Felt understanding
a view of affective intentionality
pp. 31-67
in: , Feeling together and caring with one another, Berlin, Springer, 2016Abstract
In this chapter I clarify the sense in which we can speak of an essentially affective mode of intentionality. I argue that this mode of openness to a world that, to put it in McDowellian terms, is "embraceable in thought" cannot be exhaustively characterized in terms of the intentionality of other mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Emphasizing the strong relationship between the intentional character of our emotions and their rational intelligibility, I argue that human emotions are best characterized as responses properly so called and examine the complex structure of our human affective responses. The chapter closes with an attempt to spell out the specificum of affective intentionality. I suggest that the best way to capture the genuinely affective nature of our emotional world-relatedness is by conceiving of this mode of openness to the world in terms of our capacity to feelingly understand particular situations as being a certain way and therefore meriting and calling for certain sorts of responses. In this context, I coin the notion of acts of felt understanding. This discussion allows me to provide an overview of the contemporary debate on affective intentionality and determine the terms in which I want the topic of this book to be discussed.