Finding Oneself, Called

Abstract

This chapter situates Heidegger’s account of moods and affects in its original philosophical and methodological home: his account of disclosing as our original human openness. The dimension of disclosing to which affects belong is finding, or findingness (Befindlichkeit). The chapter argues that to be finding is to be called by vocational projects (e.g., in ground-moods like angst and boredom) and to be called by the solicitings of entities, not only in being mooded but also in sensing and in being normatively responsive (among others). This wider perspective on Heidegger’s thinking of affectivity yields the proper context in which to understand and assess what he says about moods, as well as a powerful framework within which to understand affective disclosing generally, as the phenomenon of finding oneself called.