1Our life world is from the outset saturated with values. Husserl himself – far from the image of an ‘intellectualist’ with which he has long been associated – acknowledges this primordiality of values as soon as Ideas I:
This world is there for me not only as a world of mere things, but also with the same immediacy as a world of objects with values, a world of goods, a practical world (1983, p. 53).
2Hence, values originarily inhabit the world, just like spatiotemporal things or natural facts. They are not mere ideal entities like Equality (De Monticelli, 2020, p. 43; Jardine, 2020, p. 56; Vendrell Ferran, 2022, p. 72), but they immediately pertain to the various objects that we encounter in the world: the landscape itself is sublime, the murder itself is abject. In this perspective, these values, as axiological predicates, are moments of the things themselves, just like their mass or their color (Tappolet, 2000, p. 6).
3The present work assumes such an axiological ‘naïve realism’. To that extent, it will leave aside ontological questions and will focus exclusively on the ‘epistemology’ of values.
- 1 It must be noted that the classical criticisms raised in this context focus mainly on the idea tha (...)
- 2 See (Husserl, 2020b, p. 229; Meinong, 2020, p. 85; Mulligan, 2009, p. 144, 2010, p. 484) for other (...)
- 3 A related argument is that young infants can grasp values (for instance the – positive – value of (...)
4The latter issue is by no means less daunting than the former. While it is clear that our perceptions manifest to us the various sensible qualities of the world, and that it is through our conceptual thought that ideal objects such as numbers or species are revealed to our mind, the kind of ‘lived experience’ capable of unveiling axiological determinations remains quite delicate to identify. One could first consider accounting for such experiences of values (‘valueceptions’) in terms of desire (Oddie, 2005, p. 28; von Ehrenfels, 1897, pp. 2, 51‑52) or judgment (Nussbaum, 2004; Solomon, 1976). Yet, many objections have been raised against these views (Vendrell Ferran, 2022, pp. 74‑78).1 For example, it has been argued that desires, contrary to valueceptions, have a world-to-mind direction of fit (Engelsen, 2018, p. 238).2 As for judgments, they are higher-order cognitive states underpinned by propositional structures, while we are immediately “struck” by values (Mulligan, 2009).3 In what follows, I assume that these objections are compelling and I focus on the two remaining options addressed in recent philosophy.
5To begin with, many authors have regarded emotion as the kind of acts responsible for valueceptions. Three sorts of arguments can be put forward in favor of this claim:
- The linguistic argument: many axiological concepts are directly linked to our emotional experiences (amusing/amusement, admirable/admiration) (Tappolet, 2000, p. 16).
- The phenomenological argument: emotions enable us to gain access to what is meaningful for us. My concern for my cat is for instance materialized both in my current love for it and in the sadness that I would feel if it were to die. Conversely, as Thomas Fuchs aptly points out, without emotions, the world would be deprived of any significance (Bedeutsamkeit) (2014, p. 18).
- The psychopathological argument: people suffering from antisocial personality disorder (psychopaths) show a strong emotional deficit, above all in guilt, remorse, and empathy (Prinz, 2008, p. 45). At the same time, there is evidence that they lack a proper comprehension of morality, since they do not understand the distinction between moral and conventional rules (Blair, 1995, p. 17). Rephrased in axiological terms: an emotional impairment leads to the incapacity to grasp (at least moral) values.
- 4 Meinong indeed defended that emotions (Gefühle, Emotionen) were genuine “presentations” of what he (...)
6These three observations culminate in the ‘Meinongian’ (1917)4 view on valueception: values are presented in emotions (Tappolet, 2000, pp. 8‑9).
7However, this thesis faces important challenges. In particular, it has been argued that, as ordinary language shows, emotions are not themselves discoveries of values but are caused by axiological apprehensions. As Kevin Mulligan puts it:
We can always ask someone why he feels the way he does. We do not ask someone why he knows that p or perceives something. We ask him how he knows that p. If some emotion of Sam were a disclosure of value, we ought not to be able to ask him why he feels the way he does (Mulligan, 2010, p. 485).
- 5 This position was indeed initially defended by Dietrich von Hildebrand (von Hildebrand, 1916, pp. (...)
8This objection, among others (Vendrell Ferran, 2022, pp. 75-76), has led an increasing number of scholars – such as John J. Drummond, Jean Moritz Müller or Søren Engelsen – to embrace an alternative, ‘Hildebrandian’5 view on valueception, which has been very recently systematized by Ingrid Vendrell-Ferran (2022). This conception can be divided into two related claims:
- There exists a type of lived experiences, called ‘Fühlen’, ‘Wertfühlen’, or ‘value feeling’, which is in principle independent from emotions, in the sense that it is not reducible to them, nor even founded on them: a value feeling can be cold, that is, may be experienced in the total absence of emotions (Drummond, 2009, p. 366; Engelsen, 2018, p. 240; Mulligan, 2009, p. 144, 2010, p. 486).
- In this framework, emotions are conceived, not as direct experiences of values, but as responses to the values apprehended by a ‘value feeling’ (Engelsen, 2018, p. 245; Müller, 2019, p. 63; Mulligan, 2009, p. 151, 2010, p. 485).
9Just to cite one of Vendrell Ferran’s examples: “feeling the bravery of an action calls us to respond with the emotions of admiration and respect” (2022, p. 83).
- 6 For another (problematic) attempt of distinction, see (Engelsen, 2018, p. 240).
10Yet, in turn, this ‘Hildebrandian’ view on valueception stands open to criticism. First, the demarcation between emotions and feelings is not made sufficiently clear. John J. Drummond6, for instance, writes that emotion “intends in a more determinate way the affective aspect” than does feeling (2009, p. 368, emphasis mine). The obscurity of such formulations casts doubts, more generally, on the exact nature of this alleged ‘feeling’. In the end, we cannot but have the impression that it is a category of acts merely invented to satisfy theoretical needs (Deonna & Teroni, 2012, p. 94; Mitchell, 2019, p. 786; Yaegashi, 2019, p. 76).
11As a result, none of these two main viewpoints on valueception can be regarded as fully convincing. The purpose of the present paper is to shed new light on this puzzle, through the study of one particular approach to the problem at play, namely Husserl’s. This could seem a strange choice, for Husserl is usually considered to be a classical advocate of the ‘Meinongian’ standpoint on valueception. Yet, as the manuscripts collected in the recently published Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins reveal (especially their second volume (Husserl, 2020b), thereafter abridged and cited as ‘Studien II’), this traditional exegesis is partial. The purpose of the present work is precisely to demonstrate that Husserl, far from being a basic ‘emotionalist’, develops an original, stimulating account of valueception that unifies the two sides at stake.
12The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, I present the reasons that motivated Husserl to embrace the ‘emotional’ view in his most famous texts. Yet, this emotional stance faces very serious objections, in particular the phenomenon of axiological coldness – the possibility of experiencing a value without being moved – of which Husserl himself was well aware. This issue prompted him to build up, as I show in the second part, a much more sophisticated conception of valueception which took into account the most fundamental features of the ‘value feeling’ standpoint. Finally, in the third part, I establish that there is no contradiction between Husserl’s major publications and the Studien II: even if the existence of non-emotional value feelings is acknowledged in these manuscripts, emotion remains the originary axiological experience.
13In the last three decades, the stereotype of an ‘intellectualist’ Husserl has been aptly reassessed. Among other texts (Husserl 2001, pp. 277‑283, 2004b, pp. 159‑189, 2013, pp. 187‑191), the publication of his lectures on ethics (1988, 2004a) has proven that he was also deeply concerned with the affective and practical dimensions of human experience. More importantly, these lectures have revealed that emotional phenomenology was at the core of his transcendental project. To make a long story short, Husserl understood transcendental phenomenology as a discipline that must take charge of “all true knowledge” and solve “all problems of reason” (1962, p. 299). In this framework, reason is no longer equated with Verstand, that is, with theoretical reason, but integrates its axiological and practical spheres as well. Yet, to establish the rationality of values, it is not sufficient to show that they comply with ‘formal axiological’ laws analogous to those of pure logic (Husserl, 1988, p. 48). This ontological approach must be completed by an ‘epistemological’ one, in which the phenomenologist reveals how values can be experienced – and even known – by the subject (Husserl, 1988, p. 250). In this transcendental perspective, emotions (Gefühle) play an indispensable role: only emotions can manifest something as beautiful, noble, or disgusting.
14This line of thought is systematized in the ‘mainstream’ interpretation of Husserl. According to this exegesis, Husserl’s philosophy of feelings is characterized by a significant evolution (Gyemant, 2018) that occurred approximately around his so-called ‘transcendental turn’. In the Logical Investigations, Husserl still endorsed a “non-objectifying” conception of Gefühl: Gefühle are intentional but do not contribute to the constitution of new objectual predicates. In Husserlian terms, emotions pertain to the quality of acts, but not to their matter, which is integrally provided by their cognitive basis. Yet, the constitution of values remained, in this framework, unintelligible. As a consequence, Husserl amended his theory and acknowledged in Ideas I “that any acts whatever — even emotional and volitional acts — are “objectifying,” “constituting” objects originaliter” (1983, p. 282, transl. modified).
- 7 This thesis, as is well known, originates in Brentano’s Vorstellungsgrundlage (Brentano, 1973, p. (...)
15In this context, emotion must be understood as a complex act, which is necessarily founded on an intellectual basis (Husserl, 1913, p. 389).7 Hence, the whole correlate of this act is itself a complex one: it is underpinned by a ‘simple thing’ (bloße Sache) (e.g., the dog, the proof) which serves as a substrate for a new, founded layer (Schicht), that is precisely the value (the dangerous dog, the elegant proof).
- 8 Husserl appealed to this terminology as early as 1902 (von Hildebrand, 1916, p. 205).
- 9 On the ‘emotionalist’ side, see (Tappolet, 2000, p. 7; Yaegashi, 2019, p. 73). On the ‘Hildebrandi (...)
16As a consequence, axiological predicates cannot be given but as such affective correlates: “valueception” (Wertnehmung)8 and “actual delight” (aktueller Genuss) are two equivalent expressions (Husserl, 2004a, p. 75). In other terms: our epistemological access to values is exclusively provided by our emotional acts. The pervasiveness of this claim throughout Husserl’s most well-known texts, in particular in his 1908 (1988, pp. 277, 323) or 1920 (2004a, p. 75) lectures on ethics, as well as in Ideas II (1952, p. 9, 1989, p. 11) or Erste Philosophie (2019, p. 49), has thus persuaded most Husserl’s scholars – belonging to both sides of the controversy9 – to classify him, alongside with Meinong, as an ‘emotionalist’ on valueception.
17This ‘emotional’ view, however, faces one very substantial objection, depicted by Husserl’s own students, namely the possibility of being aware of a certain value without experiencing any emotion. As von Hildebrand mentions as early as 1916, I can “take note” (Kenntnis nehmen) of the value of a certain state of affairs (e.g., that my friend is coming) without responding to it emotionally, that is, without rejoicing about it (1916, p. 167). Max Scheler, in his Formalismus, also suggests similar examples. It is quite possible, for instance, that I say: “True, this work of art is valuable, but I do not take any delight in looking at it; I do not like it” (1973, p. 250).
- 10 Naturally, contemporary partisans of ‘value feeling’ theories (but also other scholars) have taken (...)
- 11 James Jardine rightly notes, while commenting the Studien II, that “we sometimes experience an obj (...)
18The existence of this phenomenon – that I will sum up by the expression of axiological coldness – seems to ruin the standard ‘emotional’ view10 that Husserl endorses in his most famous texts. If a valueception (Wertnehmung) can occur in a “cold” (kalt) (Scheler 1916, 257, 1973, 250) state, then it is plain that emotional acts cannot account for our experience of values11.
- 12 See (Husserl, 2020a, pp. LVI‑LXI) for editorial details on these texts.
- 13 Since von Hildebrand arrived in Göttingen the same year (Salice, 2020), it is natural to raise the (...)
19Very interestingly, the manuscripts gathered in the Studien II12 reveal that Husserl himself was actually aware of this phenomenon as early as 1909, hence well before his students’ publications:13 “I can find something enjoyable [erfreulich] without really enjoying it” (Studien II, p. 183). Another manuscript, from 1911, takes up and deepens this possibility:
- 14 It is worth noting the use of a ‘Schelerian’ vocabulary here.
I see a beautiful female figure. Once I am delighted, the other time she leaves me cold, although I find her equally beautiful. The same good food, depending on whether I am full or hungry, delights me or leaves me cold. I missed it, and I appreciate it as being equally ‘valuable’, as equally good. The feeling as a grasping of value [Das Fühlen14 als Werterfassen] is to be distinguished from the delight [Genießen], from the higher affective reaction (Studien II, p. 102).
- 15 To name just a few examples: I can see something good without feeling any joy (Studien II, p. 531) (...)
- 16 This ‘reactional’ conception of emotions is expressed via a wide range of notions in the Studien I (...)
- 17 In recent works, James Jardine has also aptly called into question the traditional interpretation (...)
20These passages are not isolated: rather, axiological coldness is unceasingly evoked, like a leitmotiv, throughout the Studien II.15 As a result, both the most important argument (axiological coldness) and the most important distinction (initial Fühlen vs reactional Gefühl16) later used by ‘Hildebrandians’ were already known to Husserl. This led him to develop an enriched conception that contrasts with the ‘mainstream’ interpretation of his thought.17
- 18 Husserl annotated a 1909 manuscript dedicated to the issue (Studien II, p. 183) with the commentar (...)
21In this ‘underground’ view, emotions are no longer equated with immediate experiences of values. Rather, they are conceived as episodes that stem from an initial valueception but are not reduced to it. This is especially evidenced by what Husserl calls Hingabe.18 Let’s consider the following text from the same 1911 manuscript:
Do not we find the distinction between devotion [Hingabe] and non-devotion [Nicht-Hingabe] in all affective acts? I value a beautiful woman, I value a good meal, I value a state of affairs […]. Have we not everywhere the phenomenon [Phänomen] of the affective act, in which something ‘stands there’ as joyful, regretful (as wishful, as ought-to-be) etc. and, in contrast to this, the devotion, the more or less lively joy, sadness, wish, etc.? (Studien II, p. 109)
- 19 Husserl appeals explicitly to this paradoxical expression (Studien II, p. 185).
22In this passage, Husserl accounts for the discrepancy between the initial valueception and the subsequent emotion in terms of “Hingabe”, whose best translation is probably the term “devotion”. Just like employees can be more or less devoted to their company, and just like the members of a church can be more or less devoted to their god, the subject can be more or less emotionally ‘devoted’ to the value she is apprehending. In such devotion, this value is no longer merely grasped in a “theoretical”19 fashion, but it moves us, it troubles us, it overwhelms us. As Husserl poetically puts it, Hingabe can thus be defined as “Mit-dem-Herzen-dabei-Sein“, “being there with our heart” (Studien II, p. 116).
23The introduction of this new concept allows Husserl to set forth a sophisticated description of emotional episodes, in which they are articulated as four-stage processes (cf. Figure n°1 below).
24Stage 1. There is first the passive reception (Studien II, p. 50) of a value, that “strikes” (Mulligan, 2009) the subject. The valenced object “stands there” (“steht da”), and the subject becomes aware of it in a glance that is similar to the perceptual grasp of worldly things:
Value-apperception, value-apprehension, valueception. A painting stands there as a beautiful painting. A violin stands there as a beautiful, precious [wertvolle] violin, a tone sounds noble (Studien II, p. 121).
- 20 In Ideas II, Husserl speaks explicitly of an “active devotion (Hingegebenheit)” (Husserl, 1952, p. (...)
- 21 On Stellungnahme, see (Jardine, 2020, p. 60, 2022, p. 48). Again, I emphasize that I here use this (...)
- 22 To depict this attentional dimension of the Stellungnahme, Husserl employs the term Zuwendung (act (...)
25Stage 2. Yet, this initial passive stance does not exhaust the whole emotional process (Jardine, 2022, p. 61) and must be first completed by an active engagement vis-à-vis the appearing value, in which, so to speak, the subject says ‘yes’ (but may also say ‘no’) to its manifestation.20 This does not require adopting a highly reflective position in front of the valenced object. Even ‘indulging oneself’ – “sich hingeben” (Studien II, p. 109) – to something irritating and letting anger emerge is already a kind of agentive behavior, since, as Husserl highlights, I can also abstain (Enthaltsamkeit) (Studien II, p. 185) from participating in the negative value in virtue of an active “Gegentendenz” (Studien II, p. 116). Hence, the subject always embraces a minimal stance (positive – Hingabe – or negative – Nicht-Hingabe) towards the axiological content. Moreover, such active “affective stance” (Gemütsstellungnahme) (Studien II, p. 121)21 typically involves two components: an attentional one (Jardine, 2022, p. 63) – the valenced object comes to the forefront of consciousness22 – and an enactive one – the subject physically engages with the object, turns around it, comes closer to it, touches it or even hits it (Studien II, p. 100).
- 23 In this respect, Husserl sides with William James, but also with contemporary proponents of ‘affec (...)
26Stage 3. However, to experience an actual emotion, such active engagement is still insufficient: my heart must be touched as well. This is not a metaphor: any genuine Gefühl is always embodied23 through a variety of affective sensations (Gefühlsempfindungen), like sensible pains or pleasures but also shivers (Studien II, pp. 102‑103, 109, 111‑113, 123, 172‑173, 176, 404, 522). This is the passive component of Hingabe (Studien II, pp. 168‑169, 204, 513), that Husserl depicts as a “delight” (Genuss) (Studien II, p. 186), “ravishment” (Entzücken) (Studien II, p. 140) or “enthusiasm” (Begeisterung) (Studien II, p. 121).
27Stage 4. The emergence of bodily feelings is at the same time responsible for the enduring character of emotions. As a consequence, the way an emotion ends heavily relies on the behavior of the Gefühlsempfindungen.
- It is first possible that the bodily feelings quickly vanish. In this case, the whole act, “sinks” (Studien II, pp. 153‑154) into secondary passivity but, at the same time, “remains sedimented” (Husserl, 2001, p. 77). Such sedimentation in turn influences further valueceptions and emotions: one is prompted to valuate what has been previously associated with affective episodes (Studien II, p. 140).
- Yet, the bodily feelings may also remain vivid for quite a long time, even though the initial axiological motivation is no longer present. This is the basic condition for the development of a mood (Stimmung) (Fisette, 2021; Studien II, p. 173; Lee, 1998).
- A third, active way to end emotional episodes is to perform a higher-order objectification of the value that appeared, in particular in the form of an explicit axiological judgment. This requires endorsing a new, theoretical attitude and to convert the value into an “actual doxic objectivity”, as Husserl puts it in Ideas I (1983, pp. 76‑77, 290).24
28The four-stage course of an emotional episode can be summarized in the following figure. In this figure, the passive steps are represented by rectangles, and the active ones by ellipses, while the ‘cold’ experiences are represented in white, and the ‘hot’ ones in black.
Figure n° 1: Husserl’s depiction of affective episodes as four-stage processes
- 25 As we saw, Husserl is ‘Meinongian’ in 1908 (lectures on ethics) and again in 1913 (Ideas I and II) (...)
29It is now manifest that Husserl’s position on valueception is much more subtle than usually assumed. But is it not too subtle? Indeed, how is it possible to conciliate the ‘mainstream’ account defended in Husserl’s most famous texts with the ‘underground’ one favored in the Studien manuscripts? Supposing an evolution of Husserl’s ideas is vain, since the two points of view are alternatively endorsed at the same period25. In addition, even in the Studien, he sometimes comes back to the traditional ‘emotional’ perspective (Studien II, pp. 37, 240). Hence, Husserl did not seem to have deemed these two stances contradictory. In the last part of this paper, I will show how this apparent conflict can be resolved in his framework.
- 26 In this perspective, Husserl’s stance can be fruitfully compared to that of Thomas Fuchs, who asse (...)
30The basic idea is to consider actual emotions as being originary, that is, intuitive experiences of values, while cold valueceptions remain mere intentions, that is, mere empty axiological apprehensions26. Consider the following passage from Ideas II:
- 27 See also, for very close descriptions, the second volume of First philosophy (2019, p. 307).
Each consciousness which originally constitutes a value-Object as such, necessarily has in itself a component belonging to the sphere of feelings. The most originary [ursprünglichste] constitution of value is performed in feelings as that pre-theoretical (in a broad sense) delighting devotion [genießende Hingabe] […]. Just as there is, however, a sort of representing from afar, an empty representational intending which is not a being in the presence of the object, so there is a feeling which relates to the object emptily; and as the former is fulfilled in intuitive representing, so is the empty feeling fulfilled by way of the delight (Genießen) (Husserl, 1952, pp. 9‑10, 1989, p. 11, transl. modified).27
31This explains why the ‘emotional’ standpoint remains fundamentally correct: even though one can experience a value without being moved, it is only in a ‘hot’ delight or devotion that this value is genuinely intuited, is perceived as being really there in person. In this perspective, cold valueceptions rely teleologically on emotions: the empty axiological apprehension strives for its fulfillment in an actual delight or ravishment. As a result, cold value apperceptions remain non-originary despite their temporal primacy in the unfolding of an affective episode.
32This line of thought is pervasive throughout the Studien, where Husserl refers to this operation of fulfillment (Erfüllung) (Studien II, pp. 101, 450) through a manifold vocabulary. On the one hand, he characterizes it as an authentic givenness (Gegenbenheit) of the value at stake (Studien II, p. 24), which induces a shift in the phenomenology of the affective experience: the Hingabe leads to a “lebendige” (living) joy or sadness (Studien II, p. 109). On the other hand, this fulfillment enhances the epistemological worth of the feeling. In this perspective, it is said to constitute a “confirmation” (Bestätigung) (Studien II, pp. 28, 430), a “justification” (Begründung) (Studien II, p. 278), an “attestation” (Ausweisung) (Studien II, pp. 298, 397), or a “legitimization” (Berechtigung) (Studien II, p. 404) of the initial Wertnehmung.
33The upshot of this conciliation between the ‘mainstream’ and the ‘underground’ interpretations is that Husserl escapes the traditional dichotomy between ‘emotional’ and ‘value feeling’ theories. By contrast with the former, he acknowledges the existence of non-emotional experiences of value. At the same time, by contrast with the latter, he did not consider the Fühlen as the originary axiological mode of givenness. To that extent, Husserl explicitly contradicts Scheler (1973, p. 258) and Geiger (1913, 574), but also contemporary representatives of the ‘value feeling’ standpoint, in particular Vendrell Ferran (2022, pp. 74, 78, 80) and Mulligan (2009).
34As a conclusion, I have tried and reassessed Husserl’s position within the ‘emotional’ vs ‘value feeling’ debate. I have demonstrated that the mainstream, ‘Meinongian’ interpretation, relying on his main works, is incomplete, as Husserl acknowledged, in the Studien II manuscripts, the possibility of non-emotional (‘cold’) valueceptions. Yet, such acknowledgment did not lead him to embrace a full-fledged ‘Hildebrandian’ view, since he maintained (with Meinongians) that our originary epistemological access to values is rooted in actual emotions. Hence, Husserl’s approach, contrary to what has been traditionally assumed, is innovative: it pertinently picks out the most interesting features of both sides and unifies them into a consistent account.
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