SENTIMENT. - A distinction is made between feeling [*sentimento*] and the simple "sensing" of external or internal sensibility, in that while sensing refers to objective "contents," feeling presents the situation of the subject, e.g., of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Feeling thus constitutes an attitude of the deep self, the nucleus of individual interiority: in this sense it has even been possible to say that feeling as such is a pure attestation of self, not only without requiring a precise reference to objects but without a direct relation even to the consciousness of the substantial self, so that in the most intense feelings the consciousness of the self is quite weak or even absent, while the delineation of individual consciousness weakens and can even cause the feeling itself to disappear.
The controversy, therefore, between those who maintain the intentionality (v.) of feelings — that is, that feeling, like every psychic act, is related to an object insofar as "one rejoices, one grieves over something..." (the school of Brentano, Bollnow) — and those who deny such a reference on the grounds that it belongs to the cognitive moment and falls outside feeling, which is an ineffable experience of the self (Pfaender, Beck), can be resolved by distinguishing two moments within feeling itself: the one centripetal, as pure originary feeling, and the other centrifugal, insofar as feeling enters as an element of the subject's orientation toward reality. Evidently every feeling arises in the subject following some apprehension more or less distinct and constitutes the subject's own response to the presentation of the object: nevertheless the first moment, that is, the originary impression (Stimmung in German), is directed toward the subject in itself, as in feeling content or discontent, fearful or confident..., and only subsequently can there come — though it need not follow, and sometimes in fact does not follow — the relation to the other.
Feeling has therefore been defined as "the situation of the psychic subject of the self" as such (cf. A. Pfaender, Einführung in die Psychologie, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1920, pp. 205 and 214). This situation presents itself under two fundamental forms: either as affirmation of the self (v.), and then it takes the form of pleasure or satisfaction in general, or as negation and limitation, constraint of the self, which is indicated as displeasure. Around these two fundamental feelings are placed the other forms of feeling, both so-called elementary ones (e.g., sympathy, antipathy, love, hatred...) and higher ones, that is, belonging to the sphere of intellectual and volitional life (aesthetic, religious, moral feelings...): but a uniform classification has not yet been reached among psychologists in this field. In the approach of "psychology of form and totality" (Gestaltund Ganzheitspsychologie), feeling is considered as a global attitude insofar as "in feelings we live immediately the essence of the changing situations of the self in ourselves and in others," and in this sense feelings are called "formal qualities of total consciousness" (Gestaltqualitäten des Gesamtbewusstseins). Thus feelings, together with knowing (sensing and thinking) and tendential activity (instinct, will), constitute a sphere of their own of subjectivity, which makes a decisive contribution to the very qualification of objects by the self: it is the merit of modern psychology to have distinguished the originary state of feelings from the "affects," which indicate acute states already objectified, as well as from the "inclinations," which are innate tendential elements, and from the "passions" (v.), which are acquired and morally defined tendential structures. Feelings, insofar as they are immediate impressions, abstract from every object; they also abstract from morality and from every value judgment: if one wishes to say that feelings too have a reference to the object (intentionality), this does not belong to feelings as such but depends on the self itself, which, operating as an individual and personal whole, relates to the external realities of the world of nature and of society (family, State, Church); that is, it is a matter of the relation between microcosm and macrocosm (cf. M. Beck, Psychologie, Wesen und Wirklichkeit der Seele, Leiden 1938, pp. 235 and 239). Existentialist thought has extended and deepened the analysis of feelings such as anxiety and fear (Kierkegaard, Heidegger), boredom and nausea (Sartre) and the like, which, however, presuppose a definite orientation regarding the nature of the dialectic of consciousness and freedom.
The normality or anomaly of the behavior of feelings has a profound effect on the constitution of the individual personality: the latter has in feelings the secret and most active form that determines its preference and aversion, its inclination and often the very ultimate decision of its action, such as the choice of a vocation or a profession, the sudden change of conduct (perversions, conversions...). It can be acknowledged that a satisfactory theory of feelings does not yet exist: the empiricist theory upheld by James, Lange (followed by Sergi), which identifies feeling with its manifestation ("one is sad because one weeps!"), has been definitively refuted by phenomenology and by existentialism itself. The intimate nature of feelings is not a matter for definitions but for experience, because it is an absolute prius that escapes every reflective analysis and can only be described indirectly.
Philosophy of feeling. - It is in general the philosophical approach that attributes to feeling the directive primacy of conscious life over reason. In English empiricism Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, Hume affirm that both the knowledge of the real and moral judgment itself are founded on immediate feeling, understood as conviction or belief (belief, custom, feeling). In French philosophy Pascal (v.) had already proclaimed "les raisons du coeur," followed by Malebranche and Rousseau, according to whom the judgment of feeling is infallible; to the philosophy of feeling return Maine de
Biran (v.) and Bergson ([v.] cf. the "dynamic morality" of Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, Paris 1932). In German philosophy the doctrine of feeling develops especially starting from Kant's Critique of Judgment (Jacobi, Fries, Schleiermacher); particular mention deserves the philosophy of Max Scheler, according to whom the very "intuition of essences" (Wesenschau) is a process of affective apprehension insofar as it is conceived as "participation of sympathy" (Einsfühlung): this holds also for the very knowledge of God (cf. Max Scheler, Vom Wesen der Philosophie, in Vom Ewigen im Menschen, II, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1923, p. 68 ff.).
The philosophies of feeling represent the reaction and the claim of the mystery of being and of consciousness against the absolute objectivism of rationalism (v.).
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Cornelio Fabro