Følelsernes fylogenese

Abstract

The litterature on The Feelings is characterized by a considarable confusion. The concept of feeling has attached a series of apparantly unsumountable metaphysical cleavages, whisch are also expressed in the disputes about terminology and definitions in the field. The article takes a phylogenetic approach, following the Hegelian idea of concordance between the logic of the concepts and the logic of evolution. The theoretical points of departure is Leontjews concept of Activity and his theory of the Stadies of the evolution of psychic life. In the article distinctions are made between Need, Motivation and Feeling. The latter concept is subdivided in three different levels, called, Affect, Emotion and Value. Feeling is defined as boad category concerning the general evaluation of the relation between the individual and its surroundings.