Why bad Moods Matter. William James on Melancholy, Mystic Emotion, and the Meaning of Life.
Philosophia (Ramat-Gan, Israel) January 1, 2017 Heleen J. Pott 3 citations
William James's later work on mystic emotion, often seen as a break from his early emotion theory, actually extends it. Rather than abandoning his earlier definition of emotions as 'feelings of bodily changes', James applies that embodied approach to positive feelings like inspiration and joy as well as to melancholy and depression, showing how these feeling states give meaning to life. This anticipates later phenomenological accounts of how moods like anxiety open possibilities for philosophical reflection and self-understanding. The paper argues, following Ratcliffe, that there is no sharp gap between James's early and late work.