No Feeling without Cognition. Moses Mendelssohn’s Analysis of Pleasant Sentiments in The Briefe Über Die Empfindungen
No Feeling without Cognition. Moses Mendelssohn’s Analysis of Pleasant Sentiments in The Briefe Über Die Empfindungen

Summary/Abstract: Mendelssohn’s second work, the Briefe über die Empfindungen (Letters on Sentiments), has mainly to do with sentiments experimented by human subjects. Nevertheless, the generalist, broad scope of the title might bring about some confusion: the work is not devoted to sentiments in general, but to sentiments of pleasure in particular. Mendelssohn distinguishes between three different types of such sentiments: (i) the pleasant sentiments resulting from corporal processes; (ii) the pleasant sentiments emerging when contemplating beautiful objects; (iii) the pleasant sentiments inherent to knowledge. The aim of this work is to argue that, in Mendelssohn’s analysis of pleasant sentiments, cognitive elements (namely, objectual representations, Vorstellungen are indispensable for the experience of pleasure. In order to show that, I will pay attention to the explanation Mendelssohn gives for each type of pleasant sentiment to see what sort of mental representation is involved in every case. Therefore, the paper will be divided into 4 sections: after briefly contextualizing the Briefe, I will devote one section to each of the pleasant sentiments following Mendelssohn’s exposition of them and a last section to a synthetic, general overview. The paper will be ended with some conclusive remarks on the extent to which Mendelssohn’s analysis is innovative in regard to his German philosophical context.

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