Abstract

My dissertation examines the often neglected role of mood in thought by retracing Heidegger's engagement with Aristotle on the subject. To explore the interplay between the cognitive and the affective, I challenge traditional dichotomies between "emotionalism" and "rationalism." The pathos of thought guides practical reasoning, poetic language, even philosophical speculation, by disposing us toward the world in certain ways. ;Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe demonstrates a profound Aristotelian influence. The central Aristotelian thesis of the many senses of Being shaped his thinking from the start. For Heidegger, mood acquires ontological significance: the many senses of Being speak to us in our many moods. Heidegger portrays his understanding of Stimmung, "attunement," as a revival of Aristotelian pathos, an affective and intelligent response to reality. But this revival is ambivalent: Heidegger transforms Aristotle's insights. I aim for a genuine dialogue between the two, which allows Aristotle to respond in spirit to Heidegger's critique. Chapter One introduces the philosophical significance of mood, questioning prejudices against emotional and rhetorical expression. Chapter Two examines the young Heidegger's rediscovery of Aristotle and shows what Being and Time owes to Aristotelian ethics, and how it diverges. A close reading of Heideggerian anxiety and Aristotelian fear highlights this complex inheritance. Chapter Three explores the affective dimension of philosophy, its moods of wonder, doubt, melancholy, joy. Aristotle's thesis that philosophy begins with the pathos of wonder has a lasting impact upon Heidegger. But insisting that original thought demands original moods, Heidegger embraces fright, awe, and restraint, new moods for a new beginning of philosophy that leaves behind Aristotelian curiosity. Chapter Four discusses the communication of mood in the style and music of discourse. Heidegger revives the Aristotelian understanding that poetry opens an ethical-political world through its communal moods. But Heidegger challenges the boundaries between poetry and philosophy by insisting on a style of estrangement for both. I examine the consequences of this change, exploring how Heidegger's opaque style and foreboding mood represent rhetorical excesses against which Aristotle cautions. Throughout, I suggest an Aristotelian critique of Heidegger by a retrieval of Aristotelian pathos, praxis, and phronesis