Emotion, Depth, and Flesh: A Study of Sensitive Space

Reflections on Merleau-Ponty's Philosophy of Embodiment

By Suzanne L. Cataldi

Subjects: Psychotherapy
Paperback : 9780791416525, 215 pages, September 1993
Hardcover : 9780791416518, 215 pages, October 1993

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Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. Depth and Embodiment

1. Flat Affects vs. Deep Emotional Experience

 

Linguistics Dinstinctions
Sheer Terror
Literary Depictions

 

2. Depth: Recovering the Hidden Dimension

 

Depth as the Preception of Ecological "Affordances"
Depth as Copresent Implication
Lived Distance and Living Movements
Depth as the "Dark Space" of Occlusive Permeation

 

3. Depth and Flesh

 

The Flesh Ontology
The Openings of Perception
Depth as the Dimension of the Hidden
The Intertwining at the Chiasm
Reversibility as Proximity Through Distance

 

4. Depth and Reversibility

 

Depth as a "Break/Brake"

 

II. Emotion, Depth, and Identity

5. Emotion and Emotional Depth

 

Emotional Depth and Place Perception
Emotion as a "Living Meaning"
Emotion as a Carnal Idea

 

6. Emotions "in the Flesh"

 

Emotion and the Reversibility Thesis
Emotional Depth and 'Being as a Winding'
Touch and Emotional Feeling
Embodied Politics and Border Anxiety

 

7. Emotional Depth and Alterations in Identity

 

Emotion, Identity, and Time
Emotional Habits and Leaps of Perception

 

8. Feeling Deeply About Depth

Notes

Index

Philosophically explores the topic of emotional depth.

Description

This book philosophically explores the topic of emotional depth. The insights of James J. Gibson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty on the nature of perceived depth are compared and then extended to the dynamics of emotional experience and alterations in self-understanding.

Sue L. Cataldi is Professor in the Philosophy Department at Moorhead State University.

Reviews

"After a decade or two of dominance by behaviorist thinkers, followed by another decade or two of dominance by cognitive theorists, the time is ripe for study of the emotions (and affections in general) to assume center stage. Much evidence indicates that this is indeed happening and Cataldi's work appears just in time. She is a gifted thinker, with tremendous focus and uncanny writing skills." — Robert Marrone, California State University, Sacramento