This introduction to the section Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Humanities provides a concise overview of the history of respiratory philosophy—the Western philosophical tradition of breath—specifically how early Greeks linked breathing with consciousness and the soul. It further traces the subsequent marginalization of this question in Western thought, alongside its gradual resurgence from Nietzsche onward, particularly within the phenomenological tradition, where philosophers like Gaston Bachelard, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Luce Irigaray have re-examined the possibilities of philosophical cultivation of breathing. The introduction highlights that although breath has been largely overlooked in Western philosophy, it has remained a foundational principle in global philosophies, most notably in Chinese and Japanese thought. Finally, this introduction outlines the section’s essays, which explore breathing within the atmospheres of phenomenology and cross-cultural humanities, proposing breath as a point of departure for understanding being, embodiment, spatiality, temporality, olfaction, environment, and sense-making.