Comment: Embodied Emotions From a Dutch Historical Perspective

Abstract

This comment challenges essentialist “brain biased” interpretations of emotions from a historical perspective. (Digital) humanities research shows that the embodying of emotions is historically contingent. Emotion metaphors do not so much reflect what is happening in our brain or in other parts of the body: they reflect what people think/thought is/was happening in and outside their body.

Metaforische conceptualisatie van emoties in Nederlandse vaste verbindingen

“…Op basis van de bevindingen die de rol van de cultuur bevestigen, formuleren Kövecses en Benczes (2010:113) de hypothese dat de fysieke ervaringen die als universeel kunnen worden beschouwd slechts als potentiële basis dienen voor de metaforische conceptualisatie 72 . Ook de onderzoeken van Leemans (2016) blijken de rol van fysieke ervaringen als "maar" potentiële basis te ondersteunen. Ook zij bestudeerde EMOTIEmetaforen vanuit het historische perspectief en kwam tot de conclusie dat deze metaforen niet direct op onze lichaamservaringen berusten.…”

“…in kaart brachten, precies zijn en of ze kunnen worden gestaafd met metingen. Deze resultaten en de eventuele ondersteuning van mijn hypotheses zouden kunnen helpen om stelling te nemen ten opzichte van de bewering vanLeemans (2016): "Emotion metaphors do not so much reflect what is happening in our brain or in other parts of the body: they reflect what people think/thought is/was happening in and outside their body. "…”

Emotions and the Body in Early Modern Medicine

“…The crucial role of the innate heat in the heart, and the vital spirits and their close association, in Galenic physiology, with the passions or emotions opened up the possibility of a reversed relationship between cause and effect: Diseases and other physical changes in the body could, in turn, generate emotions (see also Leemans, 2016). People suffering from the disease "melancholia" (rather than just being of a "melancholic" temperament) provided the most striking example.…”

“…They are commonly perceived as "merely" metaphorical today and may, at best, be taken to refer vaguely to bodily manifestations or effects of emotions such as blushing, sweating, or a rapid heartbeat. As historians of the emotions have pointed out, however, many of our emotion words have only become metaphorical in the course of time (K. Harvey, 2017;Leemans, 2016;Schoenfeldt, 1999, p. 8). Far into the 18th century, they referred quite literally to what people thought was happening inside their bodies.…”

Author Reply: Reply to Commentaries on Language and Emotion (2015)

“…Inger Leemans (2016) does interesting work on the history of how emotions are culturally understood and talked about. But as a cultural historian, Leemans seem unaware of the cognitive science issue: what is the unconscious frame-semantic and metaphorical cognitive structure on which historical folk theories of emotions and their language have been based?…”