Interpersonal atmospheres: an empathetic account

Abstract

Interpersonal atmospheres have received little specific attention in atmosphere literature and have been thrown, somewhat unceremoniously, from work done on the phenomenology of sociality. My thesis aims to fill this double lacuna. I present a phenomenological account of interpersonal atmosphere as a bodily form of empathetic perception. Rather than treat atmospheres as a mysterious object of experience, I argue that they are a relational mode of experience; not a what but a how. I claim that we experience individuals and groups as having an atmosphere when we bodily perceive the expressive experience of the participating subjects. By reconceiving interpersonal atmospheres as a form of bodily felt empathy that discloses the expressive experience of individuals and collectives, we capture why experiencing interpersonal atmosphere gives us social understanding (and, conversely, why being insensitive to atmosphere inhibits our social understanding). Furthermore, by cashing out interpersonal atmosphere in terms of empathy, we enrich and expand traditional conceptions of empathy: highlighting how we not only empathetically perceive emotions but also mood, vitality and interrelatedness; developing a notion of collective empathy, whereby we empathetically perceive the expressivity not of a ‘you’ but of a ‘they’; as well as doing justice to a more fully embodied way of apprehending others as temporally and spatially extended subjects. Having established an empathetic account of interpersonal atmosphere, I put this model to work by exploring the various ways in which we engage with interpersonal atmospheres and discussing instances where we are rendered insensitive to atmosphere. I, then, explore how the material world plays a role in shaping, supporting and sustaining expressive behaviour and how this impacts the emergence of interpersonal atmospheres. I also show how an account of interpersonal atmosphere can inform our understanding of non-peopled atmospheres and conclude by exploring the idea that we experience interpersonal atmospheres in the online sphere.