Hans Bernhard Schmid (2014), in Christian von Scheve and Mikko Salmela (eds.), Collective Emotions: Perspectives from Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology, Oxford University Press, ch. 1, pp. 3–16 — DOI-10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659180.003.0001
Key takeaways
Not read. The following is what search-service summaries of the chapter’s abstract say. The abstract itself (on Oxford Academic) returned HTTP 403, so none of it is verified and no wording is quoted as Schmid’s.
- The consciousness objection, reversed. The usual argument is that groups cannot have emotions because they have no consciousness. Schmid argues that if a group has proper intentional attitudes it has consciousness, and so meets a precondition for emotion.
- The consciousness in question is plural pre-reflective self-awareness. Corporate emotions are described as plural pre-reflective self-awareness of shared affective concerns.
- Slow, not fast. There is reason to think groups cannot have “fast” emotions, but they can have “slow” ones, such as confidence, happiness or grief.
Standing in the record
Filed on 2026-10-04 at the owner’s request, Deferred because it could not be read lawfully. It is the phenomenological pole of the debate the owner named, with Gilbert’s plural-subject account (LIT-701) and Huebner’s distributed account (LIT-702). No anthology topic holds it.
Where it would sit, once read. On the question of whether a group feels, it is the one account of the three that says yes. Gilbert’s collective emotions need no phenomenology, by Huebner’s report of her. Huebner concedes his paradigm group cannot be conscious and defends collective emotions that are not felt. Schmid’s fast/slow line also fits Huebner’s own result: Huebner’s fast case, fear on a navy ship, fails, and the case he keeps is fear sustained over weeks of a campaign. No relation is declared until the chapter is read.
Its title speaks of “corporate emotions”. In List’s taxonomy (LIT-700), corporate attitudes belong to a group agent and supervene holistically on members’ contributions, while List sets aside “we-mode” accounts as not yet needed. Plural self-awareness sounds like a we-mode. A reading should settle which it is.
For the record’s topics: consciousness, phenomenology and self are
filed on the evidence of the abstract summaries (collective consciousness,
pre-reflective self-awareness, a group’s sense of itself). A reading should
confirm them and check whether phenomenal-unity applies: plural
self-awareness is a claim about what makes many subjects’ experiences one
group’s.
What a reading should check.
- What Schmid means by a group’s consciousness: phenomenal, or a pre-reflective self-awareness that each member has in the plural.
- Why fast emotions are ruled out, and whether the reason is speed of integration (which would match Huebner) or something phenomenological.
- Whether Schmid engages Gilbert’s claim that collective emotions need no feeling.
Lawful routes not yet tried. The edited volume in a library; a request to the author.