Phenomenology of Phantasy and Emotion

A main part of our everyday relation to phantasy (watching films, reading literature, playing videogames, etc.) involves an emotional reaction to events that do not take place in the actual world.

Since the publication of Husserliana 23, Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung (1980), the topic of the phenomenology of phantasy has experienced an ever-increasing interest among phenomenologists and researchers from different backgrounds. Attention has been paid to insights related to the phenomenological method, the nature of pictoriality and aesthetic experiences, or the classification of different kinds of re-presentations.
However, 40 years later, specialized works on the subject have still largely neglected one of the crucial problems mentioned by Husserl: the relationship between the fictional object and the emotions of the subject actually experiencing it. What is the nature of an emotional response to fiction? Are emotions indifferent to the existence of what they relate to? How do these fictional emotions relate to their real counterparts? This volume gathers ten innovative essays confronting this problem from a phenomenological perspective.

Autorentext

Thiemo Breyer, Prof. Dr., is Professor for Phenomenology and Anthropology at the Department of Philosophy and Director of the Husserl Archives at the University of Cologne. Marco Cavallaro, Dr. des., is Research Associate at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Campus Landau. Rodrigo Y. Sandoval, M.A., is PhD Scholarship Holder of ANID-Chile at the University of Cologne and the Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Chile).