Habitual affective intentionality: Theory and Critique

Season 7 continues with another presentation from our 2022 annual conference, Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Spatiality.   This episode features a presentation from Imke von Maur of Osnabrück University, Institute of Cognitive Science, Germany   Abstract: Theories of affective intentionality are concerned with the evaluative dimension of emotions. From this perspective, emotions can be seen as the ability to disclose meaningfulness. However, such theories too often neglect the social structuring of affectively disclosed content (for example, in Goldie 2001; Helm 2000; Roberts 2003). Theories within the paradigm of situated affectivity (cf. Stephan, Walter & Wilutzky 2014; Slaby 2014; Colombetti & Roberts 2015) which do consider socio-cultural factors often fail to acknowledge the meaning-making dimension of emotions because of their focus on emotion regulation. In this talk I combine theories of affective intentionality (cf. Slaby 2008; Slaby et al. 2011) with the paradigm of situated affectivity from a critical phenomenological (Ahmed 2010; Al-Saji 2014) and practice-theoretical perspective. On that basis I introduce the concept of “habitual affective intentionality”, which allows to address and, if necessary, to criticise the socio-cultural structuring of affectively disclosed content. I consider affective intentionality to be a bodily, phenomenally experienced way of disclosing complex meaningful Gestalts in and against the background of social practice. In this talk, I will especially spell out the ability to disclose meaningfulness by means of an emotion as the ability to “play along” (cf. Bourdieu and Merleau-Ponty) with practice-relevant “games” and thus to maintain their validity. This raises the normative question of whether the practices and forms of living supported or disturbed by means of affective intetionality are justifiable or not. This orientation leads from the theoretical description of affective intentionality as an embodied and practical capacity to the normative and social theoretical perspective on the critical interrogation of consolidated emotional practices. It thus opens up the philosophy of emotions, which has so far mainly revolved around theoretical questions of affective intentionality, to questions of contemporary social philosophy and social critique.   Biography: I work as a postdoctoral researcher at the institute of cognitive science at Osnabrück University, Germany. I defended my PhD thesis in November 2017, which has been about the epistemic relevance of emotions in socio-culturally situated complex understanding processes. I have done research on emotions from a decidedly normative/political stance from the beginning of my studies and am now also working on a theory of education that is concerned with how to properly understand social matters in order to change them (climate change, structural racism, ethical issues concerning AI and technology, etc.).     Further Information:   This recording is taken from our Annual UK Conference 2022: Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Sociality (Exeter, UK / Hybrid) with the University of Exeter. Sponsored by the Wellcome Centre, Egenis, and the Shame and Medicine project. For the conference our speakers either presented in person at Exeter or remotely to people online and in-room, and the podcast episodes are recorded from the live broadcast feeds.   The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast.   About our events: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/events/   About the BSP: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/about/