ABSTRACT
This chapter reconstructs Moritz Geiger’s ideas about emotions by mainly focusing on two articles: “The Consciousness of Emotions” from 1911 and “Contributions to the Phenomenology of Aesthetic Pleasure” from 1913. It discusses Geiger’s views on the intentionality of feelings and on the forms of awareness that may accompany emotions, which are the main topics of his 1911’s “The Consciousness of Emotions”. The chapter presents Geiger’s theory of affective motivation, as this is developed in his 1913 essay. One of the reasons why Geiger’s ideas on affective motivation are particularly interesting is because they can be applied to describe cases of ill-motivated emotions. Geiger distinguishes between “sensory feelings” and “emotional feelings” or “emotions” tout court. Sensory feelings—a category Geiger adopts from Alexander Pfander—are all those emotions of pleasure or displeasure which are attached to sensations.
