title: Affective intentionality and self-consciousness.
abstract: We elaborate and defend the claim that human affective states ("feelings") are, among other things, self-disclosing. We will show why affective intentionality has to be considered in order to understand human self-consciousness. One specific class of affective states, so-called existential feelings, although often neglected in philosophical treatments of emotions, will prove central. These feelings importantly pre-structure affective and other intentional relations to the world. Our main thesis is that existential feelings are an important manifestation of self-consciousness and figure prominently in human self-understanding. We offer an ordering of four levels of existential feelings and also give considerations in favour of the essential bodily nature of these feelings.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrück, Albrechtstr. 28, D-49069 Osnabrück, Germany. jslaby@uos.de
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Slaby
authors.forename: Achim
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stephan
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D003243:Consciousness; D005086:Existentialism; D006801:Humans; D012649:Self Concept