Feeling nothing: Numbness and emotional absence

Abstract

I argue that it is possible for a subject to undergo experiences of emotional absence, during which she becomes aware of her own failure to be moved by the world around her. Just as a part of one's body feels numb when it manifestly fails to incur the ordinary sensory consequences of transactions at the surface of the skin, so an individual feels emotional absence when her affective condition manifestly fails to vary in predictable ways as she navigates her surroundings. Experiences of emotional absence, such as feeling numb with shock or grief, feeling unamused, or feeling fearless, are not simply flat or neutral states of awareness, but can bear psychological and epistemic significance for the agent.