Anthony J. Steinbock

Winner, 2015 CSCP Symposium Book Award Moral Emotions builds upon the philosophical theory of persons begun in Phenomenology and Mysticism and marks a new stage of phenomenology. Author Anthony J. Steinbock finds personhood analyzing key emotions, called moral emotions. Moral Emotions offers a systematic account of the moral emotions, described here as pride, shame, and guilt as emotions of self-givenness; repentance, hope, and despair as emotions of possibility; and trusting, loving, and humility as emotions of otherness. The author argues these reveal basic structures of interpersonal experience. By exhibiting their own kind of cognition and evidence, the moral emotions not only help to clarify the meaning of person, they reveal novel concepts of freedom, critique, and normativity. As such, they are able to engage our contemporary social imaginaries at the impasse of modernity and postmodernity.

Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart

Moral Emotions

At a time in which many philosophers have concluded that Husserl's philosophy is exhausted, but when the alternatives to Husserl appear to be exhausted as well, this work aims to presents an innovative approach to Husserlian phenomenology. The author implicitly attacks the most fundamental criticism aimed at Husserl: that his philosophy is intrinsically formalistic, unable in principle to deal with concrete matters of life and how to live it. This study of the problems and themes of a generative phenomenology, normality and abnormality, and the sociohistorical concepts of homeworld and generative phenomenology, opens doors for a philosophy of the social world while casting new light on work done by Husserl himself.

Generative Phenomenology After Husserl

Home and Beyond

At a time in which many philosophers have concluded that Husserl's philosophy is exhausted, but when the alternatives to Husserl appear to be exhausted as well, Anthony J. Steinbock presents an innovative approach to Husserlian phenomenology. Steinbock implicitly attacks the most fundamental criticism aimed at Husserl: that his philosophy is intrinsically formalistic, unable in principle to deal with concrete matters of life and how to live it. The "generation" which Steinbock traces through Husserl's writings - from static through genetic and finally to generative phenomena - is in part the generation of the lifeworld in and through various kinds of domesticity and alienness. Steinbock's systematic study of the problems and themes of a generative phenomenology, normality and abnormality, and the sociohistorical concepts of homeworld and alienworld, and the steps he takes toward developing such a generative phenomenology, open new doors for a phenomenology of the social world while casting new light on work done by Husserl himself and by many philosophers working more or less in a Husserlian vein. Both critique and an appropriation of a large and diverse body of work, Home and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology after Husserl is a major contribution to contemporary Husserl scholarship.

Natalie Depraz

This volume offers perspectives on the theme of surprise crossing philosophical, phenomenological, scientific, psycho-physiology, psychiatric, and linguistic boundaries. The main question it examines is whether surprise is an emotion. It uses two main theoretical frameworks to do so: psychology, in which surprise is commonly considered a primary emotion, and philosophy, in which surprise is related to passions as opposed to reason. The book explores whether these views on surprise are satisfying or sufficient. It looks at the extent to which surprise is also a cognitive phenomenon and primitively embedded in language, and the way in which surprise is connected to personhood, the interpersonal, and moral emotions. Many philosophers of different traditions, a number of experimental studies conducted over the last decades, recent works in linguistics, and ancestral wisdom testimonies refer to surprise as a crucial experience of both rupture and openness in bodily and inner life. However, surprise is a theme that has not been dealt with directly and systematically in philosophy, in the sciences, in linguistics, or in spiritual traditions. This volume accomplishes just that.

Surprise: An Emotion?

Exploring the first-person narratives of three figures from the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mystical traditions—St. Teresa of Avila, Rabbi Dov Baer, and RÅ«zbihÄn BaqlÄ«—Anthony J. Steinbock provides a complete phenomenology of mysticism based in the Abrahamic religious traditions. He relates a broad range of religious experiences, or verticality, to philosophical problems of evidence, selfhood, and otherness. From this philosophical description of vertical experience, Steinbock develops a social and cultural critique in terms of idolatry—as pride, secularism, and fundamentalism—and suggests that contemporary understandings of human experience must come from a fuller, more open view of religious experience.

Anthony J. Steinbock

Books

Your next favorite book is out there