For a Hetero-Genesis of Atmosphere

Abstract

This article examines the problem of atmosphere through the lens of Heideggerian speculation, with particular attention to his post-Kehre writings. Through a thorough analysis of his ontological-existential re flection, it becomes evident that the notion of atmosphere emerges as a space of encounter between two ontologically distinct dimensions: being and entity. However, this encounter is not merely a matter of proximity and convergence but also—above all—of constitutive distance. Atmosphere thus manifests itself as a topology of affective tonalities (Stimmungen), revealing to the individual the appearance of the inapparent. Although this issue has often been explored within aesthetics, its existential dimension remains largely unexamined. Atmospherology thus proposes itself as a new speculative field, centered on the topology of Stimmungen, where the living subject is not merely considered in existential terms but rather ontologically, following the phenomenological method. The aim is to outline an ontology of the “in-between”, wherein atmosphere is not reduced to an object of aesthetic inquiry but emerges as the very dispositif that enables an ek-static and ek-sistential mode of thought, thereby rethinking the relationship between being, space, and sensibility.