The paper introduces a distinction between sense of togetherness—hedonically neutral experience of togetherness—and feelings of togetherness—hedonically positive experiences of interpersonal liking, closeness, and rapport—as related but distinct experiences of togetherness that often occur together and intertwine in collectively intentional mental states and shared emotions in particular.
Second-person engagement (Zahavi, 2019) and shared concerns (Salmela, 2012) are discussed as alternative foundations of the sense of togetherness, whereas feelings of togetherness are argued to emerge from a synchronization of the participants ́ afective responses together with mutual awareness of their converging afects. Finally, a distinction between two types of feelings of togetherness, weak and strong, is introduced. Weak feelings of togetherness emerge from behavioural synchronization and they can be experienced without a sense of togetherness, whereas strong feelings of togetherness emerging from
mutual awareness of afective convergence involve a sense of togetherness