The Role of the Affective Sphere in the Emergence of Concrete Consciousness: A Phenomenological and Neurological Approach

Affections and emotions are central and foundational for organizing conscious mental life; consciousness cannot be concrete without emotions. Drawing on Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and its followers, the article argues that the affective sphere serves as the organizing center of concrete life and consciousness. It then examines neurophysiological foundations, supporting subcortical theories of emotions and consciousness that extend the capacity for consciousness at least to all vertebrates.

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Abstract

The main aim of this article is to shed light on the origins of consciousness in the natural world by presenting elements of empirically related interdisciplinary research based on the phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl and his followers. The main thesis of this paper is that affections and emotions have a central and foundational role in organising conscious mental life such that consciousness cannot be concrete without emotions. In the first part (Sects. “The Phenomenology of Concrete Consciousness” and “The Affective Sphere as the Organising Centre of Concrete Life and Consciousness”), we treat certain elements of the phenomenology of emotions; in the second part (Sects. “Some Conceptions regarding the Neurological Bases of Affections and Emotions ” and “The Presumable Functional Basis of Concrete Consciousness”), we clarify certain features of the neurophysiological foundations of consciousness and emotions in particular, arguing for subcortical theories of emotions and consciousness that enable us to extend the capability of consciousness at least to all vertebrates.