Abstract
This chapter presents and discusses Ratcliffe’s theory of existential feelings as the most elaborate contemporary attempt to philosophically address fundamental human affectivity. Existential feelings have two features: First, they are bodily. Second, they shape our space of possibilities. In the context of this book one thing is crucial about existential feelings: They are both a pre-structuring background of all experience and a part of experience at the same time. Qua shaping the space of possibilities they are in the background of our experience. Qua being a bodily feeling they are part of our experience. Following this introduction, it is further explained that they are neither generalized emotions nor mere moods but a distinct kind of affective phenomena. Also, in a critical analysis of Ratcliffe it is shown that existential feelings relate to thought in a reciprocal way, while remaining the more fundamental phenomenon. The chapter is concluded with highlighting three shortcomings in Ratcliffe’s theory. First, he does not offer much detail regarding the relationship between existential feelings and thought. Second, he seems to overemphasize pathologies and tells us too little about healthy, authentic existential feelings. Third, he remains rather silent on the relationship of existential feelings and self-consciousness.
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Notes
- 1.
As quoted above, compare e.g. Fingerhut/Marienberg’s remark that “It has been to a large extent due to Ratcliffe’s work (2005, 2008) that these topics [fundamental feelings of being alive, G.K.] have regained a broader interest and are treated in a larger context” (Fingerhut and Marienberg 2012, p. 9).
- 2.
Note that Ratcliffe himself refrains from labelling his work so far as a „theory” of existential feelings, due to its alleged incompleteness (Ratcliffe 2012a, p. 28).
- 3.
- 4.
There seems to be an increasing tendency, at least in philosophy of psychiatry, to rely on first person narratives that describe the phenomena of interest. Often a combination of autobiographical literature and genuine patient narratives (e.g. obtained by a questionnaire) is used to explore mental phenomena (Stephan et al. 2014). You might object that this leads to a methodological problem because it relies on mere metaphors. However, it is hard to find a better way of exploring fundamental phenomena like these. After all, it seems that it is one of the building blocks in phenomenology to rely on first-personal experience in philosophical research.
- 5.
Ratcliffe and his colleagues conducted an empirical study as part of the AHRC- and DFG-funded project ‘Emotional Experience in Depression: a Philosophical Study’. A questionnaire was posted on the website of the mental health charity SANE. 134 out of 147 respondents had a medical diagnosis of depression (Slaby et al. 2013, p. 43). Two thirds of them where acutely depressed at the time of responding (ibid.). They provided free text responses with no word limit.
- 6.
This distinction also reminds of the classical distinction between the lived body [“Leib” in German] and the physical body [“Körper” in German] in phenomenology. The latter refers to the body as physical, thing-like object (e.g. when you measure your waistline or cut your fingernails) while the former emphasizes the living, experiencing and feeling characteristic of one’s body “from the inside” (e.g. when you notice an itch in your leg or when you touch an object in the world). This distinction was already noticed by Maine de Biran (1841) and Scheler (1921) and was significantly further emphasized and developed by Husserl (1991 [1930]) and Merleau-Ponty (1966 [1945]). See Colombetti (2014; Colombetti and Ratcliffe 2012), Legrand (Legrand and Ravn 2009), Slaby (2008a), Fuchs (2000), Shusterman (2008), Waldenfels (2000), or Schmitz (2007) for examples of contemporary interpretations.
- 7.
Stocker (Stocker and Hegeman 1992) applies a similar distinction, in his terminology “psychic” and “bodily” feelings.
- 8.
In later writings (Goldie 2009) he seems to qualify this claim, conceding that many bodily feelings are also feeling towards.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Ratcliffe explicitly does not engage in research on neurobiological correlates of his phenomenological claims. There are, however, some empirical findings to support his view. For example, Northoff (2012) argues that body and world oriented experiences are inseparable on a neurobiological level. Similarly, Gerrans and Scherer (2013) integrate pre-intentional feelings into their “Multicomponential Appraisal Theory of Emotion”.
- 12.
Compare Taylor’s example of fear without an explicit object: “The empty slot where the object of fear should be is an essential phenomenological feature of this experience. […] But even in this unfocussed way, the sense I have is one of threat, or that something harmful is impending, that something terrible might happen. Without something of this range, it cannot be dread that we experience” (Taylor 1985, p. 48).
- 13.
Ratcliffe emphasizes that existential feelings do not involve only tactile feelings (Ratcliffe 2005, 2008; also more recently 2012a, 2015a). For example, existential feelings include a sense of balance, of basic orientation in the world. Moreover, they are constituted by kinaesthetic feelings, proprioception, action dispositions and feelings of pain and pleasure. Compare his position towards Gallagher’s distinction between body schema and body image (Gallagher 2005; Gallagher and Zahavi 2008, pp. 145f.), which changed over the years. While in 2005 (Ratcliffe 2005, pp. 52f.) he saw existential feelings on the level of body image, in more recent texts (Ratcliffe 2015a, chapter 2), he corrects himself and suggests a correspondence between existential feelings and body schema. It seems that Gallagher’s body schema is on a slightly “deeper” level than existential feelings. It is constituted by sub-personal, quasi-automatic processes that guide and shape basic perceptual behavior and motor activity. Therefore, it can hardly be part of experience at the same time. It seems to be an unconscious, bodily process, similar to digestion and heartbeat.
- 14.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) define the standards in diagnosis and classification of mental disorders worldwide.
- 15.
Notably, these experienced possibilities are not necessarily properties of the world. Instead, the notion of possibility here refers to the way the world appears to us.
- 16.
This term is typically associated with classical phenomenologists like Husserl (1966 [1918–1926], 1991 [1929], 1991 [1930]) and Merleau-Ponty (1966 [1945]). Note, however, that some proponents of enactive perception, such as Noë (2004) with his notion of “virtual perception”, employ a similar concept. See Colombetti (2014) for a more recent attempt to bring together enactivism and phenomenology.
- 17.
You might object that with sufficiently small objects (like a marble) touching the whole thing becomes possible. Even if this is true, the concept of horizon is not only restricted to the experience of the surface of an object but the whole space of possibilities. This will be further explained below.
- 18.
The concept of passive synthesis and its interpretation is subject to interesting debates in Husserl research (see e.g. Hart 2004).
- 19.
Cited from Ratcliffe (2015a, p. 71).
- 20.
See Bollnow (1941) for an early theory of moods that critically refers to Heidegger’s work. He understands moods as foundations for our whole life. They make specific experiences possible and others impossible. In this regard, his account is relatively close to Heidegger and Ratcliffe.
- 21.
However, we must acknowledge that there is the expression of “being in a depressive mood”. How does this relate to the severe psychiatric illness of depression? Probably we deal with a continuum here, which is also reflected in the ICD-10 (ICD-10 1992, F32). There are various degrees of depressive episodes, from very light to major. It begins with light everyday changes in our moods that would not even count as psychiatric illness. Everyone is sometimes in a sad mood, where things sometimes seem worse than they actually are. The next day, everything appears much brighter again. It is a relatively common fashion of our everyday affective lives that comes and goes. The term “depressive mood” seems to cover these light changes in our affective lives. It might also cover slightly more severe forms, like the ICD-10 “mild depressive episode” that typically lasts for some days only. In contrast, a major depression amounts to a severe change in one’s life that typically lasts for much longer (from weeks to months). Notably, there is no distinctive line one can draw between the various degrees of depressive episodes.
- 22.
- 23.
Granted, in many cases there will more involved than just emotions when an existential feeling changes. For example, some people are more robust than others. While one person might react just as described, another person that is more robust will not change as easily. Moreover, a third person may take it even worse and becomes traumatized by the events described above. Thus, it is admittedly too quick to say that it only takes a few emotional events to change an existential feeling. Things are more complex after all. However, the point here is that our emotional experience influences our existential affectivity, at least to some extent.
- 24.
See footnote 21 above.
- 25.
This has important methodological implications that will not be discussed here. First-person narratives are an important source of evidence for research on existential feelings. It has to be carefully reflected which aspects of the narratives are influenced by existential feelings and which by other factors (Ratcliffe 2016a).
- 26.
Ratcliffe discusses three options but for the argument here it seems proper to take only two of them.
- 27.
You might object that this philosophical thought is fundamentally different from the thought of the depressive patient. Yet, what would make it different? First, on the level of propositional content they are exactly the same, both saying about the world that it perhaps does not exist. Second, if there was a difference it would most likely stem from a difference in the underlying existential feeling. You may say that thought cannot be examined just on a propositional level but as a holistic phenomenon, including its affective components. In this more integrated perspective, surely there is a difference between the two phenomena. Yet, the difference stems from the affective and not from the propositional aspect of it. Therefore, on a restricted, propositional perspective of thought, there is no difference between the two.
- 28.
Personal conversation with Matthew Ratcliffe was encouraging to follow this line of thought.
- 29.
Heidegger’s concept of “Seinsvergessenheit” seems to reflect this point. Our relationship to Being is so fundamental that we can become oblivious of it. In fact, proximally and for the most part, we are oblivious of our privileged relationship to Being (Heidegger 2006 [1927], p. 44).
- 30.
Notably, for Heidegger “authenticity” and “inauthenticity” are not “states” but equiprimordial aspects or modes of Dasein.
- 31.
Zahavi (2017) rejects this view.
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Kreuch, G. (2019). Matthew Ratcliffe’s Theory of Existential Feelings. In: Self-Feeling. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 107. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30789-9_6
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