The Sensibility of Reason: Outline of a Phenomenology of Feeling

Abstract

This phenomenological approach to emotions emphasizes the fundamental impor­tance of the realm of feeling in both the cognitive and practical exercise of reason. It outlines a general theory of feeling, which exploits a classical phenomenological anal­ysis of emotional intentionality as the mode of presence and experience of values to provide a taxonomy of emotional states and acts. It also aims to connect the two levels of affective sensibility apparently concerned: one that is basically embodied, and one that is cognitively of a “higher” level, involved in a large variety of acts and behaviors characteristic of a rational and moral agent – such as a human being.