A brief overview of philosophy of human affectivity

pp. 63-71

in: Gerhard Kreuch, Self-feeling, Berlin, Springer, 2019

Abstract

The second part of the book is dedicated to the philosophy of human affectivity. It further evolves the idea that affectivity plays a fundamental role in the way we exist as subjective, human beings. The arguments carved out in this part of the book build the second pillar in the development of an account of self-feeling. In order to explore what role affectivity may play in self-consciousness this chapter takes a closer look at contemporary philosophy of human affectivity, which has reached an enormous level of detail and complexity today. However, it is mainly concerned with short-term, object-oriented emotions. The reader is introduced to the field, especially to the controversy between feeling vs. cognitive theories of emotions. Moreover, this chapter starts an exploration of more fundamental levels of human affectivity, by using examples from neuroscience (Damasio) and phenomenology (e.g. Voigtländer, Scheler, Waldenfels, Henry).