Interest and Feeling

Abstract Lotze’s psychology is a presentation-judgement-interest psychology. Presentations and judgements give rise to interest, mostly in the form of pleasure or displeasure. Pleasure and displeasure, in turn, cannot be reduced to presentations and judgements. What we attend to, retain, and so on is determined by the interest that we take in perceiving or conceiving something. The chapter fleshes out this overview of interest. The chapter first introduces the notion of interest that Lotze found in his predecessors Herbart and Fries. Lotze gave of interest according to which feelings are the basic factors that determine interest. These feelings will, in turn, be characterized as a form of awareness of value. The discussion will give special attention to the general feeling (Gemeingefühl) each of us is supposed to have.