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 PHIL 300-002 - Nietzsche
 On Man's Dwelling within Moods		  New Topic  Reply to Topic
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Joseph Haag
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172 Posts
Posted - Nov 17 2010 :  2:39:02 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Today in class we wondered whether or not the small had the danger of spreading their weakness around to others. Tom remarked that smallness is contagious in much the same way that happiness or sadness or yawning are contagious. Ray said we have a way of "aping" what others are doing.

As all this was being said, I couldn't help thinking of that business about moods in Heidegger's Being and Time. Heidegger challenges the notion that moods are contained inside of us and are then projected out into our experience. We tend to think that a person in a bad mood will project his or her grumpiness out onto the world; when one is angry everything looks bad. But when one is happy the world suddenly looks better. To see a person in a bad mood and then mimic that behavior is aping. This is just the kind of thinking I want to shy away from.

Rather than being contained on the inside, moods are "outside" (though I don't know how literally I want to employ that term) where we dwell. So really, happiness is something in which you and I dwell together; it's not just that you and I both decide to conjure it up within each of ourselves or that we just "happen" to have our inner states coincide.

So if Nietzsche is on a mission to change moods more than thoughts, what on earth could this mean? He who seeks to change thoughts is on a mission to get into each person's head and change the inventory of what's on the inside. But he who seeks to change moods is on a mission to change the outside "space" (not literal space) and change that in which we all lucidly dwell.

[Very lightly edited to enhance readability -TT]

Jeff Oates
Journeyman

53 Posts
Posted - Nov 17 2010 :  5:14:10 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Joe, I agree. I would be careful with the aping explanation in regards to moods as well. But moods and thoughts sometimes coincide with each other. Thinking about something can make you angry. But moods also aften seem almost instinctinve. People often say such things as: "you can feel the positive energy when you are around them." This is an energy that is passed through each of us as if it is something supernatural. I don't think of it as people trying to mimic one another but as energy flowing from one person to the next. Interesting post, I am cautious about believing this phenomenon is "aping" though.

[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT]
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Joseph Haag
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172 Posts
Posted - Nov 18 2010 :  11:44:56 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Jeff, I am equally recalcitrant to the notion that we ape each other's moods. That smacks a bit too much of activity for my tastes. I don't think feeling is something that we do so much as it is a something in which we dwell. It's almost like finding yourself in water, or in a snowstorm.

[Very lightly edited to enhance readability -TT]
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Tom Trelogan
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1367 Posts
Posted - Nov 20 2010 :  09:14:54 AM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Joe, did I say that it's smallness that's contagious? I think I was talking about pity: the sorrow or sadness that's caused by misfortune -- one's own or others'. Maybe smallness is contagious. Anyway, it may well be capable of "spreading." But I don't think that smallness itself falls within the category of moods. Sadness does. For the rest, I'm as skeptical about the inwardness or subjectivity of thought as I am -- and as both of you are, I guess -- about the inwardness or subjectivity of mood. All these things, it seems to me, are on the "outside" -- though as you say, Joe, if we deny meaningfulness to talk about the "inside," then there goes the meaningfulness of talking about the "outside" by way of contrast. I'm inclined, myself, to say that all these things are found pervading the world, the world in which we find ourselves.
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Will Emmons
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47 Posts
Posted - Nov 23 2010 :  5:14:16 PM  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Joe, if you fairly represent some of Heidegger's ideas in Being and Time concerning moods then they stand for me as nothing more than some really low grade psychological considerations (by our more current standards). I do not currently own a copy of Being and Time; would you be willing to look over the relevant passages together or to offer them, length permitting, here in this thread?

Besides that, I am quite willing to join nearly any party (exaggeration intended) that maintains that moods are not essentially private episodes or occurrences. The question I would like to pose is twofold:

1. Do moods always have an object, that is to say, is a mood always a mood in relation to, or concerning, or "about" something (forgive my imprecision here!)?

2. Supposing that Nietzsche is attempting to change moods, what is he up against?

[Lightly edited to enhance readability -TT]
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