Husserl Studies https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-025-09365-3 Abstract On the received view, Husserl’s theory of feeling is interpreted as primarily cogni- tivist, because he holds that feeling intentionality is essentially furnished by found- ing presentative perception. Husserl situates feelings as relatively high-level act, and he faces two severe critiques: first, he cannot do justice to the sui generis kind of intentionality in existential feelings as articulated in Heidegger’s Being and Time, which are not founded upon objectifying act but instead genetically precedes and grounds such objectification; and second, he fails to adequately address the role of pre-thematic feelings in structuring epistemic access, given that existential feelings such as anxiety are world-directed rather than object-directed. In this paper, I chal- lenge this received view by demonstrating that Husserl develops a robust theory of affective intentionality (Gemütsintention) with a focus on his manuscripts in Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins. I argue that Husserl offers a comprehensive account of pre-thematic feelings and their role as an affective ground for thematic cognition. I further articulate a peculiar kind of twofold intentionality in Husserl’s theory of af- fective feeling and show how this passive form of feeling intentionality constitutes a primordial contact with the world. Contra Heidegger, I contend that Husserl’s account offers a more elucidating explanation of how affective feelings establish epistemic grounding, bridging the pre-thematic and thematic layers of experience. Keywords Feeling · Intentionality · Objectifying · Pre-objectifying · Epistemic Accepted: 14 May 2025 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2025 Affect and Feeling Intentionality: From Husserl to Heidegger and Back Zhida Luo 1  Zhida Luo lozida1@gmail.com 1 Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai), Sun Yat-sen University, Office A552, Haiqinlou No.6, (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai City 519082, China 1 3