The phenomenology of atmospheres is recently gaining attention in debates on situated affectivity. Atmospheres are defined as holistic affective qualities of situations that integrate disparate affective forces into an identifiable and unitary gestalt. They point to a blurred, pathic, relational, and pre-individual form of experience which has been described in terms of ecological affordances. Despite its relevance in diverse areas of research such as architecture, phenomenological psychiatry and aesthetics, a thorough analysis of the phenomena of affective atmospheres from an enactive-ecological (...) perspective is missing in the literature. This article aims at clarifying how and to what extent affective atmospheres can be accommodated into ecological-enactive understandings of the environment in terms of affordances. To do so, I review four perspectives on ecological affordances – the gibsonian account, the relational account, affective affordances, and the Skill Intentionality Framework (SIF) – and contrast them with the ontological and epistemológical principles that ground the phenomenology of atmospheres. I argue that only the field perspective developed in SIF is compatible with the phenomenology of atmospheres. From this perspective, affective atmospheres can be understood as phenomenological counterparts of context sensitivity, that is, as the holistic and pathic background feelings that make certain affordances more salient than others. As a conclusion, the analysis in this article shows the potential of the phenomenology of atmospheres to enrich the ecological-enactive cognition framework. It also highlights the opportunity to construct a situated understanding of affectivity that is informed by phenomenological perspectives. (shrink)

Atmospheres are omnipresent in sports. However, sports philosophy has hardly taken any notice of this. The present article aims to correct this. It will outline a phenomenology of atmospheres in sport based on the central thesis that atmospheres are phenomena sui generis. The theoretical basis for this is the so-called new phenomenology of German philosopher Hermann Schmitz. Against this background, the text illustrates the power of private atmospheres in sport, using the example of Zinédine Zidane’s headbutt at the 2006 FIFA (...) World Cup. On the basis of a typology of joint situations, it also provides a system of common atmospheres in sport. The situation-theoretical framing of private and common atmospheres makes it possible to identify a variety of atmospheres in sport and describe them in detail. The text thus argues that the new phenomenology proves to be a valuable starting point for a philosophy of atmospheres in sport. (shrink)

Atmospheres constitute an ordinary perceptual phenomenon that can become a new experience, as the former are more than the sum of single-sensory perceptual factors. Drawing on the terminological pair ‘subject’ and ‘object’ and its interdependencies, the atmospheric phenomenon can be approached in an essayistic fashion (and by means of applying an aesthetic focus in the broadest sense). In so doing, it becomes clear that the atmosphere serves as a condition for the emergence as well as actualization of special perception. (...) Based on Gernot Böhme’s research and further studies, specific (ontological) determinants are identified and differentiated according to the definitional facets of the ‘and’, the ‘in-between’ and the ‘whereby’ or ‘in what way’. These considerations demonstrate to what extent perception precedes the separation of subject and object in that the atmospheric ‘whereby’ is responsible for creating tuned spaces and situations. Turning to the objects of perception and their concomitant ecstasies as well as to the subject of perception with its reception helps to clarify which components of an atmosphere work in what way. In this context, methods of exploratory involvement and participation (in the Parcours Commenté but even more so in the Aesthetic Fieldwork) gain in importance in order to explore atmospheres from a lifeworld perspective. (shrink)

If loneliness is a psychological state experienced by subjects, what does it mean to speak of things and places as exuding lonely atmospheres? In previous work (Osler et al. 2026), we argued that spaces seem lonely when they present “obsolete affordances”: action possibilities that remain unrealised due to material decay or an absence of human uptake. Here, we extend this framework to the digital realm. We argue that lonely atmospheres generated by dead game worlds, abandoned discussion forums, and forgotten websites (...) similarly arise via their obsolete affordances. We show that digital obsolescence presents a unique phenomenological profile: unlike material ruins, which can be physically repurposed or reclaimed by nature, abandoned digital environments cannot. Through a series of case studies, we unpack the character of digital affordances, their experienced obsolescence, and show how this analysis enriches broader discussions of affordances, affect, and atmospheres. (shrink)

This essay draws from recent trans films to map a social atmosphere of anti-trans conversion beyond the discrete set of social, medical, and psychiatric practices normally discussed in this context. To explain this phenomenon, we introduce a permeating organizational maxim of cis society we refer to as the Silenic imperative: that it is best to not live as trans, and second best to cease living as trans as soon as possible. The People’s Joker and I Saw the TV Glow (...) depict this permeating atmosphere of conversion within mass culture, constituted by and constitutive of spaces in which trans existence is systematically threatened and repressed. By staging atmospheres of conversion, both films likewise stage tactics of trans resistance that open new spaces for trans sociality. We consider how these films frame attempts to navigate and resist atmospheres of conversion, considering trans-for-trans (t4t) sociality as a site of both escape and failure. We conclude by considering trans cinema itself as a site of tactics against atmospheres of anti-trans conversion in our own world and as a source for life-sustaining sociality. This is especially important within the contemporary atmosphere of cis society and its attempts to suffuse and snuff out all trans life. The essay emerged from a mutual collaboration that included hosting trans films at a local arts non-profit. (shrink)

This article examines how the same heritage or revival site can produce both welcoming and hostile atmospheres depending on the cohort, yielding selectively permeable environments that enable some groups while constraining others. Climatic volatility further shapes these encounters, as extreme weather has been shown to increase negative valence by making movement and access more difficult, especially for marginalized populations. Drawing on built-form analysis and political history-supplemented with interview data on everyday navigation and affective experiences in cities-the paper examines three cases: (...) Cairo's Tahrir Square, revivalist university campuses and Buenos Aires women's marches. To explain why these locales produce varying atmospheres for different groups, the article draws on affordance theory-an empirically grounded account of valenced action possibilities that exist independently of any one observer yet remain harder for vulnerable populations to negotiate. These challenges often intensify around heritage and revival aesthetics, which can alienate outsiders, and are amplified by Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) elements, such as elevation changes, ornamental walls and other territorial cues. The study contributes to urban political ecology, especially scholarship on how aestheticized urban forms serve as instruments through which powerbrokers materialize dominance and produce uneven access to public venues. (shrink)

When the policies and activities of one country or generation harm both other nations and later generations, they constitute serious injustices. Recognizing the broad threat posed by anthropogenic climate change, advocates for an international climate policy development process have expressly aimed to mitigate this pressing contemporary environmental threat in a manner that promotes justice. Yet, while making justice a primary objective of global climate policy has been the movement's noblest aspiration, it remains an onerous challenge for policymakers. -/- Atmospheric Justice (...) is the first single-authored work of political theory that addresses this pressing challenge via the conceptual frameworks of justice, equality, and responsibility. Throughout this incisive study, Steve Vanderheiden points toward ways to achieve environmental justice by exploring how climate change raises issues of both international and intergenerational justice. In addition, he considers how the design of a global climate regime might take these aims into account. Engaging with the principles of renowned political philosopher John Rawls, he expands on them by factoring in the needs of future generations. Vanderheiden also demonstrates how political theory can contribute to reaching a better understanding of the proper human response to climate change. By showing how climate policy offers insights into resolving contemporary controversies within political theory, he illustrates the ways in which applying normative theory to policy allows us to better understand both. -/- Thoroughly researched and persuasively argued, Atmospheric Justice makes an important step toward providing us with a set of carefully elaborated first principles for achieving environmental justice. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Hermann Schmitz’s concept of the Autorität des Daseins—the authority of presence—and develops its implications for embodiment, affect, and sociation. Drawing on Neue Phänomenologie, it argues that social life rests on a pathic structure of exposure, in which bodies are compelled, oriented, and coordinated through shared affective pressures. By tracing the movement from ontological authority to corporeal asymmetry and atmospheric interaction, the paper articulates a unified account of felt space, emotion, and social order. It proposes that atmospheres function (...) as the medium through which the world’s authority circulates collectively, shaping interaction, normativity, and institutional form. This framework offers a phenomenology of “social air,” revealing how reality’s affective weight becomes the basis of coordination, resonance, and coexistence. (shrink)

Over the past decade, the debate on atmospheres has grown among philosophers (see, e.g., Schmitz 2016; Böhme 2017; Griffero 2017; Jagnow 2024; Fernandez Velasco and Niikawa 2025). Examples of atmospheres are the joyful atmosphere exuding from a lively party; the shady atmosphere of a run-down back alley; the poignant atmosphere of Venice, Italy. Many scholars characterize atmospheres as having an intrinsically affective dimension. I argue that this claim is tempting and natural, albeit ultimately not convincing. I put (...) forward the hypothesis that the reason why atmospheres may seem intrinsically affective has to do with the fact that atmospheres are properties of environments. Environments are typically experienced from within and a look at some contemporary media practices reveals that there is a quite widespread assumption that environments experienced from within typically produce affective reactions in experiencers. I suggest that (a) the correlation between the experience of affective responses to environments and the experience of atmospheres of environments is confused with the obtaining of the relation whereby an atmosphere causes one to have an affective response; (b) the view that atmospheres produce affective responses in experiencers is overgeneralized and thus transformed into the claim that atmospheres invariably produce affective responses in experiencers. (shrink)

The new phenomenological and aesthetic paradigm of atmospheres, conceived as feelings spread out in the external space and not as private moods, is tested here from different points of view and different disciplines in the context of a full valorization of the so-called "affective turn" in Humanities.

In this article, we approach the old philosophical question about the relatedness of image and reality, language and world, and word and thing from a pedagogical point of view by attending to how teachers work to present the world out there to students in the school classroom. We begin with Mollenhauer's distinction between educational regimes that present the world to the young with very little mediation and his diagnosis of the contemporary Western educational regime as one that reproduces the world (...) through stylized re-presentations that are shown to students in the separate pedagogic arrangement of the classroom. Drawing on a passage from Foucault's This is Not a Pipe, we argue that the (theoretical) divide between educational regimes of presentation and representation might be too strong in the context of the school because it fails to pay attention to the key components of classroom education, including the objects of the classroom, activities of students, and pedagogical work of the teacher. In the classroom, there is a vibrant school life, and there appear to be atmospheric forces at work that can bring represented worlds to life. These atmospheric forces are able to turn the world out there into an exciting place that is worthy of discovery and curiosity. (shrink)

In 1983, the British police adopted their first public order policing manual, laying the foundations of a secretive archive. The manuals and training materials produced in the intervening years provide an untapped repository of affective thought. This article reads the 1983 and 2016 training materials for their atmospheric insights. It develops the term police ‘atmotechnics’ to describe interventions that are specifically designed to affect the crowded atmosphere of protest or other disorder. The manuals reveal a gradual shift from interventions (...) designed to evince fear and awe, to ones that seek to calm crowds. But more importantly, they underline a shift from a linear understanding of atmotechnics (as a prelude to ‘the use of force’), to an affective feedback loop where specialised officers are deployed to ‘sense’ mood changes among crowds, allowing senior strategic and tactical decisions to take account of atmospheric conditions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The concept of atmosphere is now central within phenomenology, critical theory, and hermeneutics, but it has not yet played a similarly significant role in contemporary pragmatism. Part of the problem is that the term “atmosphere” is not especially salient in classical pragmatism, though the ideas encompassed by that term do play an important role there. This article explores some important ways that classical pragmatist philosophy deploys the ambiguous, polyvalent, and lexically multiple notion of atmosphere. Along with (...) its primary scientific sense as the mixture of gases that surrounds the earth, atmosphere has the central meaning of mood, tone, or felt quality that pervades a situation or place. Having elsewhere shown the vital role of mood in pragmatism, this article extends the study of atmosphere in pragmatism by considering how that notion functions through other terms, including the term “atmosphere” itself, but also through closely associated terms like “ambience,” “climate,” “weather,” “milieu,” “aura,” “halo,” “penumbra,” “situation,” or “felt quality.” This article will focus on the pragmatism of James and Dewey, because the term “atmosphere” is strikingly absent in C. S. Peirce, notwithstanding his many years as a meteorologist for the US Coast Survey. (shrink)

This chapter traces the genealogy of the term atmosphere in the German language, identifies historical semantic shifts, and points to its grammatical specifics. The state of research on atmospheres is briefly summarized and an overview is offered of the various definitions of the term in different disciplines. Drawing on Timothy Morton’s theory of ambient poetics, and on Hermann Schmitz’s “new phenomenology,” four key characteristics of atmospheres are discussed and elaborated: their mereological constitution, their modal structure, their intensification at affective (...) thresholds, and their affective efficacy through suggestions of movement. (shrink)

Atmospheres have been the focus of reflection by many phenomenologists, and they have recently gained prominence in work coming from human geography, from performance studies, and from architecture. There are, however, widely differing interpretations of the concept of atmosphere. In particular, it is unclear whether atmospheres are extended feelings. This paper leverages recent advances in cognitive neuroscience to address this question. It employs active inference to develop a notion of atmospheres as extended inferential affective processes that involve the entrainment (...) of interoceptive and external elements. The resulting account clarifies the role of the body in the emergence of atmospheres, and the sense in which atmospheres are extended feelings. (shrink)

Attempts to think anew about philosophical questions from the perspective of breath and breathing. As a physiological or biological matter, breath is mostly considered to be mechanical and thoughtless. By expanding on the insights of many religions and therapeutic practices, which emphasize the cultivation of breath, the contributors argue that breath should be understood as fundamentally and comprehensively intertwined with human life and experience. Various dimensions of the respiratory world are referred to as “atmospheres” that encircle and connect human existence, (...) coexistence, and the world. Drawing from a number of traditions of breathing, including from Indian and East Asian religion and philosophy, the book considers breath in relation to ontological, hermeneutical, phenomenological, ethical, and aesthetic concerns in philosophy. The wide-ranging topics include poetry, theater, environmental issues and health, feminism, and media studies. “Atmospheres of Breathing, the first collection of its kind, explores an emerging ‘respiratory philosophy’ of great consequence for philosophy and other fields. Its rich and diverse essays, many written by the pioneers of this radically new direction, show the deep historical and intercultural roots of such a philosophy, ranging from treatments of forerunners like Zhuangzi and Heraclitus to contemporary theorists of breathing such as Abram and Kleinberg-Levin. Presented here is the vision of innovative ways in which philosophy, on its own or inspired by spiritual practices, can bring breathing into the center of its concern. This is a landmark book that scintillates with brilliant and original insights. If taken as seriously as it deserves, this book has the potential to revolutionize contemporary and future thought.” — Edward S. Casey, author of The World at a Glance and The World on Edge “Air, the misunderstood element, finds ways and means of advancing to places where no one reckons with its presence; and, more significantly, it makes space on its own strength for strange places where there were previously none.” — Peter Sloterdijk. (shrink)

There is fast-growing awareness of the role atmospheres play in architecture. Of equal interest to contemporary architectural practice as it is to aesthetic theory, this 'atmospheric turn' owes much to the work of the German philosopher Gernot Böhme. Atmospheric Architectures: The Aesthetics of Felt Spaces brings together Böhme's most seminal writings on the subject, through chapters selected from his classic books and articles, many of which have hitherto only been available in German. This is the only translated version authorised by (...) Böhme himself, and is the first coherent collection deploying a consistent terminology. It is a work which will provide rich references and a theoretical framework for ongoing discussions about atmospheres and their relations to architectural and urban spaces. Combining philosophy with architecture, design, landscape design, scenography, music, art criticism, and visual arts, the essays together provide a key to the concepts that motivate the work of some of the best contemporary architects, artists, and theorists: from Peter Zumthor, Herzog & de Meuron and Juhani Pallasmaa to Olafur Eliasson and James Turrell. With a foreword by Professor Mark Dorrian and an afterword by Professor David Leatherbarrow,, the volume also includes a general introduction to the topic, including coverage of it history, development, areas of application and conceptual apparatus. (shrink)

This book provides a presentation of the concept of “atmosphere” in the realm of aesthetics. An “atmosphere” is meant to be an emotional space. Such idea of “atmosphere” has been more and more subsumed by human and social sciences in the last twenty years, thereby becoming a technical notion. In many fields of the Humanities, affective life has been reassessed as a proper tool to understand the human being, and is now considered crucial. In this context, the (...) link between atmospheres and aesthetics becomes decisive. Nowadays, aesthetics is no longer only a theory of art, but has recovered its original vocation: to be a general theory of perception conceived of as an ordinary experience of pre-logical character. In its four parts, this volume discusses whether atmospheres could take the prominent and paradigmatic position previously held by art in order to make sense of such sensible experience of the world. (shrink)

Paintings can exert a strong effect on their viewers by creating atmospheres. But how is it possible for a painting to create an atmosphere? My goal in this paper is to provide a partial answer to this question by focusing on the depiction of light. I argue that paintings can elicit experiences of atmospheres in part because they can depict pictorial space as filled with ambient light that has a distinctive phenomenal character. It is in virtue of this distinctive (...) phenomenal character that the depicted ambient light can make a significant contribution to the overall phenomenal character of the experienced atmosphere. (shrink)

Through an atmospherological approach, primarily inspired by the Aisthetik and the New Phenomenology, the paper investigates the relationship between atmosphere and lived space, defines what kind of perception the atmospheric one is and examines the space we experience in the lifeworld and to which plane geometry turns out to be completely blind. Sketching briefly the history of lived space, we assume that atmospheres function as affordances that permeate the lived space, i.e. as ecological invites or meanings that are ontologically (...) rooted in things and quasi-things. (shrink)

In this article, we use an entry to an international architectural student competition on future care to explore how social norms about older bodies may be challenged by designs that are sensitive to the spatial contexts within which we age. The power of the My Home design by Witham and Wilkins derives from its hand-drawn aesthetic and thus we consider the architects’ insistence on drawing as a challenge to the clear and unambiguous image-making typically associated with digitally aided architectural designs. (...) The hand-drawn images of My Home prompt a focus on care as enacted through the relations between material environments and things, and the atmospheric qualities these relations evoke. Throughout our analysis, we argue for greater attention to the ways in which embodied practices, everyday affects and materialities can be represented within architectural design, and the role of hand drawing as a creative methodology in this process. (shrink)

A growing number of lay Buddhist practitioners have sought out alternative ways to incorporate Buddhist teachings in their daily practices and make positive changes in society by “doing good” for others. Sometimes recognized as part of “humanistic Buddhism,” this approach emphasizes general morality and focuses on people who need help as a way to fulfill Buddhist teachings in this world. Some Chinese Buddhist practitioners who follow the Tibetan Buddhist tradition also carry out similar humanistic engagements but use more subtle space-making (...) processes and often “brand” these as Buddhist practices. Drawing on the ethnographic observations of lay Buddhist practitioners in urban China, this article examines how urban practitioners promote (middle-class) morality and well-being lifestyles through what I call “atmospheric Buddhism.” Ultimately, the article argues that an alternative mode of Buddhist practice is emerging in Chinese urban environments in order to cope with politically constrained environments. (shrink)

One of the central questions in philosophy of mind concerns the intentionality of moods. While it is standard to take the intentional object of moods as either ‘everything’ or ‘nothing’, neither view seems to be explanatorily inadequate. Given this, this paper develops and motivates a positive account of the intentionality of moods, according to which moods are directed at atmospheres. We first analyze the elusiveness of mood experiences in terms of three aspects, intentional, phenomenological and normative, and also specify some (...) core characteristics of atmospheres. We then motivate the atmosphere view of moods by arguing that the elusiveness of mood experiences can be well‐explained in terms of the atmospheres at which they are directed. (shrink)

Unlike human beings, landscapes, cities and buildings cannot feel anything in the literal sense. They do not have nervous systems. Nevertheless, we attribute “Stimmungen” such as peacefulness and melancholy to them. On what basis? With what right? And why does it matter anyway? This paper attempts an answer to this bunch of questions. The first section clarifies the concept of “Stimmung,” by distinguishing its three major meanings, namely harmony, mood and atmosphere. Section two discusses various models of how “Stimmung” (...) is infused into our natural and artificial environment. Section three lists several ways of how we experience atmosphere, preparing the ground for the specifically aesthetic claim in section four: how, when we experience atmosphere aesthetically, we respond to it by resonating or feeling at home. (shrink)

Initially conceived as an interview with the hybrid media artist Brian Goeltzenleuchter, this text gradually took the form of a conversation on various issues regarding olfactory art and the aesthetic significance of smell. Framing the artistic uses of odours in the context of contemporary art, the paper discloses some of its foundational traits, variations, and underlying impulses. By commenting on Goeltzenleuchter’s olfactory artworks through a philosophical perspective, this contribution covers a number of subjects including the notion of atmosphere, the (...) socio-cultural values and narratives conveyed by scents, the suggestive relationship between spaces and aromas, and the phenomenology of smells as compared to the experience of sounds. Consistent with how smell perception unfolds, the dialogue flows in a form that is not rigidly structured but airy, ephemeral, and fluid, developing a sequence of insights whose aim is, rather than scrutinising a specific topic, to evoke the essence of olfactory poetics as a whole. (shrink)

The chapter offers a short history of the concept of space, from which it derives a differentiation of spaces. More importantly, it is shown that it is necessary to consider the felt body as the object that lives “in” and “through” said spaces. The felt body—as opposed to the biological body—is something that a human being can feel as belonging to himself in the region of his body without resorting to the five senses. Furthermore, the chapter shows that human beings (...) as felt bodies have developed techniques of designing spaces according to emotional and atmospheric needs. In this sense, habitation is the culture of emotions—which are atmospheres with a tendency towards a total expanse within the space of felt presence—in enclosed spaces. (shrink)

This book investigates key issues such as relation between atmospheres & moods, how atmospheres define psychopathological conditions such as anxiety & schizophrenia, what role it plays in producing shared aesthetic experiences, & the significance of atmospheres in political events.

The role of editorial staff in shaping early climate change narratives has been underexplored and deserves more attention. During the 1970s, the epistemological underpinnings of the production of knowledge on climate change were contested between scientists who favoured computer-based atmospheric simulations and those who were more interested in investigating the long-term history of climatic changes. Although the former group later became predominant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change during the 1980s, the latter had a sizable influence over climate discourse (...) during the 1970s. Of these, one of the key popularizers of climate discourse during the 1970s was the British climatologist Hubert Lamb (1913–97). The correspondence between Lamb and journal editors who gatekept and curated different audiences helped craft resonant messages about climate change and its potential effects, and we explore Lamb's interactions with editors of Nature, the UNESCO Courier, The Ecologist and Development Forum in the 1973–4 period. Through understanding how climate change discussion was influenced by editors, we gain an insight into how such narratives had to be adjusted to fit into pre-existing discourses before their importance was more widely established, and how these adjustments helped shape conceptualizations of climate change as a global, human-caused phenomenon and a source of universal threat. (shrink)

Atmospheres are affective, sensory realms, where mood is palpable. Memory landscapes intensify affectivity, amplifying emotion. The senses, especially smell and taste, trigger and heighten memory. There is therefore a potent intersection between landscape, atmospheres, memory, and the senses. These connections present the compelling prospect that atmospheres could be designed, with the intention of enhancing memory landscapes through sensory means. This paper is written from the perspective of landscape architecture, a discipline which designs and shapes landscapes. Landscape architects work within the (...) spatially and temporally fluid context of the landscape, and aligned with this is the prospect of generating and tuning atmospheres. Past traumatic events, losses of people and places, float in atmospheres of melancholy. Two projects are explored here to probe the possibilities of intentionally invoking atmospheres, exploring how the landscape could be sensorially tonalised. The memorial landscape of Pike River where 29 men died in a mine explosion, and Laura Daly’s augmented reality artwork, The Storm Cone, offer insights into the possibilities of atmospheric design. (shrink)

The chapter examines the atmospheric qualities of memory and remembrance. It applies a phenomenological approach to illuminate what kind of atmospheres is involved with states of remembrance and in which way. Empirically, the main focus of the examination is Marcel Proust’s detailed description of remembrance. Overall, memory is recognized as accessible through a phenomenological analysis. The terms of new phenomenology are able to show what happens within the context of memory processes. Finally, it is also shown that atmospheres play a (...) role both as content and as trait of these processes. (shrink)

This chapter offers an introduction to three fundamental atmospheric notions deployed by Japanese culture, observing them both in their original context and through a neophenomenological frame. The three concepts are that of 空 ku- “sky”, 風 fu- “wind” and 気 ki “air” or “breath”. Each of them, however, shows an impressive complexity and a wide array of meanings, many of which, despite the puzzling effect on a non-Asian reader, are highly coherent. Why is the character for “sky” also the signifier (...) for the Buddhist notion of emptiness and imagination? Why is “wind” both the chief element of “landscapes”, a signifier for the aesthetic in general and having even the sense of “culture”? Is ki, with its impressive use for phenomena both bodily and psychic, external and internal, an actual phenomenon in the world? Despite the risk of exoticizing the cultural difference of non-European sources or the opposite refusal of these notions as “totally other”, the potential of a cross-cultural phenomenology of atmospheres is made evident, also presenting the work of modern Japanese philosophers who have already retraced the heritage of these concepts in a philosophical perspective. (shrink)

Unusual atmospheric phenomena (UAPs) were observed in daylight by multiple observers on board two civil aircraft in widely separated locations. We summarise results of an investigation based on radio communications reporting events in real time to Air Traffic Control (ATC), ATC radar and weather radar recordings, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) documents, witness interviews and statements, and other sources. We describe attempts to explain the phenomena with the help of expert specialist advisers and professional resources in the fields of meteorology, atmospheric (...) optics, oceanography and geophysics. We are able to show that widespread media stories describing enormous phenomena up to a mile wide and detected by radar were based on speculation and misunderstandings. Many news reports were grossly exaggerated and inaccurate. However, we are unable to conclusively identify the UAPs observed. It proves possible to eliminate a number of theories with a fairly high level of confidence, leaving us with two types of phenomena—a rare atmospheric-optical effect or an earthquake precursor—both of which have the potential to explain at least some, although not all, features of the reports. We highlight certain features that appear to leave open the possibility of unusual physical processes. Keywords: UAP—atmospheric optics—anomaly—mirage—earthquake lights—EQL. (shrink)

The atmosphere is critical to climate change. It can amplify shifts in the climate system, and also mitigate them. Giving readers an overview of key atmospheric processes, the author of this book looks at how our climate system receives energy from the sun and sheds it by emitting infrared radiation back into space. The atmosphere regulates these radiative energy flows and transports energy through weather systems such as thunderstorms, monsoons, hurricanes, and winter storms. The author explains how these (...) processes work, and also how precipitation, cloud formation, and other phase changes of water strongly influence weather and climate. He discusses how atmospheric feedbacks affect climate change, how the large-scale atmospheric circulation works, how predicting the weather and the climate are fundamentally different challenges, and much more. (shrink)

Educational situations are mainly based on curricula, methods, and principles of teaching. For a long time, the pedagogical relationship had mostly been ignored until John Hattie rediscovered it. The following text proposes the hypothesis that the individual way of interaction between pedagogue and child is at least as important as the above-mentioned aspects. The term “embodied communication” creates the chance to explain subtle and hardly noticeable aspects of communication in the collective situation in a classroom. They allow the distinct description (...) of the atmosphere of learning situations and develop a perspective that perceives not only countable items but also tangible effects on pedagogue-child interaction. The concept of “atmospheres” in the context of educational situations demonstrates in which subtle way children’s socialization is influenced and how to use this knowledge for a positive impact. The beginning and termination of bullying in a classroom may thus be explained as well as the creation of a motivating learning atmosphere. The chapter illuminates elementary processes of learning not just as a cognitive function, but as a guided experience in the concrete learning situation. (shrink)

Interest in sensory atmospheres and architectural and urban ambiances has been growing for over 30 years. A key figure in this field is acclaimed German philosopher Gernot Böhme whose influential conception of what atmospheres are and how they function has been only partially available to the English-speaking public. This translation of key essays along with an original introduction charts the development of Gernot Böhme's philosophy of atmospheres and how it can be applied in various contexts such as scenography, commodity aesthetics, (...) advertising, architecture, design, and art. The phenomenological analysis of atmospheres has proved very fruitful and its most important, and successful, application has been within aesthetics. The material background of this success may be seen in the ubiquitous aestheticization of our lifeworld, or from another perspective, of the staging of everything, every event and performance. The theory of atmospheres becoming an aesthetic theory thus reveals the theatrical, not to say manipulative, character of politics, commerce, of the event-society. But, taken as a positive theory of certain phenomena, it offers new perspectives on architecture, design, and art. It made the spatial and the experience of space and places a central subject and hence rehabilitated the ephemeral in the arts. Taking its numerous impacts in many fields together, it initiated a new humanism: the individual as a living person and his or her perspective are taken seriously, and this fosters the ongoing democratization of culture, in particular the possibility for everybody to participate in art and its works. (shrink)

The relationship between the human being and their environment has been investigated in many ways during the twentieth century. In this chapter, I will address the topic by focusing on the way that has conceived of such relationship in terms of atmosphere. I will claim that, in order to provide a proper clarification of the human-environment relationship, the concept of “atmosphere” has to refer to that of “taste”. First of all, I will wonder whether these two concepts are (...) incompatible. Second, I will compare the two original theories of atmosphere. Third, I will argue for their need for a concept of “taste”. Finally, I will discuss the first systematic though non-philosophical usage of the concept of “atmosphere”, strictly related to that of “taste”, in order to show the relevance of the latter for understanding the relationship between individual and environment. (shrink)

This paper employs allegory to examine how pupils experience exclusion in mathematics education. Using Dante’s Inferno as a structural frame, I present nine fictional narratives aligned with the nine circles of Hell. These depict recurring learner experiences: displacement, disorientation, mechanical drill, grade-chasing, resistance, doubt, internalised failure, performance without understanding, and withdrawal. The narratives are not verbatim accounts but constructed stories synthesising themes from research, classroom practice, and observed discourse. Through narrative inquiry, each story reframes issues such as language barriers, high-stakes (...) assessment, proceduralism, and stereotype threat—not as individual shortcomings but systemic conditions shaping learner identities. The allegorical mode makes these conditions vivid, positioning mathematics education as a moral landscape where inclusion and exclusion are continually negotiated. The analysis yields three insights: first, forms of exclusion are diverse yet interconnected, often drawing pupils into cycles of silence, resistance, or performance; second, metaphor and fiction can serve as rigorous research tools, allowing affective and structural dimensions of schooling to be understood together; and third, teacher education and policy must confront the hidden costs of privileging narrow forms of knowledge. Reimagining classrooms through Dante’s allegory, this paper calls for pedagogies that disrupt exclusion and open pathways to belonging and mathematical meaning. (shrink)

In ordinary language, “calmness”, “melancholy”, “cheerfulness”, and “sadness” are employed to describe affective states experienced by sentient beings. More precisely, these terms are used to report instances of moods. Yet, the very same terms are used to describe what seem to be properties of certain objects (e.g., things, situations) which, unlike sentient beings, are unable to feel. We usually describe atmospheres employing these terms: We speak about the calmness of a forest, the melancholy of a painting, the cheerfulness of a (...) field of flowers and the sadness of a landscape. Are we in fact referring to the same phenomenon? If not, why then do we employ the same terms? (shrink)

The major purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of the moral atmosphere of athletic teams to athletes' self-described likelihood to aggress (SLA). Two additional purposes were: first, to determine whether there was a predominant figure most influential to athletes' SLA and, secondly, to examine potential gender differences in athletes' perceived team moral atmosphere, their SLA and the most influential person affecting their SLA. Participants were 194 male and female soccer players 13-19 years of age. Athletes' (...) perceptions of their team pro-aggressive norms emerged as the most consistent predictor of their SLA. Regardless of gender, the athletes reported that they would be more likely to aggress if they thought their coach supported such behaviour. The findings shed light on the influence that significant others have in "shaping" the moral atmosphere operating on youth sport teams. (shrink)

This paper develops the concept of background exploitation to argue that artificial intelligence’s (AI) most profound manipulative power lies not in influencing current beliefs or emotions, but in intervening in the pre-reflective conditions that mediate immediate experience—our backgrounds. Drawing on phenomenology and Robert Musil’s notions of the “invisible” and the “nonexistent,” the paper reconceptualizes atmospheres as based on pre-reflective associations mediated by individual backgrounds. On this basis, two distinct modes of AI-driven background exploitation are distinguished: background hijacking, which exploits existing (...) backgrounds in situ, and background entrapment, which gradually recalibrates backgrounds over time. While current debates in AI ethics and affective computing primarily address the former, the paper argues that they fail to capture the latter—AI’s growing capacity to reshape the very conditions through which immediate experience is mediated. (shrink)

The concept of atmosphere in psychopathology has been used sporadically and by only a few, albeit authoritative, authors, although such contributions, largely neglected by debate in psychiatry and psychotherapy, today are particularly interesting because they point to and support a conception of psychopathology that goes beyond a symptomatic and individualistic understanding of human suffering. The dominant paradigm in clinical psychotherapy and psychiatry today makes use of third-person descriptive diagnosis, and clinical work aims at changing the way the patient (dys)functions. (...) Such an approach is far from satisfactory and has not proven to be successful in addressing the problems it promised to resolve. In this chapter I attempt to describe how the concept of “atmosphere” can help open up a different understanding of psychopathology, diagnosis, and clinical practice. It can help also to steer us towards an aesthetic diagnosis that goes beyond the diagnosis of symptoms and towards a field-based clinical practice, which goes beyond the individual or bi-personal. It is a paradigm shift that will lead us onto a new epistemological ground, one that is different from the individualistic perspective, where clinical work focuses on the suffering individual to effect change, but also from the bi-personal paradigm, which sees the relationship co-created by two individuals who come together and jointly produce change. This new horizon posits the relationship before the related, where subjects and the world emerge incessantly from an undifferentiated ground in which they are not yet defined. (shrink)

Describes the basic physical processes, including radiative transfer, molecular absorption, and chemical processes, common to all planetary atmospheres as well as the transit, eclipse, and thermal phase variation observations that are unique to exoplanets.

In Paradoxes of Delusion, Sass aims to use passages from Wittgenstein to characterize the feeling of “mute particularity” that forms a part of delusional atmosphere. I argue that Wittgenstein’s discussion provides no helpful positive account. But his remarks on more everyday cases of the uncanny and the feeling of unreality might seem to promise a better approach via the expressive use of words in secondary sense. I argue that this also is a false hope but that, interestingly, there can (...) be no interesting or substantial explanation of this failure. (shrink)

The concept of atmosphere today has raised the interest of various academic disciplines, including phenomenological philosophy and psychiatry. In this chapter, I will first present the phenomenon of atmosphere (from the Greek ‘atmos’ = “vapour”, and ‘sphaire’ = “sphere”), highlighting its main conceptualizations. The concreteness of this phenomenon is evident, but the problem is that every time we theorize it, somehow, we denature its essence. The most reliable way to appraise atmospheres is to rediscover the field of situationality. (...) Then, through the analysis of the main act of the phenomenological method, the epoché, I will illustrate a peculiar affinity with the phenomenon of atmosphere, exploring the psychopathology of prodromal experiences of psychosis. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to initiate a research agenda on mega-urban airs that comprehends their atmospheres as simultaneously meteorological and affective ( McCormack, 2008 ), an agenda which seeks to apprehend megacity air/atmospheres in their vitality, corporeality and expressiveness. This paper attunes to the close and expressive substances that make up immersion in a material-affective ecology of a place, the qualities of the city that seep and imbue its material and biological fabric with affect. There is a growing body (...) of work and literature to aid us from traditions in continental aesthetic theory, French urban sociology and architecture, and an emergent cultural geographic field of atmospheric enquiry. The paper develops such an approach to megacity air in three main ways. First, air tells us about difference. In the testimony of pollutants and choking effluvium, an analysis of air reveals who belongs and who does not, who is deserving and who is not in a constellation of megacity inequality. The atmosphere puts the megacity apart from other urban and political forms. Second, closely related to the issues that circulate around a geopolitics of verticality and the technocratic security concerns of volumetric conceptions of territory, air/atmospheres constitute an environmental ecology of security threats and crisis that thwart megacity life and justify environmental policies as ‘security’ (see Zeiderman, 2013). Third, the paper argues how megacities are increasingly productive of secessionary atmospheres, often by removal and exclusion, which are not entirely separate from other atmospheric security concerns. (shrink)

This article explores how the “atmospheric turn” in the humanities offers new insights into the experience of presence in religion, politics, and their intersections. Based on ethnographic research in Brazil and Ghana, it examines how Pentecostalism and authoritarian populism—despite their differences—share a desire for immediacy and a rejection of representation. Through affective forms of presence such as the Holy Spirit and the People, both generate visceral, ambient experiences. Drawing on the atmospheric properties of ubiquity, indeterminacy, and viscerality, the article argues (...) for a rethinking of mediation, materiality, and time in contemporary religious and political life. (shrink)

This article contributes to phenomenological sociology by establishing a dialogue between Hermann Schmitz’s “new phenomenology” and Erving Goffman’s microsociology. The focus is on synthesizing the two authors’ central scholarly themes: in Schmitz’s work, _feelings as atmospheres_; in Goffman’s, the _interaction order_. The text demonstrates that neo-phenomenological sociology, drawing on Schmitz and Goffman, is a microsociological approach centered on atmospheres—an object unknown in classical phenomenological sociology (Schütz and his successors). Because atmospheres are the product, shaper, and stabilizer of and a threat (...) to any microsocial situation, the interaction order always proves to be an _atmosphere order_ as well. A phenomenological sociology based on Schmitz and Goffman thus simultaneously corrects the activist bias of the sociological tradition and points to the fundamentally pathic dimension of the social. (shrink)