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Emotional Objects and Criteria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

John Tietz
John Tietz*
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University
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Extract

Philosophers commonly distinguish emotions from other feelings. For example, Anthony Kenny distinguishes emotions from both sensations and perceptions. Perceptions are connected with a specific organ or part of the body and sensations such as hunger or thirst are sometimes characteristically located in parts of the body. Emotions, however, are neither connected with organs nor characteristically felt in specific parts of the body (pp. 57–58). Kenny rightly points out that emotions and sensations are alike in one important respect, namely they are both linked to characteristic forms of expression. He then says “ … the existence of characteristic expre5sions of emotion itself provides a further link between emotion and sensations: for the expression characteristic of each emotion—e.g., weeping—is itself felt, and this feeling is a genuine sensation” (p. 59).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , December 1973 , pp. 213 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1973

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References

1 Kenny, A. Action, Emotion and Will, (Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, 1963).Google Scholar

2 Kenny himself later rejects the Exponibility Thesis for certain verbs such as ‘assist’, ‘avoid’ and ‘to be able’ (pp. 200–201). He argues, rightly in my view, that nonexponibility does not give us a criterion for distinguishing psychological from non-psychological verbs.

3 Wittgenstein, L. The Blue and Brown Books, (Harper: 1958), pp. 24–25Google Scholar, p. 51, Wittgenstein, Ludwig Philosophical Investigations, (Macmillan: 1953)Google Scholar, #354, #322. For further discussion and references see Chihara, C. and Fodor, J. “Operationalism and Ordinary Language,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. II, 1965Google Scholar, and Thompson, J. “About Criteria,” Ratio, Vol. XIII, No.1, 1971.Google Scholar

4 Cf. Shoemaker, S. Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity, (Cornell University Press: lthica, N.Y. 1963), pp. 3Google Scholar, 5, and 167-168, and Aune, B. “Feelings, Moods, and Introspection” Mind, Vol. LXXII, No. 286, April, 1963, pp. 204–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Kenny, A. “Criterion” in Edwards, P. (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (MacmillanFree Press: 1967), Vol. 2, p. 259.Google Scholar

6 I shall make some points here which are related to ones made by Alston, W. “Feelings” Philosophical Review, LXXVIII, January 1969, pp. 15–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and by Gosling, J. “Mental Causes and Fear” Mind, LXXI, No. 283, July, 1962, P. 305.Google Scholar In what follows I accept Alston's use of variables where the uppercase ‘F’ covers noun forms of emotion terms (‘fear’), and the lower-case ‘f’ covers adjectival forms (‘fearful’, ‘afraid’), (p. 5).

7 N. Malcolm, Dreaming, (Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, 1959), pp. 24–25.

8 Putnam, H. “Dreaming and Depth Grammar” in Butler, R. (ed.), Analytical Philosophy, First Series (Blackwell: 1966), p. 218.Google Scholar See also J. Thompson's article cited in footnote 2 above.

9 This is admittedly an oversimplification, but it does not affect the argument. One may be afraid of x and have no intention to avoid it; e.g., such cases arise when we speak of being petrified by fear where one is so frightened that he cannot form the intention. So far only belief in the presence of danger is a necessary condition for being afraid.

10 ‘Danger’ means ‘Exposure or liability to injury, loss, pain or other evil,’ (synonyms: ‘peril,’ ‘jeopardy,’ ‘hazard’ and ‘risk’). There is implied the attendant possibility of harm. But establishing a given set of circumstances as dangerous bears no necessary relation to fear unless the affected agent believes the circumstances to be possibly harmful. Similarly, taking ‘dangerous’ as synonymous with ‘precarious’ bears no relation to fear, unless the affected agent again believes precariousness as attendant with possible harm. But to recognize the circumstances as containing this possibility is to augment the description Kenny gives so that it is no longer emotionally neutral. We now have a fear identifier, namely the description of the agent's belief in the presence of a threat. If one claims that this aspect is also nonemotionally exponible, it seems to beg the same question: Why is the nonemotional description of belief in the presence of threatening circumstances an identification of fearful circumstances?

11 Although I will not argue it here, these three conditions are related to the conditions which Kenny places on the objects of actions (p. 189). The sense of ‘believe’ in the third condition must be interpreted broadly. It need not follow from this sense that if N believes that p, there is some p or equivalent of p which N entertains, or of which N is conscious.

12 This important point will not be discussed here. Appropriateness is a concept in emotion theory connecting formal object descriptions with descriptions of circumstances in assessing agents in particular circumstances relevant to abnormal emotional states such as neuroses and phobias. For example, see Warnock, Mary and Ewing, A. C. “The Justification of Emotions,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume XXXI, 1957.Google Scholar

13 Cf. Alston, op. cit., p. 25.

14 Cf. Rorty, R. “In Defense of Eliminative Materialism,” Review of Metaphysics, XXIV, No.1, 1970.Google Scholar

15 This paper has benefited from discussions I have had with R. D. Bradley, Steven DeHaven and Gary Overvold.