The Role of the Affective Sphere in the Emergence of Concrete Consciousness: A Phenomenological and Neurological Approach
Human Studies March 1, 2026 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1007/s10746-025-09799-w via Springer Nature
Summary
Emotions and affections play a crucial role in shaping conscious mental life, suggesting that consciousness is fundamentally tied to emotional experience. The article discusses phenomenological elements related to emotions and explores the neurophysiological foundations of consciousness, advocating for subcortical theories that propose consciousness extends to all vertebrates.
Study at a glance
| Key finding | Consciousness cannot be concrete without emotions, and subcortical theories suggest that consciousness may extend to all vertebrates. |
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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 (Sects. “The Phenomenology of Concrete Consciousness” and “The Affective Sphere as the Organising Centre of Concrete Life and Consciousness”), we treat certain elements of the phenomenology of emotions; in the second part (Sects. “Some Conceptions regarding the Neurological Bases of Affections and Emotions ” and “The Presumable Functional Basis of Concrete Consciousness”), 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.