I started to take a course called "Phenomenology of Feelings." I am attracted to the subject because I want to review phenomenology as a methodology for my own research and feelings as another dimension of research, especially into symbols and human thinking. The course syllabus gives the description that the popular opinion of feelings are inner forces that disturb thinking and living and therefore need to be controlled or submerged deep into the subconscious. It will be interesting to see how other philosophers look at feelings as phenomena. Some of the philosophers that we will study will be Sartre, Husserl, Scheler, Edith Stein, Lonergan and Steinbock.
A question that has emerged from the first class is: Can one talk about feelings without first talking about the composition of a "self"? When philosophers talk about feelings, are they referring to feelings that emerge from the conscious ego only? Is there another part of the self that is not the ego? What of a transcendent self? Richard Rohr writes about a True and False Self in his book "The Immortal Diamond." The "false" self isn't bad, it is just wrong, in the sense that the ego, with its tendency to take and be in control, claims to be "immortal." The fact is, when I die, certain things will die with me, like my career, successes and failures, my projects and plans, all of which are products of ego operations.
That which makes up the True Self - the realization of who you are and whose you are - is part of the transcendent dimension of the self that reaches out to new horizons. True Self is about "depth." It is about a God-center. “My deepest ME is God” (St. Catherine of Genoa). “Late have loved you, O God…you were WITHIN, I was outside my self….” (Augustine, Confessions). Augustine also says that the self is an "abyss" and an "enigma."
The point I am trying to make is that a distinction must be made between self and feelings. The self is like a "container." Feelings are its "contents." When one talks about the "contents" of feelings, from which "container" (True self or the ego) are the feelings emerging?
A question that has emerged from the first class is: Can one talk about feelings without first talking about the composition of a "self"? When philosophers talk about feelings, are they referring to feelings that emerge from the conscious ego only? Is there another part of the self that is not the ego? What of a transcendent self? Richard Rohr writes about a True and False Self in his book "The Immortal Diamond." The "false" self isn't bad, it is just wrong, in the sense that the ego, with its tendency to take and be in control, claims to be "immortal." The fact is, when I die, certain things will die with me, like my career, successes and failures, my projects and plans, all of which are products of ego operations.
That which makes up the True Self - the realization of who you are and whose you are - is part of the transcendent dimension of the self that reaches out to new horizons. True Self is about "depth." It is about a God-center. “My deepest ME is God” (St. Catherine of Genoa). “Late have loved you, O God…you were WITHIN, I was outside my self….” (Augustine, Confessions). Augustine also says that the self is an "abyss" and an "enigma."
The point I am trying to make is that a distinction must be made between self and feelings. The self is like a "container." Feelings are its "contents." When one talks about the "contents" of feelings, from which "container" (True self or the ego) are the feelings emerging?
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