For a Phenomenological Architecture of Affectivity

Abstract

The following text interprets Moritz Geiger’s Contributions. Thus, it argues that Geiger’s analysis of the phenomenon of joy entails an epoché of intentional perception, insofar as the «fullness» (Fülle) of the object of joy can only take place as an experience of the affective disposition itself, as a being affected through that which irradiates within ourself. Joy would thus be a kind of purely sensible immediate transcendental apperception of oneself. This raises the problem of how to account phenomenologically of an experience that consists in the self-affection of a self in its being absorbed or irradiated. Finally, beyond Geiger’s analysis, the experience of the sublime is interpreted as an epoché in which, unlike in aesthetic enjoyment, it is not the I that takes distance to consider the «object» of joy as that in which I find myself affected in its absorption, but it is an experience of a transcendence with respect to myself in its phenomenological flickering, whereby it is what welcomes me in its overflow.