Knowing Emotions

Abstract

Emotions are not merely physiological disturbances: they are experiences through which we apprehend truths about ourselves and the world. Emotions embody an understanding that is accessible to us only by means of affective experience. Only through emotions can we perceive meaning in life, and only by feeling emotions are we capable of recognizing the value or significance of anything whatsoever. Our affective responses and dispositions therefore play a critical role in our apprehension of meaningful truth—furthermore, their felt quality is intimately related to the awareness that they provide. Truthfulness is at issue in episodes of such emotions as anger, fear, and grief. Even apparently irrational emotions can show us what distinguishes emotion from other modes of cognitive activity: the turbulent feeling of being afraid is our way of recognizing a potential threat as such. What is disclosed to us when we experience fear can be either a misconstrual of something harmless as a danger or an axiologically salient fact about the world. Yet only a being able to perceive itself as threatened is susceptible to becoming afraid. So the later chapters of Knowing Emotions turn to the background conditions of affective experience: for instance, why it is only if we care about the life and well-being of a person that we are disposed to react with fear when that person is threatened? Our emotional dispositions of love, care, and concern serve as conditions of possibility for the discovery of significance or value, enabling us to perceive what is meaningful.

Transindividual Affect: Gilbert Simondon's Contribution to a Posthumanist Theory of Emotions

“…The critique of this dualism, however, is in no way exclusive to critical posthumanism. For a long time, emotions have been at the centre of a debate regarding their relation to knowledge and cognition (Furtak, 2018). On the one hand, there are those who argue that affective feelings are just nonintentional and nonrational physical disruptions and that, as such, must be considered external to the subject's intentional relation to the world (Furtak, 2018, p. 6).…”

“…For a long time, emotions have been at the centre of a debate regarding their relation to knowledge and cognition (Furtak, 2018). On the one hand, there are those who argue that affective feelings are just nonintentional and nonrational physical disruptions and that, as such, must be considered external to the subject's intentional relation to the world (Furtak, 2018, p. 6). On the other side, there are those who claim that emotions have their own ‘logic’, capable of providing us with a form of knowledge about the world and about the subject that cannot be accessed in rational terms (Furtak, 2018, p. 4).…”

“…One episode of this debate is represented by the cognitive and anti-cognitive approaches to emotions (Furtak, 2018, p. 23). The former, developed initially by the Portuguese neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, contends that emotions are ‘just as cognitive as other modes of mental activity’ (Furtak, 2018, p. 23; see Damasio, 1994). From this perspective, emotions can be distinguished from each other depending on their intentionality.…”

“…One key proponent of the non-cognitive account is Joseph LeDoux (1996), who argues that emotions are non-cognitive and non-intentional reflexes that fulfil a different function than cognitive activity. This means that, as non-cognitive phenomena, emotions should be differentiated from complex cognitive and intentional processes, such as ‘propositional thought, decision-making, memory, and perceptual awareness’ (Furtak, 2018, p. 24).…”

Is Hate Worst When It Is Fresh? The Development of Hate Over Time

“…Martha Nussbaum, for her part, offers a distinction between background and episodic emotions (2001, pp. 69–70; see also Furtak, 2018, pp. 104–106).…”