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

Marosán, Bence Péter (2025) The Role of the Affective Sphere in the Emergence of Concrete Consciousness: A Phenomenological and Neurological Approach. HUMAN STUDIES. ISSN 1572-851X (In Press)

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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 (Sections 2 and 3), we treat certain elements of the phenomenology of emotions; in the second part (Sections 4 and 5), 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.

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