The theory of the emotions outlined in the preceding pages was intended to serve as an experiment for the constitution of a phenomenological psychology. Naturally, its character as an example has prevented our entering upon the developments to which it should lead.1 On the other hand, since it was necessary to make a clean sweep of the ordinary psychological theories of emotion, we have had to ascend gradually from the psychological considerations of James to the idea of signification. A phenomenological psychology which was sure of itself, and had already cleared the ground, would begin by first of all establishing, in an eidetic reflection, the essence of the psychological fact it was investigating. That is what we have tried to do for the mental image in a work that will shortly appear. But in spite of these reservations of detail, we hope we have succeeded in showing that a psychological fact like emotion, commonly supposed to be a lawless disorder, possesses a signification of its own, and cannot be understood in itself, without the comprehension of this signification. We now wish to indicate the limitations of such a psychological investigation.
We said, in our Introduction, that the significance of a fact of consciousness came to this: that it always pointed to the whole human-reality which was making itself emotional, attentive, perceptive, willing, etc. The study of the emotions has indeed verified this principle: an emotion refers to what it signifies. And what it signifies is indeed, in effect, the totality of the relations of the human-reality to the world. The onset of emotion is a complete modification of the 'being-in-the-world' according to the very particular laws of magic. But one can immediately see the limitations of such a description: the psychological theory of emotion postulates an antecedent description of affectivity so far as the latter constitutes the being of the human-reality — that is, in so far as it is constitutive of our human-reality to be affective human-reality. If that postulate were granted, then instead of beginning with a study of emotion or of the inclinations that pointed to a human-reality not yet elucidated as the ultimate term of all research — an ideal term, moreover, and very probably unattainable for those who start from the empirical — our description of the affects would proceed from the human-reality described and fixed by an a priori intuition. The various disciplines of phenomenological psychology are regressive although though the ultimate term of their regression is, for them, purely ideal: those of pure phenomenology, on the contrary, are progressive. It may, no doubt, be asked why, under these conditions, one should choose to employ the two disciplines simultaneously; pure phenomenology might seem to suffice. But, if phenomenology can prove that emotion is realization of the essence of the human-reality in so far as the latter is affectivity, it will be impossible for it to show that the human-reality must necessarily manifest itself in such emotions as it does. That there are such and such emotions and not others — this is, beyond all doubt, evidence of the factitious character of human existence. It is this factitiousness that necessitates a regular recourse to the empirical; and which, in all probability, will forever prevent the psychological regression and the phenomenological progression from complete convergence.
1From this point of view, we hope that our suggestions may lead, in particular, to the initiation of complete monographic studies of joy, sadness, etc. Here we have furnished only the schematic directions of such monographs.
