ABSTRACT
Aron Gurwitsch is an important figure in the historical development of phenomenology. This chapter intends to locate emotion’s place in Gurwitsch’s understanding of consciousness. After briefly commenting on what he says about emotion, this essay reconstructs Gurwitsch’s view of emotions in the light of his general theory of consciousness. Two things for present concerns are established. First, Gurwitsch recognizes that emotion and affect play an important role in the natural attitude. Second, Gurwitsch understands emotions in relation to perception. For Gurwitsch, perception is the key to understanding consciousness. Gurwitsch understands each moment of consciousness to involve three distinctive kinds of functional roles relative to the organizational principles at play in a given experience: theme, thematic field, and margin. Further contextualizing the margin as a functional role, Gurwitsch argues that awareness of the natural world is marginal.
