The Phenomenology of Moods: Time, Place, and Normative Grip
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THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MOODS: TIME, PLACE, AND NORMATIVE GRIP A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy By Francisco Travis Gallegos, B.A. Washington, DC April 25, 2017 Copyright 2017 by Francisco Gallegos All Rights Reserved ii THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MOODS: TIME, PLACE, AND NORMATIVE GRIP Francisco Travis Gallegos, B.A. Dissertation advisor: William D. Blattner, Ph.D. Abstract Moods are powerful forces in our lives. When we enter into a mood—such as an anxious, irritable, depressed, bored, tranquil, or cheerful mood—we often find ourselves thinking, feeling, and acting in ways that are out of character. Indeed, a change in mood can alter our space of possibilities, so that, for good or ill, what once seemed inevitable suddenly becomes impossible, while the unimaginable suddenly becomes a reality. What are moods, then, and how does a change in our mood alter the content and structure of our experience? Despite great interest in the topic of emotions within Anglo- American philosophy, the topic of moods has been relatively neglected. And although the phenomenological tradition offers many insights into affective experience in general, no theorist has attempted to apply these insights to the investigation of moods in their particularity, as a kind of affective phenomenon that is distinct from emotions, temperaments, cultural attitudes, and so on. Thus, the most distinctive and puzzling features of moods have yet to be explained. This dissertation fills these gaps in the literature. Building on Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology of affective attunement, Matthew Ratcliffe’s phenomenology of major depression, Jorge Portilla’s phenomenology of group practices, and philosophical theories of narrative, I develop a novel account of the way moods affect our experience, both as individuals and as groups. I argue that while emotions are responses to particular objects, moods enact our interpretation of the present situation as a whole. Moods systematically alter our experience of time, place, and normative grip, iii establishing our sense of what is at stake, here and now. By enacting the situational context of our ongoing experience, moods shape our interpretation of the overall significance of the objects we encounter and influence our emotional responses to them. And in some cases, moods impose a narrative structure onto our experience, leading us to interpret objects and situations in ways that we may later find surprising or problematic. Thus, by using the tools of phenomenology to analyze the distinctive features of moods, this dissertation offers new insights into an important and relatively neglected topic. iv Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of many people and institutions. I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to my committee for their guidance. My advisor, Bill Blattner, has been a steady and reliable source of wisdom, insight, and encouragement. Kate Withy consistently engaged with my ideas with extraordinary depth and discernment. Nancy Sherman pushed me to articulate my thoughts more clearly and concisely. My work is immeasurably better because of the time, effort, and care they have generously given. It has truly been an honor to work with each of them. My research was greatly aided by the Ford Foundation Dissertation Completion Fellowship, which relieved me of my teaching duties and allowed me to focus on writing during the 2016-2017 academic year. For this honor I owe a debt of gratitude to my committee, as well as to Amy Oliver and Carlos Sánchez for their recommendations and their extraordinarily generous support over the years. Many other people have helped me refine my ideas about moods and phenomenology during the process of writing this dissertation. I would especially like to thank my sister, Lori Gallegos de Castillo, whose philosophical companionship I cherish above all. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the Georgetown Philosophy Department, including Trip Glazer, Jacob Earl, Andy Blitzer, Matthew Shields, Katherine Ward, Nabina Liebow, Megan Dean, Colin Hickey, Joe Reese, Quentin Fisher, Karen Rice, and everyone in the Georgetown European Philosophy Workshop, as well as to the participants in the 2015 European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotions Conference, in Basel, Switzerland. v This work would also not be possible without the constant support of my family and friends. I am especially grateful to my mother, Jan Gibson, the rock on which the whole world rests; my father, Lorenzo Gallegos, for awakening my philosophical spirit; and my late father-in-law, Joe Salazar, for so generously sharing his friendship and his extraordinary charm, curiosity, dignity, and depth. Above all, I am grateful for the support of my wife, Petra Salazar. In countless ways, big and small, she has helped me to succeed. By moving to DC, and through enormous sacrifice and hard work, she made it possible for me to attend graduate school. In our conversations, and in our shared life together, she teaches me more about being human than any text ever could. She is a true philosopher, and her beautiful, complex, and endlessly fascinating spirit is my deepest inspiration. Finally, this dissertation is dedicated to my son and greatest joy, José Alderaan Gallegos: May you be happy, healthy, and wise, and may you learn to live well with moods. vi Table of Contents Introduction. The Context and Scope of this Investigation ................................................... 1 Chapter One: What is a Mood? ..................................................................................................... 15 1.1. Defining moods ..................................................................................................................... 16 1.2. Desiderata for an account ................................................................................................... 28 1.3. The promise of phenomenology ....................................................................................... 32 Chapter Two: The Search for an Adequate Account of Moods ............................................ 40 2.1. Non-cognitivism and the experience of time ................................................................. 41 2.2. Perceptualism and the experience of emotional accessibility .................................... 58 2.3. Cognitivism and the experience of normative grip ...................................................... 80 2.4. Attitudinalism and the logic of moods ............................................................................ 95 Chapter Three: Tracking Moods and the Present Situation ............................................... 103 3.1. The present situation ........................................................................................................ 105 3.2. Moods and the present situation .................................................................................... 116 3.3. Moods as enactments of the present situation ............................................................ 125 3.4. Moods, existential depth, and emotional disconnection ........................................... 134 Chapter Four: Thematic Moods and Narrative Emplotment .............................................. 153 4.1. Narratives and narrative sense-making ........................................................................ 157 4.2. Thematic moods as modes of emplotment ................................................................... 173 4.3. Narrative transportation and emotional disconnection ............................................ 190 Chapter Five: Collective Moods and Group Practices .......................................................... 203 5.1. Defining the phenomenon of collective moods ........................................................... 205 5.2. Collective enactments of the present situation ........................................................... 216 Conclusion. Implications for Moral Psychology .................................................................... 236 References ......................................................................................................................................... 249 vii Introduction: The Context and Scope of this Investigation This dissertation addresses the question: How do moods affect the content and structure of our experience? I begin by offering a few words here at the outset to clarify what this question is (and is not) asking about, and to illustrate what I think is at stake in answering this question well. After briefly describing the context and scope of this investigation, I give an overview of my central arguments and a roadmap of how each chapter proceeds. Moods are one of the most powerful and mysterious forces in human life. Now, to be sure, emotions can also be powerful and mysterious. But emotions are always directed toward a particular “intentional object.” That is, an emotion is always about something specific—directed toward a particular person, item, state of affairs, event, or possibility (it is customary to use the general term “object” to refer to all of these things). For example, we might experience the emotion of fear when we are hiking in the mountains and suddenly encounter a bear, or we might experience the emotion of anger when a colleague makes an insulting comment to us.