Affects, Moods, Emotions, and Belonging
Interdisciplinary Coalition of North American Phenomenologists (ICNAP)
Tenth Annual Meeting
University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM)
May 31–June 3, 2018
Keynote Speakers:
Roberta de Monticelli (San Raffaele University, Milan)
Denis Fisette (UQAM)
Theme:
Lived experience is not reducible to intellectual experience alone. Through various states of mind, we relate affectively to life, experience it in different moods, and react emotionally to various circumstances and situations. At critical moments, we become aware, on the one hand, that we belong to a place or to a social group. On the other hand, we can experience not belonging to a place or group with which we are associated. These terms – “affect”, “mood”, “emotion”, and “belonging” – refer to the various qualities of experience that we would like to explore as the topics for this year’s conference.
The conceptualization of affects, moods, and emotions, as well as of the subjective phenomenon of belonging or not belonging, first and foremost raises the question of the nature and description of these experiences. What kind of phenomena are they? How to describe them? What role do they play in consciousness? Are they more than mere feelings? What is their relation to intentional objects? In the case of belonging or not belonging, for instance, what is their relation to identity? Do these experiences involve acts of judgment? Are they already cognitive or how do they relate to cognitive experiences? Do they play any normative role, for instance, in aesthetics, ethics, politics, or economics? What is their linkage to action or social action?
As these experiences are very diverse, the question also arises of a consistent typology. Do we have phenomenological grounds to justify each of these concepts, and what are they? Shall we treat all these terms under the same generic concept – such as a type of perceptive or intuitive content – or not? The same question arises about the subcategories of these terms. How should we explore the diversity of affects, moods, or emotions that one can possibly experience? And what are the different affective and emotive dimensions that characterize belonging or not belonging? How shall we categorize each of them? Can we conceptualize them under some generic categories, for instance, considering whether they possess a positive or a negative, or an attractive or a repulsive, content when they are phenomenologically examined? Or should we oppose any kind of reduction to such a binary perspective?
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