ABSTRACT
This chapter shows this is a biased view: early phenomenologists were not only very interested in social phenomena, but also provided central elements for the development of a phenomenological sociology. It focuses on three aspects of this concept: the fact that our emotional intentional directedness towards the world and the others is socially embedded, that it is socially shaped, and that it can assume shared forms. The thread that runs through this article is the idea that the analysis of affectivity is decisive for explaining and offering new perspectives on the interconnection between the individual and the social. The chapter develops this idea by focusing on the phenomena of feelings and sentiments analyzed respectively by Scheler and Pfander. The result of this analysis lends further support to the idea of a relational concept of intentionality in early phenomenology, and gives key insight into the early phenomenological contribution to the social sciences.
