Abstract

My investigation reveals that Heidegger’s account of affectivity – though his programmatical determination included an ontical dimension or otherwise lived, personal experiences – is overshadowed by a dense ontology that cannot enable real phenomenal experience. This is why he could not account for other affective states such as emotions, feelings and the role of the body in affectivity. Besides, in that account we are lost when we seek to answer the question of whether moods are “one” or “many”. My aim is to point out how these deficiencies in Heidegger’s account of mood could be overcome in Richir’s account of affectivity, where indeterminate background feelings (affections) could give rise to a determinate and occurrent emotion (affects). The advantage of this move is a rich ontic account of affectivity where not only the body but also sense/meaning of affective episodes play a robust role in an encounter of world events. If Richir reproached Heidegger for existential solipsism, one could now reproach the former for existentiell/phenomenal solipsism. In the end I suggest that these two core but opposite aspects of affectivity (the ontological and the ontic) belong to the same reality: Dasein is not just in the world (ontology), but also the world is in Dasein (ontic/phenomenological).