Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T18:14:28.485Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger

Heidegger on Being Affected

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2024

Katherine Withy
Katherine Withy
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC

Summary

Things get to us. We are moved or affected by 'things' in the ordinary sense=the paraphernalia of our daily lives-and also by ourselves, by others, and by ontological phenomena such as being and time. How can such things get to us? How can things matter to me? Heidegger answers this question with his concepts of finding (Befindlichkeit) and attunement (Stimmung). This Element explores how being finding allows things to matter to us in attunements such as fear and hope by allowing those things to show up as benefits or detriments to our pursuits and so to put those pursuits at stake. It also explores how we can be affected ontologically-that is, affected by being-in special attunements such as angst and boredom, as well as how Heidegger's account of being affected has contributed to our understanding of emotions, moods, and affective disorders.
Get access

Keywords

Heideggermoodattunementangstboredom
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger
Online ISBN: 9781009504058
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 20 June 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

Agosta, L. (2010). Heidegger’s 1924 Clearing of the Affects Using Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Book II. Philosophy Today, Winter, 333–45.Google Scholar
Aho, K., ed. (2018). Existential Medicine: Essays on Health and Illness. London: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Aho, K. (2019). Contexts of Suffering: A Heideggerian Approach to Psychopathology. London: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Aristotle. (1984a). Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by W. D. Ross. In The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume Two: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Barnes, J.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. ii–170.Google Scholar
Aristotle, (1984b). On the Soul. Translated by J. A. Smith. In The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume One: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Barnes., J. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. ii–64.Google Scholar
Aristotle. (1984c). Politics. Translated by B. Jowett. In The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume Two: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by Barnes., J. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. ii–175.Google Scholar
Aristotle. (1984d). Rhetoric. Translated by W. Rhys Roberts. In The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume Two: The Revised Oxford Translation, edited by J. Barnes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. ii–143.Google Scholar
Aristotle. (1996). Metaphysics: Books I–IX. Translated by H. Tredennick. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Augustine. (2019). Confessions. Translated by T. Williams. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Balaska, M. (in press). Anxiety and Wonder: On Being Human. London: Bloomsbury.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beistegui, M. de (2000). Boredom: Between Existence and History: On Heidegger’s Pivotal The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 31(2), 145–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blattner, W. (1994). The Concept of Death in Being and Time. Man and World, 27(1), 49–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blattner, W. (1999). Heidegger’s Temporal Idealism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blattner, W. (2006). Heidegger’s Being and Time. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Blattner, W. (2024). Heidegger’s Being and Time, second edition. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Carlisle, C. (2015). A Tale of Two Footnotes: Heidegger and the Question of Kierkegaard. In Heidegger, Authenticity and the Self: Themes from Division Two of Being and Time, edited by McManus, D.. London: Routledge, pp. 37–55.Google Scholar
Carman, T. (2003). Heidegger’s Analytic: Interpretation, Discourse, and Authenticity in Being and Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnap, R. (1931). Überwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache. Erkenntnis, 2(1), 219–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowell, S. (2013). Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahlstrom, D. O. (2001). Heidegger’s Concept of Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dahlstrom, D. O. (2002). Scheler’s Critique of Heidegger’s Fundamental Ontology. In Max Scheler’s Acting Persons: New Perspectives, edited by Schneck., S. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 67–92.Google Scholar
Dahlstrom, D. O. (2019). Missing in Action: Affectivity in Being and Time. In Heidegger on Affect, edited by Hadjioannou, C.. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 105–26.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, H. L. (1991). Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, H. L. (1992). What Computers Still Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Elpidorou, A. & Freeman, L. (2015). Affectivity in Heidegger I: Moods and Emotions in Being and Time. Philosophy Compass, 10(10), 661–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elpidorou, A. & Freeman, L. (2019). Is Profound Boredom Boredom? In Heidegger on Affect, edited by Hadjioannou, C.. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 177–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emad, P. (1985). Boredom as Limit and Disposition. Heidegger Studies, 1, 63–78.Google Scholar
Fernandez, A. V. (2014). Depression as Existential Feeling or De-Situatedness? Distinguishing Structure from Mode in Psychopathology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 13(4), 595–612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernandez, A. V. (2018). Beyond the Ontological Difference: Heidegger, Binswanger, and the Future of Existential Analysis. In Existential Medicine: Essays on Health and Illness, edited by Aho, K.. London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 27–42.Google Scholar
Freeman, L. (2014). Toward a Phenomenology of Mood. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 52(4), 445–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, L. (2016). Defending a Heideggerian Account of Mood. In Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology: Conceptual and Empirical Approaches, edited by Dahlstrom, D. O., Elpidorou, A., & Hopp, W.. New York: Routledge, pp. 247–67.Google Scholar
Freeman, L. & Elpidorou, A. (2015). Affectivity in Heidegger II: Temporality, Boredom, and Beyond. Philosophy Compass, 10(10), 672–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, J. (1986). The Theory of Affordances. In The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 127–43.Google Scholar
Golob, S. (2017). Methodological Anxiety: Heidegger on Moods and Emotions. In Thinking About Emotions: A Philosophical History, edited by Cohen, A. & Stern, R.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 253–71.Google Scholar
Gouldman, G. (1966). Lyrics to ‘Bus Stop’, recorded and performed by The Hollies. Parlophone.Google Scholar
Guignon, C. (2003 (1984)). Moods in Heidegger’s Being and Time. In What Is an Emotion? Classic and Contemporary Readings, second edition, edited by Solomon, R. C.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 181–90.Google Scholar
Hadjioannou, C. (2013). Befindlichkeit as Retrieval of Aristotelian Diathesis: Heidegger Reading Aristotle in the Marburg Years. In Heideggers Marburger Zeit: Themen, Argumente, Konstellationen, edited by Keiling., T. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, pp. 223–35.Google Scholar
Hadjioannou, C. (2019a). Angst as Evidence: Shifting Phenomenology’s Measure. In Heidegger on Affect, edited by Hadjioannou, C.. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 69–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadjioannou, C., ed. (2019b). Heidegger on Affect. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haugeland, J. (1989). Dasein’s Disclosedness. Southern Journal of Philosophy, XXVIII (Supplement), 51–73.Google Scholar
Haugeland, J. (1998). Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Haugeland, J. (2000). Truth and Finitude: Heidegger’s Transcendental Existentialism. In Heidegger, Authenticity, and Modernity: Essays in Honor of Hubert L. Dreyfus, Volume 1, edited by Wrathall, M. A. & Malpas, J.. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 43–78.Google Scholar
Haugeland, J. (2013). Dasein Disclosed: John Haugeland’s Heidegger, edited by Rouse., J. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, W. (1983). The Principles of Psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Käufer, S. (2001). On Heidegger on Logic. Continental Philosophy Review, 34(4), 455–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Käufer, S. (2005). The Nothing and the Ontological Difference in Heidegger’s What Is Metaphysics? Inquiry, 48(6), 482–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keane, N. (2019). The Affects of Rhetoric and Reconceiving the Nature of Possibility. In Heidegger on Affect, edited by Hadjioannou, C.. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 47–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kierkegaard, S. (1981 (1844)). The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin. Thomte, Translated by R. & Anderson, A. B.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kisiel, T. (1993). The Genesis of Heidegger’s Being and Time. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kush, M. & Ratcliffe, M. (2018). The World of Chronic Pain: A Dialog. In Existential Medicine: Essays on Health and Illness, edited by Aho., K. London: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 61–80.Google Scholar
Magid, O. (2016). The Ontological Import of Heidegger’s Analysis of Anxiety in Being and Time. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 54(4), 440–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McManus, D. (2015). Anxiety, Choice and Responsibility in Heidegger’s Account of Authenticity. In Heidegger, Authenticity and the Self: Themes from Division Two of Being and Time, edited by McManus., D. London: Routledge, pp. 163–85.Google Scholar
McManus, D. (2019). Affect and Authenticity: Three Heideggerian Models of Owned Emotion. In Heidegger on Affect, edited by Hadjioannou, C.. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 127–52.Google Scholar
McMullin, I. (2006). Articulating Discourse: Heidegger’s Communicative Impulse. Southwest Philosophy Review, 22(1), 173–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMullin, I. (2013). Time and the Shared World: Heidegger on Social Relations. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato. (1997). Theaetetus. Translated by M. J. Levett, revised by Myles Burnyeat. In Plato: Complete Works, edited by Cooper, J. M.. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, pp. 157–234.Google Scholar
Polt, R. (2001). The Question of Nothing. In A Companion to Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics, edited by Fried, G. & Polt, R.. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 57–82.Google Scholar
Polt, R. (2006). The Emergency of Being: On Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Polt, R. (2011). Meaning, Excess, and Event. Gatherings: The Heidegger Circle Annual, (1), 26–53.Google Scholar
Ratcliffe, M. (2002). Heidegger’s Attunement and the Neuropsychology of Emotion. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 1, 287–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratcliffe, M. (2008). Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratcliffe, M. (2009). The Phenomenology of Mood and the Meaning of Life. In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, edited by Goldie., E. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 349–71.Google Scholar
Ratcliffe, M. (2010). Depression, Guilt and Emotional Depth. Inquiry, 53(6), 602–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratcliffe, M. (2013). Why Mood Matters. In The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger’s Being and Time, edited by Wrathall, M. A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 157–76.Google Scholar
Ratcliffe, M. (2015). Experiences of Depression: A Study in Phenomenology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ruin, H. (2000). The Passivity of Reason – On Heidegger’s Concept of Stimmung. SATS: Nordic Journal of Philosophy, 1(2), 143–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartre, J.-P. (2007 (1938)). Nausea. Translated by L. Alexander. New York: New Directions.Google Scholar
Scheler, M. (2010). Reality and Resistance: On Being and Time, Section 43. In Heidegger: The Man and the Thinker, edited by Sheehan., T. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, pp. 133–44.Google Scholar
Schloßberger, M. (2020). Max Scheler. In The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion, edited by Szanto, T. & Landweer., H. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 72–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shockey, R. M. (2016). Heidegger’s Anxiety: On the Role of Mood in Phenomenological Method. Bulletin d’Analyse Phénoménologique, 12(1), 1–27.Google Scholar
Slaby, J. (2010). The Other Side of Existence: Heidegger on Boredom. In Habitus in Habitat II: Other Sides of Cognition, edited by Flach, S. & Söffner., J. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 101–20.Google Scholar
Slaby, J. (2014). Affectivity and Temporality in Heidegger. In Feeling and Value, Willing and Action: Essays in the Context of a Phenomenological Psychology, edited by Ubiali, M. & Wehrle., M. Cham: Springer, pp. 183–206.Google Scholar
Slaby, J. (2017). More than a Feeling: Affect as Radical Situatedness. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 41(1), 7–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slaby, J. (2021). Disposedness (Befindlichkeit). In The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, edited by Wrathall, M. A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 242–9.Google Scholar
Stambaugh, J. (1996). Being and Time: A Translation of Sein und Zeit. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Stephan, A. & Walter, S. (2020). Situated Affectivity. In The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion, edited by Szanto, T. & Landweer, H.. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 299–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stolorow, R. D. (2014). Heidegger, Mood and the Lived Body. Janus Head, 13(12), 5–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svenaeus, F. (2000). Das Unheimliche – Towards a Phenomenology of Illness. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 3, 3–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vallega-Neu, D. (2019). Truth, Errancy, and Bodily Dispositions in Heidegger’s Thought. In Heidegger on Affect, edited by Hadjioannou., C. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 205–26.Google Scholar
Ward, K. (2021). Breaking Down Experience – Heidegger’s Methodological Use of Breakdown in Being and Time. European Journal of Philosophy, 29(4), 712–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Withy, K. (2012). The Methodological Role of Angst in Being and Time. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 43(2), 195–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Withy, K. (2013). The Strategic Unity of Heidegger’s The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 51(2), 161–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Withy, K. (2014). Situation and Limitation: Making Sense of Heidegger on Thrownness. European Journal of Philosophy, 22(1), 61–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Withy, K. (2015a). Heidegger on Being Uncanny. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Withy, K. (2015b). Owned Emotions: Affective Excellence in Heidegger on Aristotle. In Heidegger, Authenticity and the Self: Themes from Division Two of Being and Time, edited by McManus, D.. London: Routledge, pp. 21–36.Google Scholar
Withy, K. (2019). Finding Oneself, Called. In Heidegger on Affect, edited by Hadjioannou., C. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 153–76.Google Scholar
Withy, K. (2021a). Anxiety (Angst) and Fear (Furcht). In The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, edited by Wrathall, M. A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 37–9.Google Scholar
Withy, K. (2021b). Mood (Stimmung). In The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, edited by Wrathall, M. A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 500–3.Google Scholar
Withy, K. (2021c). Thrownness (Geworfenheit). In The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, edited by Wrathall, M. A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 753–6.Google Scholar
Withy, K. (2021d). We Are a Conversation: Heidegger on How Language Uncovers. In Language and Phenomenology, edited by Engelland, C.. New York: Routledge, pp. 132–48.Google Scholar
Withy, K. (2022a). Having Some Regard for Human Frailty: On Finitude and Humanity. In Heidegger and the Human, edited by Farin, I. & Malpas, J.. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp. 307–24.Google Scholar
Withy, K. (2022b). Heidegger on Being Self-Concealing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrathall, M. A., ed. (2021a). The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrathall, M. A. (2021b). Affordance (Bewandtnis). In The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, edited by Wrathall, M. A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 31–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Heidegger on Being Affected
  • Katherine Withy, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Online ISBN: 9781009504058
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Heidegger on Being Affected
  • Katherine Withy, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Online ISBN: 9781009504058
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Heidegger on Being Affected
  • Katherine Withy, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Online ISBN: 9781009504058
Available formats
×