Feeling and Understanding. The Role of Empathic Emotions in Understanding Persons and Literature

• Applicant: Dr. Thomas Petraschka, since 8/2019
• Subject Area: Theoretical Philosophy ; German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; History of Philosophy ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 401836205

The goal of the network is to investigate the role of empathy, and of empathic emotions in particular, in understanding other persons and literature from the perspectives of philosophy, literary studies and neuropsychology. We aim further to answer the question of whether understanding other persons and literature are processes with affective components. In order to reach these goals, the network has a systematic orientation, supplemented by a historical focus. The historical analyses will address the systematic questions to treatises in the late 19th- and early 20th-century tradition of the hermeneutics and aesthetics of 'Einfühlung'. In this way, largely neglected theoretical positions will be subject to new levels of systematic scrutiny and made available for current debates.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Ehemalige Antragstellerin: Dr. Christiana Werner, until 8/2019