There are more things in (life) world…Pathic aesthetics, atmospheres and quasi-things

Through an approach primarily inspired by the Aisthetik (Gernot Böhme) and the Neue Phänomenologie (Hermann Schmitz) I define the atmospheric perception as first pathic impression and investigate the relationship between this kind of perception (possibily initially immersive, then reflective) and the expressive qualities of our lifeworld. Pathic aesthetics therefore ceases to be just a theory of the works of art. It considers the perceiver as a being first of all emotionally and felt-bodily touched by atmospheric feelings widespread in her (lived) space but also, as affordances, ontologically rooted in things and quasi-things of her lifeworld. By exploring how she unintentionally exposes herself to what happens in this lifeworld, man turns out to be not a “subject of something” but rather a “subject to something”: a human being who is “sovereign” to the extent she is free from the claim of rational autonomy imposed by the Western Modernity.