Knowing Emotions

NDPR, 2019

presents a coherent and consistent "cognitive" view of emotions, whereby emotions are intentional and embodied states of mind, which give us epistemic access to aspects of the world that bear on our cares and concerns, thereby also enabling selfknowledge of what is significant to us. His book enjoys a density and breadth of references and influences. It is scientifically informed and upto-date with the latest philosophical literature just as much as it is grounded in the history of philosophy, fruitfully engaging with both Anglo-American philosophy and Continental philosophy, in particular phenomenology and existentialism. Furtak begins by opposing the "cognitive" theories of emotions, which argue that emotions are intentional and provide us information on what they are about, with feeling theories that give more weight to their somatic aspect. He claims that a theory of emotion need not prioritize one aspect over another but should accommodate both (a claim I shall cast some doubt on below). He acknowledges that not all theories neatly fit in those two groups (e.g. Ben-Ze'ev 2017), but his aim is to provide a theory that

The word emotions is a composed term. The roots of this word may be found in latin, the verb emoveo, emovere, emovi, emotum. This verb is a composed word, the main theme is relating about the actions of moving from, or towards. We are speaking about a movement. 1 Originally, this verb was used regarding the transfer from a place to another. From this point of view, we may affirm that the emotions are leaving one condition towards another, or a disruption of the previous state of mind. This is why the emotions are being understood to be an internal movement which may disrupt intentionally or without intention, contributing to the complex changes of the body, of the attitudes and behavior.2 The emotions are a sudden disruption process, which is rather a conclusion of a psychological situation, and determined by it. It is being signalized by the changes produced in the smooth muscles, in the glands and in the behavior.3 But still, the emotions are responsible for many phenomena. These phenomena may be described by the use of the term " affective processes ". These affective processes are including the feelings of pleasure and trouble which are linked with the smell, taste, touch stimulators, colors, sound and other forms of sensory stimulation. Also these affective processes are including the negative feeling of starvation, thirst, pain, fatigue, but also the positive feelings of the body which are appearing when the above mentioned states are being fulfilled. The emotions are also linked with the actions taken regarding the need of eating, drinking, sleeping, aversion, indignation etc. The emotions are linked with all aspects regarding the sentiments of morality, aesthetics, religious, intellectual and social factors. They are being based on the previous experiments and education. The emotions are responsible for maintaining the moods of happiness, excitement, depression, anxiety, sadness etc; but also the feelings of fear, laugh, crying, sexual excitement, embarrassment, shame, suffering etc. the affective processes, known as emotions are responsible for the individual temperaments. Although the temperaments are relatively steady, they may modify during the lifetime, being under the influence of the growth, education, environment, and even by the health situation. Of course, we may not set boundaries for the emotions and the processes they are generated. The boundaries are limitless regarding the affective processes. The emotions may be interpreted from the exogenous perspective which affirms that the human develops and adapts to the reality through the reproductions of the world and the endogenous perspective pointing that the measure of the things is given by the subjective world of the human.4 The endogenous perspective seems to be the best for the social-biological frame, in which the processes of evolution and adaptation represents the main clues of the responsibility of forming the emotions, and the social-cultural perspective, where the emotions are dominating the diagrams of given culture and societies. The endogenous perspective seems to dominate the interpretations of the phenomenological and existential psychology. The modern cognitive theory of emotions is rather trying to link these two extreme points. Regarding the interpretations of the emotions, we have the physiological psychology, which emphasizes the importance of the physiological foundations and the phenomenological psychology, which underlines the importance of the interior experience.5 Accordingly to the physiological psychology all the affective processes should be described with the physiological categories. Some affirm that the emotions are physiological states of the body. The second, that is the phenomenological psychology, states that the structure which makes possible the identification of the brain structures and the intermediary paths between the

Thinking about feeling: Contemporary …, 2004

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2003

2008

Emotions share important cognitive functions with perceptions and beliefs. Like perceptions, they afford epistemic access to a range of response-dependent properties, such as being admirable or contemptible, and provide evidence of response- independent properties that trigger them. Fear is evidence of danger; trust is evidence of reliability. Like beliefs, emotions provide orientations that render particular facets of things salient. In the grip of an emotion, we notice things we would otherwise miss. The variability and volatility of emotional deliverances might seem to undermine their claim to epistemic standing. I argue that variability and volatility can be epistemic assets, keying the subject to multiple, quickly changing features of things. Emotions, like other modes of epistemic access, are subject to refinement to increase their epistemic yield. The arts provide opportunities for such refinement.

Journal of Philosophy of Emotions, 2020

What would it mean for an emotion to successfully "recognize" something about an object toward which it is directed? This article draws from Rick Furtak's Knowing Emotions (2018) to articulate a novel account of emotional recognition. According to this account, emotional recognition can be assessed not only in terms of the "accuracy" of an emotional construal in a strictly epistemological sense, but also in terms of the quasi-ethical ideal of responding emotionally to what we encounter in ways that are "specific," "deep," and "balanced."

2004

The Editor's invitation to contribute to this volume appeared to license telling more than I know. Accordingly this essay will move quickly from an all too brief survey of what I know to raise some of the increasingly speculative questions that currently preoccupy me. I. What I know On second thought, there's nothing I'm that sure of. II. What I'd like to think I know. 1. Reconstructing Cognitivism. There has been much made in recent decades of the idea that emotions are "cognitive". The term is used in a confusing diversity of senses. Sometimes by 'cognition ' one means merely to insist that emotions are not "merely subjective " phenomena. But that is hardly helpful, since there are by my count at least a dozen different things one can mean by 'subjective ' (de Sousa 2002a). A more contentful thesis is that emotions are genuine representations not just of the inside world of the body but through that of the external world ...

Emotions are not irrelevant. Nowadays, scientists are establishing the fact that emotions are not so unimportant as believed until recently. They are determining and proving that emotions even activate the entire brain (Siegel 2010, 2014). They claim that the emotions we have experienced heavily during our early childhood determine the continuation of our lives. We even subconsciously search for them everywhere or we try to find a similar experience of attachment (Bowlby 1983). In such a way we can arise from the fact that we all experience emotions, but we usually do not even realize it, despite the fact that our bodies perceive it (Nummanmaa 2013, 2014). The emotions are parts of the mind, as the recent researches show (Siegel 2014), they are gained through relationships and they are awoken by relationships with other people (Cvetek 2009). Children and the youth expect that the adult guardians would understand and calm their turbulent emotions, but the same wish is also appears in adults, which is usually subconscious (Gostečnik 2004, 2011). We can therefore ascertain that all individual want to find their emotions accepted, understood and that other people would endure them (Gostečnik 2004; 2011). This article wants to check the assumption that emotions and emotional needs or expectations, despite being subconscious, can actually shape our lives and are awoken by relationships with others. The article also wants to verify the findings of the psychology and psychotherapeutic science that the deepest and the most fundamental emotions (joy, sadness, anger, fear) which have been experienced in a specific manner by individuals especially in a relationship with the closest people in the most fragile parts of their lives, are awoken again in the deepest, intimate relationships with the people closest to them. It first happens within the family, in the relationships mother – father, mother – child, father – child and then in the interparental relationships as experienced by the child. In the later years, similar relations are re-experienced in a partner relationship. Scientists, psychologists and psychotherapists emphasize that emotions also influence our intellectual abilities or, in other words, the equilibrium between emotions and intellect is important (Bowen 1978; Bowen & Kerr 1988; Skowron & Friedlander 1998; Skoweon & Schmitt 2003; Maser 2011). Namely, the overflow of emotions may slow down or even shut down the intellectual system (Bowen 1978; Bowen & Kerr 1988). Based on new findings, we can therefore establish that emotions need to be recognized, because they are a part of our lives from birth on or even further as Bowen’s theory (1978) that emotions can even be inherited from our ancestors, proves and is supported by contemporary researchers (Bowen & Kerr 1988; Skowron & Friedlander 1998; Maser 2011). Bowlby (1982) proves that the basic and therefore the deepest emotions can get imprinted into our psychosomatic memory during our first contacts via primary guardians and that similar emotions can get awoken during adulthood in intimate partner relationships.

WIREs Cognitive Science, 2015

We start this overview by discussing the place of emotions within the broader affective domain – how different are emotions from moods, sensations and affective dispositions? Next, we examine the way emotions relate to their objects, emphasizing in the process their intimate relations to values. We move from this inquiry into the nature of emotion to an inquiry into their epistemology. Do they provide reasons for evaluative judgements and, more generally, do they contribute to our knowledge of values? We then address the question of the social dimension of emotions, explaining how the traditional nature vs. nurture contrast applies to the emotions. We finish by exploring the relations between emotions, motivation and action, concluding this overview with a more specific focus on how these relations bear on some central ethical issues.