In contrast to such phenomenological ideas, but certainly inspired by them, some enactivists (most notably, Varela) link affectivity and temporality, claiming that the former 'precedes' the latter. But this view risks conflating explanatory levels (transcendental and empirical).

This form of intentionality (operative intentionality, as phenomenologists call it) can be understood as a general openness to the world. Here, I thematize such openness as a bodily form of intentionality that is defined by affective and anticipatory dynamics.

In this paper, I provide phenomenological reasons to believe that temporality and affectivity are co-emergent. In fact, it is in the interplay between affectivity (affection) and temporality (protention), that the most basic and general form of intentionality arises.