SENTIMENTO. – Sentimento is distinguished from the simple “sensing” of external or internal sensibility, inasmuch as, while sensing refers to objective “contents,” feeling presents the situation of the subject, e.g., one of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Feeling therefore constitutes an attitude of the profound self, the nucleus of individual interiority: indeed, in this sense it has been said that feeling as such is pure affirmation of self, not only without requiring a precise reference to objects but without even a direct relation to the consciousness of the substantial self, so that in the most intense feelings consciousness of the self is very weak or even absent, whereas the emergence of individual consciousness weakens and may even cause feeling itself to disappear.
The controversy, therefore, intentionality (v.) of feelings—that is, that feeling, like every psychic act, is related to an object, since “one rejoices or 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 the ineffable experience of the self (Pfaender, Beck), can be resolved by distinguishing two moments within feeling itself: one centripetal, as pure original feeling, and the other centrifugal, insofar as feeling enters as an element in the subject’s orientation toward reality. Evidently every feeling arises in the subject following some more or less distinct apprehension and constitutes the subject’s response to the presentation of the object: nevertheless, the first moment, or original impression (Stimmung in German), is directed toward the subject itself, as in feeling content or discontented, fearful or confident..., and only subsequently may there arise—but it is not necessary that there should arise, and at times in fact there does not arise—a 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 appears in two fundamental forms: either as an affirmation of the self (v.), in which case it assumes the form of pleasure or satisfaction in general, or as a negation and limitation, a constraint of the self, which is indicated as displeasure. Around these two fundamental feelings are arranged the other forms of feeling, both the so-called elementary ones (e.g., sympathy, antipathy, love, hatred...), and the higher ones, belonging to the sphere of intellectual and volitional life (aesthetic, religious, moral feelings...): but no uniform classification has yet been reached among psychologists in this field. In the trend of “the psychology of form and totality” (Gestalt- und Ganzheitspychologie), feeling is regarded as a global attitude, insofar as “in feelings we immediately experience 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 distinct sphere of subjectivity, which makes a decisive contribution to the very qualification of objects by the self: modern psychology deserves credit for distinguishing the original state of feelings from “affects,” which indicate acute states already objectified, as well as from “inclinations,” which are innate tendential elements, and from “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 upon the self itself, which, operating as an individual and personal whole, relates to the external realities of the world of nature and society (family, State, Church); that is, it concerns 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 anguish and fear (Kierkegaard, Heidegger), noia and nausea (Sartre), and the like, which nevertheless presuppose a defined orientation regarding the nature of the dialectic of consciousness and freedom.
The normality or abnormality of the behavior of feelings profoundly affects the constitution of the individual personality: in feelings it possesses the secret and most active form that determines its preference and aversion, its inclination and often the very final decision governing its actions, such as the choice of a vocation or profession, or a sudden change in conduct (perversions, conversions...). It may be acknowledged that there is not yet a satisfactory theory of feelings: the empiricist theory upheld by James and Lange (followed by Sergi), which identifies feeling with its manifestation (“one is sad because one cries!”), has been definitively refuted by phenomenology and by existentialism itself. The intimate nature of feelings is not an object of definitions but of experience, because it is an absolute prius that eludes every reflective analysis and can be described only indirectly.
Philosophy of feeling. – This is generally the philosophical tendency that attributes to feeling the directive primacy of conscious life over reason. In English empiricism Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, and Hume affirm that both knowledge of reality 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; Maine de Biran (v.) and Bergson ([v.] cf. the “dynamic morality” of Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, Paris 1932) return to the philosophy of feeling. In German philosophy the doctrine of feeling develops especially from Kant’s Critique of Judgment (Jacobi, Fries, Schleiermacher); particular mention should be made of the philosophy of Max Scheler, according to which even the “intuition of essences” (Wesenschau) is a process of affective apprehension, insofar as it is conceived as “sympathetic participation” (Einsfühlung): this also applies to knowledge of God itself (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 appeal of the mystery of being and consciousness rationalism (v.).
ŠENUTE (SINUTHUS). – Native of Atripe, he is the best-known leader of Egyptian cenobitism after Pacomio; born c. 333, died in 451.
A monk from 370 and superior of the “White Monastery,” from 388 he had under his authority no fewer than 2,200 monks and 1,800 nuns. A genuine Copt, S. instituted an exceedingly austere religious discipline, not exempt from corporal punishment, and introduced the practice of undertaking in writing to observe the rules he had written. S. accompanied St. Cyril of Alexandria to the Council of Ephesus (431). Among the Copts, his feast is celebrated on 1 July.
S. wrote letters, sermons, and apocalypses or visions in Coptic (Sa'idic). The authenticity of the writings attributed to S. is not always certain; some of them survive in Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions.