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This chapter begins with a brief discussion of tactile-motor-kinaesthetic perceiving. It argues that through use of the tactile-motor-kinaesthetic sensory input and imagery that we learn the boundaries of self and not-self, and the geography of our own bodies and the three-dimensionality of things and of spaces between them. It then introduces the ‘Feeling Once, Feeling Twice Phenomenon’ that is manifested when you place your hands on a surface and what you feel with your hands does not feel back; then, as you move your hands to come into contact with one another, what you feel does (even quite sensuously so) feel back. What feels back, and what is felt as continuous (for instance, ends of the hair) with that, forms the geography of your body and its limits against what is not your body, namely, what does not feel back.

Drawing upon the work of Antonio Damasio, Norbert Elias, Erving Goffman, Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and Raymond Williams, the author develops the notion of emotional styles as a means of addressing the continuities between the visceral, the psychological, the social, and the historical. Using Avery Gordon's language of ghosts and haunting as a metaphorical device, the author sees familicide as an uncanny act, an outcome of the highly charged interplay between emotional styles, familial atmospheres of feeling, and broader-ranging figurations of feeling emergent in modern life. Through the analysis of two cases, the author introduces the idea that offenders are socially disconnected, lacking a sense of place, even in the midst of family life and broader social interdependencies. Familicidal hearts are therefore haunted hearts, souls forged out of the anomic and alienating conditions of modern life.

This chapter addresses the biggest oversimplification in our various attempts to talk about emotions: the seemingly obvious idea that emotions are feelings. It pursues the objection that “emotions are feelings” may be a plausible starting point, but argues that it is woefully inadequate as an analysis of emotion. It also lends itself to the “primitivization” of emotions that allows us to easily turn them into excuses. Feelings are by their nature dumb and without intelligence, whatever our intelligence may subsequently make of them. One doesn't expect an unintelligent feeling to carry with it any sense of responsibility at all.

This chapter is the first of four on the question of legitimacy in the EU, and deals with the core question of whether and to what extent the citizens of the EU have grown together into a political community. The first section discusses the common European heritage, and sources of conflicts and diversity, and then introduces the concept of sense of political community, in which two dimensions are distinguished: identification (which refers to the citizens themselves) and ‘we‐feeling’ (which refers to fellow citizens). These two dimensions are compatible with modern theories of intergroup relations, and are discussed further in the next two sections of the chapter. The first of these monitors the evolution of European identifications from 1982 to 1995, and compares the pride of EU citizens and political elites in being European. The second investigates whether EU citizens trust their fellow Europeans, and where the geographical borderline is drawn between ingroup and outgroup.

This chapter summarizes the discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that the sensorimotor approach, by taking feel as an abstract quality of our interaction with the environment, helps provide an explanation for consciousness in a biological or physical system. Far from being simply a philosophical stance, the sensorimotor approach makes empirically verifiable predictions and opens new research programs in topics such as visual attention, sensory substitution, color and tactile perception, and robotics.

This chapter argues that emotions are quintessentially subjective states that have important objective and public aspects. They are subjective in that the content of an emotion can be given only in the telling of a particular individual’s life story; they are objective as appraisals of reality. Emotions are orientations to the world that show how things matter to us, revealing the world in its relation to us, and ourselves in relation to the world. The difference between emotion and feeling is briefly discussed.

This chapter deals with Plutarch's On Feeling Good, which presents itself as a letter written by Plutarch, who characterizes himself as a philosopher, at the demand of a publicly active man. As this chapter shows, Plutarch and his addressee are both dramatic characters designed to guide the reader's responses. In contrast to what other philosophers suggest, Plutarch does not encourage Paccius to give up public activity if he is to achieve well-being, nor to devote himself to studying philosophical intricacies: the help he offers him in this practical ethical text will be enough. This advice was tailor-made for Plutarch's target readers, who often placed a high value on involvement in society, yet it also had the advantage of reserving the role of philosopher exclusively for Plutarch himself.

This chapter discusses Audi's version of metaethical intuitionism, arguing that it faces significant objections. Without a basis for the theory's claims of self-evidence, it argues, moral intuitions can be charged with arbitrariness. Moreover, familiar problems concerning “queerness” and supervenience remain. This chapter proposes that moral intuitions are grounded in conative experiences of “felt obligation”. It then argues that his version of intuitionism preserves the virtues of Audi's approach—indeed sharing the spirit of Audi's theory—without succumbing to the skeptical problems.

Two of the five endings shown in Wagner’s Ring are evidently celebratory. Although this ecstatic mood is carried over two operas later, this chapter observes how these instances exhibit a deceptive feel. In one case, we experience arrogance and in the other, we notice unstable emotions. Despite how the other three endings in the drama exude a darker impression by accompanying situations of loss and defeat, all of these instances seem to be more affirmative. This chapter discusses the musical effects employed to make the atmosphere of the scenes more powerful and understandable. As the five endings structure the drama through providing deceptive triumph, hope, and other such emotions, the judgment of the closing plot is both affirmative and tragic. However, it is emphasized that as the world ends, it should be noted that the earth remains and is still capable of achieving renewal.

This chapter examines definitions and various perspectives of the terms need and needs assessment. Need is a relative term that can have different meanings to various individuals and communities. The chapter teaches that there is not a single way to conceptualize needs assessment, rather the focus of a needs assessment effort can be directed specifically at the awareness of services, availability, accessibility, or acceptability of services. Knowledge about how clients or the community view an agency's services along these four foci improves service delivery and helps the agency to be more responsive and accountable. Needs assessments are part of a program planning development cycle that includes an evaluation of the impact of the intervention on the population with need. Social workers use needs assessments to secure resources to address macro problems, to assist in the modification of policy, to improve services, and to establish or strengthen partnerships with other agencies and organizations.

This chapter is, as it were, the counterpart of On Feeling Good: in a kind of open letter, Plutarch here teaches that exclusion from politics does not have to lead to unhappiness. It is noteworthy, in this respect, that Plutarch exploited the theme of exile not, as other authors did, to discuss philosophy, but to discuss politics: he explicitly refuses to see exile as a turning point at which to opt for a philosophical life. At first sight, this is an altruistic project offering comfort to a man attached to politics with its concomitant honour and fame. Yet careful examination shows that Plutarch may be promoting his own life as well: if he did not make the same political career as some of his readers, he uses On Exile to present that as a sign not of weakness but of strength.

This chapter looks at Rimsky-Korsakov's Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden) in the political context of the era, namely within a particular branch of 1870s populism that extolled “harmonious communal ritual, agrarian prehistory, and the development of individual feeling.” Together, the Snegurochkas of Alexander Ostrovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov offer perhaps the clearest representations in art of the populist notion of the ideal past, depicting the prehistoric village as a site of social cooperation and humane politics. Indeed, in his adaptation of Snegurochka, Rimsky-Korsakov united an idealized vision of the past with the progress of private, inner feeling. Meanwhile, Russia's thick journals of the seventies brimmed with articles by populist thinkers like Nikolai Mikhailovsky and stories about village life by writers such as Gleb Uspensky and Nikolai Zlatovratsky.