Gefühlsge stalten. Haltungen als emotionale Selbstverhältnisse

Abstract

Figured Feelings. Personal Postures as emotional self-relationships

The renaissance of the philosophy of emotions in the last decades provided several detailed theories of the different types of affective phenomena, such as feelings, emotions and moods. Now we can ask further how all these contribute to more complex phenomena such as a condition of a person or her posture. The main these of this article is that at least one meaning of a condition or posture of a person (referring to the greek “hexis”) can be best explained as a self-relationship of a person in which that person is shaping her emotions, or, more precisely, her emotional dispositions (and therewith also her dispositions to act). I develop this idea in three steps. First, I sketch which meaning of “stance” (German: “Haltung”) I focus on and how it can generally be conceived of as forming ones emotions; secondly, I explain how this process of forming and shaping can be understood in more detail; and finally, I illustrate this general explication with the example of the stance of dignity.