The Nature of Sympathy

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Routledge, Jul 28, 2017 - Philosophy - 294 pages
The Nature of Sympathy explores, at different levels, the social emotions of fellow-feeling, the sense of identity, love and hatred, and traces their relationship to one another and to the values with which they are associated. Scheler criticizes other writers, from Adam Smith to Freud, who have argued that the sympathetic emotions derive from self-interested feelings or instincts. He reviews the evaluations of love and sympathy current in different historical periods and in different social and religious environments, and concludes by outlining a theory of fellow-feeling as the primary source of our knowledge of one another.A prolific writer and a stimulating thinker, Max Scheler ranks second only to Husserl as a leading member of the German phenomenological school. Scheler's work lies mostly in the fields of ethics, politics, sociology, and religion. He looked to the emotions, believing them capable, in their own quality, of revealing the nature of the objects, and more especially the values, to which they are in principle directed.
 

Contents

EDITORS PREFACE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE FIFTH EDITION BY MARIA SCHELER
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
FELLOWFEELING
1 Community of feeling
GENETIC THEORIES OF FELLOWFEELING
METAPHYSICAL THEORIES
3 The treatment of love in metaphysical monism
THE PHYLOGENETIC ORIGIN AND EXTENSION OF FELLOW
THE MORAL VALUE OF FELLOWFEELING
LOVE AND HATRED
A THEORY BASED ON THE PHENOMENA
2 The facts concerning the perspective of interests
4 The parallel extension of love and hatred
NATURE AND SCOPE OF THE PROBLEMS
THE GENERAL EVIDENCE FOR THE THOU

THE SENSE OF UNITY WITH THE COSMOS IN SOME
SYMPATHY AND ITS LAWS OF DEPENDENCE
THE INTERACTION OF THE SYMPATHETIC FUNCTIONS

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