological traditions are presented to the international exchange of ideas and introduced to current phenomenological movements in journals, books as well as conferences.
In particular, the 4th Conference on Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe addressed themes within the phenomenology of emotions and its related areas. 45 international scholars from East and West read papers on various aspects of philosophies of Edmund Husserl, Roman Ingarden, Alexander Pfänder Max Scheler, Aurel Kolnai, Vasily Sesemann, Jan Patocka and others. Diverse topics within the scope of the phenomenology from emotions themselves, bodily feelings, affects, empathy or pain to shared emotions, intersubjectivity of feelings were addressed over the span of 15 parallel sessions.
Five keynote addresses began with Natalie Depraz's (Université de Rouen Normandie) paper titled Is surprise an emotion like the others? A cardiopheno-menological approach. Surprise, according to Depraz, lacks a clear definition, is absent from phenomenological research and is usually misunderstood as a primitive passion, basic emotion among others, as affective, passive and cognitive. In order to avoid the pitfall of framing surprise as a startle emotion absent of valence Depraz suggested interpreting valence as a twofold mode of emotional appearing in the dynamics of surprise (before and after the crisis). Then, Depraz turned to cardiophenomenology as it provides a much-needed continuity to encompass initially conflicting elements in order to form a wholesome conception of surprise.
1 See the conference report by W. Plotka (Plotka, 2016b).
2 See the conference report by J. Buzniak (Buzniak, 2017).
3 See the conference report by U. Vegners & M. Grinfelde (Vegners & Grinfelde, 2017).
4 See W. Plotka (Plotka, 2016a).
The second keynote address was given by Saulius Geniusas (Chinese University of Hong Kong) under the title Pain and the Life-World: Somatization and Psychologization the aim of which was to highlight the benefits of phenomenology to pain studies as he focused on two principal processes: somatization and psychologization. Geniusas argued that in difference to other disciplines, phenomenology has the capacity to elucidate necessary conditions for somatization and psychologization to exist. Geniusas argued, that somatization and psychologization can be seen as defense mechanisms or adaptations to certain processes in the life-world through which the body transforms pain and expresses it as a metaphor. Then, in these cases pain can be reinterpreted as a mechanism that helps to cope with our incompatibility with the life-world.
The third keynote was delivered by Agustín Serrano de Haro Martínez (Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales) under the title of Husserl s Understanding of Physical Pain wherein he argued that Husserl's brief reference to pain in Logical Investigations as a "feeling or affective sensations" had a greater impact on Husserl's theory of pain than thought before. Serrano clarified it by addressing three main problems with this proposition. First, that there is a general split in the affectivity of pain: pain seems to be free from intentionality but at the same time exhibits emotional features. Second, that pain has a clear tendency to draw attention to itself, but this moment for Husserl translates into attention that is selective. Third, that pain is an immanent event, but at the same time it can be recognized as an intentional object.
On the second day, the first keynote address was presented by Nicolas de Warren (Pennsylvania State University) under the title Emotions and Stupidity. Wherein de Warren reflected and problematized the common conception stupidity. For him, philosophy's trust in truth and reason as tools in defining stupidity are overvalued. During his presentation he explored alternative approaches to stupidity by drawing on a vast sellection of examples: from the myths of origin to Gustave Flaubert's writing to illustrate modernity's greatest achievement—tragedy and Seinfeld—a TV sitcom about nothing within which stupidity hides under the guise of pretentiousness of maturity. Stupidity is a human condition, de Warren concluded.
The last keynote lecture The Challenge of Passionate Subjectivity was read by Jagna Brudzinska (University of Cologne). Initially, Brudzinska's focus was aimed against philosophy's longstanding treatment of emotions, feelings in cognition as lacking a constitutive function. Additionally, she argued, that the recent turn to emotions in neuro and cognitive sciences was unable to change this status. For Brudzinska, the real change in understanding affects and emotions can come from
Edmund Husserl's conception of phenomenology of experience as a genetic theory since in difference to earlier approaches it highlights the constitutive functions of affects and emotions.
In total, there were 17 sessions dedicated to phenomenology and its various areas. The first round of sessions began with a session dedicated to Shame and Guilt where Gintautas Mazeikis (Vytautas Magnus University) read a paper Phenomenology of meanness: shameless and hurts, followed by Heidy Meriste (University of Tartu) with a paper Past-, Present- and Future-Oriented Dimensions of Guilt and finished by Veronica Cibotaru (Paris-Sorbonne/University of Wuppertal) with a paper Understanding high sensitivity from a phenomenological point of view. At the same time in a session on Empathy and Intersubjectivity Gerhard Thonhauser (Free University Berlin/University of Vienna) gave a presentation A multifaceted approach to shared emotions, he was followed by Matias Graffigna (University of Göttingen) with a paper The levels of the Empathic Experience and Empathy as a Know-how. What enables us to be Experts at empathizing? and the session was closed by Louis Wing-keung Chik's (Université catholique de Louvain) paper Scheler and Maldiney: A phenomenological interpretation of sympathy. The last parallel section of the first session was dedicated to Phenomenology of Emotions and Aesthetics where presentations by Dalius Jonkus (Vytautas Magnus University) Empathy and Feelings in Vasily Sesemann's Aesthetic, Gabriel Marko (Charles University) On the Role of Emotions in Roman Ingarden's Aesthetics and Magdalena Krasinska (University of Warsaw) Emotions in the Roman Ingarden's Phenomenological Aesthetics were read.
The second round of sessions was dedicated Sartre's ideas on Emotions and was started by Jeler Ciprian (University of Bucharest) with a paper Antiinstrumental instrumentality: Sartre on emotions and violence, followed by Lorin Ghiman (New Europe College Bucharest) with a paper Günther Anders'path to the "sociology of emotions": From the critique of Sartre's Emotions to the phenomenology of "captured" emotions in the Antiquiertheit des Menschen and finished by Thomas Greaves' (University of East Anglia) paper Magic, Emotion and the Limits of Praxis. The second parallel session further addressed various themes in Empathy and Intersubjectivity II. It was initiated by Linas Tranas (University of Copenhagen) with a presentation Critical comparison of Gerda Walther's and Mikko Salmela's accounts of shared emotions, followed by Manuela Massa (Martin Luther University Halle) and his paper on We-intentionality and shared experiences in the philosophy of Gerda Walther, rounded out by Mintautas Gutauskas (Vilnius University) with
Phenomenological Approach to Emotions of Liminal Subjects: Animal Case. Lastly, topics in Phenomenology of Anxiety were analyzed by first, Mikhail Belousov (Saint Petersburg State University) with his talk named Anxiety and the collapse of the world: on the motivation of doing phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger, then by Leo Luks (Estonian University of Life Sciences) with a talk Negative moods (Stimmungen) as only possible places of ontological experience and completed by Tatiana Schyttsova (European Humanities University) with Between Frustration and Mobilization: The Emotional dispositions of intellectuals at cour' wartime.
The third round of sessions was dedicated to the Phenomenology of Pain. It started with Jeremy Heuslein's (KU Leuven) paper A Phenomenology of Inflicted Pain, Yu Hui's (Chinese University of Hong Kong) paper Imagination and imaginary pain and Sigurd Hovd's (University of Copenhagen) presentation An Inconvenient Lack of Truth-conditions: On intentionality and the phenomenology of pain. Then, concurrently followed by the third iteration of papers on Empathy and Intersubjectivity III. The session began with Valeria Bizzari (University of Heidelberg) giving a talk on "Die Einfühlung setzt Leiblichkeit voraus" Embodiment and social cognition in Aspergers' syndrome, seconded by Christian Ferencz-Flatz (Alexandru Dragomir Institute for Philosophy) with a presentation Eidetic Intuition as Physiognomy. Rethinking Adorno's Phenomenological Heritage and finished by Francesca Forle (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University) with a paper Affective States, Expressivity and the Direct Social Perception Theory. Talks dedicated to topics in Phenomenology of Disgust and Emotion Regulation concluded the last session of the day which was opened by Balazs Zoltan (Corvinus University) with a presentation Disgust in cthe Political,' followed by a presentation by Tomas Sinkünas (Vytautas Magnus University) Hidden foundation of disgust: Aurel Kolnai's disgust and finished by Matyas Szalay (Institute of Philosophy Edith Stein) with a paper on The Role of Fundamental Attitudes in Emotion Regulation. Jan Patocka in dialogue with Alexander Pfänder and Dietrich von Hildebrand.
Saturday's first sessions were dedicated to the phenomenology of emotions, psychology, and ethics. In parallel sessions Bertille de Vlieger (Lille University) read a paper Introspection and the phenomenology of emotions, César Arceo (Michoacan University of San Nicholas of Hidalgo, Mexico) presented Emotions: Dialogue between Phenomenology and Psychology, Witold Plotka (Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw) gave a talk Phenomenology as Descriptive Psychology: Twardowski, Bandrowski, Blaustein, Cabra Guilia (Catholic University of Milan) presented Emotions and Intersubjectivity: a possible account of love within Husserl's ethics
followed by Celia Cabrera's (University of Buenos Aires) paper Husserl's Account of Emotional Acts and its Ethical Implications.
The fifth round of sessions has been dedicated to the phenomenology of violence, affectivity, and aesthetics. Cristian Ciocan (University of Bucharest) read a paper The affective dimensions of conflict and violence, Paul Marinescu (University of Bucharest) gave a talk From terror to the tragic of the action. Ricoeur's views on violence, Mihaela Catalina Condruz (University of Bucharest) presented Violence through Torture and Emotional Trauma. When the victim takes the place of his torturer, Alejandro Alvelais (KU Leuven/University of Copenhagen) presented a paper Seeing through feeling? Phenomenological insights for a better characterization of "affective intentionality" in contemporary debates, Martin Patrick (University of Helsinki) gave a presentation under the title Shocked by the Artwork: A Consideration of Affectivity and Negativity of the Aesthetic Experience, Ineta Kivle (University of Latvia) gave a talk Meaningful Space of Colours: Philosophical Contemplations of Husserl and Kandinsky, Sofia Cortez (Michoacan University of San Nicholas of Hidalgo, Mexico) read a paper Emotion: surrounded by music, A Phenomenology perspective.
Sixth and last set of parallel sessions were dedicated to phenomenology of anger, emotions, embodiment, experience and mimetic desire. Remus Breazu (University of Bucharest) read a paper On the Phenomenology of Anger, Viktoras Bachmetjevas (Vytautas Magnus University) gave a talk How To Deal With Anger: Martha Nussbaum's Understanding of Anger and Its Limitations, Anna Khakhalova (Saint Petersburg State University) gave a presentation Emotions and Embodiment: Affordances in bodily-affective dynamics of an interaction, Natalia Artemenko (Saint Petersburg State University) presented a paper under the title Phenomenology of Experience and Gregory Moss (Chinese University of Hong Kong) presented Phenomenology of Mimetic Desire.
The first four conferences have already gathered more than 160 international scholars. In accordance with such interest in philosophy Central and East European Society for Phenomenology has been established in order to promote the heritage of the phenomenological movement in the countries of the Central and Eastern Europe. The 5th iteration of the conference on "Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe" will address the many variations, roles and progress of phenomenology and will be held in Bucharest (Romania) under the title of Shifting Roles. The Manifold Identities of Phenomenology.
REFERENCES
Buzniak, J. (2017). Report on the International Conference "Phenomenology and Practice: The 2nd Conference on Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe" (September 8-10, 2016, Gdansk, Poland). Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 6 (1), 235-240.
Plotka, W. (2016a). Introduction: Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 5 (1), 10-15.
Plotka, W. (2016b). Report on the International Conference "Horizons beyond Borders. Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe" (June 17-19, 2015, Budapest, Hungary). Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 5 (1), 299-304.
Vegners, U., & Grinfelde, M. (2017). Report of the International Conference "Phenomenology and Aesthetics. 2nd Conference on Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe" (June 29 — July 1, 2017, Riga, Latvia). Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 6 (2), 358-365.
