Papers by Imke von Maur
SFB 1171 Working Paper Reihe, 2024
In diesem philosophischen Working Paper versuchen wir eine Klärung der normativen Maßstäbe affekt... more In diesem philosophischen Working Paper versuchen wir eine Klärung der normativen Maßstäbe affektiver Wirklichkeitsbestimmung auf gesellschaftlicher Ebene. Wir verbinden dazu Überlegungen der Philosophie der Emotionen mit sozialphilosophischen Ansätzen und beziehen beides auf den kollektiven Umgang mit der Klima- und Umweltkrise. Der Text beginnt mit einer Charakterisierung menschlicher Affektivität, die sowohl das individuelle Fühlen als auch gesellschaftliche Affektdynamiken umfasst. Auf dieser Grundlage unterscheiden wir anschließend drei Dimensionen emotiver Normativität: epistemische Normativität, praktische Normativität sowie die Normativität ethisch-existenzieller Horizonte. Der Text schließt mit einer Skizze des „Entwurfscharakters“ gesellschaftlicher Affektlagen: dem Potenzial von Emotionen, Wirklichkeit nicht nur zu erfassen, sondern sie auch aktiv und kreativ zu gestalten. Dabei nehmen wir Bezug auf Eva von Redeckers Konzept der Bleibefreiheit.
Wozu Gefühle? Philosophische Reflexionen für Achim Stephan, 2023
Wenn sich jemand über einen Erfolg nicht ausreichend freut, bei einem kleinen Missgeschick rasend... more Wenn sich jemand über einen Erfolg nicht ausreichend freut, bei einem kleinen Missgeschick rasend wütend wird, auf sich selbst neidisch ist oder ob des Tods einer nahestehenden Person keine Trauer empfindet, beurteilen wir diese Emotionen oder deren Ausbleiben als unangemessen. Hierfür hat sich in der Emotionsphilosophie das Kriterium der fittingness durchgesetzt: Emotionen als ›passend‹ zu bewerten, bedeutet diesem Kriterium folgend zu evaluieren, ob das Objekt, auf das sich eine Emotion richtet, diese Reaktion ›verdient‹. Stimmt der Gehalt der Emotion mit den Eigenschaften des Objekts, auf das sie sich richtet, überein? In diesem beitrag diskutiere ich, inwiefern uns die Frage nach dem, ›was tatsächlich ist‹, als Referenz zur normativen Bewertung von Emotionen im Kontext sozialer und politischer Kontroversen weiterhilft. Den Ausgangspunkt für die vorliegende Untersuchung bildet der ›ernst genommene‹ Situiertheitsansatz (von Maur 2018; 2021a), demzufolge Emotionen in mehrfacher Hinsicht unweigerlich eingebettet sind in einen sozio-kulturell und historisch spezifischen Kontext. In diesem Kontext erwerben Menschen im Verlauf ihrer affektiven Biografie spezifische Emotionsrepertoires, die neben den konkreten situativen Faktoren bestimmen, was eine Person auf welche Weise affektiv erfasst. Dieses affektive Erfassen ist das Erzeugen einer komplexen bedeutsamen Gestalt mit Bezug auf sozial geteilte Praxen und Lebensformen. Aufbauend auf einem solchen sozialkritischen Ansatz affektiven Weltbezugs argumentiere ich, dass Gefühlskritik im Kontext sozialer und politischer Kontroversen Gesellschaftskritik erfordert.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2023
Consistent discriminatory practices associated with dark and black skin color underpin the persis... more Consistent discriminatory practices associated with dark and black skin color underpin the persistence of colorism and racism in the Indian subcontinent. To understand better how skin color ideologies occupy the mind of people with the effect of marginalizing those with dark skin color and promoting whiteness as a social capital, we will apply the paradigm of situated affectivity. The conceptual tools developed in this framework will help to see how the environmental structures that perpetuate colorism have a pervasive influence on individuals' values and their emotional repertoire from a very young age. After having documented how the minds of individuals are invaded with discriminatory colorist positions, we will present how people indulge in processes of user-resource interactions assumed to help regulating their affect, that in turn, result in re-enforcing again colorist and racist ideologies and practices.
The Moral Psychology of Shame, 2023
Social Robotics and the Good Life, 2022
In his documentary Alice cares (2015) Sander Burger presents a pilot project of researchers in Am... more In his documentary Alice cares (2015) Sander Burger presents a pilot project of researchers in Amsterdam in which an artificial “companion” called Alice is introduced as a “new friend” to three elderly women. In this text I will raise serious doubts that Alice, as the title of the movie claims, cares. On the contrary, I point out for why Alice does not and in principle cannot care. This circumstance is illustrative of John Haugeland’s utterance with regard to the general problem of artificial intelligence (AI) – namely that computers “don’t give a damn”. All that robots do is pattern recognition and to give a seemingly adequate output to a given input. If we lose the capacity to discriminate between this and actual care, as I argue, we do not only change the concept of care but ultimately the practice of caring. Alice is a paradigmatic example of this and highlights, on the one hand, the structural presuppositions that lead to the development of such technology in the first place, and, on the other hand, the severe consequences this has for our societies and our understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to live a good life. Taking seriously the quintessence of this text comes with consequences for the research on and implementation of so-called social robots which are supposed to care not only for elderly people but be companions of lonely teenagers and adults in times of a pandemic. I will argue that implementing robots in order to care does not only fail – for robots simply cannot care – but makes things worse. Not only will humans stay lonely while interacting with robots, they will give up to expect real care and true relationships. In the end this provides ground for a general argument against building emotional bonds with robots.
Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 2022
In this paper I consider emotions as the ability to grasp meaningfulness, understood as an essent... more In this paper I consider emotions as the ability to grasp meaningfulness, understood as an essential component of (social) reality, which is necessary for a rational discourse and which cannot be apprehended by means of a supposedly "sober" approach. I explicitly take into account the socio-cultural situatedness of feeling subjects and put epistemically relevant emotional abilities into perspective. This approach reveals that emotions can also contribute to questioning one's own world view and to be able to correct it if necessary. The ability to be affectively disrupted, as I call it, enables one to see the contingency of one's emotion repertoire and habitualized schemata of grasping meaningfulness. Further, a severe affective disruption can bring about a transformation of one's emotion repertoire and habitualized schemata, thus permanently altering the subject's epistemic position and epistemic practice.
Methodologies of Affective Experimentation, 2022
In this text we construe affect as a conservative force, as glue that holds social life in place.... more In this text we construe affect as a conservative force, as glue that holds social life in place. With this starting point, we direct our attention towards the unfolding of the ecological crises. Using the case of ‘automobile supremacy’, we discuss a paradigmatic affective formation that keeps Western societies deadlocked in a loop of business as usual, preventing them from adequately addressing the climate catastrophe. Drawing on the concepts of affective arrangement and affective milieu, we chart some of the affective groundings of automobile supremacy and of the widespread failure to overcome the status quo. In response to this conservative thrust of affect, we then survey how ossified affective formations can be disrupted and eventually left behind. Can affect itself be deployed as a resource to disturb, fracture, and break sedimented social formations and patterns? In search of an answer, we explore prospects of obstruction leaning on affective experimentation as a creative method of disruption. By discussing ways to disturb automobility in its unfettered flow, we provide an angle on modes of disruption as small-scale openings that abruptly and momentarily halt the affective relations that were sustaining social formations before.
Topoi, 2021
In order to explore how emotions contribute positively or negatively to understanding the meaning... more In order to explore how emotions contribute positively or negatively to understanding the meaning of complex socio-culturally specific phenomena, I argue that we must take into account the habitual dimension of emotions-i.e., the emotion repertoire that a feeling person acquires in the course of their affective biography. This brings to light a certain form of alignment in relation to affective intentionality that is key to comprehending why humans understand situations in the way they do and why it so often is especially hard to understand things differently. A crucial epistemic problem is that subjects often do not even enter a process of understanding, i.e., they do not even start to consider a specific object, theory, circumstance, other being, etc. in different ways than the familiar one. The epistemic problem at issue thus lies in an unquestioned faith in things being right the way they are taken to be. By acknowledging the habitual dimension of affective intentionality, I analyze reasons for this inability and suggest that being affectively disruptable and cultivating a pluralistic emotion repertoire are crucial abilities to overcome this epistemic problem.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
Situated approaches to affectivity overcome an outdated individualistic perspective on emotions b... more Situated approaches to affectivity overcome an outdated individualistic perspective on emotions by emphasizing the role embodiment and environment play in affective dynamics. Yet, accounts which provide the conceptual toolbox for analyses in the philosophy of emotions do not go far enough. Their focus falls (a) on the present situation, abstracting from the broader historico-cultural context, and (b) on adopting a largely functionalist approach by conceiving of emotions and the environment as resources to be regulated or scaffolds to be used. In this paper, I argue that we need to take situatedness seriously: We need (a) to acknowledge that emotions are not situated in undetermined "contexts" but in concrete socio-culturally specific practices referring to forms of living; and (b) to agree that not only are context and emotions used for the sake of something else but also that the meaning-disclosive dimension of affective intentionality is structured by situatedness as well. To do so, I offer a multidimensional approach to situatedness that integrates the biographical and cultural dimensions of contextualization within the analysis of situated affective dynamics. This approach suggests that humans affectively disclose meaning (together) which is at once product and producer of specific forms of living-and these are always already subjects of (politically relevant) critique.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2021
In this paper, we explore a rationalistic orientation in Western society. We suggest that this or... more In this paper, we explore a rationalistic orientation in Western society. We suggest that this orientation is one of the predominant ways in which Western society tends to frame, understand and deal with a majority of problems and questions-namely in terms of mathematical analysis, calculation and quantification, relying on logic, numbers, and statistics. Our main goal in this paper is to uncover the affective structure of this rationalistic orientation. In doing so, we illustrate how this orientation structures the way not only individuals but society as a whole frames and solves problems. We firstly point towards some exemplary instances of the rationalistic orientation , specifically regarding science, society, and lifeworld practice. Crucially, we argue that the rationalistic orientation is not merely based on a set of beliefs we could easily correct; but rather, that it is an affective condition tacitly shaping our engagement with the world in an encompassing way. Relating to the work of Martin Heidegger, we argue that what we have called an orientation in the beginning is in fact a rationalistic attunement. This attunement fundamentally shapes the pre-reflective level of how individuals approach the world. We elaborate this claim by showing how the rationalistic attunement concretely manifests in tangible socio-material affect dynamics. In the end, we motivate a critical stance towards this attunement, providing the ability to reflect upon and question instances where this way of framing and solving problems is counterproductive.
Phenomenological Psychology, 2020
A recently published introductory text on emotion illustrates assumptions that are all too common... more A recently published introductory text on emotion illustrates assumptions that are all too common in our intellectual culture.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2017
Books by Imke von Maur
Osnabrück University, 2018
Brill/Mentis, 2023
Philosophische Reflexionen für Achim Stephan
Conference Announcements by Imke von Maur
NEW DATES FOR WORKSHOP (online): The Role of Emotions in Epistemic Practices and Communities, 2021
WORKSHOP NOW ONLINE THROUGHOUT MARCH 2021
Online event, Freie Universität Berlin, March 4, 11, 18... more WORKSHOP NOW ONLINE THROUGHOUT MARCH 2021
Online event, Freie Universität Berlin, March 4, 11, 18 & 25, 2021
Are emotions vehicles of knowledge, and if yes, in virtue of which features? What is the role of emotions in social epistemic practices? What is the impact of local affective arrangements on epistemic communities?
In this workshop we will discuss the epistemic value of emotions at the intersection of philosophy of emotion and social epistemology. The aim is to foster an understanding of the role played by emotions in epistemic life. Different philosophical approaches and methodologies are brought into critical conversation.
Author-meets-critics workshop with Canadian phenomenologist Alia Al-Saji, on several chapters of ... more Author-meets-critics workshop with Canadian phenomenologist Alia Al-Saji, on several chapters of her forthcoming book: Hesitation: A Critical Phenomenology of Time, Affect, and Racialization
Freie Universität Berlin, May 17 & 18, 2018
Places are limited, registration required
Interviews by Imke von Maur
Perspective Daily, 2021
Wir wissen um die Gefahren des Klimawandels. Trotzdem handeln wir nicht. Die Kognitionswissenscha... more Wir wissen um die Gefahren des Klimawandels. Trotzdem handeln wir nicht. Die Kognitionswissenschaftlerin Imke von Maur erzählt im Interview, wie es ihr gelingt, ihre Ideale in die Tat umzusetzen, und warum dafür kein eiserner Wille nötig ist.
2015-2019 war die wärmste 5-Jahresperiode seit Beginn der Aufzeichnungen im Jahr 1880. Das macht den Deutschen Sorgen: 2/3 schätzen Umwelt-und Klimaschutz als eine sehr wichtige Herausforderung ein. Nichtsdestotrotz ändern die wenigsten ihr Verhalten, viele fahren weiterhin mit dem Auto statt mit dem Fahrrad zur Arbeit und verzichten weder auf Fleisch noch auf Inlandsflüge. Es besteht also eine Kluft zwischen unseren Überzeugungen und unserem tatsächlichen Verhalten. Imke von Maur ist Philosophin und Kognitionswissenschaftlerin. Sie forscht unter anderem zur Relevanz von Emotionen in Erkenntnisprozessen. Im Interview spricht sie darüber, woher die Diskrepanz zwischen unseren Werten und unserem Handeln kommt, wie wir alte Denk-und Verhaltensmuster überwinden können und warum wir nicht unbedingt auf etwas verzichten müssen, um nachhaltig zu leben.
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Papers by Imke von Maur
Books by Imke von Maur
Conference Announcements by Imke von Maur
Online event, Freie Universität Berlin, March 4, 11, 18 & 25, 2021
Are emotions vehicles of knowledge, and if yes, in virtue of which features? What is the role of emotions in social epistemic practices? What is the impact of local affective arrangements on epistemic communities?
In this workshop we will discuss the epistemic value of emotions at the intersection of philosophy of emotion and social epistemology. The aim is to foster an understanding of the role played by emotions in epistemic life. Different philosophical approaches and methodologies are brought into critical conversation.
Freie Universität Berlin, May 17 & 18, 2018
Places are limited, registration required
Interviews by Imke von Maur
2015-2019 war die wärmste 5-Jahresperiode seit Beginn der Aufzeichnungen im Jahr 1880. Das macht den Deutschen Sorgen: 2/3 schätzen Umwelt-und Klimaschutz als eine sehr wichtige Herausforderung ein. Nichtsdestotrotz ändern die wenigsten ihr Verhalten, viele fahren weiterhin mit dem Auto statt mit dem Fahrrad zur Arbeit und verzichten weder auf Fleisch noch auf Inlandsflüge. Es besteht also eine Kluft zwischen unseren Überzeugungen und unserem tatsächlichen Verhalten. Imke von Maur ist Philosophin und Kognitionswissenschaftlerin. Sie forscht unter anderem zur Relevanz von Emotionen in Erkenntnisprozessen. Im Interview spricht sie darüber, woher die Diskrepanz zwischen unseren Werten und unserem Handeln kommt, wie wir alte Denk-und Verhaltensmuster überwinden können und warum wir nicht unbedingt auf etwas verzichten müssen, um nachhaltig zu leben.
Online event, Freie Universität Berlin, March 4, 11, 18 & 25, 2021
Are emotions vehicles of knowledge, and if yes, in virtue of which features? What is the role of emotions in social epistemic practices? What is the impact of local affective arrangements on epistemic communities?
In this workshop we will discuss the epistemic value of emotions at the intersection of philosophy of emotion and social epistemology. The aim is to foster an understanding of the role played by emotions in epistemic life. Different philosophical approaches and methodologies are brought into critical conversation.
Freie Universität Berlin, May 17 & 18, 2018
Places are limited, registration required
2015-2019 war die wärmste 5-Jahresperiode seit Beginn der Aufzeichnungen im Jahr 1880. Das macht den Deutschen Sorgen: 2/3 schätzen Umwelt-und Klimaschutz als eine sehr wichtige Herausforderung ein. Nichtsdestotrotz ändern die wenigsten ihr Verhalten, viele fahren weiterhin mit dem Auto statt mit dem Fahrrad zur Arbeit und verzichten weder auf Fleisch noch auf Inlandsflüge. Es besteht also eine Kluft zwischen unseren Überzeugungen und unserem tatsächlichen Verhalten. Imke von Maur ist Philosophin und Kognitionswissenschaftlerin. Sie forscht unter anderem zur Relevanz von Emotionen in Erkenntnisprozessen. Im Interview spricht sie darüber, woher die Diskrepanz zwischen unseren Werten und unserem Handeln kommt, wie wir alte Denk-und Verhaltensmuster überwinden können und warum wir nicht unbedingt auf etwas verzichten müssen, um nachhaltig zu leben.