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Notes
This assumption is not only very natural but is also accepted by many philosophers. See Scheler (1973 edition), McDowell (1978, 136), Gallagher and Zahavi (2008), Stout (2010) and Smith (2010) for a selection. I will only consider here emotional states; but I have no doubt that the same claim can be made about other mental states too.
See Avramides (2001).
See in particular Michael Thompson (2008).
As early as 1946 J.L. Austin describes this ‘manifestation’ of emotions in behaviour.
We never talk of ‘symptoms’ or ‘signs’ except by way of implied contrast with inspection of the item itself. … ‘Symptoms’ or ‘signs’ of anger tend to mean signs of rising or suppressed anger. Once the man has exploded, we talk of something different—of an expression or manifestation or display of anger, of an exhibition of temper, and so forth. A twitch of the eyebrow, pallor, a tremor in the voice, all these may be symptoms of anger: but a violent tirade or a blow in the face are not, they are the acts in which the anger is vented. (1946, 177–79)
This corresponds closely (though not exactly) with Fred Dretske’s (1988, 42 ff.) useful distinction between triggering and structuring causes.
While I am taking the distinction between things which have properties timelessly and things which have time-dependent properties to be a metaphysical distinction between different sort of things, it might be possible to construe the distinction as one between different ways of picking out the same underlying metaphysical reality. For my purposes in this paper it would not matter if we took the latter route.
McTaggart (1908). The A-series locates events with respect to the present moment in time as being a certain time in the past, in the present or a certain time in the future, whereas the B-series locates them just as earlier or later with no reference back to the present moment. McTaggart argued that only by locating events in the A-series can we describe them in a way that involves real change. But the point I am making here is that if events are taken to be the things that may figure in a B-series description of history then putting them in an A-series does not get real change into the picture. Since they are not things with genuinely time-dependent properties they cannot really change (even though they can become closer and further away from the present moment).
See for example Whitehead (1929, 94–5).
Note this interpretation requires translating actualisation or realisation using a continuous form of the verb—i.e. as “being realised”.
Their active conception of perception has been developed by many philosophers and psychologists since. See in particular Susan Hurley (1998) and Alva Noë (2004) who describe this as an “enactive” approach to perception. Even though this approach is still controversial I am going to assume it is right for the purposes of this paper without any further argument.
See Peter Goldie (2011) for an account of grief as a process. Strictly speaking our claims are different since I am not describing grief itself as a process but only describing the expression of grief—the grieving—and the perception of grief as processes (indeed the same process sometimes).
Smith (2010) presents a useful alternative treatment of just this analogy.
See Gallagher (2004).
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Stout, R. What someone’s behaviour must be like if we are to be aware of their emotions in it. Phenom Cogn Sci 11, 135–148 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-011-9224-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-011-9224-0