Numerous major holidays celebrate socially gathering in person. However, in major holidays that happened during the pandemic, desires to nurture relationships and maintain holiday traditions often conflicted with physical distancing and other measures to protect against COVID-19. The current research sought to understand wellbeing during American Thanksgiving in 2020, which happened 8months into the COVID-19 pandemic, after months of physical distancing and stay-at-home orders. American Thanksgiving is a major holiday not limited to any religion. We asked 404 American adults how (...) they spent Thanksgiving Day and to report on their experiences of that day. Predictors of wellbeing that we drew from self-determination theory were satisfaction of the fundamental needs for social connection, for doing what one really wants, and feeling effective. The predictors of wellbeing that we drew from regulatory focus theory were a focus on growth, and a focus on security. We found that feeling socially connected and focusing on growth related most strongly to wellbeing. Additionally, participants who saw even one other person face-to-face reported significantly higher relatedness satisfaction, promotion focus, and wellbeing than those who did not. Our research could help construct persuasive messages that encourage nurturing close relationships at major holidays while remaining safe against the virus. (shrink)

This paper explores how the social and affective lives of people with marginalized social identities are particularly affected by digital influences. Specifically, the paper examines whether and how social media enables LGBTQ+ people to experience feelings of belonging. It does so by drawing on literature from digital epistemology and phenomenology of the digital, and by presenting and analyzing the results of a qualitative study consisting of 25 interviews with LGBTQ+ people. The interviews were conducted to explore the (...) social media experiences of LGBTQ+ people through an empirical framework informed by both phenomenology and social epistemology, particularly feminist standpoint theory. The paper emphasizes the importance of positionality and the epistemic value of research that centers marginalized perspectives and employs an anti-oppressive research approach, and focuses on understanding the digital experiences of LGBTQ+ people from within their marginalized perspective. (shrink)

This book reviews and integrates the most recent research and theories on this exciting topic, and features original contributions from leading researchers ...

At the heart of this article lies the unique question of whether feelings of (in)authenticity can act as a resource for ethical social work practice. In adopting an affirmative position, I posit that emotional labour is traceable to feeling inauthentic and that for social workers possessing a virtuous sensibility such feelings represent sites of ethical struggle. For workers who are reflectively alert to their sense of self I argue that these feelings become ethical markers for practice, offering (...) guidance for that which is ethically just. Within this debate, the idea of virtue as being morally good is framed around an interpretation that sees it as supportive of social justice. The article thus concludes that the deliberation of feelings – of being (in)authentic – can act as a disruptive prompt for practice that could prove unjust or oppressive. Within this original discussion, conceptions of authenticity, emotional work and virtue are critically explored in relation to the self. (shrink)

To investigate whether people with social anxiety have less actual and “anticipatory” anxiety when interacting with a robot compared to interacting with a person, we conducted a 2 × 2 psychological experiment with two factors: social anxiety and interaction partner. The experiment was conducted in a counseling setting where a participant played the role of a client and the robot or the confederate played the role of a counselor. First, we measured the participants’ social anxiety using the (...) Social Avoidance and Distress Scale, after which, we measured their anxiety at two specific moments: “anticipatory anxiety” was measured after they knew that they would be interacting with a robot or a human confederate, and actual anxiety was measured after they actually interacted with the robot or confederate. Measurements were performed using the Profile of Mood States and the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory. The results indicated that participants with higher social anxiety tended to feel less “anticipatory anxiety” and tension when they knew that they would be interacting with robots compared with humans. Moreover, we found that interaction with a robot elicited less tension compared with interaction with a person regardless of the level of social anxiety. (shrink)

This book examines the human ability to participate in moments of joint feeling. It presents an answer to the question concerning the nature of our faculty to share in what might be called episodes of collective affective intentionality. The proposal develops the claim that our capacity to participate in such episodes is grounded in an ability central to our human condition: our capacity to care with one another about certain things. The author provides a phenomenologically adequate account of collective (...) affective intentionality that takes seriously the idea that feelings are at the core of our emotional relation to the world. He details a form of group emotional orientation that relies on the fact that the participating individuals have come to share a number of concerns. Readers will learn that at the heart of a collective affective intentional episode, one does not merely find a set of shared concerns, but also a particular mode of caring. In the end, the argument presented in this monograph makes plausible the idea that the emotions through which humans participate in moments of affective intentional community express our nature. In addition, it shows that the debate on collective affective intentionality also permits us to better understand the relationship between two conflicting philosophical pictures of ourselves: the idea that we are essentially social beings and the claim that we are creatures for whom our personal existence is an issue. Thus, aiming at an elucidation of the nature of our ability to feel together, the book offers a detailed account of what it is to situationally express our human nature by caring about something in a properly joint manner. (shrink)

A significant body of research concludes that stable beliefs of perceived consumer effectiveness lead to sustainable consumption choices. Consumers who believe that their decisions can significantly affect environmental and social issues are more likely to behave sustainably. Little is known, however, about how perceived consumer effectiveness can be increased. We find that feelings of guilt and pride, activated by a single consumption episode, can regulate sustainable consumption by affecting consumers’ general perception of effectiveness. This paper demonstrates the impact that (...) guilt and pride have on perceived consumer effectiveness and shows how this effect rests on the ability of these emotions to influence perceptions of agency. After experiencing guilt or pride, consumers see themselves as the cause of relevant sustainability outcomes. The process of causal attribution associated with these emotions influences consumers’ use of neutralization techniques. Through the reduction in consumers’ ability to neutralize their sense of personal responsibility, guilt and pride positively influence perceived consumer effectiveness. The inability to rationalize-away their personal responsibility, persuades consumers that they affect sustainability outcomes through their decisions. The research advances our understanding of sustainable consumption and identifies a new avenue for the regulation of individual consumer behavior that has significant implications for the development of sustainable marketing initiatives. (shrink)

It is often suggested that social media is a hostile environment for critical thinking and that a major source for epistemic problems concerning social media is that it facilitates emotions. We argue that emotions per se are not the source of the epistemic problems concerning social media. We propose that instead of focusing on emotions, we should focus on the affective scaffolding of social media. We will show that some affective scaffolds enable desirable epistemic practices, while (...) others obstruct beneficial epistemic practices, or enable hostile epistemic practices. Particularly, we will show that emotions play a crucial role in the epistemic practice of critical thinking and that the affective scaffolding of social media can support, or hinder, online critical thinking. The upshot of our argument is that affective scaffoldings of social media can harness emotions to support beneficial epistemic practices, like online critical thinking. (shrink)

Our experience of the physical world around us, and of the social environments in which we function, is increasingly mediated by information and communication technology, which is itself evolving ever more rapidly and pervasively. This book presents a coherent and detailed account of why we experience feelings of being present in the physical world and in computer-mediated environments, why we often don't, and why it matters - for design, psychotherapy, tool use and social creativity amongst other practical applications. (...) Since the extent to which presence is experienced in a technology-mediated interactive context can be manipulated by design, and in almost unlimited ways, we can use explorations with mediated presence to provide new insights into the psychology of presence in both the physical and technology-mediated worlds. (shrink)

A book review of 'Feeling Extended: Sociality as Extended Body-Becoming-Mind' by Douglas Robinson. Publisher: MIT Press, 2013.

Hope is an emotion that has been implicated in social change efforts, yet little research has examined whether feeling hopeful actually motivates support for social change. Study 1 confirmed that hope is associated with greater support for social change in two countries with different political contexts. Study 2 revealed that hope predicts support for social change over and above other emotions often investigated in collective action research. Study 3 replicated this finding using a hope scale (...) and showed the effect occurs independent of positive mood. Study 4 demonstrated experimentally that hope motivates support for social change. In all four studies, the effect of hope was mediated by perceived efficacy to achieve social equality. This research confirms the motivating potential of hope and illustrates the power of this emotion in generating social change. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue in favor of a direct perception account of social cognition, focusing on the idea that we can directly grasp at least some mental states of others through their bodily expressions. I will investigate the way we should consider expressions and their relations to mental phenomena in order to defend DP. In order to do so, I will present Krueger and Overgaard’s idea of expressions as constitutive proper parts of the mental phenomena expressed and (...) I will show how this position can support DP. Then, I will present the way in which the authors seem to construe the relation of parthood between expressions and mental states – that is in terms of components of integral wholes, and I will introduce the possible issues that derive from this strategy. I will propose a different way to understand this parthood relation, referring to Husserl’s notion of moments as distinct from that of pieces. I will narrow my analysis to expressions of feelings, and I will try to argue that they can be described more aptly as moments of the feelings expressed. Finally, I will show how this account can support DP. (shrink)

BackgroundDuring the last decade, the possibility for women to cryopreserve oocytes in anticipation of age-related fertility loss, also referred to as social egg freezing, has become an established practice at fertility clinics around the globe. In Europe, there is extensive variation in the costs for this procedure, with the common denominator that there are almost no funding arrangements or reimbursement policies. This is the first qualitative study that specifically explores viewpoints on the (lack of) reimbursement for women who had (...) considered to uptake at least one social egg freezing cycle in Belgium.MethodsTo understand the moral considerations of these women, drawing from twenty-one interviews, this paper integrates elements of a symbiotic empirical ethics approach and thematic analysis.ResultsWe identify four themes: (1) being confronted with unclear information; (2) financial costs as ongoing concern; (3) necessity of coverage; (4) extent of reimbursement. In the first theme, we found that some women were concerned about the lack of clear information about the cost of social egg freezing. In the second theme, we report moral sentiments of injustice and discrimination which some women attributed to their struggles and needs not being recognised. The third theme illustrates diverse views on reimbursement, ranging from viewing social egg freezing as an elective treatment not appropriate for reimbursement to preferences for greater public responsibility and wider access. Finally, we describe the participants’ varying proposals for partial reimbursement and the idea that it should not be made available for free.ConclusionsThis research adds important empirical insights to the bioethics debate on social egg freezing, in particular by presenting (potential) users’ views on the lack of reimbursement. While there is much more to say about the ethical and political complexities of the reimbursement of this procedure, our study highlighted the voices of (potential) users and showed that at least some of them would welcome the coverage of SEF through the public healthcare insurance. (shrink)

In two studies, we examined how expressions of guilt and shame affected person perception. In the first study, participants read an autobiographical vignette in which the writer did something wrong and reported feeling either guilt, shame, or no emotion. The participants then rated the writer's motivations, beliefs, and traits, as well as their own feelings toward the writer. The person expressing feelings of guilt or shame was perceived more positively on a number of attributes, including moral motivation and (...) class='Hi'>social attunement, than the person who reported feeling no emotion. In the second study, the writer of the vignette reported experiencing (or not experiencing) cognitive and motivational aspects of guilt or shame. Expressing a desire to apologise (guilt) or feelings of worthlessness (private shame) resulted in more positive impressions than did reputational concerns (public shame) or a lack of any of these feelings. Our results indicate that verbal expressions of moral emotions such as guilt and shame influence perception of moral character as well as likeability. (shrink)

The COVID-19 outbreak spurred unplanned closures and transitions to online classes. Physical environments that once fostered social interaction and community were rendered inactive. We conducted interviews and administered surveys to examine undergraduate STEM students’ feelings of belonging and engagement while in physical isolation, and identified online teaching modes associated with these feelings. Surveys from a racially diverse group of 43 undergraduate students at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) revealed that interactive synchronous instruction was positively associated with feelings of interest (...) and belonging, particularly for students of color, while noninteractive instruction reduced social belonging, but was related to more cognitive engagement. Small group and one-on-one interviews with 23 of these students suggest that students derived feelings of connectedness from their instructors, peers, and prior experiences and relied on their sense of competency to motivate themselves in the course and feel a sense of belonging. Two embedded cases of students in physics classrooms are compared to highlight the range of student feelings of connectedness and competency during the lockdown. Findings reaffirm that social interaction tends to support belonging and engagement, particularly for under-represented (Black or African American and Hispanic) racial groups in STEM. STEM instructors who aim to support feelings of belonging and engagement in virtual learning environments should consider increasing opportunities for student–student and student–teacher interactions, as well as taking a flexible approach that validates and integrates student voice into instruction. Future research is needed to further explore the themes of relatedness and competency that emerged as aspects of course belonging. (shrink)

The separation of biomedical and psychosocial approaches to mental illness has hampered both research and treatment because only a fully integrated view of life permits a person to develop wisdom and well-being. In this long-awaited work, psychiatrist Robert Cloninger argues that all persons have spontaneous needs for happiness, self-understanding, and love, and he describes a way toward achieving psychological coherence that satisfies these basic human needs. The novel synthesis that he provides is based on the latest findings and concepts in (...) neuroscience, genetics, long-term biopsychosocial research, and complex networks, combined with a reliable, quantitative way of measuring human thought, social relationships, and creativity. (shrink)

Intuitions play a relevant role in the acquisition of knowledge. Among those who believe that this is the case, some base their claim on the peculiar phenomenology of intuitions. These theorists often adopt a perceptualist and seeming-based model for their phenomenological description. Deeming intuitions as essentially private phenomena, however, seeming-based descriptions end up supporting a dogmatic view of intuitions as a source of epistemic justifications. I argue that this is because the seeming-based model is incomplete in that it does not (...) consider some virtue-related aspects of the plasticity of intuitions in social contexts. Then, I propose a way of integrating an explanation of these aspects in it through a Neo-Kantian reinterpretation of some of the concepts involved. I will draw from the work of Christoph Sigwart on the so-called Evidenzgefühl that characterizes the phenomenology of intuitions, showing the ties between this feeling and the linguistic, communicative, and social dimension of scientific research. The broader aim is to suggest that it is possible to make an open-minded use of intuitions even when basing their epistemic relevance on their peculiar phenomenology. (shrink)

Punctuated by joy, disappointments, and conflicts, research evaluation constitutes an intense, emotional moment in scientific life. Yet reviewers and research institutions often expect evaluations to be conducted objectively and dispassionately. Inspired by the scholarship describing the role of emotions in scientific practices, we argue instead, that reviewers actively define, display and manage their emotions in response to the structural organization of research evaluation. Our article examines reviewing practices used in the European Research Council’s (ERC) Starting and Consolidator grants and in (...) the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action’s (MSCA) Individual Fellowships. These two European funding mechanisms offer different perspectives on the organization of grant evaluation. We conducted interviews with review panel members and analyzed various institutional documents. By drawing on the sociological concepts of feeling rules and emotional work, we demonstrate that reviewers define rules concerning how emotions should be experienced and expressed to ensure the proper functioning of evaluation, and that reviewers experience the need to actively regulate their emotions to comply with these rules. We present four feeling rules concerning the experience and expression of: (1) excitement for novelty during individual evaluation; (2) respect for others’ opinions and the absence of anger in review panels; (3) attentiveness and interest, which are seen as missing in online evaluations. Reviewers also expect ERC candidates to (4) avoid pride and manifest modesty during interviews. These rules demonstrate that proposal peer review is governed by emotional norms, and show the influence of organizational settings and moral requirements on research evaluation. (shrink)

Psychological ascriptions are most commonly understood to be Machiavellian and objective (Dennett 1987, Fodor 1987, Heal 1986, Whiten & Byrne 1988). We ascribe thoughts, feelings, and desires to others to better understand them. Since we must cooperate, compete, or simply co-exist with others, the more we know about their psychology the better. Being aimed at understanding others—in relative independence from us—psychological ascriptions are objective. Such ascriptions are also Machiavellian to the extent that their ultimate aim is to help us plan (...) our interactions with others, so as best to serve our self-interest. Thinking about psychological ascriptions in this way permeates theorizing about folk psychology. It is true both of those that hold that psychological attribution is the result of the application of a psychological theory (theory theorists) and of those that maintain that it is the culmination of a process of simulation—Verstehen (simulationists). Both sides think that common sense psychology is, in some sense, continuous with science; theory theorists that it is continuous with natural science, simulationists that it is continuous with humanistic science. These views, I shall argue, are too narrow. Psychological ascriptions are pragmatic; their function varies from one context of ascription to another depending on our interests in others. Our interests are not always self-interests, nor are they to be understood as consciously entertained desires or projects. Our interests are shaped by our natures, and our natures include our sociality. So whereas the way we think about others is a function of our interests, those interests are much broader than the more narrow self-interests that we are aware of having. Folk psychological ascriptions need be neither Machiavellian nor objective. (shrink)

This article focuses on existential feelings. To begin with, it depicts how they differ from other affective phenomena and what type of intentionality they manifest. Furthermore, a detailed analysis shows that existential feelings can be subdivided, first, into elementary and nonelementary varieties, and second, into three foci of primary relatedness: oneself, the social environment, and the world as such. Eventually, five strategies of emotion regulation are examined with respect to their applicability to existential feelings. In the case of harmful (...) existential feelings, it turns out that none seems fitting except one, attentional deployment. (shrink)

This book opens up a new area of research by not only considering the rationality of such diverse phenomena as ordinary emotions, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, psychotic depression, major depressive disorder, and bipolar disorder, but also by evaluating the question whether the vagueness of these diverse disorders and emotions poses an obstacle to the rationality of these phenomena. As these emotional phenomena turn out to be vague on many different levels, an explanation is found for the millennia long (...) dispute of which kind of phenomena fall under the emotions and whether such diverse phenomena as hope and alexithymia fall under the emotions. Since vagueness can be most easily identified in mixed feelings, the rationality of mixed feelings will also be dealt with. (shrink)

Salsa dancing, a partnered dance premised on the felt sense of connection, is well suited to an exploration of Henry’s radical phenomenology of immanence and Heidegger’s facticity of life. Birthed in social celebratory contexts, salsa carries a particular motile freedom. What matters most is not how the dance movements are created from an outer frame of reference, but the experience of interactive responsiveness that emerges from unanticipated acts of giving life to another. Connecting to one’s partner and exuding a (...) presence filled with life is revealed in an indepth interview with two-time world champion salsa dancer, judge, choreographer and coach, Anya Katsevman. This interview attempts to invoke the kinetic, kinesthetic and affective registers of the lividness and livingness of salsa dancing. As a phenomenological inquiry into factical life, the inter-view is presented not so much as a matter of shared perspectives or viewpoints, but more in the way of an inter-feeling, a practice of life engagement. This affectively-oriented approach provides both promise and challenge to the field of phenomenology. It invites us to delve more deeply into feeling acts of seeing. It also helps us understand how, through attending more fully to acts of seeing, we can increase the intensity with which we feel the upsurge of life. (shrink)

This volume explores the role and status of phenomena such as feelings, values, willing, and action in the domain of perception and (social) cognition, as well as the way in which they are related. In its exploration, the book takes Husserl's lifelong project Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins (1909-1930) as its point of departure, and investigates these phenomena with Husserl but also beyond Husserl. Divided into two parts, the volume brings together essays that address the topics from different phenomenological, (...) philosophical, and psychological perspectives. They discuss Husserl's position in dialogue with historical and recent philosophical and psychological debates and develop phenomenological accounts and descriptions with the help of Geiger, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Plessner, Sartre, Scheler, Schopenhauer, and Reinach. (shrink)

Gratitude has been studied in the context of human social relationships primarily, but relatively less is known about gratitude in relation to a deity. We extended this research by studying gratitude among Muslim American adolescents, an understudied population, by comparing feelings of gratitude to Allah with feelings of gratitude to people in their associations with affect in daily life. Muslim adolescents (N = 202) participated in an Ecological Momentary Assessment study by completing up to three momentary reports each day (...) during three separate weeks. Within-person results showed that both forms of gratitude were positively associated with concurrent happiness and calmness and were negatively associated with concurrent anxiety and sadness, though gratitude to people was a stronger predictor of happiness than gratitude to Allah. Most of the associations between gratitude to people and affect were stronger when youth felt less grateful to Allah, thus supporting a compensation model in which one form of gratitude offsets lower levels in the other. Lagged associations indicated that gratitude to people more consistently predicted greater subsequent feelings of happiness and calmness, whereas happiness and calmness consistently predicted greater subsequent feelings of gratitude to Allah. Results have implications for how distinct forms of gratitude may differentially influence affect. (shrink)

Psychological ascriptions are most commonly understood to be Machiavellian and objective (Dennett 1987, Fodor 1987, Heal 1986, Whiten & Byrne 1988). We ascribe thoughts, feelings, and desires to others to better understand them. Since we must cooperate, compete, or simply co-exist with others, the more we know about their psychology the better. Being aimed at understanding others—in relative independence from us—psychological ascriptions are objective. Such ascriptions are also Machiavellian to the extent that their ultimate aim is to help us plan (...) our interactions with others, so as best to serve our self-interest. Thinking about psychological ascriptions in this way permeates theorizing about folk psychology. It is true both of those that hold that psychological attribution is the result of the application of a psychological theory (theory theorists) and of those that maintain that it is the culmination of a process of simulation—Verstehen (simulationists). Both sides think that common sense psychology is, in some sense, continuous with science; theory theorists that it is continuous with natural science, simulationists that it is continuous with humanistic science. These views, I shall argue, are too narrow. Psychological ascriptions are pragmatic; their function varies from one context of ascription to another depending on our interests in others. Our interests are not always self-interests, nor are they to be understood as consciously entertained desires or projects. Our interests are shaped by our natures, and our natures include our sociality. So whereas the way we think about others is a function of our interests, those interests are much broader than the more narrow self-interests that we are aware of having. Folk psychological ascriptions need be neither Machiavellian nor objective. (shrink)

Feelings not only have a place, they also have a time. Today, one can speak of a multifaceted renaissance of feelings. This concerns philosophy itself, particularly, ethics. Every law-based morality comes up against its limits when morals cease to be only a question of legitimation and begin to be a question of motivation, since motives get no foothold without the feeling of self and feeling of the alien. As it is treated by various social theories and psychoanalysis, (...) the self is not formed through the mere acquisition or change of roles, but rather through a process that is susceptible to crises, a process shaped by affective bonds and separations. Learning, which is the theme of pedagogy, loses its hold whenever it is confronted by disinterest and listlessness. In neurobiology, the increased significance of those zones of the brain that are connected with the realization of feelings makes the brain, accordingly, no mere apparatus that processes data, but a living organ that selects and “evaluates” what is “important.” Finally, cross-cultural comparison shows the extent to which the one-sided preference for understanding and willing, which is the mark of Western rationalism, arises from a typical, not to mention a highly masculine attitude toward the world and life, as many different studies on gender difference stress (In reference to this perspective, see Seethaler, Gefühle und Urteilskraft. Ein Plädoyer für die emotionale Vernunft, 1997). The following reflections provide a historical orientation directed toward a new determination of feelings. This new determination of feelings is phenomenological and takes the pathetic character of experience, nourished by the corporeality of experience as its point of departure. (shrink)

The internet provides us with a multitude of ways of interacting with one another. In discussions about how technological innovations impact and shape our interpersonal interactions, there is a tendency to assume that encountering people online is essentially different to encountering people offline. Yet, individuals report feeling a sense of togetherness with one another online that echoes offline descriptions. I consider how we can understand people’s experiences of being together with others online, at least in certain instances, as arising (...) out of their feeling together as a we. Using Walther’s phenomenological framework of communality, I explore whether the following might take place online: habitual communal experiences and actual we-experiences. While neither of these sketches amount to a full account of how we find ourselves with others online, I suggest that they reveal how insights from the phenomenology of sociality can be used to deepen our understanding of online communality. What is more, I suggest that the strength of this approach is that in some cases it allows us to circumvent tricky questions about embodiment online and, in others, prompts us to ask to what extent a fully-embodied interaction is really required for we-experiences. (shrink)

Somewhere along the course of evolution, and at some time in any one of us on the way from zygote to adult, some forms of detection became beliefs, and some tropisms turned into deliberate desires. Two transitions are involved: from functional responses to intentional ones, and from non-conscious processes to conscious ones that presuppose language and are powered by neocortical re- sources. Unconscious and functional mental processes remain and constitute an 'intuitive' system that collaborates uneasily with the conscious intentionality of (...) the 'analytic' system. Emotions bridge these divides: in particular, specifc feelings affect inference, cognition and metacognition. In what follows, after a brief reminder of the crucial role of emotions to rational thought and action in general, I first look at how fear affects belief. I then narrow my focus to some examples of what I shall refer to as epistemic feelings. These include specialized variants of fear and greed; and feelings of doubt, certainty, knowing and familiarity. I shall also describe some surprising recent findings about the influence of oxytocin on trust and about the direct influence of social conformity on perception and belief. (shrink)

In the Sociology of Emotion and Affect Studies, affects are usually regarded as an aspect of human beings alone, or of impersonal or collective atmospheres. However, feelings and emotions are only specific cases of affectivity that require subjective inner selves, while the concept of ‘atmospheres’ fails to explain the singularity of each individual case. This article develops a theory of social affect that does not reduce affect to either personal feelings or collective emotions. First, I use a Spinozist understanding (...) of the ‘body’ to conceptualize the receptivity and mutual constitution of bodies, to show how affects do not ‘belong’ to anybody; they are not solely attributable either to the human or to any kind of body alone, but emerge in situations of the encounter and interaction (between bodies). Next I build upon Jean-Marie Guyau’s concept of transmissions to show how we can theorize affect as an emerging transmission between and among bodies. Finally, I demonstrate how we now have a complete conceptual frame for theorizing affect in relation to all bodies in any given social scene, the grand composition of which I call affectif. (shrink)

The population of older adults worldwide is growing, with an urgent need for approaches that develop and maintain intrinsic capacity consistent with healthy aging. Theory and empirical research converge on feeling safe as central to healthy aging. However, there has been limited attention to resources that cultivate feeling safe to support healthy aging. Nostalgia, “a sentimental longing for one’s past,” is established as a source of comfort in response to social threat, existential threat, and self-threat. Drawing from (...) extant theory and research, we build on these findings to position nostalgia as a regulatory resource that cultivates feeling safe and contributes to intrinsic capacity to support healthy aging. Using a narrative review method, we: characterize feeling safe as a distinct affective dimension, summarize the character of nostalgia in alignment with feeling safe, propose a theoretical account of the mechanisms through which nostalgia cultivates feeling safe, highlight the contribution of nostalgia to feeling safe and emotional, physiological, and behavioral regulatory capabilities in healthy aging, and offer conclusions and direction for research. (shrink)

This article approaches commercial divination as a lens to examine the gendered contents and discontents of labor and intimacy in the neoliberal era. While coffee divinations have long been a feminized medium of socializing and caring in Turkey, they were recently transformed into a commodified service that recruits women, youth, and LGBTQ individuals as workers and consumers. In dialogue with scholarship on emotional and affective labors, I conceptualize divination as “feeling labor” that produces an affective intersubjective space for the (...) incitement, experience, and articulation of emotions. The feeling labors of divination create commodified intimacies through which women, youth, and LGBTQ individuals explore their feelings. However, these intimacies are produced at the expense of devalued labors of those who are feminized along the heteropatriarchal hierarchies of gender, age, and sexual orientation. Attending to the gendered production and consumption of feeling labors and the intimacies they create are central to understanding the relationships between gender and labor in postindustrial capitalism. (shrink)

In times of social upheaval, self-understanding has become shaky. Against this background, Fellmann asks the anthropological question anew: He does not inquire into human essence, but, in reference to Thomas Nagel’s question, “What is it like to be a bat?”, into subjective experience. The key concept that Fellmann rediscovers and focuses on is “life feelings”. He connects both sides of life experience, the subjective and the objective. In nine concise chapters, life feeling is viewed from diverse perspectives: from (...) basic instincts and moral sensibility to postmodern attitudes in the global and digital world. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of phenomenology in the understanding of the cognitive processes of coupling/decoupling, defending the Wittgensteinian idea that phenomenology can play a crucial role as a description of immediate (social) experience. We argue that epistemic feelings can provide a phenomenological description of the development of a subject's everyday experience, tracking the transition from the processes of coupling/decoupling and recoupling with the world. In particular, the feeling of familiarity, whose key features can be considered the core (...) of epistemic feelings, signals a novelty in the flow of experience that makes sense and is worthy of remarking on or even articulating. By describing the primary features and sources of the feeling of familiarity, we highlight a conceptual tension related to its sources, which could be based on processing both fluency and discrepancy. We proposed a solution to the conceptual tension by introducing two levels of the feeling of familiarity: epistemic and experiential. (shrink)

신남철은 한국의 급진주의 철학에서 맑스주의 계열에 속하는 대표적 사상가 가운데 한 사람이다. 그는 일제 식민지 상황과 해방 후의 혼돈된 현실을 사회적 문제로 받아 들였다. 그는 자신의 현실을 역사적으로 주어진 전체적 상황으로 보았으며, 이 전체성을 자신이 과학적 방법이라고 믿었던 유물 변증법의 방법으로 인식하고자 했다. 그것은 일종의 해부학적이고 발생론적인 방법이었다. 이 방법으로 인식된 전체성을 구체적 전체성이라 불렀다. 그는 또 한편 현실이 인간의 인간다운 生을 부정하는 것이었기 때문에, 상실된 생의 풍요한 충실성이 실현된 세상을 희망하였다. 개인의 자발성과 다양한 인간성의 구현에 대한 열망의 감정인 생의 (...) 감정은 그의 역사 사회에 대한 인식을 추동하는 주체적 동력이 되었다. 그는 서구의 르네상스 운동과 낭만주의적 신 르네상스의 인문주의적이고 인도주의적인 사상에 깊이 감동받았다. 그의 생의 감정은 이러한 인문주의적 교양을 소망하는 감정이었고, 이 감정을 토대로 진보적 민주주의를 실현함으로써 생의 전환을 이루고자 했다. 그러나 객관주의적 태도를 필요로 하는 과학적 역사관과 주관적인 낭만주의적 정열은 가까이 밀착하면 할수록 서로 분열되는 고뇌를 주는 것이었다. 신남철의 사상은 분열과 고민 속에서도, 역사적 사회를 인식하여 변형하고자 했으며, 동시에 생의 감정에 기초한 자유의 인간성을 현실화하려는 종합적 사고를 하였다. 따라서 이 논문은 그의 생 철학적 측면과 역사 사회관을 그 긴장관계에서 종합적으로 다룬다. 그리고 글을 진행하는 가운데 철학적 논의가 필요한 부분에 대해서는 비판적으로 논의하고, 현대적 의의가 있는 것에 대해서는 그 의미를 규명하고자 한다. (shrink)

Throughout her work, Audre Lorde maintains that her self-preservation in the face of oppression depends on acting from the recognition and valorization of her feelings as a deep source of knowledge. This claim, taken as a portrayal of agency, poses challenges to standard positions in ethics, epistemology, and moral psychology. This article examines the oppositional agency articulated by Lorde’s thought, locating feeling, poetry, and the power she calls “the erotic” within her avowed project of self-preservation. It then explores the (...) implications of taking seriously Lorde’s account, particularly for theorists examining ethics and epistemology under nonideal social conditions. For situations of sexual intimacy, for example, Lorde’s account unsettles prevailing assumptions about the role of consent in responsibility between sexual partners. I argue that obligations to solicit consent and respect refusal are not sufficient to acknowledge the value of agency in intimate encounters when agency is oppositional in the way Lorde describes. (shrink)

A new view of the extended mind thesis argues that a stark binary opposition between really extending and seeming to extend oversimplifies the issue.

This article examines the feelings of discomfort in the works of Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Ōe. Focusing on Ōe's first short story “Prize Stock”, Shiiku, the article discusses how the incredible event of a black pilot falling from the sky in the mountains near a small Japanese village during World War II refers to more general racial issues than those described. The discussion argues that Ōe's story, criticized as racist because of the treatment of the black airman, should be read (...) in a broader view, thematising the problems of race and marginalisation in Japan and beyond. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs with social goals face various challenges; insights into how these entrepreneurs experience and appreciate their work remain a black box though. Drawing on identity, conservation of resources, and person–organization fit theories, this study examines how entrepreneurs’ social value creation beliefs relate to their work-related well-being (job satisfaction, work engagement, and lack of work burnout), as well as how this process might be influenced by social concerns with respect to the common good. Using data from the German (...) Public Value Atlas 2015 and 2019 and the Swiss Public Value Atlas 2017, a three-study design analyzes three samples of entrepreneurs in Germany and Switzerland. Study 1 reveals that entrepreneurs report higher job satisfaction when they believe their organization creates social value. Study 2 indicates that these beliefs relate negatively to work burnout; entrepreneurs’ perceptions of having meaningful work mediate this relationship. Study 3 affirms and extends these results by showing that a sense of work meaningfulness mediates the relationship between social value creation beliefs and work engagement and that this mediating role is more prominent among entrepreneurs with strong social concerns. This investigation thus identifies a critical pathway—the extent to which entrepreneurs experience their work activities as important and personally meaningful—that connects social value creation beliefs with enhanced work-related well-being, as well as how this process might vary with a personal orientation that embraces the common good. (shrink)

There is a need for inner recollection opposed to our everyday distraction. Our distraction is partly based on anthropological features and partly on social and cultural features. As well as feelings of distraction, we know experiences of being focussed from everyday life. As feelings in which distraction is absent, and as feelings in which we are partly and temporarily released from our own egocentric perspective, they remind us that a different kind of relation to ourselves and the world is (...) possible. Therefore, they can motivate a process of self-transformation aiming at a mystical state of mind, which is of a more profound and enduring kind than ordinary experiences of being focussed. The mystical state of mind is a state in which we transcend ourselves in the face of the universe and thereby relativize our own affective involvement. It is a feeling of an all-encompassing unity which ultimately concerns us; and it is a feeling of love, joy, and peace of mind. Mystical feelings thus shape and restrict spaces of possibilities, and they comprise an altered sense of what it means to be real. Therefore, they can be classified as existential feelings. Still, the mystical state of mind differs from prototypical existential feelings because it is a positive feeling, necessarily comprises active as well as passive moments, and presupposes an explicit way of attending to the world as world. (shrink)

This book examines the human ability to participate in moments of joint feeling. It presents an answer to the question concerning the nature of our faculty to share in what might be called episodes of collective affective intentionality. The proposal develops the claim that our capacity to participate in such episodes is grounded in an ability central to our human condition: our capacity to care with one another about certain things. The author provides a phenomenologically adequate account of collective (...) affective intentionality that takes seriously the idea that feelings are at the core of our emotional relation to the world. He details a form of group emotional orientation that relies on the fact that the participating individuals have come to share a number of concerns. Readers will learn that at the heart of a collective affective intentional episode, one does not merely find a set of shared concerns, but also a particular mode of caring. In the end, the argument presented in this monograph makes plausible the idea that the emotions through which humans participate in moments of affective intentional community express our nature. In addition, it shows that the debate on collective affective intentionality also permits us to better understand the relationship between two conflicting philosophical pictures of ourselves: the idea that we are essentially social beings and the claim that we are creatures for whom our personal existence is an issue. Thus, aiming at an elucidation of the nature of our ability to feel together, the book offers a detailed account of what it is to situationally express our human nature by caring about something in a properly joint manner. (shrink)