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In this chapter I argue that the mode of affective togetherness we are interested in discloses an essential character of our human nature: we are beings that can exist as some particular group we (together with certain others) constitute. I begin by explicating Heidegger's proposal that Dasein essentially is its possibilities. This discussion results in the following suggestion: to care about something in a particular situation presupposes being able to exist as such-and-such in the context of this situation. Pulling together a number of thoughts articulated in different parts of this book, I discuss the sense in which the idea of an affective attunement to the world is related to the claim that a person essentially is her existential possibilities. A central thought of this discussion is that only against the background of certain already defined ways of valuing the occurrences one faces, one can come to press ahead into the actualization of some concrete possibility, thereby coming to project oneself into this specific possibility—thereby coming to be this possibility. On this basis, I come back to the claim that the emotional responses by means of which a number of individuals participate in a moment of affective intentional community characteristically have a for-the-sake-of-which that encompasses a plurality in some particular unity. I reformulate this claim by arguing that our capacity to participate in episodes of collective affective intentionality is grounded in our ability to exist as some specific group in the context of particular situations.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-33735-7_7

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