Feeling Haunted by One's Past

Talk of being emotionally haunted is commonplace in everyday life and also in literature. However, the associated experiences have been neglected by philosophers working on emotion. In this paper, I focus specifically on what it is to be haunted by one’s past. In many instances, I suggest, this is a matter of feeling unsettled by the indeterminate significance of something in the past. One senses that whatever happened or might have happened retains the potential to take on a different or more determinate significance that would undermine and disrupt the current organization of one’s life. I conclude by sketching how emotional haunting can be situated within a larger conception of human emotional life, emphasizing the themes of pre-reflective anticipation, indeterminacy, and self-coherence.