ABSTRACT
An atmospheric feeling is almost omnipresent, even though at times unnoticed and ephemeral. One speaks of atmospheres continuously, describes them and calls them into question every time that some invisible effects seem to be out of proportion with respect to their visible causes and not fully perceivable through standard sense organs. When a person speaks, for example, of a political wind blowing in the country or of the mood specifically suggested by a certain weather, etc., they are referring to a social or natural atmospherisation. One has always known what “there is something in the air” means (tension or relaxation, for example). Western culture has been feeling for at least a century the increasing need for atmospheric concepts (such as aura, ambiance, Stimmung, etc.), and even marketing has been understanding for at least half a century that “in some cases, the place, more specifically the atmosphere of the place, is more influential than the product itself in the purchase decision” (Kotler 1973–1974, 48). But it is only for about 20 years that the notion of atmosphere has become a philosophical theme (cf. Thibaud 2015, 13–43; Runkel 2016; Griffero 2018) precisely since the New Phenomenology, founded by Hermann Schmitz, uses atmospheric feeling as a leverage to wipe away that dualism, both Christian-Platonist and Cartesian, that makes it impossible to explain how the subject is then able to get outside and acquire a reliable knowledge of the external world. 1
