Edmund Husserl

Abstract

This chapter indicates that Edmund Husserl’s published and unpublished writings contain important contributions to the phenomenological study of emotional life, and to our understanding of the emotions more broadly. It focuses on Husserl’s most productive and significant period as a phenomenologist of the emotions dating between the publication of Logical Investigations in 1900 and Ideas I in 1913. In the second volume of Logical Investigations, Husserl briefly takes up the question of whether the phenomenologist ought to class feelings (Gefühle) as intentional experiences. Non-intentional feelings are exclusively confined to what Husserl calls sensory feelings (sinnliche Gefühle) or affective sensations (Gefühlsempfindungen). In the intermediary period between the publication of Logical Investigations and Ideas I, Husserl set aside time and effort to carefully reflect upon the life of the emotions. In his published writings, Husserl only inadequately addresses a central issue for the phenomenology of emotion: Namely, the role played by non-intentional feelings within emotional intentionality itself.