Prof. Dr. Anna Donise

University of Naples Federico II

Curriculum Vitae

Anna Donise studied Moral Philosophy at the University of Naples Federico II, but also in Germany (LMU Munich; Osnabrück University; Heidelberg University) and France (Université d’Amiens, Paris-IV, Archives-Husserl). Since 2006, Anna Donise has been Coordinator for PhD research and teaching activities in “Ethics and History of Philosophy” at the Italian Institution of Human Sciences (SUM). In 2008, she became a researcher in Moral Philosophy and, since 2011, she has been Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy, teaching classes for Psychology and Philosophy students at the University of Naples Federico II.

Anna Donise’s research has focused on the concept of subjectivity and its ethical and gnoseological consequences.

She investigates the phenomenological description of the relationship between subject and object, or self and world, paying particular attention to alterations of the relation between subject and world in psychopathological analysis.
She reads the question of subjectivity and moral choice as tightly linked to literature (Mann and Dostoyevsky)
In delineating the many modalities of the subject-object relation, there emerges a need to analyze peculiar ‘sense-formations’ or ‘ideal objects’, that is, values, which are the stuff our life is made of and which orient our actions (Rickert, Windelband, Husserl and Hartmann). She is currently working on the topic of decision and on the role of the imagination in this issue.

From June 2014 to July 2014, Professor Donise was Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities “Law as Culture”.

Research Project

Heinrich Rickert and the Emergence of the Concept of Geltung (validity)

The concept of “Wert“ or value, developed by Heinrich Rickert in the last decade of the 19^th Century deeply influenced the theoretical reflections on the basis for the validity of knowledge. This applies, for instance, to Max Weber, who recognized Rickert’s “Wertbeziehung” (roughly: value relationship) as the source for his own conceptual work in the field of historical-social sciences.

During my stay at the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities “Law as Culture”, I intend to investigate Rickert’s concept of “Forderung” (demand) in terms of its potential for the emergence of those of “Wert” and “Normativität” (normativity). This concept of “Forderung” is related to the normative structure of reality. In our immediate relationship to the world, our experiences are not purely sensory, but from the outset also lend meaning to the world. A man’s expression seems sad to me, a melody is uplifting, and the wailing sound of a siren on the street startles me. We are dealing with “understandable” elements that demand to be recognized and lie within the origins of the values that – in Rickert’s perspective – should never be thought of as “seiende” (existing) objects, but rather as “Geltung”.

Selected Publications

Le ragioni dell’agire morale, Naples: Luciano 2014 (2 ed.).
Die Welt fühlen. Jaspers, Sartre und De Martino, in: Italien, Deutschland, Europa: kulturelle Identitäten und Interdependenzen (Ed. by E. Schafroth, M. Nicklaus, C. Schwarzer, D. Conte), Oberhausen: Athena 2013.
Sentire il dovere e percepire il valore. Un percorso tra Kant e Husserl, in: Sentire e pensare. Tra Kant e Husserl (ed. by M. T. Catena, A. Donise) Milano: Mimesis 2013
Immaginazione ed etica nella fenomenologia husserliana, in: Ontologia dell’immagine (ed. by G. Cantillo, C. Ciancio, A. Trione, F. Vercellone) Roma: Aracne 2012
L’empatia tra etica e neuroetica, in: L’etica come fondamento (ed. by P. Amodio, E. D’Antuono, G. Giannini) Naples: Giannini Editore 2012
Ironia, politica ed etica nelle Considerazioni di un impolitico, in: Thomas Mann tra etica e politica (ed. by G. Cantillo, D. Conte, A. Donise) Bologna: Il Mulino 2011
Valore, Naples: Guida 2008.
Ragione e sentimento. Ricerche di etica tra neokantismo e fenomenologia, Naples: Editoriale Scientifica 2008.
Karl Jaspers als Phänomenologe, in: Glaube und Wissen – Croire et Savoir. Zum 125. Geburtstag von Karl Jaspers. Studia philosophica (StPh 67/2008). Jahrbuch der Schweizerischen Philosophischen Gesellschaft (Ed. by A. Hügli, C. Chiesa), Basel: Schwabe 2008.
Il soggetto e l’evidenza. Saggio su Heinrich Rickert, Naples: Loffredo 2002.