Existential feelings

Abstract

To distinguish these experiences from a wider range of affective phenomena, this chapter introduces the term ‘existential feeling’. In short, existential feelings are variants of a non-localized, felt sense of reality and belonging, something that all intentionally directed experiences and thoughts presuppose. One might worry that talk of a ‘felt sense of reality and belonging’ or a ‘way of finding oneself in the world’ is too vague and suggestive. The concept of existential feeling can serve to cast light on experiences that are otherwise elusive. Accounting for an experience in terms of existential feeling does not amount to a causal explanation, but it does involve identifying relationships of phenomenological dependence and implication, which can be understood as ‘explanatory’ in a more permissive sense of the term. In addition, recognizing the possibility of ‘existential differences’ between people can aid empathy, in the clinic and more widely.

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