Repository | Book | Chapter

This chapter is the beginning of an innovative turn in the context of philosophy of self-consciousness. The remainder of this book will explore what affectivity can contribute to the challenges of self-consciousness as presented above. Both the Heidelberg School and Zahavi/Gallagher repeatedly point to the potential of understanding self-consciousness as an affective phenomenon. Their views are briefly introduced in this chapter. Zahavi and Gallagher use the term 'self-affection" to acknowledge the fact that that since experience is temporal and embodied, it includes pre-reflective self-awareness. Also, Zahavi examines the role of specific emotional experiences such as shame and their role in interpersonal encounter. Henrich presents notions of "happiness", "misery" and "gratefulness' that are not mere short-term, object-oriented emotions but general, fundamental, affective perspectives on our lives. Frank re-introduces the notion of 'self-feeling" from the romantic tradition and finds that it is surprisingly similar to his own account of pre-reflective, non-propositional self-consciousness. Ulrich Pothast introduces a whole network of concepts including 'sense" and "inner ground". These contributions suggest that our most fundamental way of being in this world is affective.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-30789-9_3

Full citation: