The term itself derives from the Latin emovere which translates as to move, to excite, to stir up or to agitate. Contemporary usage is of two general kinds: 1. An umbrella term for any of a number of subjectively experienced, affect-laden states the ontological status of each being established at by simple consensus. ... It is what we mean when we say that love, fear, hate, terror, etc. are emotions. 2. A label for a field of scientific investigation that explores the various environmental, physiological and cognitive factors that underlie these subjective experiences.
(Arthur S. Reber: Dictionary of Psychology, Penguin 1985)

We must distinguish an emotion as a kind of temporary state of a person (the term "emotional state" could be used for greater specificity here) from more or less long-term dispositions to various states, including emotional states, and activities.
Factors essential to emotions:
(1) A cognition of something as in some way desirable or undesirable.
(2) Feelings of certain kinds.
(3) Marked bodily sensations of certain kinds.
(4) Involuntary bodily processes and overt expressions of certain kinds.
(5) Tendencies to act in certain ways.
(6) An upset or disturbed condition of mind or body.
(Paul Edwards, ed.: The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume II, p. 479 f.)

Synonyms: feeling, passion, affection, sensation, compassion, sentiment, sympathy, sensibility, etc.

Human beings think emotionally. Feeling is the predominant state of mind. We do not experience the world and other human beings in terms of abstract ideas but through the faculty of feeling. Feeling is the capacity of our mind that is most closely related to the body. Feeling without its relationship to the body is inconceivable. Feeling or emotion is intimately connected to the body insofar as feeling manifests itself as "feeling the body", as awareness of our body. (see Essay Emotive and Paranoetic Thinking).

Emotions and feelings are strong forces and drives that determine the individualized form in nature, thereby running the whole gamut from primitive organisms to the most complex ones, the homo sapiens. Emotions are linked to experience, and experience is linked to the body. Without a body, experience and emotions would be impossible.

1. A cognitive awareness and understanding of the emotions and feelings of another person. In this sense the term's primary connotation is that of an intellectual or conceptual grasping of the affect of another.
2. A vicarious affective response to the emotional experiences of another person that mirrors or mimics that emotion. In this sense there is the clear implication that an emphatic experience is a sharing of the emotion with the other person.
3. Assuming, in one's mind, the role of another person. This meaning derives from 1, but differs slightly in that there is added the notion that empathy involves taking on the perspective of the other person.
(Arthur S. Reber: Dictionary of Psychology, Penguin 1985)

Projection (not necessarily voluntary) of the self into the feelings of others, or, anthropomorphically, into the 'being' of objects or sets of objects; it implies psychological involvement.... The word itself was coined by Vernon Lee in 1904, and then employed by the psychologist E.B. Titchener in 1909 as a translation of the German Einfühlung ('feeling-into')....
(The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, Fontana Books 1983)

I use the term in a similar meaning as defined above. It constitutes a special form of thought, i.e. empathic thinking that inlcudes not only an emotional inner agreement with another person, but also conceptual or intellectual elements. Empathy runs the whole gamut of connotations, from just feeling pity for someone to being one and united with another person. Although it is often used synonymously with sympathy, empathy is a more sublime and profounder emotion of mutual unison or harmonious communion, a compassionate understanding.

Body and mind are not two separate and independent substances as Descartes held it, but they consist of only one "substance". This principle of one origin, I call enarcheism. Enarcheism is derived from Greek ἕν (hen = one), and from ἀρχή (arche = beginning, principle, origin, root, power).
There is one common ground or principle to mind and matter. Both are realities which depend on each other and are subtly interrelated through complexity and synchronicity. Out of this common ground arise two aspects, namely mind or psyche and matter. There is a duality or polarity between these two realities, but they are not isolated from each other as in Cartesian dualism. They are deeply interconnected because of their common origin.

As our mind is a complex whole that is not analyzable into parts, any underlying processes that are constitutive of the mind must necessarily participate in the intrinsic properties of the mind. I call this kind of participation in regard to Plato: enmethexis or intro-participation (from Greek ἐν (en) = in, into and μέθεξις (methexis) = participation). This principle excludes physical processes as constituents of our mind, because physical and mental properties are completely different and intrinsically incongruent. (see also Essay Mind and Systems Theory).

1. Realization or actuality as opposed to potentiality. In the works of Aristotle (De Anima, De Generatione) treating of the relationship between the soul and the material body, the soul (psyche) is defined as the form or actuality (entelechy) of an organic body that is potentially endowed with life. 2. (in vitalism) The vital principle, characteristically present in living bodies only.
(Antony Flew: A Dictionary of Philosophy, St. Martin's Press, 1984)

Entelechie, gr., zusammengesetzt aus en 'in', télos 'Ziel' und échein 'haben', das, was sein Ziel in sich selbst hat, seit Aristoteles die Form, die sich im Stoff verwirklicht (Energie), bes. die im Organismus liegende Kraft, die ihm von innen her zur Selbstentwicklung und -vollendung bringt. Dementsprechend bezeichnet Aristoteles (de an. II 1, 412a) die Seele als die erste Entelechie eines organischen, lebensfähigen Körpers.

This principle states the fact that philosophers and human beings in general always relate everything they think and do to their own age they are living in. This is especially apparent when it comes to understanding and interpreting historical texts and cultures. The problem of hermeneutics is unresolved as long as a philosopher is not able to transcend the dependence on and attachment to his own culture. Modern scholars try to understand ancient thinkers on the basis of knowledge and experience of the 20th century. They criticize them on points relevant within the viewpoint of modernism and its special branch of analytical philosophy and critical rationalism. Even if these academic thinkers claim to have implied the historical background and the culture of the philosopher's age, they usually interpret this historical background again from the view of the 20th century. To break this hermeneutic circle is not an easy task, but is mandatory for a universal metaphysics of the Mind.

From Greek ἐκ, ἐξ (ex = out, away, off, from, from out of) and ὑλη (hyle = stuff of which things are made, material, matter). The distinct, transient and individual physical form or entity that is a manifestation, actualization and objectivization of Hyponoesis. Also referred to as the substance of matter as objectified in the exterior physical world we experience. The physical or material aspect of the fundamental reality as apposed to Exonoesis (see next entry), the individuated Mind. Exohyle or Matter is not an independent substance but belongs, together with Mind, to the same hyponoetic substance (see also Dual-Aspect Theory).

From Greek ἐκ, ἐξ (ex = out, away, off, from, from out of) and νόησις (noesis = intelligence, understanding, mind, processes of thought). The distinct, transient and individual mental form or entity that is a manifestation, actualization and objectivization of Hyponoesis. Synonym: Individual Mind.
On the relationship between Hyponoesis and Exonoesis, see Essay Hyponoesis and Exonoesis I and Hyponoesis and Exonoesis II.

Direct, observational knowledge of the world. More narrowly, experience is sometimes restricted to the sensory basis (sensation) of this knowledge. In the first sense, one's experience includes whatever one has come to know or believe about the world by direct observation and without inference... In the second... sense, experience is distinguished from belief or knowledge. It refers to the sensory events (e.g. visual and auditory sensations) on which beliefs about the world are typically based.
(Ted Honderich: The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press 1995)

Experience per se as pure sensational experience does not make a distinction between object and subject. Only verbalized thought reifies the sensations by conceptualizing them and pigeonholing them into the given entities of language. We cannot experience something consciously without the mediation of understanding and mind. Our experience is already conceptualized at the time it comes into our consciousness. Our experience is negative insofar as it destroys the original pure experience. In a dialectical process of synthesis, the original pure experience becomes an object for us. The common state of our mind is only capable of apperceiving objects. Objects are reified negative experience. (see Essay The Identity of Subject and Object)

In Essay Nature and Development of Transrational Thinking I mention two basic kinds of experience:

The former [empiric experience] is experience of our sensations and perceptions and even emotions connected to sensations or perceptions, whereas the latter [noetic experience] is the experience of our own consciousness and mind, or what is commonly called self-consciousness.

In Essay Nature and Development of Transrational Thinking I mention two basic kinds of experience:

The former [empiric experience] is experience of our sensations and perceptions and even emotions connected to sensations or perceptions, whereas the latter [noetic experience] is the experience of our own consciousness and mind, or what is commonly called self-consciousness.

In the same essay, I distinguish between the mystical experience of unity, which is a kind of empiric experience, and the noetic experience of unity that is detached from emotivity.