A Discussion of Heidegger's Concept of Mood
Heidegger on Mood
Heidegger's most sustained treatment of "mood" is in his work Being and Time (1927). Being and Time is the basic philosophical statement of existentialism.{1} It is one of the great works of modern philosophy. This famous book influenced the French existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre, considered the twentieth century's greatest philosopher of freedom. It is the original historical source of the popular contemporary ideology, called "post-modernism." We will begin our discussion by briefly explaining existentialism.
Existentialist Concern with Authenticity and Inauthenticity
Heidegger and Sartre shared an over-arching purpose that guided their formulation of the philosophy of existentialism. Their purpose was to identify "authenticity" and explain how it could be obtained. Authenticity is living for one's self and for one's own potentiality. For Heidegger and Sartre, as for many other thinkers of the twentieth century, living for one's self was difficult in Western industrial society. Europe, Britain, and the United States were highly organized societies in which persons were economically and socially dependent on one another. Persons could go through life making few thoughtful decisions. Life in cities and material affluence had created mass society--large numbers of people living highly regulated, similar lives. It was difficult to be an individual, to distinguish yourself from other persons in mass society. Inauthenticity was living as a result of decisions made by others. Nearly everybody lived inauthentic lives; the world was the worse for this.
In Being and Time, Heidegger describes the constitution of reality as reality is experienced in everyday life by ordinary persons. To refer to the experience of persons makes it sound as if Heidegger wrote a work in psychology. Heidegger was not writing psychology, however. He was writing about ontology. Ontology is a specialty of Western philosophy that originated with the ancient Greeks. The specialty tries to answer such questions as "What exists?", "How does a person exist?", "What has being?", "What is being for the person?"
The answers Heidegger gave to ontological questions are complicated. They were difficult for contemporaries to understand, because he invented a new philosophical vocabulary and expressed his ideas as observations and analysis of observations, rather than as a formal theory or deductive arguments. The credibility of Heidegger's philosophy for most readers depends upon recognizing Heidegger's insights in their own experiences, rather than upon the logical power of formal reasoning.
Heidegger found that he could not answer the questions, "What exists in the world?" and "How does a person exist?", independently. The existence of worlds and persons must be described together; they do not exist without each other. The subject of Heidegger's discussion is, therefore, the person(or Being)-in-the-world, and the authenticity and inauthenticity of the Being-in-the-world. Heidegger's famous German term for Being-in-the-world is Dasein (or Da-sein). Dasein means "being there." When a person says, "I am," she speaks a compressed sentence. To be accurate, Heidegger says, her statement must be expanded as "I am in-my-world."
"My world" includes the contents of consciousness, their arrangements, and the values and meanings of the contents and their arrangements. Contents include objects, persons, and entities of all sorts; an environment, such as a dwelling, a city, or a countryside; and my plans for my life. The arrangement of the contents concerns, for example, the division of my world into foreground and background, of figure against field, and subjectivity and objectivity. All contents and arrangements have value and meaning. Persons are not neutral objects; they are friends, strangers, enemies, or relatives. Tools are not just dead objects; they are objects useful to me that I know how to manipulate or not useful to me.
We need to pay attention to the word, world, in the phrase "my world". My world is not co-extensive with my consciousness or self-consciousness. It is not a private world, as our dreams are private. The totality of the contents, arrangements, and values and meanings includes things in my world that are public and available to other Beings-in-their-worlds. Only within my world as a totality, Heidegger said, do "I" "exist."
Existential Structures
My Being-in-the-world is disclosed to me and constituted by four existential structures, as Heidegger calls them. An existential structure is the persistent arrangement of a person's experience that reveals ("discloses") to the person herself that she is aware and exists. These structures are:{2}
* State-of-mind (mood)
* Understanding
* Falling
* Discourse
State-of-mind is mood. Mood is our most fundamental awareness that we are alive and in the world. We shall discuss mood at greater length later in this article.
Understanding is, in Heidegger's usage, knowing something. When we say, "I understand airplanes", we mean, for instance, that we can define airplanes, recognize them when we see them, explain how they work as a means of transportation, and can use them for our own purposes. Existential understanding means similarly that we know who we are, can distinguish ourselves from other persons, can explain what our life is about, and can exert control over our life. Heidegger asserts that self-understanding manifests itself in terms of our possibilities--what we might be in the future, what we were in the past, what we failed to be in the past, what we are trying to be right now.{3}
Falling is drifting through life. We find ourselves living, but not as a result of decisions we make. Days go by. One day follows another without grabbing us. Life seems to organize us, rather than we organizing life. We do not "seize the day".
Discourse is talking with other persons. Conversation is a way we disclose to ourselves that we exist. Talking is also the way in which we make the world and our own life intelligible to ourselves. It is a common experience to talk with a friend about our relationships with others. "Why did he miss our appointment?" "What do you think her motive is?" "Do you think I should go to that party?" We pass much of our days in conversation to make sense of our life.
The four existential structures share the characteristic that they are temporal. Our mood is about our place in the world in time. Our understanding of ourselves is about our possibilities as they come to us in time. Our falling is experienced as drifting through life over time. And discourse is talk in time. Experiencing our life as temporal is one of the distinguishing features, according to Heidegger and other existentialists, of being human.
Most of Heidegger's discussion in Being and Time concerns how the mode in which a person is in her world (Dasein) sets up the structures of her world. For instance, being a professional chef is a mode of living that sets up the world in which the chef works. A chef preparing meals sets up the kitchen so that mixing bowls and wire whisks are on the counter, within reach, for the making of the soufflé. Other tools, not needed for the immediate task, are on shelves, out of arm's reach, but within a few steps. The readiness of the tools is not simply a physical location. Their readiness is also the mode of the chef's being. The tools have reality and manifest themselves to the chef, because the chef has a project which involves them. The technological environment of the cook is, therefore, physically, geographically, and ontologically structured according to the plan being executed by the chef in her environment. The kitchen is a world in which the chef has her being.
When we say we are in our world--like the chef in her kitchen--we mean we are psychically located in a meaningful environment, a place that is dimensioned, arranged, and organized so that it suits us. Ordinary experiences demonstrate the truth of Heidegger's insight. Here is an instance. You are showing a friend the restaurant kitchen of Chef M., who is not present at the moment. Your friend says, "I can really imagine Chef M. in this kitchen. This is so 'M.'." You agree, sweeping your arm across the scene and referring to the kitchen as uniquely revealing of the personality of chef M. You say, "Yes, this is M." Your remark means, this setting and M. are one and the same.
Another example is provided by the common experience of coming home. We journeyed far from home, perhaps for college, or a tour of military duty. We have been away for a long time. We finally return. We feel relief and pleasure to be in our home. We say, "It's good to be home." "Home" in this utterance does not refer to a physical dwelling with a geographical location and street address. Home refers to our emotional location. Our home is our world in which we can be comfortably, where our being belongs.
Heidegger's Concept of Mood
Heidegger's discussion of mood arises as part of his description of what qualities our world--the world of "I-am-in-my-world"--must have to be "my world." How does the restaurant kitchen of chef M. embody chef M.? How are we the same as "our home" when we are at home? The concept of mood is Heidegger's first step in explaining the constitution of "my world."
We start with Heidegger's definition of "mood"--"Ontologically mood is a primordial kind of Being for Dasein, in which Dasein is disclosed to itself prior to all cognition and volition, and beyond their range of disclosure."{4} In other words, mood is the general realization that we are alive and exist now in our "world."
Mood is the most fundamental awareness that persons have of their being in their worlds. The word "awareness," in the English language, as used in the preceding sentence, conveys attention. Attention implies cognitive activity; Heidegger did not intend to convey this meaning. He used several German terms for "mood." One term, Stimmung, means "being attuned" or "attunement," as a musical instrument is tuned and ready to sound a musical note.{5} Mood is, therefore, a general realization of one's self being in the world in the presence of other Beings and objects and having readiness to perform specific cognitive functions.
Heidegger wrote, somewhat more clearly, "In a state-of-mind Dasein is always brought before itself, and has always found itself, not in the sense of coming across itself by perceiving itself, but in the sense of finding itself in the mood that it has."{6}
Each of us occasionally experiences basic mood. For instance, coming out of deep sleep or total anesthesia after surgery, we will for a brief moment realize that we are awakening and are in some place, though we might not know exactly where. Our existence as ourself awakening in the world is disclosed to us. We might even say to ourselves, "Oh, I'm awakening and I'm in a room." A few seconds later, our consciousness will have oriented itself. We would then know where we are, remember going to bed the previous evening, or entering surgery some hours earlier. Finally, we would react to details of our world. Perhaps we talk out loud to other persons if they are present. We would then be fully awake in our normal waking state of mind.
Our illustration of waking into mood indicates that mood orients Being-in-the-world by placing Being in the world that had been before sleep. On waking, mood brings us "back to something".{7}
Heidegger said that mood is each person's original and earliest state of Being in the world. Mood is, furthermore, not intermittent or confined. Mood is omnipresent and always.{8} We are in mood even when we are unaware of it. Since mood is a state of awareness, it is paradoxical that frequently we are unaware we are in mood. Specific moods, such well-being and fearfulness, and specific emotions, such as happiness and anger, emerge out of the primordial mood. Primordial mood pre-exists them and is a necessary condition for them. We cannot have a reaction to something in the world until we are in the world in the first place. It is mood that discloses we are in our world, thereby setting the stage, so to speak, for our specific moods and emotions.
Our earlier illustration of experiencing primordial mood (waking from deep sleep or total anesthesia) points to a prominent feature of Heidegger's concept of primordial mood. For a fleeting moment in waking, we were not aware where we were. We knew we were in our world, but we could not engage or become involved with our world, because the world disclosed itself--even briefly--as no where. The objects and entities of our world, which we familiarly experience as being within reach, were not close-at-hand. This situation of Being-in-our-world, but disconnected from it, reveals itself to us as the mood of anxiety (or angst). Heidegger describes this ontological anxiety as concern with the possibility of our own insignificance.
In Being and Time, Heidegger described anxiety as a "Basic State-of-mind".{9} Normally, we pass by this momentary mood of anxiety by seizing upon what is familiar in our world; but, Heidegger said, we are only covering up our anxiety. The basic mood of anxiety remains with us, underlying other moods and emotions. Specific emotions, such as fear, have objects and can be brought into the world of calculating deliberation. We know what we are afraid of and can plan how to deal with it. Because anxiety has no object, we cannot deal rationally with it in the same way. As a result, anxiety, as the primordial mood, sets up our Being on a fundamentally pre-rational (if not irrational) basis.
Mood Research in Scientific Psychology
The science of cognitive psychology provides some assistance in understanding Heidegger's concept of mood.{10} Psychologists distinguish between an "emotion" and a "mood." An emotion is a brief psychomotor response to a specific external stimulus that interrupts other cognitive processes while it is being expressed. Anger is an emotion. For instance, a person greets us by calling out to us with an insult. We respond with anger. Our skin colors with blood. Our face contorts itself. We gesture with our fist and glare at the person who made the insult. Perhaps we say something to that person. The emotion of anger expresses itself and passes away within a few minutes. We might think about the insult and our response to it later, but the expression of the anger itself has passed.
By contrast, cognitive psychologists say, a mood lasts longer than an emotion. A mood is an emotional state that may last for days. The mood's existence does not require the continual presence of an external stimulus. Moods can come and go without any obvious external stimulus. We might not be able to assign any particular cause to the mood we are "in." Normally, moods are less intense than emotions. General happiness and ordinary depression (as contrasted to pathological depression) are moods. Generally, normal moods last for several hours and less than two weeks. When a mood is intense, lasts for two weeks or more, and appears to interfere with normal routine of living, it is possible the mood has become an illness--that is, a mood disorder--that requires medical attention. Some mood disorders have a specific neurochemical substrate that can be corrected with pharmaceutical drugs, thereby relieving the disorder.{11}
Psychologists also agree, the fact that a mood may not have a specific external or psychological cause does not mean it is uncaused altogether. A normal mood can be caused by a physical, non-psychological cause internal to the body, just as a mood disorder can be caused by a malfunctioning biochemical process in brain neurology. Such causes are called endogenous. Proof of endogenous causation of moods is provided by the human circadian rhythm of sleep and waking and, in women, menstruation. Both biological rhythms sponsor characteristic moods.
Scientific psychology raises the possibility, therefore, that what Heidegger called primordial mood is the first psychic manifestation of the body's neurobiological transition from an unawakened state of mind to a waking state of mind. The ability of anesthesia to induce coma-like states is an indication that some biochemical process is closely related to appearance and disappearance of mood.
Phenomenological and Psychological Findings on Mood Compared
We make several points about the significance and meaning of mood and emotion by the psychologists as compared to Heidegger's treatment of mood.
First, psychologists assume that mood must be a generalized emotion (anger, happiness). Heidegger's primordial mood, anxiety, is general or neutral, but it is not an emotion or derived from emotion.
Second, psychologists assume that mood has a function. It does something. Heidegger's primordial mood does not have a function. It does not do anything; it is not an activity. It is not an effect or a cause. It is not a process. Rather, Heidegger's primordial mood is disclosure or realization. It is a person's realization that they exist within the world--that they have being.
Third, in the opinion of many psychologists, mood is part of the cognitive process. For Heidegger, mood pre-exists the cognitive process. Mood makes the cognitive process possible; it is the necessary condition for the cognitive process to occur. When the cognitive process is underway, mood coexists with it.
Steps in Cognitive Processing
These steps refer to the psychic products (or psychic manifestation) of the processing at that stage. The steps will be discussed briefly below. The steps are:
* Sensa
* Percepts
* Representations
* Emotional evaluations
* Experience
* Thoughts
Sensory input begins with activation of human sensory organs by external stimuli. The receptors of the sensory organs are filtering and selection mechanisms. Receptors are activated by a range of events and energies; in this regard, they filter out most of the physical world. Receptors are also capable of directed selection of events and energies to which to respond. Both conscious and unconscious feedback can alter the range or scope of receptor activation. The chart illustrates this point by depicting only certain numbers going from the physical world through the sense organ to the afferent nerves.
Now let us turn to the steps in cognitive processing. It should be appreciated that this outline reflects only the most general theory of how sensations become experience. Much disagreement exists among physiologists, psychologists, and philosophers concerning the neurochemical and psychological processes involved in each step.
Sensa are the neurochemical impulses transmitted from the sensory organs, such as the retina and the inner ear, to the brain or brain stem. They are called "sensa" to indicate that they, or some of them, have the capability to be psychologically sensed later in the cognitive process.
Percepts are the elements or parts of a perception (i.e., representation). The retina transmits different sensa to different areas of the brain. In those separate locations, the brain processes sensa into several dozen different parts of a visual image. Examples of such components are edges, parallel lines, relative position, direction and motion of an object against a background, color, and three-dimensional space. Each of these parts is like a piece in a jig-saw puzzle and is called a "percept." The inner ear similarly transmits different parts of a sound, such as different frequencies and temporal sequences, through the auditory nerve to the brain stem. Each of the distinguishable frequencies and temporal sequences is a percept.
A representation is, to use vision as an example, the assemblage of the percepts into a recognizable image, such as a face or an object in the field of vision. Even seemingly simple representations, such as a circle, square, or triangle, are assembled (or synthesized) from several different percepts. Angles, for instance, are not percepts but are constructed in the synthesis of a perception from line segments oriented differently. Representations are also called "perceptions." We call perceptions "representations," because it is assumed that a perception must somehow represent the objects or events that activated the sense organ.
Emotional evaluations. Before representations are submitted to the higher brain, they are evaluated by the lower brain structures responsible for emotions. Each representation is evaluated according to some inherited template or memory according to the person's basic needs, such as to distinguish threat from non-threat and to determine, by reading the facial expressions of a prospective mate, their receptivity for copulation .
Experience. After emotional evaluation, representations are transmitted to the frontal lobe cortex where they are subject to conscious thinking. The whole assemblage of experience is call the "phenomenal world," because its contents (or at least some of them) are accessible to introspection. Conscious awareness is one attribute of experience, but it is not a requirement for a representation to be experienced. Many representations become part of our experience without our awareness.
The Role of Attention in Cognitive Processing
Conscious attention can influence the flow of sensory information from sense organ to thinking. Psychologists distinguish between two kinds of attention: automatic attention and focal attention. Automatic attention operates all the time monitoring sensory input to the cognitive system. If sensa match some instinctual or learned template, automatic-attention activates focal attention. Focal attention can adjust the input parameters of the sense organs so as to "focus attention" on the specific range of sensa noticed by the automatic-attention.
The Role of Mood in Cognitive Processing
For scientific psychology, mood is not a process, but a state of consciousness about cognitive processing. One psychologist prefers to describe mood as the "frame of the mind," rather than the state of the mind, a characterization that makes clearer the point that processing of sensa occurs within the mood setting.{12}
Several physiological and psychological functions bear impressionistic analogy to Heidegger's concept of primordial mood. A physiological analogy is provided by the reticular formation. The reticular formation is a section of the pons, which is located in higher brain stem. The cells of the reticular formation monitor neuronal impulses entering the brain from the spinal cord and afferent pathways from the major sense organs. When an impulse meets some criteria (for instance, a volume threshold for sound) the reticular formation sends signals that arouse the organism to a level of alertness. It is the reticular formation at work when we are roused out of sleep by some disturbing noise.
Automatic attention provides a psychological analogy to primordial mood. Driving an automobile illustrates how automatic attention functions. Experienced drivers depend upon automatic attention to assist their control of their vehicle. Automatic attention monitors some region of the environment, freeing the driver to devote focal attention to a specific task. Perhaps the driver is driving the car down a city street while looking for an address. While the driver visually locates and reads successive building addresses and street signs, automatic attention monitors the road ahead of the vehicle for unsafe traffic. Automatic attention detects when a child suddenly darts into the street or another vehicle suddenly swerves out of lane, and redirects focal attention to the new phenomenon. At the same time, an emotional response is triggered--perhaps fear for the safety of the child in the street--, mobilizing more resources of the body and mind (e.g., muscles tensed, heart beat and respiration elevated, hearing focused) to assist in dealing with the emergency.
These analogies do not imply that primordial mood is simply the psychic manifestation of a neurological state; or that primordial mood is related to the function of the reticular formation or automatic attention; or that primordial mood is some brain-mental event inside a person. The analogies only suggest that, given the existence of these physiological and psychological functions, the existence of primordial mood is also possible scientifically. The phenomenological analysis of primordial mood stands on its own.
Notes
1. We distinguish between Christian existentialism, associated with philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers (spiritual if not Christian), Gabriel Marcel, and Paul Tillich (a theologian), and atheistic existentialism, associated with twentieth century philosophers, Heidegger and Sartre. Kierkegaard certainly provided the basic position for the existentialist critique of Christianity without rejecting the notion of faith and God. Heidegger did not address issues of faith and God.
2. Macquarrie and Robinson, trans., Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 384{H. 334-335}.
3. Macquarrie and Robinson, trans., Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 182-188{H. 142-148}.
4. Macquarrie and Robinson, trans., Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 174{H.136}.
5. Macquarrie and Robinson, trans., Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 172{H.134}, note 2; Stambaugh, tran., Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 126{134}; Ballard, Role of Mood, p. 9.
Hubert Dreyfus prefers the English word, "affectedness", to state-of-mind as a meaning for mood. State-of-mind implies, in English, a private mental state, which is too restricted a meaning for Heidegger's usages. For instance, Heidegger refers to the "public mood", which obviously cannot be a private mental state. Dreyfus, Being-in-the-World, p. 168.
6. Macquarrie and Robinson, trans., Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 174{H.135}.
7. Macquarrie and Robinson, trans., Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 390{H.340}.
8. Heidegger does not, curiously, discuss sleep or dreaming. Presumably he defines sleep as a state of mind when we are not in our world.
9. Macquarrie and Robinson, trans., Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 228-238{H.184-191}, Section 40; Stambaugh, tran., Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 172-178{H.184-191}, Section 40. Stambaugh translated Heidegger's language as "angst", rather than "anxiety".
10. We must keep in mind in this side discussion that Heidegger was not doing psychology and psychologists would certainly deny they are doing philosophy. The danger in discussing psychological mood is that it might give rise to a misleading interpretation of Heidegger's concept of mood. First, psychologists imply that mood is a completely private, inner mental state, perhaps a pre-mental instinctual state. Second, psychologists imply that mood is a tone or quality to some other other mental state, such as an emotion. Heidegger disassociates his concept of mood from both of these psychological notions of mood.
11. I am not a psychologist and I am unfamiliar with the scientific literature of psychology. I have relied upon the following works for reviews of scientific literature on mood (which Watson estimates at approximately 1000 scientific articles between 1970 and 2000): Martin, Theories of Mood; Norris, Mood: Frame of Mind; Watson, Mood and Temperament.
12. Norris, Mood: Frame of Mind.
References
Ballard, Bruce. The Role of Mood in Heidegger's Ontology. Lanham, New York, London: University Press of America, 1991.
Dreyfus, Hubert L. Being-in-the-World: A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time, Division I. Reprint edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1991.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. [Sein und Zeit, 1927; Seventh edition, Neomarius Verlag, Tübingen.] Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1962. The original pagination in the German edition is cited in curly braces, e.g., "H." standing for Heidegger, {H. 15}.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time: A Translation of Sein und Zeit. [Sein und Zeit, 1927; originally published by Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen.] Translated by Joan Stambaugh. [Albany, N.Y.] State University of New York, 1996. The original pagination in the German edition is cited in curly braces, e.g., "H." standing for Heidegger, {H. 15}.
Martin, Leonard L., and Gerald L. Clore, Editors. Theories of Mood and Cognition: A User's Handbook. Mahwah, New Jersey, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2001.
Nesse, Randolph M. "What is Mood For?," Psycoloquy: (1991) 9,#2 Mood (1). Accessed Jauary 18, 2003. <http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000219/ >.
The debate on Nesse's article helped me to understand several issues concerning mood as understood by psychologists. I am especially endebted to William Norris's reply: William N. Morris, "More on the Mood-Emotion Distinction," Psycoloquy: (1992) 3,#7 Mood (6). Accessed January 18, 2003. <http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000231/ >.
Norris, William N. In association with Paula P. Schnurr. Mood: The Frame of Mind. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1989.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Emotions: Outline of a Theory. [Esquisse d'une théorie des emotions, 1939.] Translated from the French by Bernard Frechtman. New York: Philosophical Library, 1948.
Solomon, Robert C. The Passions. First published, 1976. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
Solomon categories moods, along with emotions and desires, as "passions". Mood is a generalized emotion. "Moods, in their indiscriminate universality, are metaphysical generalizations of the emotions." [p. 133.]
Watson, David. Mood and Temperament. New York, London: The Guilford Press, 2000.
Contents
- Introduction
- Heidegger on Mood
- Heidegger's Vicious Circle
- Broadening Heidegger's Concept of Mood
- Mood-States and Political Projects
- Kierkegaard's Theory of Anxiety
- The Distinction Between Primordial Mood and Psychological Mood
- Heidegger's Concept of Authenticity
- So What?
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