Description: Theoretical premise A human being is always in an emotional mood (Heidegger, 1927). Being in an emotional mood is a fundamental existential. Whether we are in an undisturbed equanimity or an inhibited discontent, we are always in an emotional mood, even if this ontological condition is not noted by the individual. What should make us think is that emotional life exercises a sensible performative power on the way of being-with-others-in the-world. As "geological upheavals" condition variations in the form of the landscape (Nussbaum, 2001: 1), so emotions condition the life of the mind and thus our way of living our own experience. But, and this is an existential problem, we are not always aware of the way in which emotions act on our life. By now much research exists on the emotions. In its history psychological research on emotions has investigated many aspects: accuracy in recognizing emotions (Buck, 1984; Campbell, Kagan, & Krathwall; Gross & Bailif, 1991; Rosenthal and al., 1979); communicating emotional expressions using the face (Hall, 1984); using words to describe feelings (Bagby, Parker, & Taylor 1993); responding with empathy (Flury& Ickes, 2001), managing emotions with self-regulating strategies (Thayer, Newman, & McClain, 1994). Solvey speaks of "emotional intelligence" and holds that the skills which configure this kind of intelligence can be measured. In philosophy too reflection on the theme of emotions has intensified. Of a certain importance is the contribution by Martha Nussbaum, who, on the basis of studies conducted on ancient philosophy with particular regard to Stoicism, states that emotions are not a messy and non rational material, but are suffused with intelligence and discernment (Nussbaum, 2001: 1). All these studies are important from a theoretical point of view, since in Western culture the theme of emotions has been neglected for a long time. However pedagogical research needs not only this kind of investigation, which analyses and conceptualizes the phenomenon of emotions, but in particular needs research which investigates how to educate persons to analyze and know their emotional inward life. In making this statement we assume as a frame of reference the pedagogical theory according to which the primary objective of education is that of promoting the disposition to care for oneself, which in a Socratic fashion is made concrete by practising the discipline of "knowing oneself"; an important aspect of that knowledge is constituted by reflecting on our emotional life in order to comprehend which emotions and sentiments prevail in us and in relation to which type of experience, and how emotions and sentiments condition our actions. Knowing the quality of our own emotional life is the condition for developing emotional competence. On the basis of this premise we developed the educational research which is the object of this paper. Pedagogical premise One of the tasks of the educational process consists in promoting experiences which develop the disposition to learn awareness of the ways in which a person lives his/her experience in the subject. Arendt (1978) states that it is important to understand where we are when we think; we can integrate this statement by adding that it is essential to also understand how we are when we feel. In order to educate towards gaining awareness of one's emotional life it is necessary to find an adequate educative method. The necessary condition for satisfying this objective consists in identifying the object on which the process of learning should be based. In this case the object is emotions. But what are emotions? For a long time emotions have been conceived of as unrational elements, as "animal energies or impulses that have no connection with our thoughts, meanings, and appraisals" (Nussbaum, 2001: 1). Now, a certain philosophy (Nussbaum; Held) and a certain psychology (Oatley, 1992) view emotions as intelligent responses to the perception of value. Emotions are conceived of as mental acts (Oatley, 1992), that is, as having "a complicated cognitive structure" (Nussbaum, 2001: 2). The theory which considers of emotions come mental acts states that they are connected to precise ways of conceptualizing and evaluating reality; and precisely because they are suffused by cognition they are not unrational responses, but intelligent components of the life of the mind. Epistemology of the educative method A method which is particularly suited to investigating emotions as mental acts is the phenomenological one, since phenomenology's object of inquiry is the acts of the consciousness; acts whose essence it tries to grasp. The phenomenological method consists in describing the acts of the mind as they reveal themselves to the eye of the observer, with the greatest possible fidelity. Since a phenomenon not only reveals what appears, but at the same time reveals what is concealed, then describing with the greatest possible fidelity means applying both the principle of evidence and the principle of transcendence (Husserl, 1950). Applying the principle of evidence in describing an emotion means describing what we feel at the moment we perceive ourselves to be in an emotional state and applying the principle of transcendence means identifying the ways of conceptualizing and evaluating the experience with which the emotion is infused but which tend to remain hidden. Methodology: An educative experience On this premise I organized an educative experience which is the object of inquiry of a qualitative research. Subjects: university students graduating in education. Duration: the experience lasted a semester. Organization of the educative process: 1. In a postgraduate course in a faculty of education, we organized a group of students who spontaneously engaged in a reflective experience on their emotional life. After having presented and discussed the type of activity proposed with the students, the epistemological frame of the activities was explained and then the task was assigned: epistemological frame: phenomenology states that what appears to the awareness is a phenomenon and that describing a phenomenon is the way to gain the comprehension of the interior experience; task: on the basis of these phenomenological premises the task was formulated thus: "develop an interior observation to describe your emotional life so as it appears" and then write your reflections in a diary designated as "the diary of emotional life". Students were expected to write up the diary every day. 2. Then, the procedure to follow was presented to them. This procedure foresaw the following operative phases: - in one's daily life, learning how to focus attention on the life of the mind so as to perceive and apprehend emotions while they occur; - identify the quality of the emotions lived through by the method of describing what we feel happening; - finding the words which are suited to constructing descriptions which are faithful to the phenomenon which is being investigated (a faithful description is that which delineates the phenomenon's profile with precision - such as to allow those who listen or those who read this description to understand the emotional phenomenon without having experienced it at first hand (Husserl, 1950); - writing the entire process of description down, because (a) writing helps the mind to clarify thoughts, and (b) when a process of thinking is written then it can become the object of further reflections. 3. Every two weeks I met the students in order to discuss the on-going learning experience together in order to identify the positive aspects and the critical nodes. 4. At the end of the task the students were asked to write their reflections on the basis of the following questions and stimuli: "What did I learn from this experience? Which were the most absorbing/interesting parts? Which were instead the most difficult parts? I suggest ..." A qualitative research Data collecting: When the laboratory ended the students gave me a copy of their diary and all the diaries have been verbatim transcribed on the computer. Data analysis: - question guiding the analysis: The raw material can be analyzed starting from this question: what description of the emotional life emerges from the practice of metacognition? - methodological procedure of analysis: The methodological strategy emploied in the study in order to answer this question took the form of a qualitative analysis which assumes as its frame of reference Glaser and Strauss' grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Glaser, 1992). A fundamental epistemic principle of grounded theory is that of working out categories which should be "fitted" to the data. "Data should not be forced or selected to fit preconceived or pre-existant categories or discarded in favor of keeping an extant theory in tact" (Glaser, 1978: 4). To safeguard the original profile of each diary reading one after the other has been avoided, leaving a pause between each single text. Precisely, each diary was given a specific time of analysis which was then followed by a sensible temporal interval before continuing the analysis of the next diary. For every diary a short profile of its "reflective identity" has been written. Conclusions: The construction of the inductive theory from the data is still going on at the present. Significance of the research The findings of this research will be useful in order to draw up a process training which could be effective for enhancing the reflective practice on the emotional life in order to develop an emotional intelligence.