Shum, Peter (2013) Images of otherness : on the problem of empathy and its relevance to literary moral cognitivism. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

If the possible ends of art criticism are taken to include not only the
provision of a detailed evaluation of the artwork, but, cognately, an elaboration
upon how one has been, or believes oneself to have been, changed by a
particular artistic encounter, then the very praxis of art criticism stands to benefit
from a theoretical elucidation of the possible nature of the subjective
transformations that may flow from the critical appreciation of art. We are
entitled to enquire, in particular, into the conditions under which, and indeed the
extent to which, such putative change at the personal level can be explicated in
moral epistemological terms. It is pertinent in this context also to investigate the
phenomenal character of the experiences that have been operative and their
essential structures; to enquire, in short, into the phenomenology of the
transformative artistic encounter. In this thesis, the bearing, in particular, of
intersubjectivity upon the content and modalities of disclosure in a literary
context will be investigated. It will be shown how an understanding of the
relevance of intersubjectivity to the phenomenology of literary experience can
inform an assessment of the claims of literary aesthetic moral cognitivism.
Yet the intention to clarify the connection between literary experience
and intersubjectivity also requires reflection upon what it is in the first place to
encounter someone else, and to apperceive a foreign subjectivity and its
motivations. For this reason, the contributions of Edmund Husserl and Edith
Stein to the investigation of the phenomenology of empathy will be discussed
and evaluated. This discussion will in turn be shown to be of assistance in
clarifying the role of the imagination in the apperception and comprehension of
another person’s mental life. The thought of Jean Starobinski will prove to
elucidate the question of why the insights of the phenomenological tradition are
highly pertinent to the investigation of literary experience, and to the
development, in particular, of a conception of an imagined ‘Other’ who is (in a
sense that will be clarified) embedded within the literary text, a person, that is, to
whom one might coherently refer as the “implied author”.
For reasons which will emerge in the course of this study, it will be
argued that authentic empathy, in its fulfilling explication (in the Steinian sense),
is given to the empathising consciousness in the manner of a semblance, and,
consonantly, that the phenomenological structure of authentic empathy is
characterised in its mature phases by an homological relation to pictureconsciousness.
The epistemological significance of literature’s capacities for
moral suggestion will be explicated principally in terms of the unfolding of
values within the human personality, and in terms of the disclosure of the
phenomenal character and structures of virtuous experience. It will be explained
why the structure of empathy has implications for the aesthetic value of
literature. The question of the relation between aesthetic and ethical value will
be clarified. In this context, it will be argued on phenomenological grounds that
the appresentation of moral virtue in an implied author could contribute to the
aesthetic value of a literary work, although it will also be shown that implied
authorial moral virtue could conflict irremediably with other qualities like moral
doubt and uncertainty, which may themselves be important sources of aesthetic
value. For this reason, the thesis will conclude by challenging the ethicist view
that an aesthetically relevant ethical flaw in a literary work must count as an
aesthetic flaw.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Philosophy and cognitive science, Empathy, Literature -- Philosophy, Other (Philosophy), Criticism
Official Date:	May 2013
Dates:	Date Event May 2013 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Philosophy
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Poellner, Peter; John, Eileen
Extent:	v, 302 leaves : illustrations.
Language:	eng

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