Affective Feeling

Abstract

Emotional feeling is a mental phenomenon which differs in kind from sensation. That is its essence. Every mental phenomenon is a structure of meaning-qua-reality, or reality based on the Aktualitätsbegriff Sensation, of course, also has this structure. The difference between sensation and mere representation lies in this point. However, the discriminatory relation on which sensation depends is a minimal content of a conscious unity, and is thus only a first stage in the establishment of a mental phenomenon. If it develops to the next stage of representation or thinking, the unified content becomes more positive and active; that is, the mental state more and more manifests its essence.

Keywords

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First English translation by Davis Dilworth and V. H. Viglielmo of Kitarō Nishida’s work Problems of Consciousness, which appeared in the original Japanese in 1920: The first passage is from Chapter 3, Section 3, p. 61 ff. of Nishida Kitarō Zenshū(NKZ, the Complete Works of Kitarō Nishida, Vol. 3). The final translation and editing of the above passages were completed by David Dilworth.