Emotions as moral and methodological resource: a consideration of parallels between emotional realism in the philosophy of art and the reflexive-ethical turn in anthropological methodology

Abstract

This paper draws parallels between philosophy of art and anthropological methodology in order to identify the place and role of emotions in the attainment of insights that are inaccessible to discursive thinking. The paper analyzes emotional realism – the view according to which emotions caused by fiction are real – and the reflexive turn in methodology of anthropological research, as approaches that conceive emotions as a form of knowledge about the world. By critiquing traditional dichotomies between reason and emotion, as well as objectivity and subjectivity, emotional realism is identified as a philosophical counterpart to the reflexive turn in anthropology. The call to reconsider how Others’ emotions are spoken about, represented, and understood also entails a reconsideration of the anthropological representation of the Other, and thus raises the question of responsibility toward those who are studied. The philosophical concept of imaginative immersion in fiction is examined as a way of understanding the role of empathy in anthropological research on the Other, and as a potential means of overcoming (often radical) social and cultural differences between researchers and participants.