Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 1/27 1 Martin Heidegger is credited as having offered one of the most thorough phenomenological investigations of the nature of boredom in the history of philosophy. Indeed, in his 1929–1930 lecture course, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude (FCM ), Heidegger goes to great lengths to distinguish between different types of boredom and to explicate their respective characters. Moreover, Heidegger, at least within the context of his discussion of profound boredom [tiefe Langeweile ], opposes much of the philosophical and literary tradition on boredom insofar as he articulates how the experience of boredom, though disorienting, can be existentially beneficial to us. Yet despite the many insights that Heidegger's discussion of boredom offers, it is difficult to make sense of profound boredom within the context of contemporary psychological and philosophical research on 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? Andreas Elpidorou and Lauren Freeman © The Author(s) 2019 C. Hadjioannou (ed.), Heidegger on Affect, Philosophers in Depth, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24639-6_8 A. Elpidorou (*) * L. Freeman Department of Philosophy, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA e-mail: andreas.elpidorou@louisville.edu L. Freeman e-mail: lauren.freeman@louisville.edu 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 2/27 2 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman boredom. That is because profound boredom does not map neatly onto either our pre-theoretical understanding of boredom or extant psychological accounts of boredom. In this chapter, we undertake a study of the nature of profound boredom with the aim of investigating its place within contemporary psychological and philosophical research on boredom. Although boredom used to be a neglected emotional state, that is no longer the case. In recent years, boredom's causal antecedents, effects and concomitants, experiential profile, and neurophysiological correlates have become topics of active, rigorous study. The same goes for boredom's influence on behavior, its relationship to self-regulation, and its connection to other related affective states. Such a situation provides a ripe opportunity to scrutinize Heidegger's claims and to try to understand them both on their own terms and in light of our contemporary understanding of boredom. The structure of this chapter is as follows. In Sect. 1, we offer a concise overview of the psychology of boredom. There, we distinguish between the constructs of state boredom and trait boredom; describe their respective natures; and briefly discuss their effects on behavior, cognition, and other affective states. In Sect. 2, we turn to Heidegger's account of boredom. Although we discuss the nature of all three kinds of boredom, we focus primarily on profound boredom and consider the existential and philosophical value that Heidegger ascribes to it. In Sect. 3, we address the question of whether profound boredom is indeed boredom by comparing it to the ways in which boredom has been understood in contemporary psychology and in philosophy. We argue that although profound boredom shares some features with such understandings, it cannot be seamlessly assimilated to any known category of boredom. Such a finding is important. It cannot be assumed that Heidegger's (profound) boredom is identical to either our colloquial or scientific understanding of boredom. Nor can one use Heidegger's account of this type of boredom to make general claims about the phenomenon of boredom. All the same, we offer an interpretation of profound boredom that retains the characteristics that Heidegger assigns to it and allows for a meaningful comparison both to our common experience of boredom and to our scientific understanding of it. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 3/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 3 1 Boredom: A Primer One obstacle that the study of boredom faces, but certainly not the only one, is the unfortunate fact that the term "boredom" is polysemic: depending on the context, the term both denotes and connotes different things (Fenichel 1951, 349; Vodanovich 2003, 589). As such, one can draw different, and sometimes even conflicting, conclusions about the nature of boredom. For the present purposes, we utilize the distinction between state boredom (a transitory affective experience) and trait boredom (a lasting personality trait). Empirically, the distinction has been both confirmed and proven to be exceptionally useful. Conceptually, the distinction is capable of capturing much of our pre-theoretical grasp of boredom-it accounts, inter alia, for the various principles governing the application of the concept boredom.1 Consider, first, how the term "boredom" is usually used in everyday situations, such as when a child becomes bored with a toy, when you find a movie boring, or when patients are bored by having to wait at the dentist's office. In such situations, boredom is understood to be a state: namely, a short-lived (i.e., transitory), aversive experience. State boredom is characterized by feelings of dissatisfaction, a perception of lack of meaning, attentional difficulties, and even an altered perception of the passage of time. While bored, one is disengaged with one's current situation and experiences a strong desire to escape from it. In terms of its physiological character, boredom is characterized by a decrease in arousal, although an increase may also occur. As a low arousal state, boredom is disengaging; whereas as a high arousal state, it prepares one for action or change.2 All in all, boredom is an unpleasant state from which one seeks escape and solace. Whereas "state boredom" refers to a transitory experience, "trait boredom" is meant to capture a characteristic of agents that persists through situational change and which is predictive of one's behavior. Trait boredom is variously described as the "tendency," "propensity," "disposition," or "susceptibility" to experience boredom often and in a wide range of situations. It is thought to be a lasting personality trait and is assessed by multi-item, self-report scales. Several measures of trait boredom exist in the literature. However, the only two 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 4/27 4 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman existing measures of trait boredom that are neither limited in scope nor lacking in reliability and validity (Vodanovich 2003), are the Boredom Proneness Scale (BPS) (Farmer and Sundberg 1986) and the Boredom Susceptibility Scale (ZBS) (Zuckerman 1979). Of these two scales, only BPS is a full-scale measure of boredom. As such, we restrict our attention primarily to findings that involve the use of BPS. Research on the correlates of trait boredom has demonstrated that the propensity to experience boredom is associated with numerous harms (for reviews see Elpidorou 2017; Vodanovich 2003; Vodanovich and Watt 2016). Boredom proneness (i.e., the construct that BPS operationalizes and measures and which is thought to correspond to trait boredom) has been positively correlated to poor social relationships, lower life and job satisfaction, difficulty in finding meaning in one's life, depression, anger and aggression, anxiety, loneliness, and apathy. Individuals prone to boredom experience impulse control deficits, and are more likely to engage in risk-taking behavior, and are prone to drug and alcohol abuse. It has also been suggested that boredom proneness is morally significant insofar as it hinders one's ability to live a flourishing life (Elpidorou 2017). And if all of the above were not enough, there is even evidence suggesting that too much boredom can be an indication of early death (Britton and Shipley 2010). Understood as a lasting personality trait, boredom is a pervasive existential condition. It changes our world, our selves, and our relationships to others. It is no surprise then that (trait) boredom has the (poor) reputation that it does. 2 Heidegger's Boredom Heidegger's account of boredom appears in the first part of FCM, a lecture course delivered in 1929–1930. Prior to the lecture course, the only fundamental attunement that Heidegger discussed was anxiety (Angst ), which played a key role both in Being and Time (BT ) (1927) and in "What Is Metaphysics?" (1929). One aim of FCM was to delineate his conception of philosophy and metaphysics, already evolving 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 5/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 5 from the one presented in BT. Another aim was to develop his account of the fundamental attunement (Grundstimmung ) of boredom in order to grasp the fundamental meaning of our being. Importantly, he set out to do this not by developing an anthropology or philosophy of culture (Kulturphilosophie ) (FCM §18c) but rather by considering the ways in which profound boredom is a key step in opening up the proper questioning of philosophizing for us.3 On Heidegger's account, there are three types of boredom, each of which corresponds to a distinctive way in which we experience the passage of time4 and each of which we describe below. They are: (1) becoming bored by something (Gelangweiltwerden von etwas ); (2) being bored with something (Sichlangweilen bei etwas ); and (3) profound boredom (tiefe Langweile ), which is expressed by the impersonal phrase "it is boring for one" (es ist einem langweilig ).5 Within this third form of boredom, Heidegger makes a distinction between "profound boredom" and "contemporary boredom" but he does not flesh it out systematically or with much clarity.6 Crucially, each form of boredom manifests in relation to how time passes (die Zeit vertreiben ) in that within each form, there are two related structural moments: being left empty (Leergelassenheit ) and being held in limbo (Hingehaltenheit ). Only by understanding how each form of boredom relates to the passage of time and what role each of the two structural moments play in the experience of boredom, can we fully grasp what boredom is for Heidegger. 2.1 Becoming Bored by Something Though the first form of boredom is the most familiar to us, it is also, according to Heidegger, the most superficial. This form of boredom is the experience of being bored by something-person, object, or state of affairs-a phenomenon that we all know well. For example, waiting for our delayed fight to depart, with no departure time in sight; waiting to see a doctor who is running far behind schedule; trying to get off the phone with someone who will not stop talking to us; these are all instances of becoming bored by something. Here, boredom is unpleasant and we do whatever we can to try to get rid of it. In terms of the two structural moments of 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 6/27 6 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman boredom, we are held in limbo insofar as our situation does not let us do what we intend to do, namely, board our flight, see our doctor, and get on with our day. At the same time, we are also left empty insofar as our situation does not fulfill us; it is not what we want to be doing. 2.2 Being Bored with Something With the second form of boredom, things become slightly more complicated and slightly more interesting. Whereas with the first form, the object of boredom is clear to the one experiencing it, with the second form, it is not immediately clear precisely what it is that is boring-it is also not clear that one is, in the moment, bored. In order to explain this form of boredom, Heidegger develops an example of going to a dinner party at which neither the company, conversation, food, nor the ambiance is perceived by us, while at the party, to be boring. However, upon returning home, we come to the realization that the evening itself was boring. Here "boring" does not denote a subjectively obvious aversive experience; rather, "boring" means something like casualness (viz., one of the same, what others do), the inauthentic following of a social ideal (FCM 111–112). In order to fully comprehend the depth of Heidegger's account of the second form of boredom, it is crucial to understand the structural moment of being held in limbo, which requires us to return to the example. That evening, we made the decision to attend the dinner party and in so doing, we transformed our relationship to time: both by leaving time for ourselves and by taking this time for ourselves. But, according to Heidegger, during the party, the time that we have given to ourselves comes to stand still and we become trapped in a standing present (stehendes Jetzt ). That has happened because our choice of activity disconnected us from our past and future projects. Stuck in this standing present, our comportment to originary temporality changes and the significance of the full temporal horizon is lost (FCM 124). By not pursuing an activity that is meaningful to us, we are held in limbo. Furthermore, by immersing ourselves in activities that are not our own, we are left empty. But the emptiness is not directly caused by something in the surrounding; rather, it arises as a result of having left 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 7/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 7 behind (Sichzurücklassen ) our authentic, temporal, existential self. Our situation does not fulfill us; it does not contribute to the completion of our projects, nor does it relate to our having-been. We spend our time; give it up; and in doing so, we make it stand. 2.3 Profound Boredom Whereas with the first form of boredom, a determinate object or situation is the source of our boredom, with the second form, boredom arises both from the particular situation and from ourselves. There is an additional form of boredom which is the most profound of all. According to Heidegger, it is also the most perplexing. The reason why the third form of boredom is both the most profound and the most perplexing is because in it, there is nothing in particular that is boring, nor is there a determinate cause of or reason why one is bored. And yet still, everything bores us, even ourselves. The impersonal construction "it is boring for one"-where "it" [es ] is the same subject found in expressions such as "it is raining" or "it is hot"- is Heidegger's way of expressing the ubiquity of profound boredom. It is limitless and depersonalized. It is neither me, nor you who experiences this form of boredom; rather, Dasein becomes an "undifferentiated no one" (FCM 135). We stand without any concerns and interests. All identifying characteristics, history, and projects are stripped away. Profound boredom is unconditioned, overpowering, and extreme. In it, the passing of time is altogether missing. That is to say, all three temporal dimensions (past, present, future) merge into a unified temporality and beings as a whole withdraw. In their withdrawal, they lose all significance which means not only that everything around and alongside us is drained of meaning; it also means that nothing carries any future prospects for us and that nothing relates to or gives meaning to our past (having-been). One thus grows indifferent to who and what one was, is, and will be. And yet, contrary to the first form of boredom which one actively tries to escape, in this third form of boredom, one does not respond by trying to distract oneself or to escape from it. There is simply no point in resisting profound boredom. No thing, no being, no 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 8/27 8 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman situation matters to us. In the midst of profound boredom, we stand entirely indifferent to everything and everyone. Because nothing matters to us and we are unable to become involved in anything, profound boredom leaves us empty. Because one's possibilities are foreclosed, profound boredom holds us in limbo. Yet counter-intuitively, these two structural moments do not lead to despair. Rather, in withdrawing and thereby losing their significance-a kind of concealing-entities in the world and Dasein's own unexploited possibilities suddenly and paradoxically reveal themselves to Dasein. "All telling refusal [Versagen ]," Heidegger writes, "is in itself a telling [Sagen ], i.e., a making manifest" (FCM 140). When the pressing world of everyday concern fades into indifference, the world is made present to us anew. In that moment of totalizing boredom, we can come to understand what projects carry proper significance to us-that is, we can discern the projects that are related to our past and that define us, both in the present and in the future. In doing so, we come to understand not only that we are the type of being for whom existence is an issue, but also that we can take up and appropriate (at least to a certain extent) our own existence. As such, profound boredom drives Dasein to enact its ownmost possibilities in what Heidegger calls the "Augenblick, " the instant or "moment of vision" in which Dasein faces itself as the kind of being it is-a power to take over its ground and to choose what it will be (FCM 149). The revelatory moment of profound boredom is Dasein's being called toward its authentic self-disclosure wherein it is brought face to face with itself and its temporal freedom. That is, in profound boredom, Dasein has the opportunity to become authentic. 3 Understanding Profound Boredom How well does Heidegger's discussion of boredom align with what we know about boredom from psychology? We can make two quick observations. First, the first form of boredom (becoming bored by something ) appears to be akin to state boredom, although Heidegger would not call it a "state" (BT §29; FCM 63–68; Elpidorou and Freeman 2015). In other words, what Heidegger describes as the most superficial kind of 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 9/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 9 boredom is our ordinary experience of boredom. For both Heidegger and psychological accounts, this form of boredom is an aversive experience that signifies a failure to engage with or to be engaged by one's environment in a desired manner despite one's desire to do so. In this kind of boredom, we want to be doing something other than what we are currently doing. We feel trapped or are held in limbo in a situation that does not provide us with meaningful possibilities. And precisely because of this unavailability of meaningful possibilities, we are left empty. Second, the second form of boredom (being bored with something ) does not appear to be an affective experience proper. That is, it is not an experience that is primarily characterized by an affective or qualitative character. As Heidegger tells us, "There is nothing at all to be found that might have been boring about this evening, neither the conversation, nor the people, nor the rooms" (FCM 109). Instead, the second form of boredom appears to be a type of cognitive attitude: the retroactive realization that we wasted our time. During the experience of this boredom, we are given hints that we are bored ("[j]ust as we are on the verge of playing with our watch chain or a button, cigars are passed around again" [FCM 11–12]), but those hints are not recognized by us at the time as symptoms of the presence of an unsatisfactory activity. Instead, we carry on with the activity that we had chosen to pursue and only after the activity concludes do we realize that what we had done was a waste of time. It was, for Heidegger, literally a waste of our time, the time that is Dasein. By agreeing to go to the party, to continue with Heidegger's example, we have immersed ourselves in an activity that is not our own-we decided to go along, to embrace "casualness" as Heidegger puts it, and thus, to do as others do (FCM 114). We have allowed ourselves to be fully absorbed by a present that is disconnected from our past and future. The party neither promotes our projects nor meaningfully stems from or relates to our past. As such, it is not an authentic activity. Thus, the party was boring but not because it felt boring. It was boring because we came to realize that it was not meaningful to us. The psychology of boredom does not study this retroactive experience of boredom that Heidegger highlights, at least not by this name. All the same, given the intimate relationship that boredom 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 10/27 10 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman bears to the perception of meaninglessness (Van Tilburg and Igou 2011, 2012), the second form of boredom can be recognized as boredom, even if it is not the typical (self-luminous)7 form of boredom and even if it is predicated on our attitudes regarding what is valuable, meaningful, or fulfilling to us. Matters become much more complicated, however, when we turn our attention to profound boredom. Is profound boredom state boredom, trait boredom, or something else, perhaps a distinctive kind of experience that is captured neither by our ordinary nor by the scientific understanding of boredom? In what follows, we consider these three possibilities in order. 3.1 State Boredom Is Not Profound Enough The differences between state boredom and profound boredom are both important and numerous. To begin with, state boredom is thought to be an emotion: a relatively short-lived, flexible, multi-dimensional response to specific physical and social situations. Emotions are typically initiated by an individual's appraisal of an event that bears some personal significance to the individual. Such an appraisal can be either conscious or unconscious and it gives rise to a set of interrelated responses in the individual-such as changes in felt experiences, physiology, facial expressions, perception, cognition, and action. But Heidegger is quite clear that profound boredom is not an emotion but a fundamental mood (Grundstimmung ). As a mood (Stimmung ), boredom is the ontic manifestation of Befindlichkeit-a basic structure of Dasein's existence that makes engagement with the world possible (BT §29; Elpidorou and Freeman 2015; Ratcliffe 2013; Slaby 2015). Moods are the various, specific, and pre-reflective ways in which the world is disclosed to us and the background horizon or context through which we understand and make sense of the world and of ourselves. Importantly, they reveal the world as mattering to us and in doing so, they are the necessary conditions for our emotional existence (Freeman 2014). As understood in psychology, boredom would then be that which arises on account of the fact that as human beings we are already mooded. 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 11/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 11 The psychology of boredom studies, one might say, the symptoms of our affective existence. Heidegger's discussion of boredom as a Stimmung attempts to explicate what makes such an affective existence possible (Freeman 2014). But boredom is not just one Stimmung among others; it is a Grundstimmung, a fundamental or grounding mood. Indeed, it is fundamental in at least two senses. First, it is fundamentally revealing of the nature of our human existence. In profound boredom, we stand disconnected from our world of concerns and we 'see' ourselves for what we really are-as a power or potentiality to seize our own existence in a way that is meaningful to us. Second, profound boredom is distinctive insofar as it is a preparatory mood for philosophical inquiry. Only once this mood has been awakened in us, will we be in a position to study and understand the fundamental concepts of metaphysics (world, finitude, and solicitude). State boredom lacks the features that make profound boredom a Grundstimmung. This is not say that state boredom is not revealing of anything; it is (Elpidorou 2018a). Nevertheless, state boredom does not appear to be 'deep' in any sense. State boredom arises often and in various contexts without revealing anything about the ground (or lack thereof ) of our existence, our being, or our temporality. If one is made to wait long enough, one's dentist appointment can be a lesson in patience or frustration, but not in ontology. Relatedly, state boredom does not have the philosophical significance that profound boredom is thought to have. We find nothing in our common everyday experience of boredom that is necessary, preparatory, or even congenial to metaphysical thinking. The existential and philosophical functions of profound boredom are related. Metaphysics is not a theoretical enterprise but "a fundamental way of Da-sein" (FCM 23). The questioning that metaphysics involves and requires is comprehensive. We too fall under its scope and as such we are affected by it (FCM 24). Insofar as state boredom fails to disclose to us the nature of our being, it fails to affect us in this profound way. Insofar as it fails to affect us in any profound way, it fails to prepare us for metaphysical inquiry, which is after all the explicit aim of Heidegger's lecture course.8 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 12/27 12 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman The realization that state boredom does not seem capable of doing the philosophical work that Heidegger wants profound boredom to do is underscored by yet another difference between the two. Profound boredom is totalizing. It affects every aspect of our existence. It makes every characteristic of our existence (present, past, or future) irrelevant to us and in so doing, renders us an "undifferentiated no one" (FCM 135). State boredom does none of those things. On the contrary, state boredom typically depends on our situation and as a consequence, can be easily alleviated by a change in situation, action, or even way of thinking. Precisely because state boredom lacks the comprehensive scope of profound boredom, it fails to have profound boredom's existential and philosophical import. Simply put, state boredom is not profound enough. It does not shake us up. It does not reveal ourselves as potentiality or as a power to choose. It does not motivate us to take up our lives anew. 3.2 Trait Boredom Is Too Negative, Too Personal A comparison between state boredom and profound boredom quickly revealed that state boredom is not profound enough to be profound boredom. Such a realization suggests that if profound boredom is to be identified with a different type of boredom, then that type of boredom must be more extreme. Trait boredom meets this requirement. First, individuals who are thought to possess the trait of boredom often and easily find themselves to be bored, even in situations that others typically find interesting and stimulating. Second, trait boredom can affect one's existence in profound ways. For instance, it can affect one's habits and actions. And it can render one's personal, professional, and inter-personal life uninteresting. As such, trait boredom carries the potential to be existentially or ontologically informative, insofar as it can reveal to us both the various ways in which we relate to the world and how such relations may languish. Third, and most importantly, trait boredom, just like profound boredom, is totalizing. Individuals possessing the trait of boredom can experience the totality of their world as boring. Such a feature of trait boredom is not only corroborated by the 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 13/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 13 way in which trait boredom is assessed, but also by testimonies from individuals who experience their lives and worlds as boring. Consider, for example, the following first-personal testimonies reported by Bargdill in his phenomenological study of life boredom. Presently, I am bored with my whole life. None of the old things I used to do bring enjoyment to me anymore. Nothing. [Boredom] covers my social life. It covers school. It covers work. It covers going to the grocery store . . . It covers a lot of things. My hair. (Bargdill 2000, 198) I might think that I would become bored with whatever activity I'm looking at. I project boredom. I'm looking ahead and saying 'Oh boy, it looks like it's going to be boring after all.' So I don't even start it. (ibid.) Although Bargdill does not describe these individuals as ones who possess the personality trait of boredom, it is very plausible, given how trait boredom is assessed, that these individuals would be categorized as boredom prone individuals by the Boredom Proneness Scale (Farmer and Sundberg 1986). In other words, although Bardgill's focus is on what he calls "life boredom," this notion can be understood to be a a proxy for trait boredom. Trait boredom appears to be totalizing. It is thus profound. But is it profound in Heidegger's sense of profound boredom? The answer to this question is no. First, trait boredom is related to the frequent experience of state boredom. In other words, one is said to be prone to boredom (i.e., one possesses the trait of boredom) only if one experiences state boredom frequently and in a wide range of situations. When we turn to Heidegger's account, we find no discernible relationship between profound boredom and how frequently one experiences boredom (state or otherwise). If anything, it seems that profound boredom, given its existential import and effects, is a rare occurrence. Although one might argue that in order to experience the whole world as boring, one needs to experience boredom often and in all situations, this is not how Heidegger describes profound boredom. Profound boredom "can occur out of the blue, and precisely whenever we do not expect it at all" (FCM 135). Profound boredom comes with no warnings and it is not causally 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 14/27 14 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman related to the first form of boredom. But assuming that the first type of boredom is, as we argued, state boredom, then even though profound boredom does not require state boredom, trait boredom does. After all, trait boredom is predicated on the frequent experience of state boredom. Thus, whereas trait boredom is both conceptually and causally dependent on state boredom, profound boredom is not. Second, trait boredom is understood to be a lasting personality trait. As a personality trait, trait boredom is grounded in one's psychological or biological characteristics and is used to account for differences between individuals that cannot be accounted for in terms of situational factors. Precisely because trait boredom is a personality trait, the task of showing how it can have the ontological 'weight' of profound boredom becomes extremely difficult. Not every individual possesses this personality trait, yet profound boredom is something that can be experienced by everyone. After all, profound boredom "is rooted in time - in the time that we ourselves are" (FCM 133). Profound boredom arises out of the most fundamental features of human existence-namely, our care structure (our thrown and situated projection). Consequently, any attempt to assimilate profound boredom into trait boredom runs the risk of conflating two levels that Heidegger wants to keep separate: the psychological/biological and the ontological.9 Third, trait boredom is pathological: it is related to a host of issues that are incongruent with Heidegger's contention that profound boredom can lead one to an authentic existence. This feature of trait boredom becomes most clear when we turn again to first-person descriptions by individuals who experience chronic or life boredom. Consider the following testimonies: I feel I lack a sense of purpose, and completeness. Most of all I feel extremely bored. Bored of everything-work, friends, hobbies, relationships, music, reading, movies, bored all the time. I do things [merely] to occupy my time, to distract myself from trying to discover the meaning of my existence, and I would gladly cease to do anything if the opportunity arose. No matter what the activity is it leaves me feeling unfulfilled [....] What possible difference does it ultimately make whatever I do? What difference does anything make? (Maltsberger 2000, 84; emphasis added) 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 15/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 15 When I lose my vision, I lose any idea or projection of what I want to do in the future. I don't have any distinct plans, or even an idea of what I want to do and so I wanted to immerse myself more in the present rather than projecting myself in the future... (Bargdill 2000, 199) Being in the disillusioned state I didn't have the will power to be disciplined. I knew what I was getting into, but I just didn't care. (Bargdill 2000, 200) Trait boredom may bring about a totalizing experience of boredom: everything and everyone is boring to one. Yet precisely because of its totalizing nature, this form of boredom has the opposite result of profound boredom. The experience of totalizing boredom that can come about as a result of constant and pervasive boredom is accompanied not by a will to reaffirm authentically one's existence, but by an inability both to project possibilities for oneself and to act. The Dasein who is characterized by trait boredom might experience the total withdrawal of beings described by Heidegger. It would, in that case, be held in limbo and left empty by the world. Nothing would interest Dasein; nothing would seem as significant or meaningful to it. Yet, unlike profound boredom, such boredom is not motivating but incapacitating. It does not lead to resoluteness or authentic existence. In fact, given the host of physical, psychological, and social harms that are correlated with its presence, the truth is very much the opposite. Thus, profound boredom cannot be trait boredom. It cannot serve its existential function. 3.3 Profound Boredom as Sui Generis A third possibility is that profound boredom is something entirely different from both our ordinary experience of boredom and our psychological conceptions of it: namely, it is sui generis. Prima facie, there seem to be at least two reasons in support of this reading and such reasons are not affected by the fact that Heidegger calls profound boredom "boredom"-after all, in the mid-to-late 1920s, Heidegger is known for claiming that though he is using ordinary words and concepts in his thinking (e.g., "care," "guilt"), the meaning of these terms is 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 16/27 16 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman importantly different from our ordinary understanding of them (given their place and role in fundamental ontology). First, as Heidegger makes clear throughout the mid-to-late 1920s and then again at the end of his career in the Zollikon Seminars (Zo ), the empirical sciences in general and psychology in particular do not engage with the same questions that he is asking; they tell us nothing about fundamental attunement or ontological modes of being. Rather, the empirical sciences study the psychological states of a subject. But Dasein is neither a subject (in any traditional sense of the term "subject") nor the subject of psychology. Moreover, fundamental attunement is not a psychological state but rather, the condition for the possibility of such states. On Heidegger's account, to focus on the psychological states of a subject is to miss the disclosive capacities of attunement-both as an ontological structure (Befindlichkeit ) and in its various concrete manifestations (moods [Stimmungen ]). And it is precisely this character of attunement that interests Heidegger insofar as his thinking in the midto-late 1920s aims to interrogate the nature and structure of Dasein in the service of answering the question of the meaning of being. Studying psychological states get us nowhere on the path to answering this question. Second, Heidegger's main question in the context of which his account of boredom arises is not "what is boredom and why do we experience it?" Rather, it is "what is metaphysics (or philosophy) and what is the condition for the possibility of philosophizing?" His answer to this question is that boredom is the experience which catalyzes our capacity to do metaphysics and in the end, to become our authentic selves. Consequently, his account of boredom is instrumental to understanding the real question that interests him-"what is metaphysics (or philosophy) and how and in what mood can we best pursue it?" This question can only be understood through the lens of his underlying philosophical undertaking. Psychological states as understood by psychologists are not studied in terms of their relationship with the project of philosophizing or of doing metaphysics. These two reasons can be brought together by considering Heidegger's notion of formal indication [formale Anzeige ], characteristic of his phenomenological method from that period.10 It was Heidegger's 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 17/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 17 contention that theoretical and objectifying discourse tends to misrepresent or distort its own content primarily because it treats its subject matter as something present-at-hand (PIA 21). In order to avoid this misinterpretation or distortion, Heidegger deems it necessary to treat phenomenological concepts as formal indications. Unlike the objectifying concepts that are found in the positive sciences and in philosophy, phenomenological concepts as formal indications do not fully communicate or determine their content. Formal indications are indicative insofar as they furnish us with a sense of direction and allow us to undertake our phenomenological investigation (GA 63, 80; PIA 25). At the same time, they are also formal insofar as they do not specify or predetermine the object of investigation. As Heidegger states, "the formal indication functions both...to guide as well as to deter in various ways" (PIA 105). With respect to its "deterring" or "prohibiting" function, the method of formal indication prevents every drifting off into autonomous, blind, dogmatic attempts to fix the categorial sense, attempts which would be detached from the presupposition of the interpretation, from its preconception, its nexus, and its time, and which would then purport to determine an objectivity in itself, apart from a thorough discussion of its ontological sense. (ibid.) Indeed, the sense of a formally indicative concept is not something that can be theoretically given or retrieved, since the very point of formally indicating something is to get at a truth rooted in a more fundamental concealment that is central to our existence (see also Polt 1999). Rather than capture the essence of a thing and give an account of it with perfect accuracy, formally indicative concepts nudge us to pay more attention to things; they bring to the fore something more basic than what science can reveal, namely, they underscore the very fact that we find ourselves in a meaningful world. For Heidegger, what we cannot speak about theoretically, we must indicate formally. But doing so involves more than a saying or pointing: we can come to terms with the phenomena under investigation only by undertaking a type of enactment or performance (see Dahlstrom 1994; Granberg 2003). Properly understood, philosophy is a type of comportment (PIA 41–42, 46–47) and formal 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 18/27 18 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman indication is a call to philosophize by taking anew the question of being. Thus, what "boredom" as a phenomenological concept formally indicates is something that is both distinct from scientific and ordinary conceptions of boredom and ultimately connected to philosophizing. There are thus reasons to support the position that profound boredom is something entirely other than both our everyday experience of boredom and the psychological state or trait revealed by the methods of the empirical sciences. Still, we cannot unqualifiedly agree with such a reading of profound boredom. Even though such a reading highlights the distinctive ways in which Heidegger is conceiving of boredom, it runs into important philosophical and interpretative difficulties. First, if profound boredom is sui generis, then the text is rendered methodologically problematic: why would Heidegger consider the first two forms of boredom that do in some way resemble our ordinary experience of the phenomenon before addressing profound boredom if profound boredom has no relation to them and to our experience of boredom? The "methodological" issue that we are raising here is not a concern with Heidegger's use of formal indication.11 Instead, it is a worry of how to understand the third form of boredom if not through some kind of understanding of or familiarity with the first two forms of boredom. In other words, even if Heidegger's method of formal indication allows him to treat profound boredom as something different than ordinary boredom, it still does not allow him to treat it as an entirely alien form of boredom, completely disconnected from the everyday experience of boredom (SZ 310). In its formally indicative guise, "boredom" would still share something in common with our everyday usage of the term and it is precisely because of this commonality and familiarity that it is capable of serving its indicative function. In fact, formal indications are not typically neologisms or terms of art (Dahlstrom 1994, 785), but concepts that are closely related to and derived from ordinary experiences and linguistic practices. Moreover, if profound boredom were sui generis, then the intricate structure of the part of the lecture course that discusses the character of each type of boredom would fall apart. That is because Heidegger understands all three forms of boredom in terms of their relationship to time and in terms of their two-fold structure (being held in limbo and being left empty ). Insofar 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 19/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 19 as all three forms of boredom are related in this double manner, it is hard to insist that profound boredom is a sui generis experience, entirely unrelated from the first two types of boredom. Second, there is an ontological (or an in virtue of ) relationship between the first type of boredom and profound boredom. Though the first form of boredom is not the causal antecedent of profound boredom, the latter is the condition for the possibility of the former: The first form of boredom as such can indeed never pass over into the third, yet conversely, the first is itself presumably still rooted in the possibility of the third, and comes from the third form of boredom with respect to its possibility in general. (FCM 156) But if profound boredom is the condition for the possibility of the first, and the first is our ordinary experience of boredom, then the two cannot be unrelated. Third, although profound boredom might not be identical to state and trait boredom, there are still important and undeniable similarities between them. Heidegger is quite clear that he is not concerned with psychological states (qua psychological states) (FCM 63–68); rather, his philosophical enterprise-phenomenology and fundamental ontology-aims to ask questions that are fundamental to our experiences in the world and to understand and underscore the condition for their possibility. All the same, it is incorrect to hold that Heidegger completely rejects the sciences-this is especially the case with regard to the second part of FCM where he uses biology to support ontological claims. Most importantly, elements of profound boredom seem to be present in experiences of boredom ordinarily understood and in scientific, empirical accounts of them. For example, profound boredom is constituted by a lack of meaning, disengagement from one's goals and projects, and an altered perception of time. But these elements are also present in varying degrees in both trait boredom and state boredom, as discussed above. If profound boredom were in fact sui generis, then we would not be able to recognize elements of it in the other types of boredom. 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 20/27 20 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman Finally, to claim that profound boredom is sui generis raises a pressing metaphilosophical concern: namely, if it is sui generis, then Heidegger's account of profound boredom loses part of its significance, both as a phenomenological study of the (common) experience of boredom and as a philosophical contribution to the study of boredom. If profound boredom were not an experience that bore any relationship to our ordinary experience of boredom, then what would be the point of studying it? Would it even be something that we could ever experience or understand? And if it were something completely other, what could it ever teach us about ordinary boredom? On account of these four reasons, the claim that profound boredom is sui generis should not be accepted. 4 Locating Profound Boredom Profound boredom is equivalent neither to our ordinary conception of boredom nor to any of the scientific constructs that carry the name "boredom." For those who are familiar with Heidegger's thinking, such a conclusion will not be surprising. Ontology or fundamental ontology for Heidegger is not science. The latter could never unearth the truths of the former. And although Heidegger employs ordinary, everyday concepts in his thinking, he appropriates them (at least in the late 1920s and afterwards) and shows that there is much more to them than initially meets the eye. Our conclusion then is not surprising. But that does not mean that it is not important. Indeed, as we have also shown, understanding profound boredom as something completely distinct from our everyday and scientific notions of boredom yields a position that is replete with difficulties. It threatens to make parts of Heidegger's lecture course methodologically otiose and runs the risk of rendering Heidegger's view a mere historical curiosity-one that is endemic to Heidegger and which stands disconnected from both ordinary human experience and other philosophical accounts of boredom. Heidegger's account of boredom thus occupies a precarious position: it can neither be assimilated to what we know about boredom nor can it be taken to be describing a sui generis kind of boredom. How, then, should one proceed? 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 21/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 21 We offer a conciliatory reading. We acknowledge both that profound boredom is neither state boredom nor trait boredom, and yet that profound boredom is also not sui generis. Still, such a conclusion is not entirely negative. Our comparative analysis of profound boredom, state boredom, and trait boredom reveals important features of profound boredom that can be understood in light of our more familiar types of boredom. We mentioned above that despite its severity, profound boredom is not an incapacitating experience. When one experiences profound boredom, though one becomes disconnected from one's own being or self (Dasein), one also comes to realize one's authentic being anew. In this way, profound boredom is motivational. It propels us to become the author of our own lives, to choose what is proper to us. State boredom does something similar, albeit less drastic. A variety of theoretical and empirical considerations on the nature of state boredom strongly suggest that it is a regulatory state that aims to keep one in line with one's projects (Elpidorou 2014, 2018a, b). The experience of boredom motivates one to cease to be engaged with one's current situation and instead to pursue an alternative situation that is more satisfactory, attractive, or meaningful. Just like profound boredom, state boredom is capable of bringing us closer to situations and activities that are in line with our own interests, goals, and desires. Furthermore, the onset of boredom has been shown to be capable of triggering meaning reestablishment strategies that affect an individual's behavior and cognition (Van Tilburg and Igou 2011, 2012). Clearly, the desire to find meaning that arises out of the experience of boredom and in an attempt to alleviate its experience could be a useful attitude to have while philosophizing. State boredom is not necessarily anathema to philosophizing. Indeed, it seems that in some cases it could be precisely what gets us there. Though these similarities between state boredom and profound are important, they are not perfect (e.g., the motivating effect of profound boredom does not compare to that of state boredom) nor are they sufficient to render the two one and the same. Furthermore, as we discussed above, state boredom is not profound enough. It is not totalizing nor is it necessarily existentially meaningful. Still, those features of profound 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 22/27 22 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman boredom are found in trait boredom, even if trait boredom is not profound boredom. The situation thus appears to be as follows. Profound boredom is not state boredom nor is it trait boredom. Yet, profound boredom could be understood as involving features of both types or conceptions of boredom. Just like state boredom, profound boredom is motivating and capable of promoting authentic existence. Just like trait boredom, it is severe, totalizing, and existentially revealing (see Table 1). To suggest that it is fruitful to understand profound boredom as involving features of both state and trait boredom is not to reduce profound boredom to either state or trait boredom. Our proposed interpretation of profound boredom aims to help us understand both its nature and its relationship to our common experience and scientific conception of boredom. As such, our interpretation highlights the ways in which Heidegger's account of profound boredom offers a distinctive, but not alien, kind of human experience. Given what we know from our empirical sciences of boredom, the co-existence of the features from trait boredom and state boredom that we have highlighted as important for profound boredom is probably rare. Profound boredom appears to be a peculiar mode of existence: one that combines the severity of trait boredom with the benefits of state boredom. In the grip of profound boredom, it is as if one experiences trait boredom but only for a moment. Because of the severity of this experience, its existential use would require us to know how to use it or deal with it. From the perspective of human psychology, the occurrence of profound boredom is extraordinary; and its successful implementation as a catalyst to propel us toward what is authentically ours is extremely difficult. But that does not make profound boredom less real. And in no way does it Table 1 A comparison of profound boredom, state boredom, and trait boredom. Shaded boxes indicate the features of trait and state boredom that we suggest can help us understand profound boredom Features of profound boredom Totalizing Ontologically/ Existentially revealing Renders one an undifferentiated no one Promotes authentic existence Relates to philosophizing Trait boredom Yes Yes Yes No No State boredom No No No Yes Perhaps 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 23/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 23 vitiate its philosophical and existential significance. "All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare," Spinoza reminds us at the end of his Ethics (Spinoza, Vp42s). The same fact holds, it seems, for fundamental attunements. Notes 1. The distinction between state boredom and trait boredom also allows us to make sense of various discussions of boredom in the history of philosophy. For instance, acedia, ennui, and tedium vitae can be usefully and perspicuously explicated in terms of those two constructs. 2. Space in the present chapter does not permit us to offer a comprehensive review of the empirical literature on boredom. For recent reviews on the nature of state boredom, see Eastwood et al. (2012), Elpidorou (2018a), and Westgate and Wilson (2018). 3. For a comprehensive and extraordinarily helpful account of the way in which this lecture course is a radicalization of fundamental ontology, see de Beistegui (2003). 4. It is worth noting that already in his 1924 lecture course The Concept of Time (CT ), Heidegger raises the possibility of understanding boredom in terms of the lengthening of time. See CT 14–17. 5. Some of the following discussion is an expansion of Freeman's (forthcoming) discussion of boredom. Heidegger's account of boredom is also discussed in Freeman and Elpidorou (2015) and Slaby (2014). 6. With regards to contemporary boredom, Heidegger does not say a whole lot. His brief discussion occurs in FCM §18c, §§37–38. Nevertheless, what he does say is interesting on many levels (if not problematic, politically), insofar as it gestures toward an important shift in his thinking that occurs in the 1930s, namely, away from being focused on fundamental ontology through an interrogation of Dasein and toward a focus on history and on the co-respondence with the truth of being in its epochal unfolding (de Beistegui 2003, 63). Given that Heidegger's discussion of contemporary boredom is quite short, we can at most speculate as to what he might mean. A comprehensive and compelling reconstruction and interpretation of contemporary boredom can be found in de Beistegui (2003, 68–80). There, he problematizes Heidegger's account of 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 24/27 24 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman contemporary boredom vis-à-vis Heidegger's account of Dasein's attunement (in both BT and in FCM), fleshes it out within the context of Heidegger's critique of Kulturphilosophie (in FCM) and also in terms of how, collectively, profound boredom announces the great historical Grundstimmung that will both identify and define Heidegger's thought in the 1930s. De Beistegui shows how Heidegger's discussion of contemporary boredom bears a direct relation to the reprehensible and unforgivable political ideas and ideals that Heidegger held in the 1920s and 1930s. When de Beistegui was writing, the gravity of Heidegger's commitment to these ideas and ideals was less certain than it is now in the aftermath of the publication of the Black Notebooks. 7. An affective phenomenon (or affect) is self-luminous if the tokening of that phenomenon (or affect) is transparent to the agent. That is to say, an affect is self-luminous if the having of that affect guarantees that we are aware of having that affect. Not every affect is self-luminous-we might experience jealousy or guilt without knowing it. Furthermore, not every token of a type of affect that is typically self-luminous (e.g., anger) is necessarily self-luminous. Using this notion of self-luminosity, one could hold that boredom as a type is typically self-luminous even if not every concrete experience of boredom is. 8. One could add that there is an additional reason why state boredom cannot be profound boredom: the latter is historical whereas the former is ahistorical. Although this is one possible reading of state boredom, it is not the only one. Indeed, there are those who maintain that boredom is a state or experience that is historical insofar as it distinctive of modernity. See, e.g., Spacks (1995). 9. Perhaps one could argue that trait boredom is the symptom of something more fundamental-an ontological feature or aspect of human existence. Trait boredom is thus grounded in ontology even if it itself is not ontological; moreover, profound boredom should be identified not with trait boredom but with its ground. Whatever one makes of such a proposal, it is not one that corresponds to either a traditional understanding of boredom or to a scientific one. Neither commonsense nor the psychology of boredom talks of the ontological ground of boredom. 10. Heidegger's most extensive discussion of formal indication can be found in his WS 1921–1922 lectures (PIA ). The topic of formal indication and its relationship to philosophy also arises in PRL, GA 63, and "Comments on Karl Jaspers's Psychology of Worldviews" in PM. Among 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 25/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 25 others, Crowell (2001), Dahlstrom (1994), Kiesel (1993), MacAvoy (2010), and Streeter (1997) offer insightful and helpful presentations of Heidegger's understanding and use of formal indication. 11. We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for asking us to relate our discussion to the notion and use of formal indication. References Bargdill, Richard W. 2000. "The Study of Life Boredom." Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 31 (2): 188–219. Britton, Annie, and Martin J. Shipley. 2010. "Bored to Death?" International Journal of Epidemiology 39 (2): 370–371. Crowell, Steven Galt. 2001. Husserl, Heidegger, and the Space of Meaning: Paths Toward Transcendental Phenomenology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Dahlstrom, Daniel O. 1994. "Heidegger's Method: Philosophical Concepts as Formal Indications." The Review of Metaphysics, 47 (4): 775–795. de Beistegui, Miguel. 2003. Thinking with Heidegger: Displacements. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Eastwood, John D., Alexandra Frischen, Mark J. Fenske, and Daniel Smilek. 2012. "The Unengaged Mind: Defining Boredom in Terms of Attention." Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (5): 482–495. Elpidorou, Andreas. 2014. "The Bright Side of Boredom." Frontiers in Psychology 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01245. Elpidorou, Andreas. 2017. "The Moral Dimensions of Boredom: A Call for Research." Review of General Psychology 21 (1): 30–48. Elpidorou, Andreas. 2018a. "The Bored Mind Is a Guiding Mind: Toward a Regulatory Theory of Boredom." Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 17 (3): 455–484. Elpidorou, Andreas. 2018b. "The Good of Boredom." Philosophical Psychology 31 (3): 323–351. Elpidorou, Andreas, and Lauren Freeman. 2015. "Affectivity in Heidegger I: Moods and Emotions in Being and Time." Philosophy Compass 10 (10): 661–671. Farmer, Richard, and Norman D. Sundberg. 1986. "Boredom Proneness- The Development and Correlates of a New Scale." Journal of Personality Assessment 50 (1): 4–17. 798 799 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 820 821 822 823 824 825 826 827 828 829 830 831 832 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 26/27 26 A. Elpidorou and L. Freeman Fenichel, Otto. 1951. "On the Psychology of Boredom." In Organization and Pathology of Thought: Selected Sources, edited by David Rapaport, 349–361. New York: Columbia University Press. Freeman, Lauren. 2019. "Boredom." In The Heidegger Lexicon, edited by Mark Wrathall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Freeman, Lauren. 2014. "Toward a Phenomenology of Mood." The Southern Journal of Philosophy 52 (4): 445–476. Freeman, Lauren, and Andreas Elpidorou. 2015. "Affectivity in Heidegger II: Temporality, Boredom, and Beyond." Philosophy Compass 10 (10): 672–684. Granberg, Anne. 2003. "Mood and Method in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit." In Metaphysics, Facticity, Interpretation, edited by Dan Zahavi, Sara Heinämaa, and Hans Ruin, 91–113. Dordrecht: Kluver Academic. Kisiel, Theodore. 1993. The Genesis of Heidegger's 'Being & Time'. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. MacAvoy, Leslie. 2010. "Formal Indication and the Hermeneutics of Facticity." Philosophy Today 54 (SPEP Suppl.): 84–90. Maltsberger, John T. 2000. "Mansur Zaskar: A Man Almost Bored to Death." Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 30 (1): 83–90. Polt, Richard. 1999. Heidegger: An Introduction. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Ratcliffe, Matthew. 2013. "Why Moods Matter." In The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger's Being and Time, edited by Mark Wrathall, 157–176. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Slaby, Jan. 2014. "The Other Side of Existence: Heidegger on Boredom." In Habitus in Habitat II: Other Sides of Cognition, edited by Sabine Flach and Jan Söffner, 101–120. Bern: Peter Lang. Slaby, Jan. 2015. "Affectivity and Temporality in Heidegger." In Feeling and Value, Willing and Action: Phaenomenologica 216, edited by Marta Ubiali and Maren Wehrle, 183–206. Dordrecht: Springer. Spacks, Patricia Meyer. 1995. Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Spinoza, Benedictus. 1985. The Collected Works of Spinoza. Vol. 1. Edited and translated by Edwin Curley. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Streeter, Ryan. 1997. "Heidegger's Formal Indication: A Question of Method in Being and Time." Man and World 30 (4): 413–430. Van Tilburg, Wijnand A. P., and Eric R. Igou. 2011. "On Boredom and Social Identity: A Pragmatic Meaning-Regulation Approach." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 37 (12): 1679–1691. 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 868 869 870 871 Layout: Pop_A5 Book ID: 456623_1_En Book ISBN: 978-3-030-24639-6 Chapter No.: 8 Date: 10 July 2019 19:52 Page: 27/27 8 Is Profound Boredom Boredom? 27 Van Tilburg, Wijnand A. P, and Eric R. Igou. 2012. "On Boredom: Lack of Challenge and Meaning as Distinct Boredom Experiences." Motivation and Emotion 36 (2): 181–194. Vodanovich, Stephen J. 2003. "Psychometric Measures of Boredom: A Review of the Literature." The Journal of Psychology 137 (6): 569–595. Vodanovich, Stephen J., and John D. Watt. 2016. "Self-Report Measures of Boredom: An Updated Review of the Literature." The Journal of Psychology 150 (2): 196–228. Westgate Erin C., and Timothy D. Wilson. 2018. "Boring Thoughts and Bored Minds: The MAC Model of Boredom and Cognitive Engagement." Psychological Review 125 (5): 689–713. Zuckerman, Marvin. 1979. Sensation Seeking: Beyond the Optimal Level of Arousal. Hillsdale: Erlbaum. 872 873 874 875 876 877 878 879 880 881 882 883