The Phenomenology and Science of Emotions: An Introduction (with Andreas Elpidorou) (original) (raw)
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The Phenomenology and Science of Emotions: An Introduction
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2014
Phenomenology, perhaps more than any other single movement in philosophy, has been key in bringing emotions to the foreground of philosophical consideration. This is in large part due to the ways in which emotions, according to phenomenological analyses, are revealing of basic structures of human existence. Indeed, it is partly and, according to some phenomenologists, even primarily through our emotions that the world is disclosed to us, that we become present to and make sense of ourselves, and that we relate to and engage with others. A phenomenological study of emotions is thus meant not only to help us to understand ourselves, but also to allow us to see and to make sense of the meaningfulness of our worldly and social existence. Within the last few decades, the emotions have re-emerged more generally as a topic of great philosophical interest and importance. Philosophers, along with psychologists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists have engaged in inter-and intra-disciplinary debates concerning the ontology and phenomenology of emotions, the epistemic and cognitive dimensions of emotions, the rationality of emotions, the role that emotions play in moral judgments, the role that our bodies play in the experience and constitution of emotions, the gendered dimension of emotions (and whether or not there is one and the extent to which it is socially constructed), the temporality of emotions, and the cultural specificity of emotions, to name just a few. Contemporary phenomenological and scientific considerations of the emotions, however, have treated and continue to treat these questions and issues quite differently. The former takes a first-personal approach to the emotions that is guided by, rooted in, and engaged with our experiences in the world, where the felt quality of emotions provides important insights into the meaningfulness of human experiences. The latter often takes a third-personal or sub-personal approach to the emotions and focuses on their cognitive architecture and neurobiological mechanisms, which can be detached from and unconcerned with the ways that emotions are experienced in and connected to contextual, complex worldly human experiences. Both kinds and levels of analysis are
The phenomenology of emotions-above and beyond 'What it is Like to Feel'
The Routledge handbook of phenomenology of emotion, 2020
Second, talking of a 'rediscovery' of emotions in philosophy is, in fact, highly misleading. After all, emotions have never been completely ignored in the history of philosophy. Quite the contrary, the nature of affectivity and the role of emotions in human existence and social reality as well as the notorious relation of emotions and rationality always been at issue in philosophy-even where explicit discussion of the emotions is missing or is deliberately relegated to the conceptual background. Moreover, the relation of philosophical reasoning to emotions, and the role that emotions (ought to) play therein, has never been philosophically neutral. 'What's your take on emotion' seems, then, to be the 64,000-dollar question for philosophers, ever since emotions entered philosophical thinking (see Landweer and Renz 2012). 2 Affects and emotions have played a central role in Western 3 philosophy ever since they were introduced by Plato, Aristotle, and the Greek and Roman (Neo-)Stoics (cf. Nussbaum 2001). They were extensively discussed as key factors in rhetoric, political life, moral psychology, and social interaction. Most classical authors, such as Aquinas, Montaigne, Pascal, Descartes, Malebranche, or Spinoza, up until the Scottish moralists, explored a panoply of particular affects, sentiments, and emotions, taxonomizing the so-called 'passions of the soul' (Descartes); many of these authors also offered general theories of emotions. It is, however, also true that after Kant and Rousseau, starting roughly with the dominance of German Idealism, emotions ceased to play any systematic role in philosophy. 4 In this period of relative marginalization, we find only a few isolated discussions of specific emotions, such as compassion in Schopenhauer 5 or anxiety and fear in Kierkegaard.
A lot has been said on emotion theory in psychological literature. There is an emerging trend however, that it may be wholly unfeasible to generate a satisfactory account of what emotion actually is with traditional cognitivist accounts of mind. The problem of emotion is certainly an issue that has been the main focus of philosophers, psychologists and other natural scientists for quite some time. proposed that the term 'emotion' is scientifically redundant, as we refer to so many different processes and components when we refer to emotion; perhaps the term should be replaced with the specific process of the emotional experience we refer to, such as appraisal, motivational aspects, valence, intensity and so forth. However, with emotion touching practically every aspect of our lives, and the relevance of phenomenological research becoming apparent, emotion may now be a problem to which we can contribute many important and interesting insights. Emotion will certainly be a contentious issue for the foreseen future, but for now we can hope to find some meaningful insights from contemporary trends in psychological and philosophical approaches to mind. Lewis (2005) also makes a very interesting point, in that psychological theory tends to gravitate to a level of description that is subordinate, global and functional; and this makes it difficult to form true explanations.
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
Emotional Phenomenology: A New Puzzle
Phenomenology and The Cognitive Sciences, 2023
Emotions are taken by some authors as a kind of mental state epistemically akin to perception. However, unlike perceptual phenomenology, which allows being treated dogmatically, emotional phenomenology is puzzling in the following respect. When you feel an emotion, you feel an urge to act, you feel, among other things, your body's action readiness. On the other hand, at least sometimes, you are aware that an emotion by itself is not a sufficient reason to justify an evaluative judgment and/ or an action, not even prima facie. How can a single mental state, emotion, seem to be dogmatic and hypothetic at the same time? It seems that emotions alone fall short of the justifying role in which their guiding role would be grounded. If this is true, then emotional experience cannot be epistemically akin to perception. Unless we are willing to claim that emotions cause action blindly (i.e., not rationally), we need an account of the distinctive epistemic role of emotional experience that renders its guidance role rational. In this paper I outline this new problem and its consequences for the metaphysics and epistemology of emotional experience. I also try to offer the sketch of a plausible solution.
Book Review: The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion
Husserl Studies, 2023
Thomas Szanto and Hilge Landweer assembled an impressive collection of essays on the still not fully explored and continuously evolving continent of phenomenological inquiries into the topic of affective experience. The volume not only surveys accounts of emotion from the history of the phenomenological movement, but also provides the coordinates to navigate contemporary debates in phenomenology as well as at the intersections with other disciplines and schools both within and outside philosophy. The handbook targets three objectives (17-18). First, it aims at re-evaluating the historical resources that we can find in the phenomenology of emotions. Second, it seeks to provide comprehensive overviews of both traditional and current issues in the philosophy of emotions from a phenomenological perspective. Third, it strives to close a gap in emotion research by discussing general conceptions of emotions as well as 31 particular emotions in detail. Besides the editors' Introduction, the volume includes 49 chapters divided in five parts which center around the three focal aims of the volume. Part 1: "Historical perspectives" contains 19 chapters featuring overviews of the theory of emotions by notable phenomenologists, from Brentano to Schmitz. The editors openly embrace "a fairly liberal notion of phenomenology" (17), thus covering authors who, at first glance, might not be immediately identifiable as belonging to the phenomenological tradition. Furthermore, this part contains comprehensive surveys of emotion theories by realist phenomenologists that have received little attention in the Anglophone literature:
THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF PHENOMENOLOGY OF EMOTION
2020
The emotions occupy a fundamental place in philosophy, going back to Aristotle. However, the phenomenology of the emotions has until recently remained a relatively neglected topic. The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion is an outstanding guide and reference source to this important and fascinating topic. Comprising forty-nine chapters by a team of international contributors, this handbook covers the following topics:
Emotional Experience: Affective Consciousness and its Role in Emotion Theory
U. Kriegel (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness, 2017
This paper explores substantive accounts of emotional phenomenology so as to see whether it sheds light on key features of emotions. To this end, we focus on four features that can be introduced by way of an example. Say Sam is angry at Maria’s nasty remark. The first feature relates to the fact that anger is a negative emotion, by contrast with positive emotions such as joy and admiration (valence). The second feature is how anger differs from other emotions such as sadness, fear and joy (individuation). The third concerns the objects of anger and the sense in which anger discloses the significance of Maria’s remark to Sam (intentionality). Finally, there is anger’s relation to behaviour (motivation). Does focussing on emotional phenomenology encourage specific accounts of these features? We shall see that there are reasons to think it does. Still, are these reasons of sufficient import to dispel the scepticism of those who think that nothing of consequence plays out at the personal level of emotional experience? Given the role of emotional experience in our evaluative practices, we shall conclude that they are. Our discussion is structured as follows: section 1 focuses on feeling approaches to phenomenology, section 2 on componential approaches, section 3 on perceptual approaches and section 4 on attitudinal approaches. Section 5 concludes with some observations regarding the significance of emotional phenomenology.
The Phenomenology of Affectivity
Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Psychiatry, 2013
In contrast to current opinion which locates mental states including moods and emotions within our head, phenomenology regards affects as encompassing phenomena that connect body, self, and world. Based on the phenomenological approach, the chapter gives a detailed account of: (a) the feeling of being alive or vitality, (b) existential feelings, (c) affective atmospheres, (d) moods, and (e) emotions, emphasizing the embodied as well as intersubjective dimensions of affectivity. Thus, emotions are regarded as resulting from the circular interaction between affective affordances in the environment and the subject's bodily resonance, be it in the form of sensations, postures, gestures, or movement tendencies. A special section deals with the phenomena of interaffectivity, understood as the mutual empathic coupling of two embodied subjects. Psychopathological examples complete the phenomenological account of affectivity.