Atmospheres and Moods: Two Modes of Being-with

Abstract

Being-in-the-world is felt as a mood, but it is also perceived in atmospheres. Both forms of emotional state are closely related. As musical instruments can be tuned for a certain tone, so also atmospheres and persons can be attuned for a certain feeling. Not only does colloquial language blur the differences between atmospheres and moods. Also, the scientific terminology lacks clear distinctions. On the one hand, situational feeling is an expression of a personal basic mood, but on the other hand, it is a mirror of changing atmospheres. While basic moods are rooted in a personal situation, the atmospheres often affect the individual from spatial and social environments. However, it is too easy to understand moods as feelings coming from an inside and atmospheres as feelings, which affect from an outside. Both have their own internal and external references, and in both circumstances, a person is confronted with own (current and enduring) emotional states. This chapter deals with points of contact, overlaps and differences. Of central importance are the philosophical reflections of Martin Heidegger, Otto Friedrich Bollnow and Hermann Schmitz. The threshold on which an atmosphere becomes a mood corresponds to the power of a feeling that generates subjective involvement. This is what constitutes the difference between the two: there are distinct forms of subjective “being-with”, one with emotional distance and one without.