Jussi A. Saarinen

In this article, I use current theorizsation in philosophy of mind to reappraise art historian Michael Baxandall’s account of the ‘period eye’. Baxandall coined this term to capture the culturally distinctive ways in which paintings were produced and perceived in fifteenth-century Renaissance Italy. Based on a critical reading of his cognitive-–perceptual account of pictorial apprehension, I argue that the period eye is essentially relational and therefore irreducible to the exercise of any capacity bound solely to the mind of an individual beholder. More specifically, I re-conceptualize the period eye as a set of affordances, or a niche, which comprises the possibilities for skilled action in the beholder’s material and socio-cultural environment. I also suggest that the term ‘niche eye’ better captures the phenomenon at stake and accommodates the possible co-existence of various equally appropriate ways of apprehending pictures during any given historical period.

In this article, we suggest that bereavement can produce a crisis of narration: a situation where the bereaved individual needs to narrativize their grieving experience but cannot find suitable narrative resources to do so. We then argue that songwriting can provide effective self-narrative means to handle such a crisis, not only because it addresses the thematic contents of grief—e.g., suffering or longing—but also because it enables the songwriter to find fitting aesthetic form for their ongoing experience. Relatedly, we point towards a critical reconsideration of the functions that narratives have been suggested to perform in relation to grieving. To substantiate our overall proposal, we present detailed case studies of two albums—or records of grieving—that can be seen as direct self-narrative responses to bereavement: Phil Elverum’s A Crow Looked at Me and Nick Cave’s Ghosteen. In focusing not only on the content of these two lyrical narratives but also on their distinctive form and delivery, we highlight how a shift in musical-lyrical style can itself mirror and express the experience of grieving and negotiate its accompanying crisis of narration. We submit that, whereas Elverum’s songwriting functioned to express and ‘exorcise’ the essential brutality of his wife’s death, Cave’s songs enabled him to create a ‘home’ in which to reconnect with his son. Overall, we maintain that the two cases serve as noteworthy exemplars of what self-narrative practices can do in grief and as such open up valuable conceptual space for further philosophical investigations into the matter.

In contemporary philosophy of mind, scaffolding designates the various ways in which our cognitions and affects are enabled, regulated, and modified by environmental factors that range from material artifacts and other people to architectural designs and cultural practices (Clark 2008; Sterelny 2010; Colombetti & Krueger 2015; Coninx & Stephan 2021). In this article, I expand the scope of scaffolding theory by applying it to a previously unexamined type of phenomenon: existential transformations. In short, these are processes where an individual’s basic sense of reality undergoes profound and relatively long-lasting alterations. My main claim is that the use of external scaffolding can play a crucial role in such periods of extensive existential change. To unpack this claim, I proceed as follows. First, based on phenomenological theorization on the structure of experience in general (Heidegger 1927; Køster & Fernandez 2023), and then on the experience of grieving in particular (Køster 2022; Ratcliffe 2023; Higgins 2024), I specify what I mean by an existential transformation and the shifts in one’s sense of reality that it entails. I then draw on psychoanalytical thinking (Winnicott 1971; Bollas 2018) to introduce the notion of transformative scaffolds, i.e., environmental resources that can in various ways be used to enable, support, and regulate a marked shift from one experiential world into another. To exemplify this kind of scaffolded transformation, I return to the topic of grief and discuss how the practice of painting can beneficially shape post-bereavement mourning. To conclude, I recap my main theses and consider how they might inform future research on the scaffolded mind.

In this article, I use current theorisation in philosophy of mind to reappraise art historian Michael Baxandall’s account of the ‘period eye’. Baxandall coined this term to capture the culturally distinctive ways in which paintings were produced and perceived in fifteenth-century Renaissance Italy. Based on a critical reading of his cognitive-perceptual account of pictorial apprehension, I argue that the period eye is essentially relational and therefore irreducible to the exercise of any capacity bound solely to the mind of an individual beholder. More specifically, I re-conceptualize the period eye as a set of affordances, or a niche, which comprises the possibilities for skilled action in the beholder’s material and socio-cultural environment. I also suggest that the term ‘niche eye’ better captures the phenomenon at stake and accommodates the possible co-existence of various equally appropriate ways of apprehending pictures during any given historical period.

The concept of affective scaffolding designates the various ways in which we manipulate the environment to influence our affective lives. In this article, I present a constructive critique of recent discussion on affective scaffolding. In Part 1, I summarize how the theories of situated mind and niche construction contribute to a multidimensional notion of scaffolding. In Part 2, I focus specifically on affective scaffolding and argue that current ambiguity over its distinctive criteria causes uncertainty as to how the concept can and should be used. In Part 3, I identify and examine two possible responses to the suggested state of conceptual ambiguity. The first, restrictive option is to keep pushing for more definite criteria. The second, permissive option is to embrace and work with a broad understanding of affective scaffolding. I argue that the latter choice is more pragmatic and productive. To conclude, I summarize where my examination leaves us in regard to ongoing theoretical work on affective scaffolding.

The oceanic feeling has been a relatively persistent topic of discussion in both creativity research and aesthetics. Characterized by a sensation of self-boundary dissolution, the feeling has often been reported to involve experiences of fusion with various objects, including works of art. In this article, I will discuss the oceanic feeling in the specific context of painterly creativity. I will begin by arguing that the oceanic feeling cannot be classified as an emotion, mood, or bodily feeling in the established senses of these terms. I will then introduce philosopher Matthew Ratcliffe’s theory of existential feelings to help formulate a more accurate view of the oceanic feeling. More specifically, I will suggest that oceanic feelings should be classified as shifts in existential feeling. To conclude, I will briefly discuss the implications of my account of the oceanic feeling for the more general pursuits of painterly creativity and artistic self-transformation.

For countless citizens in the United States, guns are objects of personal attachment that provide strong feelings of power and security. I argue that a key reason for such tight affective bonds is that, under certain conditions, guns become integrated into their owners’ embodied experience. To flesh out this view, I explain (a) how firearms, as material artifacts, can become a part of the feeling body and (b) how this integration impacts one’s experience of self, others, and the world. I first apply the distinction between body-incorporation and body-extension by De Preester and Tsakiris (Phenomenol Cogn Sci 8:307–319, 2009) to delineate how guns can (and cannot) be integrated into lived bodies. I then introduce Ihde's (Technology and the life world: from garden to earth, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1990) notion of embodiment relations to elaborate on the key experiential features of technologically extended bodies and complement the previous, sensorimotor-centric accounts of bodily extension with Colombetti's (Phenomenology for the twenty-first century, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2016) concept of affective incorporation. With this theoretical framework in place, I proceed to examine the motives and affective dynamics involved in the incorporation of guns, the practices by which this incorporation is constituted, and its impact on gun carriers’ habitual comportment. In doing so, I identify two notable contradictions: first, between a desire for the power afforded by firearms and the lack in oneself that this power implies, and second, between one’s seemingly beneficial feelings of confidence/safety and potentially harmful transformations in one’s perceptions of threat. To conclude, I discuss how my analysis challenges current theorization on technologically extended bodies and consider its relevance for ongoing debates over gun policy.

In a recent study on artistic creativity, artists from several fields were interviewed regarding their subjective experiences of the creative process.1 In addition to various psychological and behavioral phenomena, the artists reported feelings of connectedness with something beyond themselves, of dissolution of personal boundaries, of absorption in the artwork, and of timelessness, awe, and joy. For the past half-century, psychoanalytical writers on art have used the concept “oceanic feeling” to designate similar experiences of oneness, limitlessness, and elation in creativity. Despite its long-term use, the concept still lacks precision—due perhaps to the elusiveness and ineffability of the very experience it..

In current philosophy of mind, there is lively debate over whether emotions, moods, and other affects can extend to comprise elements beyond one’s organismic boundaries. At the same time, there has been growing interest in the nature and significance of so-called existential feelings, which, as the term suggests, are feelings of one’s overall being in the world. In this article, I bring these two strands of investigation together to ask: Can the material underpinnings of existential feelings extend beyond one’s skull and skin? To begin, I introduce and adopt a componential-systemic view of extended affectivity. In doing so, I specify the vehicle externalist criteria for extension employed in my analysis. I then define what existential feelings are and pinpoint several key issues in their potential extension. More specifically, I identify sensorimotor ‘know-how’ as a possibly extending component of existential feeling and posit it as the fulcrum of my argument. Finally, I move on to consider the extension of existential feeling via sensory substitution, especially through so-called Tactile Visual Sensory Substitution (TVSS) devices. Informed by both philosophical and empirical studies, I argue that, under certain conditions, (a) the agent’s implicit sensorimotor processing and a TVSS device can become coupled into a new systemic whole, which in turn (b) reconfigures the material underpinnings of the agent’s pre-intentional world-experience. This, I conclude, counts as a cogent case for extended existential feeling.

It is increasingly acknowledged that creativity cannot be fully understood without considering the setting where it takes place. Building on this premise, we use the concepts of niche construction, scaffolding, coupling, and functional integration to expound on the environmentally situated nature of painters’ studio work. Our analysis shows studios to be multi-resource niches that are customized by artists to support various capacities, states, and actions crucial to painting. When at work in these personalized spaces, painters do not need to rely solely on their “inner” powers of imagination, memory, decision making, and technique to execute their paintings. Instead, with the help of carefully selected resources, they can offload elements of creative mentation and action onto the studio niche and enact different forms of a creative agency. To put more flesh on these ideas, we examine how painters use existing artworks, memory aids, and music to scaffold the creative process. Overall, our analysis illuminates underexamined aspects of environmentally situated creativity and demonstrates the broader utility of the applied concepts for future creativity research.

Art museums are built to elicit a wide variety of feelings, emotions, and moods from their visitors. While these effects are primarily achieved through the artworks on display, museums commonly deploy numerous other affect-inducing resources as well, including architectural solutions, audio guides, lighting fixtures, and informational texts. Art museums can thus be regarded as spaces that are designed to influence affective experiencing through multiple structures and mechanisms. At face value, this may seem like a somewhat self-evident and trivial statement to make. However, in this article, I argue that niche construction theory enables us to make several illuminating observations about the ways in which art museums are engineered to influence our feelings. To expound on this claim, I single out for discussion the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which for its entire lifespan (1939–52)—and prior to its evolution into the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—was expressly organized to kindle in its visitors a special, spiritual form of aesthetic experience: a liberating feeling of cosmic rhythm and order, no less. The argument will proceed as follows: In Part 1, I introduce the basics of niche construction theory and specify the sense in which I apply it to museums and aesthetic affective experiencing. In Part 2, I outline the origins and ethos of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, after which I pin down the type of affective experience it fostered by drawing from visitors’ self-reported reactions to the artworks on display. Then, in Part 3, I use niche construction theory to explain how the Museum consciously fashioned itself, by means of various mutually supportive resources and technologies, into a fertile setting for the specified feelings. Finally, in Part 4, I extend beyond the discussed case to assess the implications of niche construction theory for a broader understanding of how art museums make us feel. In other words, by tracing the early steps of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting towards the present-day Guggenheim, I call attention to the general variation in affective niches as regards their structure, technologies, and affective aims. Overall, the article elucidates the functioning of art museums as affective niches and furthers the conceptual development of niche construction theory in aesthetics.

Why do painters paint? Obviously, there are numerous possible reasons. They paint to create images for others’ enjoyment, to solve visual problems, to convey ideas, and to contribute to a rich artistic tradition. This book argues that there is yet another, crucially important but often overlooked reason. Painters paint to feel. They paint because it enables them to experience special feelings, such as being absorbed in creative play and connected to something vitally significant. Painting may even transform the painter’s whole sense of being. Thus, painting is not only about producing art, communicating content, and so on, but also about setting up and inhabiting an experiential space wherein highly valued feelings are interactively enabled and supported. This book investigates how and why this happens by combining psychoanalytical theorization on creativity with philosophical thinking on affectivity. It focuses on creative experience itself, and illuminates the psychological mechanisms and dynamics that underlie the affects at stake. Painters’ own descriptions of how they feel at work are used throughout to give an accurate, true-to-life portrayal of the experience of painting. The strength of the book lies in its open-minded yet critical integration of contemporary psychoanalytic and philosophical thinking, and in its truthfulness to painters’ experiential descriptions of the painterly process. On the whole, it enriches our understanding of artistic creativity and sheds more light on how and why we come to feel the things we do. As such, the book will appeal to philosophers, psychoanalysts, and art researchers alike.

We humans continuously reshape the environment to alter, enhance, and sustain our affective lives. This two-way modification has been discussed in recent philosophy of mind as affective scaffolding, wherein scaffolding quite literally means that our affective states are enabled and supported by environmental resources such as material objects, other people, and physical spaces. In this article, I will argue that under certain conditions paintings function as noteworthy affective scaffolds to their creators. To expound this idea, I will begin with a theoretical overview of affective niche construction and affective scaffolding. Then, based on the criteria of robustness, concreteness, and dependability, I will specify a solid type of affective scaffolding and propound paintings as a cogent case of such. In support of my argument, I will highlight two feelings typical to painterly creativity: the feeling of aesthetic resonance and the feeling of fusion. To conclude, I will discuss the overall contributions and limitations of my account.

Matthew Ratcliffe has argued that existential feelings form a distinct class of bodily and non-conceptual feelings that pre-intentionally structure our intentional experience of others, the world, and ourselves. In this article, I will identify and discuss three interrelated areas of concern for Ratcliffe’s theory of existential feelings. First, the distinct senses in which existential feelings are felt as background bodily feelings and as spaces of possibility calls for further clarification. Second, the nature of the suggested bi-directional relationship between existential feelings and intentional experience remains ambiguous. Third, viewed in light of existential guilt, the categorically non-conceptual nature of existential feelings may not be as definite as presumed. The aim of the article is to draw critical attention to aspects of the theory that would benefit from further development, and therefore, to advance the ongoing discussion about existential feelings.

In this paper I draw on contemporary philosophy of emotion to illuminate the phenomenological structure of so-called oceanic feelings. I suggest that oceanic feelings come in two distinct forms: as transient episodes that consist in a feeling of dissolution of the psychological and sensory boundaries of the self, and as a relatively permanent feeling of unity, embracement, immanence, and openness that does not involve occurrent experiences of boundary dissolution. I argue that both forms of feeling are existential feelings, i.e. pre-intentional bodily feelings that structure overall self-world experience. I re-conceptualize episodic oceanic feelings as shifts in existential feeling, and permanent oceanic feelings as stable existential orientations. On the whole, my analysis elucidates a class of feeling that is allegedly quite common, yet frequently misunderstood. It will also serve to enrich our understanding of the general phenomenological structure of our affective lives