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The Heart: An Analysis of Human and Divine Affectivity

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Most of western philosophy has attributed two spiritual aspects to man: rationality and volition. As a result, the heart has been downplayed as being part of the animalistic, and thus lower, side of man. Von Hildebrand, however, saw that there are aspects of the emotional life that are truly spiritual in nature and they cannot belong only to man's animal nature but must be attributed to his spiritual side. In a convincing and beautiful way, von Hilderbrand examines the different types of affectivity in man in "The Heart" in this groundbreaking look at man's emotional side. At the end of the book he examines God's love and provides some deep mediations on the Sacred Heart, the heart that so loved man to death on the Cross.

This is a very fine essay on the role of affectivity in man - how the emotive sphere must not be undervalued in the trio of intellect, will and heart. "Let us admit that in man there exists a triad of spiritual centres - intellect, will and heart which are ordained to cooperate and to fecundate one another (page 19)

Von Hildebrand notes that the affective sphere of man has been to date more or less ignored in philosophical thought. Von Hildebrand notes that affectivity has often been castigated because of distortions, such as where the emotive sphere is disfigured by, for example, mawkish sentimentality.

But, for von Hildebrand, the affective sphere to be true to itself must be activiated by a reponse to objective value. This motif was key to his book: "Transformation in Christ". "Real joy necessarily implies not only the consciousness of an object about which we are rejoicing, but also an awareness that it is this obect which is the reason for this joy". (page 26). He compares this real joy to psychic states (high spirits) activated by alcoholic beverages.

Pausing here, if I may give potential examples of my own for what I perceive to be inauthentic affectivity: prolonged mourning where the mourning becomes after a time not so much a mourning over the loved one but a kind of entering into and delighting in (in a kind of masochistic way) in the psyhic feelings associated with deep mourning. In other words, there may come a time, when the intellect needs to step in an re-direct the heart so that it is not consuming itself.

A second example may be the hyper affective person, who goes to operas, not primarilty to enjoy being moved by a great artwork but to wallow in their own internal psychic feelings - there is a subtle line which can be crossed, where one is no longer reacting to value, but intead, one has begun to consume oneself.

Von Hildebrand alludes in page 31 and 32 to a very important point about the spiritual life; namely that completely and dissimilar spiritual states can potentially give rise to effects which, at first sight, appear similar. He cites St Augustine, who notes that a paralyzed limb and a transfigured body are insensible to pain, but for antithetical reasons: "The paralysed body is below the level of the healty one while the transfigured is above this level".

In his chapter of "tender affectivity", von Hildebrand's writing can be beautifuly poetic;

"The more the lover wants to dwell in his love; the more he aspires to experience the full depth of his love; the more he wants to recollect himself and to allow his love to unfold itself in a deep contemplative rhythm; the more he longs for the interpenetration of his soul with the soul of his beloved; "heart speaks to heart". (page 44)

He then gets to a key point:

"The true affective experience implies that one is convinced of its objective validity. An effective experience which is not justified by reality has no validity for the trully affective man. As soon as such a man realises that his joy, his happiness, his enthusiasm, or his sorrow is based on an illusion, the experience collapses. Thus what matters primarily is not the question; "Do we feel happiness? but rather, "Is this objective situations such that we have reason to be happy". (page 47)

Thus, for von Hildebrand, the affective response mus not lose sight of the Logos. And, in defence of affectivity, he note:

"It is thus a deplorable error to see the spiritual affective sphere in the light of subjectivisim, or to believe that the cool, "reasonable" type or the merely energised affective type in whom the heart plays a minor role, is more objective." (page 47).

But, von Hildebrand fires a warning shot when the warns agains the heart being pressed into the service of an activity which belongs to the domaine of the intellect:

"If, for example, a man who wants to ascertain a fact does not consult his intellect, but instead claims that his heart tells him what the fact is, he has opened the door to all kinds of illusions". "In such a case, instead of letting his intellect decide, whether a deed is morally wrong, he relies on his "feeling guilty" or "feeling not guilty". He supposes the affective experience of feeling to be a univocal criterion for an objective fact". (page 51) This is a key point for a spiritual person to be aware of when dealing with difficult moral issues. Am I letting my heart taking the place of my intellect or indeed vice versa.

The last part of the book moves into light christology, namely the affective sphere of Christ,as evidenced by various parts of the gospel: for example, the famous: "Jesus wept" before raising lazarus. There are beautiful quotes from, I think, the sacred heart litany.

Finally, I am very thankful for Von Hildebrand "hearty" defence of the affective sphere in man - perhaps, in the current age, this is less an issue, but his warning about the heart taking the role properly belonging to the intellect is one that needs to be heeded in this age where subjectivism has become ingrained in our culture.

this book is pure genius. yes... western philosophy has underated the importance of the heart... the seat of love. a truly wonderful book. i feel very guilty giving it four stars, but his emphasis is on focusing on others as the object of love, kindness etc etc and says little about love for oneself. one cannot love others unless one cherishes and loves oneself.

hildebrand's analysis of the different human emotions and moods is dazzling. his teacher husserl (the founder of phenomenology) was understandably left almost speechless by the first essay in this book. another nice thing about it is that there arn't too many big words, but a dictionary is needed from time to time.

my own view on love is that when we focus on the person we love, there is a oneness or unity. love is the ultimate dissolver of subject object boundaries. love is very oneness itself and without love, oneness is just not possible. the purpose of union is love.

hildebrand looks critically at post romantic pragmatism and you can tell that he had a problem with kant (and would with modern day objectivists).
he argues that in order to truly appreciate the object (person one is talking to) one must do so holistically. engaging and aware of ones emotions. knowledge of pheremones and body language imply that emotions are important. if you wish to suppress emotions (unless you are a very sensitive person) you favour the unemotional robot.

kant said that good deeds should be detatched from emotions. ie a neutral but practical gift. hildebrand argues that a gift is more sincere if offered with genuine emotion. we as humans should not follow in the footsteps of plato, aristotle and socrates in ignoring the emotions and their importance, but rather should be influenced by... not controlled by, the heart. the ancients in their veneration of reason have denied affectivity (emotion and mood) as a crucial part of being fully human.

this book is not perfect... but then, i would rate it as possibly the second most important book i have read during the past four years.

a wonderful and quite literally stunning book of insight... buy this book, underline it and study it. if you cant buy it, borrow it!

love flakey xxx