In order to uncover the inner workings of our capacities, we look to ‘effects’. Most of us have the capacity to distinguish between spoken ‘ba’ and ‘fa’ sounds. One thought is that this is achieved through aural sensitivities that detect changes in vibration picked up by the eardrum. But the McGurk Effect suggests that there is more to the story. Without changing the incoming vibrations, sound experience can be modulated by showing a video of a mouth making a ‘ba’ sound (...) or a ‘fa’ sound with a consistent sound overlaid. We learn that our overall auditory experiences are at least in part determined by visual cues in addition to what’s first picked up by our eardrums. The McGurk Effect gives us a hint into the inner workings of audition and helps us better understand the capacity to discriminate sounds of a certain sort. -/- In the present paper, the focus is on emotional capacities and a well known effect – recalcitrance. Recalcitrant emotions, such as fearing the dog even though one knows that the dog is harmless or being angry with one’s partner even when one realises it was only in a dream that the partner was nasty, have played the role of effect in much theorising about emotions. But in my view, we’ve stayed a bit too close to home, aiming to fit the effect into a paradigm – the representationalist paradigm – that isn’t fit for purpose. I will use this criticism as a launching off point to introduce a different way of thinking about emotions that is better suited to making sense of recalcitrance. I will argue that emotions are transitions between representational states rather than being representational states themselves. The view is better suited to make sense of recalcitrance and, at the end of the paper, I will offer reasons for thinking that main points that speak in favour of a representationalist approach to emotion can be recaptured or explained away by the transitions view. (shrink)

Cognitivists about the emotions minimally hold that it is a necessary condition for being in an emotional state that one make a certain judgement or have a certain belief. For example, if I am angry with Sam, then I must believe that Sam has wronged me. Perhaps I must also elicit a certainly bodily response or undergo some relevant experience, but crucial to the view is the belief or judgement. In the face of ‘recalcitrant emotions’, this once very popular (...) view has come under heavy criticism that has led many theorists to either abandon the view or to offer more nuanced representational views of the emotions. Against what seems to now be received wisdom, I argue that cognitivists have tools at their disposal that allow them to alleviate the apparent conflicts presented by cases of recalcitrance. But I also believe that cognitivists are still in trouble. Although cognitivists have a range of underexplored resources, their use comes at a high cost. In particular, cognitivists must adopt a widespread and thoroughgoing inaccessibility to our own thoughts and judgements that should strike one as implausible. It is mental opacity rather than mental conflict that is the real problem posed by recalcitrance. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that obsessive-compulsive disorder involves irrationality. But where in the complex of states and processes that constitutes OCD should this irrationality be located? A pervasive assumption in both the psychiatric and philosophical literature is that the seat of irrationality is located in the obsessive thoughts characteristic of OCD. Building on a puzzle about insight into OCD (Taylor 2022), we challenge this pervasive assumption, and argue instead that the irrationality of OCD is located in the emotions that (...) are characteristic of OCD, such as anxiety or fear. In particular, we propose to understand the irrationality of OCD as a matter of harboring recalcitrant emotions. We argue that this account not only solves the puzzle about insight, but also makes better sense of how OCD sufferers experience and describe their condition and helps explain some otherwise puzzling features of compulsive behavior. (shrink)

Emotions can be insensitive to certain attributes of a situation: Fear of flying is not always reduced by remembering air crash probabilities. A large body of evidence shows that information on probabilities, large numerical counts, and intentions is frequently disregarded in the elicitation and regulation of emotions. To date, no existing theory comprehensively accounts for the features that tend to be overlooked by emotion. In this paper, I call attention to the common denominator of such features: they do not contribute (...) to the iconic representation of events. For instance, the exceedingly low probability of a plane crash does not affect its imagistic representation (i.e., the iconic representation of the event is silent about the event’s probability). This paper introduces the Iconic Prioritization Hypothesis, positing that the prioritization of input in the iconic format by emotions can explain the neglect of information that is representationally silent in this format. Delving into the causes of this format prioritization, I argue that emotion might favour iconicity as it is the format of immediate information about our surroundings (perception) and of stored first-hand evidence (episodic memory). Lastly, the hypothesis's compatibility with philosophical theories of emotion causation and its implications for experimental research are examined. (shrink)

According to Antonio Damasio, the emotional process begins with conscious considerations about the object in the form of mental images. These images correspond to a neural substrate (topographic representations) influenced by the dispositional representations. At the unconscious level, the networks in the prefrontal cortex respond automatically and involuntarily to the signals derived from the processing of the above images, according to the dispositional representations, acquired based on personal experience rather than innate. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.21624.06401.

The “puzzle” of emotional plasticity concerns making sense of two conflicting bodies of evidence: evidence that emotions often appear modular in key respects, and evidence that our emotions also often appear to transcend this modularity. In this paper, I argue a developmentalist approach to emotion, which builds on Karmiloff-Smith’s (1986, 1992, 1994, 2015) work on cognitive development, can help us dissolve this puzzle.

Affective science conducts interdisciplinary research into the emotions and other affective phenomena. Currently, such research is hampered by the lack of common definitions of te rms used to describe, categorise and report both individual emotional experiences and the results of scientific investigations of such experiences. High quality ontologies provide formal definitions for types of entities in reality and for the relationships between such entities, definitions which can be used to disambiguate and unify data across different disciplines. Heretofore, there has been (...) little effort directed towards such formal representation for affective phenomena, in part because of widespread debates within the affective science community on matters of definition and categorization. We describe our efforts towards developing an Emotion Ontology (EMO) to serve the affective science community. We here focus on conformity to the BFO upper ontology and disambiguation of polysemous terminology. (shrink)

Philosophical debates about how best to explain emotion or placebo are debates about how best to characterise and explain the distinctive form of human responsiveness to the world that is the object of interest for each of those domains of inquiry. In emotion research, the cognitive theory of emotion faces several intractable problems. I discuss two of these: the problem of epistemic deficit and the problem of recalcitrant emotions. Cognitive explanations in Placebo Studies, such as response-expectancy and belief-based explanations, (...) also face the problem of epistemic deficit in addition to the problem of logically self-destructive true belief. While such considerations might motivate a retreat to affect, this brings its own problems. I argue that it is a particular version of cognitivism, representational cognitivism (Rep-Cog), that generates the paradoxes we encounter in emotion and placebo research. I propose that turning to nonrepresentational accounts of cognition will dissolve these paradoxes. As I move toward conclusion, I propose drawing on the ethnomethodological tradition to respecify human responsiveness to loci of significance in the lifeworld by undertaking ethnographies of members’ own situated methods for making intelligible and accountable their attitudinal and nonattitudinal responsiveness to loci of significance in their environment. (shrink)

Emotion is conscious experience. It is the affective aspect of consciousness. Emotion arises from sensory stimulation and is typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body. Hence an emotion is a complex reaction pattern consisting of three components: a physiological component, a behavioral component, and an experiential (conscious) component. The reactions making up an emotion determine what the emotion will be recognized as. Three processes are involved in generating an emotion: (1) identification of the emotional significance of (...) a sensory stimulus, (2) production of an affective state (emotion), and (3) regulation of the affective state. Two opposing systems in the brain (the reward and punishment systems) establish an affective value or valence (stimulus-reinforcement association) for sensory stimulation. This is process (1), the first step in the generation of an emotion. Development of stimulus-reinforcement associations (affective valence) serves as the basis for emotion expression (process 2), conditioned emotion learning acquisition and expression, memory consolidation, reinforcement-expectations, decision-making, coping responses, and social behavior. The amygdala is critical for the representation of stimulus-reinforcement associations (both reward and punishment-based) for these functions. Three distinct and separate architectural and functional areas of the prefrontal cortex (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex) are involved in the regulation of emotion (process 3). The regulation of emotion by the prefrontal cortex consists of a positive feedback interaction between the prefrontal cortex and the inferior parietal cortex resulting in the nonlinear emergence of emotion. This positive feedback and nonlinear emergence represents a type of working memory (focal attention) by which perception is reorganized and rerepresented, becoming explicit, functional, and conscious. The explicit emotion states arising may be involved in the production of voluntary new or novel intentional (adaptive) behavior, especially social behavior. (shrink)

There are emotively powerful words that can modify our judgment, arouse our emotions, and influence our decisions. The purpose of this paper is to provide instruments for analyzing the structure of the reasoning underlying the inferences that they trigger, in order to investigate their reasonableness conditions and their persuasive effect. The analysis of the mechanism of persuasion triggered by such words involves the complex systematic relationship between values, decisions, and emotions, and the reasoning mechanisms that have been investigated under the (...) label of “heuristics.” On the one hand, arguing using ethical words is shown to sometimes involve value-based practical reasoning grounded on evaluative classifications stemming from hierarchies of values and maxims of experience. On the other hand, ethical words provide representations bound to the interlocutor’s experiences and judgments, which trigger specific emotions yielding a particular reaction. This chain of judgments and reactions and the potential fallaciousness thereof can be inquired into by examining the relationship between the heuristic processes of reasoning and the more complex argumentative structure that the use of such words involves. The analysis of the 2013 Italian political campaign and the ad hominem arguments used by the political candidates shows the different strategies and counterstrategies for the manipulation of emotions. (shrink)

We must rethink the status of Hume’s science of emotions. Contemporary philosophers typically dismiss Hume’s account on the grounds that he mistakenly identifies emotions with feelings. But the traditional objections to Hume’s feeling theory are not as strong as commonly thought. Hume makes several important contributions, moreover, to our understanding of the operations of the emotions. His claims about the causal antecedents of the indirect passions receive support from studies in appraisal theory, for example, and his suggestions concerning the social (...) dimensions of self-conscious emotions can help guide future research in this field. His dual-component hypothesis concerning the processing of emotions, furthermore, suggests a compromise solution to a recalcitrant debate in cognitive science. Finally, Hume’s proposals concerning the motivational influences of pride, and the conventional nature of emotional display rules, are vindicated by recent work in social psychology. (shrink)

Abstract: Each affective state has distinct motor-expressions, sensory perceptions, autonomic, and cognitive patterns. Panksepp (1998) proposed seven neural affective systems of which the SEEKING system, a generalized approach-seeking system, motivates organisms to pursue resources needed for survival. When an organism is presented with a novel stimulus, the dopamine (DA) in the nucleus accumbens septi (NAS) is released. The DA circuit outlines the generalized mesolimbic dopamine-centered SEEKING system and is especially responsive when there is an element of unpredictability in forthcoming rewards. (...) We propose that when the outcome of this interaction is unexpected or unanticipated then Panksepp’s “cognitive or expectancy reset” mechanism involving the cognitive dissonance would yield the subjective emotion of surprise. In order to appropriately react to the environment’s stimuli one needs fundamental processes that would enable one to distinguish between what is novel and what has been already experienced, as well as the different degrees of novelty. Novel events are those whose essential features of the representation (visceral and perceptual) are altered and being discrepant provoke more sustained attention. Novelty arises from salient and arousing events and the organism experiences surprise, as coming out of a habitual state. In this framework, we shall look at established theories of emotions and propose a different approach to their taxonomy. (shrink)

This chapter explores to what extent some core ideas of predictive processing can be applied to the phenomenology of time consciousness. The focus is on the experienced continuity of consciously perceived, temporally extended phenomena (such as enduring processes and successions of events). The main claim is that the hierarchy of representations posited by hierarchical predictive processing models can contribute to a deepened understanding of the continuity of consciousness. Computationally, such models show that sequences of events can be represented as (...) states of a hierarchy of dynamical systems. Phenomenologically, they suggest a more fine-grained analysis of the perceptual contents of the specious present, in terms of a hierarchy of temporal wholes. Visual perception of static scenes not only contains perceived objects and regions but also spatial gist; similarly, auditory perception of temporal sequences, such as melodies, involves not only perceiving individual notes but also slightly more abstract features (temporal gist), which have longer temporal durations (e.g., emotional character or rhythm). Further investigations into these elusive contents of conscious perception may be facilitated by findings regarding its neural underpinnings. Predictive processing models suggest that sensorimotor areas may influence these contents. (shrink)

This article deals with women-centred prose texts of the 1990s and 2000s in Russia written by women, and focuses especially on generation narratives. By this term the author means fictional texts that explore generational relations within families, from the perspective of repressed experiences, feelings and attitudes in the Soviet period. The selected texts are interpreted as narrating and conceptualizing the consequences of patriarchal ideology for relations between mothers and daughters and for reconstructing connections between Soviet and post-Soviet by revisiting and (...) remembering especially the gaps and discontinuities between (female) generations. The cases discussed are Liudmila Petrushevskaia’s ‘povest’ Vremia noch [The Time: Night] (1991), Liudmila Ulitskaia’s novel Medeia i ee deti [Medea and her Children] (1996) and Elena Chizhova’s novel Vremia zhenshchin [The Time of Women] (2009). These novels reflect on the one hand the woman-centredness and novelty of representation in women’s prose writing in the post-Soviet period. On the other hand, the author suggests that they reflect the diverse methods of representing the Soviet era and experience through generation narratives. The texts reassess the past through intimate, tactile memories and perceptions, and their narration through generational plots draws attention to the process of working through, which needs to be done in contemporary Russia. The narratives touch upon the untold stories of those who suffered in silence or hid the family secrets from the officials, in order to save the family. The narration delves into the different layers of experience and memory, conceptualizing them in the form of multiple narrative perspectives constructing different generations and traditions. In this way they convey the ‘secrets’ hidden in the midst of everyday life routines and give voice to the often silent resistance of women towards patriarchal and repressive ideology. The new women’s prose of the 1980s–90s and the subsequent trend of women-centred narratives and generation narratives employ conceptual metaphors of reassessing, revisiting and remembering the cultural, experiential, and emotional aspects of the past, Soviet lives. (shrink)

In discussions of the emotions, it is commonplace to wheel out examples of people who know that rollercoasters aren’t dangerous but who fear them anyway. Such cases are well known to have been troubling for cognitivists who hold the emotions are judgments or beliefs. But more recently, it has been argued that the very theories that emerged from the failure of cognitivism face trouble as well. One gets the sense that the theory that can accomplish this will win a crucial (...) point over its competitors. In the present paper I offer a new approach to making sense of the normative tension to which recalcitrant emotions give rise. Interestingly, the approach is one that can be adopted by anyone willing to grant that emotions are themselves governed by norms. (shrink)

Drawing on a methodological approach that involved visual ethnography and combined content and narrative analysis, my research aims to analyse the role that emotions play in the territorial–ontological conflict between British Columbia provincial government, Coastal GasLink and the Wet’suwet’en. Using high-quality online audiovisual material produced by the Wet’suwet’en – allowing a critical perspective throughout the article on the politics of self-representation – I was able to get into the conflict with a phenomenological approach, employing my senses to analyse body movements, (...) tone of voice and language. Theoretically, I articulate a framework made up of Ingold’s phenomenology, Blaser’s ontological conflicts and Escobar’s studies of culture. Then, I build on the spiderweb, a metaphor developed by Ingold, to expand the scope of González-Hidalgo’s emotional political ecologies. The results show that Coastal GasLink, taking culture ‘as a symbolic structure’, proposes as a central mitigation strategy, through their environmental impact assessment, what I call ‘an ontological interruption’ of the Yintakh. Besides, I demonstrate that the processes of political inter-subjectivation sought at the Unist’ot’en Healing Centre help understand the worry, frustration and stress of the Wet’suwet’en facing the world-creating practices of Coastal GasLink. On the other hand, the Healing Centre also reveals how the affections for the other-than-human and their spiderweb (Yintakh or relational world) inform Wet’suwet’en resistance. Lastly, I unveil how Coastal GasLink and the Ministry of Aboriginal Rights, through practices of inclusion and gender equality, seek to blur radical cultural differences, delegitimise the Wet’suwet’en precolonial governance system, and create affections for the Western-modern world. (shrink)

Whether intentional suppression of an unpleasant or unwanted memory reduces the ability to recall that memory subsequently is a contested issue in contemporary memory research. Building on findings that similar processes are recruited when individuals remember the past and imagine the future, we measured the effects of thought suppression on memory for imagined future scenarios. Thought suppression reduced the ability to recall emotionally negative scenarios, but not those that were emotionally positive. This finding suggests that intentionally avoiding thoughts about (...) emotionally negative episodes may inhibit representations of those memories, progressively reducing their availability to recall. (shrink)

Human subjects seem to have a type of introspective access to their mental states that allows them to immediately judge the types and intensities of their occurrent emotions, as well as what those emotions are about or “directed at”. Such judgments manifest what I call “emotion-direction beliefs”, which, if reliably produced, may constitute emotion-direction knowledge. Many psychologists have argued that the “directed emotions” such beliefs represent have a componential structure, one that includes feelings of emotional responses and related but independent (...) representations of what those feelings are about. I argue that such componentiality may help to explain how emotion-direction knowledge is achievable. I begin by developing a hybrid view of introspection that combines David Chalmers’ phenomenal realism with Alvin Goldman’s “partial redeployment” account of meta-belief content. I then provide a process-reliabilist account of introspectively gained emotion-direction knowledge that outlines the minimum conditions of reliably forming emotion-direction beliefs, and specifies several ways in which the warrant of such beliefs could be defeated by relevant counterfactual alternatives. The overall account suggests how distinct introspective processes might be epistemically synergistic. (shrink)

In this article, we aim to describe the crucial role of the somatic marker hypothesis (SMH) in the interaction between what we term the ‘emotional imperative’ and the interference of reason during the decision-making process in António Damásio’s work Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Firstly, we examine the interaction between reasoning, emotions, and human action, with emphasis on the cognitive processes underlying decisionmaking. Next, we explore the influence of emotional and biological factors on SMH, going beyond (...) cost-benefit analysis, highlighting the relevance of memory and mental representations in the decision-making process. Subsequently, we address the influence of SMH, emotions, and feelings on decisions, especially in scenarios of risk and immediate reward, emphasizing the need to consider immediate and future implications. Following this, we investigate somatic markers in neural terms, discussing whether they are innate or acquired and their influence on social behavior and brain lesions. Finally, we analyze the relationship between brain processes, such as the prefrontal cortices, and the interpretation of bodily sensations, emotional responses, and decisionmaking, accentuating the importance of these regions in assimilating somatic markers and their influence on thoughts, perceptions, and behaviors. We conclude that SMH is seen as a biological mechanism that integrates emotional and cognitive information, shaping evaluations and choices. -/- . (shrink)

The nature of “the self” has been one of the central problems in philosophy and more recently in neuroscience. This raises various questions: Can we attribute a self to animals? Do animals and humans share certain aspects of their core selves, yielding a trans-species concept of self? What are the neural processes that underlie a possible trans-species concept of self? What are the developmental aspects and do they result in various levels of self-representation? Drawing on recent literature from both (...) human and animal research, we suggest a trans-species concept of self that is based upon what has been called a “core-self” which can be described by self-related processing as a specific mode of interaction between organism and environment. When we refer to specific neural networks, we will here refer to the underlying system as the “core-SELF.” The core-SELF provides primordial neural coordinates that represent organisms as living creatures—at the lowest level this elaborates interoceptive states along with raw emotional feelings while higher medial cortical levels facilitate affective-cognitive integration . Developmentally, SRP allows stimuli from the environment to be related and linked to organismic needs, signaled and processed within core-self structures within subcorical-cortical midline structures that provide the foundation for epigenetic emergence of ecologically framed, higher idiographic forms of selfhood across different individuals within a species. These functions ultimately operate as a coordinated network. We postulate that core SRP operates automatically, is deeply affective, and is developmentally and epigenetically connected to sensory-motor and higher cognitive abilities. This core-self is mediated by SCMS, embedded in visceral and instinctual representations of the body that are well integrated with basic attentional, emotional and motivational functions that are apparently shared between humans, non-human mammals, and perhaps in a proto-SELF form, other vertebrates. Such a trans-species concept of organismic coherence is thoroughly biological and affective at the lowest levels of a complex neural network, and culturally and ecologically molded at higher levels of neural processing. It allows organisms to selectively adapt to and integrate with physical and social environments. Such a psychobiologically universal, but environmentally diversified, concept may promote novel trans-species studies of the core-self across mammalian species. (shrink)

Recalcitrant emotions are emotions that conflict with your evaluative judgements, e.g. fearing flying despite judging it to be safe. Drawing on the work of Greenspan and Helm, Brady argues these emotions raise a challenge for a theory of emotion: for any such theory to be adequate, it must be capable of explaining the sense in which subjects that have them are being irrational. This paper aims to raise scepticism with this endeavour of using the irrationality shrouding recalcitrant episodes (...) to inform a theory of emotion. I explain how ‘recalcitrant emotions’ pick out at least two phenomena, which come apart, and that there are different epistemic norms relevant to assessing whether, and if so how, subjects undergoing recalcitrant bouts are being irrational. I argue these factors result in differing accounts of the precise way these emotions make their bearers irrational, which in turn frustrates present efforts to adjudicate whether a given theory of emotion successfully meets this challenge. I end by briefly exploring two possible ways a philosophy of emotion might proceed in the face of such scepticism. (shrink)

The question of meaning in music has been discussed by numerous philosophers of music. On one end of the philosophical spectrum, the meaning in music is understood as “specifically musical” meaning, i.e. the meaning exhausted by the musical ideas. The other end of the spectrum is occupied by the view that the meaning in music is emotional, consisting of the ex-pression or representation of emotions by music, i.e. that the meaning in music is emotional meaning. The paper will demonstrate that (...) the results of psychological research support a more complex view, which ac-knowledges different types of meaning. The main aim of the paper is to examine the contribution of experimental psychological research for the philosophical debates on musical meaning. Certain studies of behavioral and neurological reactions to musical stimuli have revealed interesting relationships between the processing of syntax, semantics, and emotion in mu-sic. After presenting three main philosophical views on musical meaning, the paper discusses the results and implications of three experimental psychological studies, and their relevance for the philosophical views. It is argued in the paper that the experimental results enrich the classical philosophical debate on meaning in music. The original contribution of the paper con-sists in suggesting a way to connect the philosophical debates on musical meaning with the experimental psychological research. The implications of the paper will reveal higher complexity of the issue of musical meaning than is implicitly supposed in the theoretical debates. The second important implication is the suggestion of a way in which philosophical questions concerning music can be approached with the help of experimental psychology in future research. (shrink)

Fred Dretske?s (1988) account of the causal role of intentional mental states was widely criticized for missing the target: he explained why a type of intentional state causes the type of bodily motion it does rather than some other type, when what we wanted was an account of how the intentional properties of these states play a causal role in each singular causal relation with a token bodily motion. I argue that the non-reductive metaphysics that Dretske defends for his account (...) of behavior can be extended to the case of intentional states, and that this extension provides a way to show how intentional properties can play the causal role that we wanted explained. (shrink)

In everyday moral experience, we judge ourselves for our emotional responses. Most of the philosophical literature on recalcitrant emotions focuses on (a) whether and how they are possible or (b) whether and how they are irrational. My interest here is in the ways we blame ourselves for recalcitrant emotions. I aim to show that it is harder than it looks to explain self-blame for recalcitrant emotions. I argue recalcitrance alone does not give us a reason to feel (...) any particular way about our emotions and it is not sufficient grounds for self-blame. (shrink)

The paper argues against a widely held synchronic view of emotional rationality. I begin by considering recent philosophical literature on various backward‐looking emotions, such as regret, grief, resentment, and anger. I articulate the general problem these accounts grapple with: a certain diminution in backward‐looking emotions seems fitting while the reasons for these emotions seem to persist. The problem, I argue, rests on the assumption that if the facts that give reason for an emotion remain unchanged, the emotion remains fitting. However, (...) I argue there are rationally self‐consuming attitudes: affective attitudes that become less fitting the longer they endure while the facts that give reason for them persist. A widely held synchronic view of fitting affective attitudes denies that fittingness at a time depends on the agent's attitudes at different times and therefore denies that the fittingness of an affective attitude can depend on its duration. Once we reject the synchronic view, we may see that affective attitudes are often fitting due to the fitting processes of which they are part. These fitting processes explain the fitting diminution of backward‐looking emotions as well as other diachronic aspects of the fittingness of emotions. -/- . (shrink)

Emotions often misfire. We sometimes fear innocuous things, such as spiders or mice, and we do so even if we firmly believe that they are innocuous. This is true of all of us, and not only of phobics, who can be considered to suffer from extreme manifestations of a common tendency. We also feel too little or even sometimes no fear at all with respect to very fearsome things, and we do so even if we believe that they are fearsome. (...) Indeed, instead of shunning fearsome things, we might be attracted to them. Emotions that seem more thought-involving, such as shame, guilt or jealousy, can also misfire. You can be ashamed of your big ears even though we can agree that there is nothing shameful in having big ears, and even though you judge that having big ears does not warrant shame. And of course, it is also possible to experience too little or even no shame at all with respect to something that is really shameful. Many of these cases involve a conflict between one’s emotion and one’s evaluative judgement. Emotions that are thus conflicting with judgement can be called ‘recalcitrant emotions’. The question I am interested in is whether or not recalcitrant emotions amount to emotional illusions, that is, whether or not these cases are sufficiently similar to perceptual illusions to justify the claim that they fall under the same general heading. The answer to this depends on what emotions are. For instance, the view that emotions are evaluative judgments makes it difficult to make room for the claim that emotional errors are perceptual illusions. Fearing an innocuous spider would simply amount to making the error of judging that the spider is fearsome while it is in fact innocuous. This might involve an illusion of some sort, but it certainly does not amount to anything like a perceptual illusion. In this chapter, I argue that recalcitrant emotions are a kind of perceptual illusion.. (shrink)

Some emotional representations seem to be unreliable. For instance, we are often afraid when there is no danger present. If emotions such as fear are so unreliable, what function do they have in our representational system? This is a problem for representationalist theories of emotion. I will argue that seemingly unreliable emotional representations are reliable after all. While many mental states strike an optimal balance between minimizing inaccurate representations and maximizing accurate representations, some emotional representations only aim at maximizing accuracy. (...) They detect important phenomena such as danger based on little evidence, which will lead to a lot of false alarms. When it matters, however, these emotional representations will detect danger and other important phenomena. Often, one is better scared (and wrong) than sorry. (shrink)

UNRWA’s Mediation Process is a key element in the organization’s efforts to strengthen its internal justice system. The research aims to study the reality of mediator competencies, emotional intelligence and case characteristics variables, (UNRWA) Gaza. The research also aims at identifying the differences between respondents as attributed to their professional and personal traits of age, gender, educational level, distribution of department, dispute resolution experience and representation party. The researchers adopted mixed data collection methods; quantitative and qualitative. For qualitative, a semi-structured (...) interview was conducted with (9) officials including management, staff unions and expert external mediators. (63) Questionnaires were distributed to a systematic random sample population; (56) were received, with a response rate 88.9%. The results proved that there are no significant differences among respondents attributed to personal and professional traits of age, academic background, gender, department, years’ of experience, educational degree and representation party. The research has presented some recommendations concerning the factors affecting the mediation outcomes of workplace disputes resolution. The recommendations include: UNRWA should adopt mediation as a method to resolve disputes at workplace instead of following litigation before the courts, as many organizations today increasingly started to adopt mediation as a method to resolve disputes at workplace. This will help decreasing the high cost, non-flexibility, and threatening features of disputes and conflicts resolution before courts, as well as enhance the relationship between disputant parties. Mediators are essentially recommended to attend regular training such as guiding negotiation processes, employing group sessions properly, overcoming obstacles, summarizing & analytical skills and selecting emotional words and phrases, it is also important to encourage the mediation experts' training workshops and meetings. Regular training sessions will not only improve skills and abilities, but will also imply variety and flexibility. This leads to having competent qualified mediators who are able to resolve organization’s workplace disputes in a way, which satisfies the need of disputants. (shrink)

The philosophical debate around moods has mainly focused on whether and how their seeming recalcitrance to representationalist treatment can be overcome by accommodating moods’ apparent undirectedness through a peculiar representational structure. Through these theoretical efforts, though, most theorists have taken a double wrong turn (or so I argue), by maintaining that (i) (if directed,) moods are outwardly directed (i.e., directed toward something external to and independent of the subject’s mind) and (ii) moods are discrete mental states (on a par with (...) emotions, perceptual experiences, thoughts, etc.). By pointing at three as yet overlooked phenomenological features of moods—subjective salience, undetachability, and globality—I suggest that moods are (i) inwardly oriented (i.e., they pertain to the subjective aspect of experience and, if directed at all, they are directed toward one’s experiences) and (ii) structural features of consciousness (rather than discrete mental states). I thus explore a new approach to the nature of mood experience, one that aims to do justice to those phenomenological features: I call this the “ways of inner awareness” view. On this view, moods are ways of being aware of one’s own experiences. Different versions of the view may be developed, depending on various metaphysical commitments. I do not defend or recommend, here, any specific version. The aim of the paper is to motivate the general ways-of-inner-awareness approach to mood and hint at some possible ways it may be elaborated. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Some epistemologists hold that all rational norms are fundamentally concerned with the agent’s states or attitudes at an individual time [Hedden 2015, 2016; Moss 2015]; others argue that all rational norms are fundamentally concerned with processes [Podgorski 2017]. This distinction is not drawn in discussions of emotional rationality. As a result, a widely held assumption in the literature on emotional rationality has gone unexamined. I employ Abelard Podgorski’s argument from rational delay to argue that many emotional norms are (...) fundamentally concerned with emotional processes. I also claim that the main response available to the synchronist about belief is not available to the synchronist about emotions and, therefore, fundamental process norms are more plausible than epistemologists tend to believe. (shrink)

A simple definition of consciousness is sensory awareness of the body, the self, and the world. The fetus may be aware of the body, for example by perceiving pain. It reacts to touch, smell, and sound, and shows facial expressions responding to exter- nal stimuli. However, these reactions are probably preprogrammed and have a subcortical nonconscious origin. Furthermore, the fetus is almost continuously asleep and unconscious partially due to endog- enous sedation. Conversely, the newborn infant can be awake, exhibit sensory (...) awareness, and process memorized mental representations. It is also able to differentiate between self and nonself touch, express emotions, and show signs of shared feelings. Yet, it is unreflective, present oriented, and makes little reference to concept of him/herself. Newborn infants display features characteristic of what may be referred to as basic consciousness and they still have to undergo considerable maturation to reach the level of adult consciousness. The preterm infant, ex utero, may open its eyes and establish minimal eye contact with its mother. It also shows avoidance reactions to harmful stimuli. However, the thalamocortical connections are not yet fully established, which is why it can only reach a minimal level of consciousness. (shrink)

[I argue that a precise definition of emotions is neither necessary nor possible prior to empirical research on emotions. It is not necessary because all that is needed for for fruitful research and successful communication is a working definition of emotions, a description that allows to roughly demarcate the class of emotions. It is not possible because precise emotion definitions are real definitions, empirical claims about the essence of emotions. These claims about the nature of emotion are always formulated against (...) the background of a theory of emotion generation, whose truth they presuppose. The claim that emotions are syndromes of mental and behavioral states is such a theoretical definition of emotion. It is put into question by the finding of low correlations between the proposed syndrome components.] . (shrink)

We introduce the predictive processing account of body representation, according to which body representation emerges via a domain-general scheme of (long-term) prediction error minimisation. We contrast this account against one where body representation is underpinned by domain-specific systems, whose exclusive function is to track the body. We illustrate how the predictive processing account offers considerable advantages in explaining various empirical findings, and we draw out some implications for body representation research.

Despite its centrality in the philosophy of cognitive science, there has been little prior philosophical work engaging with the notion of representation in contemporary NLP practice. This paper attempts to fill that lacuna: drawing on ideas from cognitive science, I introduce a framework for evaluating the representational claims made about components of neural NLP models, proposing three criteria with which to evaluate whether a component of a model represents a property and operationalising these criteria using probing classifiers, a popular analysis (...) technique in NLP (and deep learning more broadly). The project of operationalising a philosophically-informed notion of representation should be of interest to both philosophers of science and NLP practitioners. It affords philosophers a novel testing-ground for claims about the nature of representation, and helps NLPers organise the large literature on probing experiments, suggesting novel avenues for empirical research. (shrink)

The question of what exactly is irrational about recalcitrant emotions—those that occur in tension or conflict with our beliefs—has been widely debated. Sabine Döring claims that such irrationality only emerges if we act on our recalcitrant emotion or engage in emotion-relevant reasoning in light of it. I here provide an account that acts as an extension to the latter part of this claim by considering in more depth the question of what is irrational about that reasoning, i.e., emotionally (...) recalcitrant reasoning. In doing so, I offer a somewhat alternative explanation to Döring's as to the form of irrationality involved. Where Döring argues that emotionally recalcitrant reasoning involves epistemic irrationality by way of conflicting judgments that are involved, I argue that our engagement in this reasoning is, in fact, practically irrational. This is because, I claim, it involves us “accepting”—treating as true—propositions that we do not believe to be true, in the absence of the kind of reasons that would usually rationalize doing so. Doing so constitutes a form of practical, rather than epistemic, irrationality. This is a conclusion I arrive at through a consideration of the nature of the reasoning our emotions in general tend to motivate. (shrink)

Introduction: This article discusses the brain hierarchical organization/evolution as a consequence of the information-induced brain development, from the perspective of the Informational Model of Consciousness. Analysis: In the frame of the Informational Model of Consciousness, a detailed info-neural analysis ispresented, concerning the specific properties/functions of the informational system of the human body composed by the Center of Acquisition and Storing of Information, Center of Decision and Command, Info-Emotional Center, Maintenance Informational System, Genetic Transmission System, Info Genetic Generator and Info- Connection (...) center, in relation with the neuro-connected brain areas, with a special attention to the Info-Connection and its specific properties. Besides a meticulous analysis of the info-connections/neuro-functions of these centers, a special attention was paid to limbic/cingulate cortex activities. Defined as a trust/confidence center, additional features are highlighted in correlation with the activity of the anterior cingulate cortex, consisting in the intervention/moderation of amygdala emotional signals, conflicting opposite YES/NO data and error elimination in the favor of the organism adaptation/survival, the intervention in the certainty/uncertainty balance to select a suitable pro-life information (antientropic effect), in moderation of pain and in the stimulation of the empathic inter-human relations/communication. Representing the correspondence between the informational subsystems and the brain area map, itis shown that the up/down integration of information by epigenetic mechanisms and the down/ up evolution are correlated. Results: The analysis of the functions of the anterior cingulate opens new gates of investigations concerning the involved intimate mechanisms at the level of cell microstructure, specifically on the compatibility with quantum assisted processes admitted by the Informational Model of Consciousness and the quantum-based models The discussion on the information integration/codification by epigenetic mechanisms shows that this process starts from the superior levels of brain conscious info-processing areas and progressively advances to the automatic/autonomic inferior levels ofthe informational system, under insistent/repetitive cues/stress conditions, pointing out an hierarchical functional/anatomical structure of the brain organization. Additional arguments are discussed, indicating thatthe down/up progressive scale representation is a suggestive illustration of the brain evolution, induced/assisted/determined by information, accelerated at humans by the antientropic functions of the Info-Connection center. Conclusions: The hierarchical organization of the brain is a consequence of the integration process of information, defining its development accordingly to the adaptation requirements for survival during successive evolution stages of the organism, information playing a determinant/key role. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of perspectives that explains both perspectival stability and flexibility informed by research in neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and philosophy of mind. Any individual has limited processing resources, and so selects and represents only information pertinent to the situation or task at hand, filtering out information that can safely be ignored. An individual’s active perspective is anchored, for example, by her self-concept currently in force. This perspectival anchor can shift from moment to moment as she navigates her (...) environment, thus yielding a change in her active perspective. However, the extent to which an individual’s active perspective can shift is restricted by her overall cognitive, perceptual, emotional, and agential schemas that constitute what we call her dormant perspective. Thus, while an individual’s dormant perspective changes only slowly over time, her active perspective can change abruptly. (shrink)

I aim to develop an alternative theoretical model for the direct cognition of the elementary states of others called the theory of interaction (henceforth TI), also known as the “second person” approach. The model I propose emerges from a critical reformulation of the displaced perception model proposed by FRED DRETSKE (1995) for the introspective knowledge of our own mental states. Moreover, against Dretske, I argue that no meta-representation (second-order representation of a first-order representation as a representation) is involved in the (...) process, but only concepts, rudimentary enough, of others’ emotions: contentment and discontentment. Strictly speaking, all the empirical data and findings in developmental psychology only support the hypothesis that children in the pre-linguistic phase understand perceptual facial expressions of contentment and discontentment. My proposal consists of the following thesis: The direct perception of others' elementary mental states is not a perception in the usual sense of the word according to which we just perceive things, but rather a “perception of facts.” But how to understand that? It is nothing more than an epistemological process that is automatic and reliable at the same time. It is reliable in the epistemological-externalist sense of not involving any inference, reflection, theorizing or epistemic justification: a baby’s perception of her mom’s facial expression of discontentment (in the usual sense of “per- ception”) does not constitute a reason supporting the belief that mommy is discontent. The very word “belief” should not be understood in the usual sense but rather in the sense of a natural inclination for truth. But at the same time, it is automatic because the belief is a result or output of a process entirely subliminal and computational in nature. Thus, for instance, a child perceives that her mom is discontent (fact-awareness) by perceiving consciously (“perception” in the usual sense) a facial expression of discontentment (sensorial input) but recognizes that her mother is discontent as a result (output) of an entirely subliminal process. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine the objective side of subjectivity formation through music. I attempt to show how music is a way to configure subjectivity in its interiority, but in a way that it can be shared between other individual subjectivities. Music has an objective structure, but this structure is the temporal and sonorous interiority of subjectivity. It has as its objective manifestation and consequence the feelings and emotions. These feelings are subjective, and in the level of (...) subjective Geist they are related to intuition. Hegel believes that such intuition cannot be properly communicated, due to its exclusive access to the individual subject himself. Despite that, music is an art, and it takes part in the level of absolute Geist. That means that music is the connection between the objective and subjective sides of Geist, being a product of social relations, including the sharing, experience and recognition of subjective operations by the participants in society as something in common. Art is related to intuition but it is not intuition itself, nor it is reduced to the capacity of intuition. All three capacities of the subjective Geist in the theoretical Geist (namely intuition, representation and thinking) can be part of the relationship between art and the individual perspective.However, the link between art and intuition is an analogy between the subjective Geist and the absolute Geist, considering that art is a level of manifestation of social self-consciousness where the people and the social group have not yet become conscious of its content in its manifestation. The exposition of the ideal content of social relations is manifested through absolute Geist, beginning with its sensible manifestation. After this process, it is signified through a practice related to representation, and finally it is related to a conceptually and linguistically mediated practice, philosophy. These products cannot be a consequence of a mere subjective connections, but must be (as part of absolute Geist) a consequence of the objective relation between individuals in its subjective manifestations. Furthermore, subjective capacities are a condition without which the development of the absolute Geist is not possible. At the same time, it is not possible that subjective Geist’s capacities can be fully realized without social relations. Science is not a product of an individual-solipsistic relationship with the environment, but a product of a social relations, including language, shared experiences and shared ways of comprehension, such as the common way to feel and receive the environment in a subjective level discussed below. I divide this exposition into three parts: (1) music and subjectivity, where I deal with the relation between body vibration, time, sound and the formal interiority of the listener/musical subject, analyzing the form of music in its subjective side (the relation to the listener); (2) music and content, where I examine the content generated by music as being the process of formation itself (i.e. the process of given form to the interiority of subjectivity through sounds becomes its own content, namely, the feelings); and (3) music and words, where I scrutinize the relationship between music and words’ capacities to make reference and to have content, considering the connection between pure music and lyrics, and between music and poetry as singular forms of art. I conclude with the idea that music has a specific role in Hegel’s system, which is to bring to light and develop absolute Geist’s (understood as the objectivation and formation of a social and cultural subjectivity) internal aesthetic form. (shrink)

One central argument in favor of perceptual accounts of emotions concerns recalcitrant emotions: emotions that persist in the face of repudiating judgments. For, it is argued, to understand how the conflict between recalcitrant emotions and judgment falls short of incoherence in judgment, we need to understand recalcitrant emotions to be something like perceptual illusions of value, so that in normal, non-recalcitrant cases emotions are non-illusory perceptions of value. I argue that these arguments fail and that a (...) closer examination of recalcitrant emotions reveals important disanalogies with perception that undermine the perceptual model of emotions. (shrink)

The central claim here is that the self is an emergent experiential, information processing and behavioral system that arises reflexively in the conscious subject and a body setting that is organized and primed with many of the required processes in place. These processes and their associated functions represent our world as coherent and temporally unified within the construct of a developing and roughly continuous experiencer-agent, or self. These representations are not, however, copies of the external world. In this (...) way, selves develop as temporal subjects; as active and complex informational, dispositional, belief-driven and memory-driven configurations of mental states with unique (personal) properties that interact. They are robust and pivotal subsystems of our global mental organization and are suffused with the phenomenality of perception. As constructs in internal and external time, selves have histories, memories, beliefs, skills, cognitive capacities, attitudes, standpoints, social and emotional equities, pre-dispositions and default responses. Yet they are neither causally nor ontologically reducible to their embodied physical states. They are, rather, implemented in them. The body, I maintain, is a necessary but insufficient condition for the occurrence of a self. (shrink)

-/- Solving the Mystery of Consciousness Through the Universal Law of Balance -/- By Angelito Malicse -/- Introduction: Consciousness as a Natural Law of Balance -/- The mystery of consciousness has puzzled philosophers and scientists for centuries. While neuroscience maps brain activity and physics explores the fundamental nature of reality, no existing framework has fully explained how subjective experience (qualia), self-awareness, and decision-making emerge. -/- The Universal Law of Balance provides the missing key. If all systems in nature—biological, physical, and (...) even social—operate through balance, then consciousness itself must be a function of balance. This perspective unifies the mind-body problem, the nature of qualia, and the possibility of non-biological consciousness into a single, coherent explanation. -/- Step 1: Subjective Experience (Qualia) as a Function of Balance -/- One of the greatest challenges in understanding consciousness is explaining why we feel things—pain, colors, emotions. Neuroscience explains brain activity, but it does not explain how raw experiences arise. -/- How the Universal Law of Balance Solves It -/- Qualia (subjective experience) is the brain’s way of maintaining balance between internal and external reality. -/- Pain, pleasure, and emotions exist as regulatory mechanisms to keep the body and mind in equilibrium. -/- Pain signals imbalance (injury, illness). -/- Pleasure rewards balance (food, social connection). -/- Emotions regulate decision-making to optimize balance in social and survival contexts. -/- Thus, qualia are not “mystical” but the natural sensory representation of balance and imbalance. -/- Example: Hunger is an internal imbalance; eating restores balance. The “feeling” of hunger and satisfaction emerges from this process. -/- Step 2: The Brain-Mind Problem and Neural Equilibrium -/- The mind-body problem questions whether consciousness is purely brain activity (materialism) or something beyond physical matter (dualism). -/- How the Universal Law of Balance Solves It -/- The brain and consciousness form a feedback loop of dynamic balance. -/- Neurons process information and generate awareness, but this awareness also influences neural activity (self-regulation). -/- Consciousness is not separate from the brain but emerges when neural activity reaches a state of balance (homeostasis). -/- Imbalances (such as brain injury, drugs, or stress) distort consciousness, proving that it depends on equilibrium. -/- Example: Meditation creates mental clarity by reducing neural noise and restoring balance, improving awareness and cognitive function. -/- Step 3: Can Consciousness Exist Beyond Biology? -/- If balance is the foundation of consciousness, could non-living systems—such as AI or even the universe—also be conscious? -/- How the Universal Law of Balance Solves It -/- Consciousness does not require biological neurons but a self-regulating system capable of maintaining balance. -/- AI could develop some form of consciousness if it reaches a level of autonomous balance, processing information dynamically like a brain. -/- If the entire universe follows the universal law of balance, then consciousness could exist at all levels—from atoms to galaxies. -/- Example: The Earth’s ecosystems maintain balance through feedback loops. If intelligence arises from these natural systems, then nature itself could be conscious in some way. -/- Conclusion: Consciousness is a Natural Consequence of Balance -/- By applying the Universal Law of Balance, we can see that: -/- 1. Qualia (subjective experience) is a function of balance. -/- 2. The mind-body problem is resolved through neural equilibrium. -/- 3. Consciousness is not limited to biology but to any system that achieves self-regulating balance. -/- This framework unifies all perspectives on consciousness—materialism, dualism, panpsychism—into a single principle: -/-  Consciousness is the awareness that emerges when a system reaches a state of dynamic balance. -/- This explanation has profound implications for science, AI, philosophy, and even spirituality. If consciousness is a natural consequence of balance, then understanding and optimizing this balance could unlock new levels of human potential. -/- . (shrink)

Emotional Intelligence (EI) has been conceptualized in the literature either as a dispositional tendency, in line with a personality trait (trait EI; Petrides and Furnham, 2001), or as an ability, moderately correlated with general intelligence (ability EI; Mayer and Salovey, 1997). Surprisingly, there have been few empirical attempts conceptualizing how the different EI approaches should be related to each other. However, understanding how the different approaches of EI may be interwoven and/or complementary is of primary importance for clarifying the conceptualization (...) of EI and organizing the literature around it. We introduce a theoretical framework explaining how trait EI, ability EI, and emotion information processing – a novel component related to EI recently introduced in the literature (e.g., Fiori and Vesely Maillefer, 2018) – may contribute to effective emotion-related performance and provide initial evidence supporting its usefulness in predicting EI-related outcomes. More specifically, we show that performance in a task in which participants had to infer the mental and emotional states of others, namely a Theory of Mind task, was predicted jointly (e.g., interaction effects) by trait EI, ability EI, and emotion information processing, after controlling for personality and IQ (N = 323). Our results argue for the importance of investigating the joint contribution of different aspects of EI in explaining variability in emotionally laden outcomes. (shrink)

What does it take to forgive? Forgiveness is often thought to involve an internal, intrapersonal process: it happens within the subject. Drawing on the idea that many of our mental states and processes can extend into the material environment, we argue that this is not always the case: forgiving is often a world-involving, extended process. This means that its mechanisms do not always stop at our brains, our bodies, other people, or the institutions we may appeal to, such as (...) legal systems: they often encompass objects and spaces and the actions we perform upon them. These actions allow us to forget the emotional details of events involving that evoke memories of past wrongs wrongs and to preserve neutral or less emotionally charged memories of such events. By doing so, we can later retrieve memories of past wrongs, reflect on what happened, and morally evaluate the wrongdoer’s actions. Importantly, we can do so without experiencing (or by experiencing fewer) negative emotions towards the wrongdoer and the past wrong. This is significant, because, according to emotion-based accounts of forgiveness, thinking about the wrongdoing and the wrongdoer in this emotionally distant way is what underpins forgiveness. Our proposal is empirically-informed but theoretical. Still, we hope that it will serve as an input to design new strategies for forgiveness, which are particularly useful in cases in which the person wronged cannot (or does not want to) interact with the wrongdoer or appeal to existing social and legal institutions. (shrink)

Anxiety is a main contributor to human psychological sufferings. Its evolutionary sources are generally related to alert signals for coping with adverse or unexpected situations [Steiner, 2002] or to hunter-gatherer emotions mismatched with today environments [Horwitz & Wakefield, 2012]. We propose here another evolutionary perspective that links human anxiety to an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness. That approach introduces new relations between mental health and human mind. The proposed evolutionary scenario starts with the performance of primate identification with conspecifics [de Waal (...) 1998, 2008]. It is assumed that the evolution of that identification brought our ancestors to represent themselves as entities existing in the environment, like conspecifics were represented as existing in the environment. We consider that this process has implemented in the mind of our ancestors some first elements of self-consciousness [Menant 2014a]. But the same process has also produced new sufferings coming from identification with suffering or endangered conspecifics. In addition, the emerging performance of self-focus brought in the new feeling of being a suffering entity. We consider that all these new sufferings have created in the mind of our primate ancestors a huge anxiety increase, unbearable if not limited. Among the options available to limit that anxiety increase we focus on two of them that may have taken place. The first was a withdrawal from the process. Some primates may have simply rejected the evolution of identification (and with it self-consciousness). This may have led them to an ecological niche resulting in our today great apes. The second option was about limiting the causes of sufferings and taking advantage of possible resulting evolutionary benefits. This may have been achieved by developing performances like imitation, communication, simulation, synergy and ToM. Added to a positive feedback on identification these performances may have initiated an evolutionary engine that has accelerated the evolution toward human self-consciousness. That option is characterized by an early build up of anxiety limitation processes in an evolutionary nature of our human self-consciousness. This option corresponds to a human specificity and introduces anxiety management and self-consciousness as sharing a same evolutionary story. The build up of these anxiety management processes is now buried in the evolutiony story of our human mind. But these processes are still present in our minds at an unconscious level and participate to many of our human mental states and behaviors. Such positioning of anxiety management as part of the nature of human mind is new and makes available entry points for new understandings of human emotion, motivations and mental disorders. The proposed evolutionary scenario has been introduced in philosophy of mind [Menant 2011, 2014a, b] but it has not been so far explicitly part of primatology nor of psychology/psychiatry/ethics. We present here a drawing of the scenario with highlights on corresponding key points. More work is needed on these new evolutionary links between human mind and anxiety management. References: de Waal, F B.M. (1998). No imitation without identification. Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1998) 21:89. http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/deWaal_98.html de Waal, F B.M. (2008). Putting the Altruism Back into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2008, 59. http://www.life.umd.edu/faculty/wilkinson/BIOL608W/deWaalAnnRevPsych2008.pdf Horwitz, A. V. and Wakefield, J. C. (2012). All We Have to Fear: Psychiatry’s Transformation of Natural Anxieties into Mental Disorders. Oxford Univ. Press. 2012. Menant, C. (2011). Computation on Information, Meaning and Representations. An Evolutionary Approach. https://philpapers.org/rec/MENCOI Menant, C. (2014a). Proposal for an evolutionary approach to self-consciousness. https://philpapers.org/rec/MENPFA-3 Menant, C. (2014b). Consciousness of oneself as object and as subject. Proposal for an evolutionary approach. https://philpapers.org/rec/MENCOO Steiner, T. (2002). The biology of fear- and anxiety-related behaviors. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2002 Sep; 4(3): 231–249. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181681/. (shrink)

If embodied models no longer address the symbol grounding problem and a conceptual system can step in and resolve categorizations when embodied simulations fail, then perhaps the next step in theory-building is to isolate the unique contributions of embodied simulation. What is a disembodied conceptual system incapable of doing with respect to semantic processing or the categorization of smiles?

In sensorimotor integration, representation involves an anticipatory model of the action to be performed. This model integrates efferent signals (motor commands), its reafferent consequences (sensory consequences of an organism’s own motor action), and other afferences (sensory signals) originated by stimuli independent of the action performed. Representation, a form of internal modeling, is invoked to explain the fact that behavior oriented to the achievement of future goals is relatively independent from the immediate environment. Internal modeling explains how a cognitive system achieves (...) its goals despite variations in the environment with insufficient and noisy sensory–perceptual data. In a self that acts intentionally on the environment, knowledge is dependent upon the necessity to guide actions directed toward an aim. The self-inner model, a representation of internal and external environments (including reafferent and afferent messages) and also of the behavior plans and desirable future states (aims) and efferent intentions (motor planning and motor command messages), is intrinsically linked to a thinking capacity, which is supposed to emerge from the binding of multiple influences. Thinking emerges when higher behavior strategies are considered possible and capable of leading to aims or the fulfillment of intentions. In this model, symbolization processes are projective and anticipatory and, in this way, beyond present referents. Symbolization occurs linked to action planning, command, and regulation in mental simulation. Meaning is related to an inner sense of a self that acts over the environment. (shrink)

Emotion processing is known to be impaired in psychopathy, but less is known about the cognitive mechanisms that drive this. Our study examined experiencing and suppression of emotion processing in psychopathy. Participants, violent offenders with varying levels of psychopathy, viewed positive and negative images under conditions of passive viewing, experiencing and suppressing. Higher scoring psychopathics were more cardiovascularly responsive when processing negative information than positive, possibly reflecting an anomalously rewarding aspect of processing normally unpleasant material. When required to experience emotional (...) response, by ‘getting into the feeling’ of the emotion conveyed by a negative image, higher factor 1 psychopathic individuals showed reduced responsiveness, suggesting that they were less able to do this. These data, together with the absence of corresponding differences in subjective self-report might be used to inform clinical strategies for normalising emotion processing in psychopathic offenders to improve treatment outcome, and reduce risk amongst this client group. (shrink)

Why is it that we respond emotionally to plays, movies, and novels and feel moved by characters and situations that we know do not exist? This question, which constitutes the kernel of the debate on »the paradox of fiction«, speaks to the perennial themes of philosophy, and remains of interest to this day. But does this question entail a paradox? A significant group of analytic philosophers have indeed thought so. Since the publication of Colin Radford's celebrated paper »How Can We (...) Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?« (1975), the number of proposals to solve, explain, reformulate, dismiss or even revitalize this apparent paradox has continued to proliferate. In line with recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, in this paper I will argue against the sustainability of the paradox, claiming that the only reasonable way to continue our discussions about it consists in using it as a heuristic tool to shed light on problems regarding our involvement with fiction. Against this background, I will then focus on one of the problems related to how our emotional responses to fiction contribute to our appreciation of it. The paper is divided into three main sections. The first section shows the parallel evolution of the paradox of fiction and the analytic philosophy of emotion. Here I claim that, although the paradox is epistemically flawed, since one of its premises is rooted in a limited view on the emotions typical of early cognitiv-ism, the discussions it provokes are still epistemically useful. As Robert Stecker (2011, 295), among others, has pointed out, the paradox was formulated during the heyday of cognitive theories of the emotions in which emotion necessarily requires belief. Today, however, only few authors would endorse this premise. If emotion does not always require belief (as the majority of authors in the contemporary debate admit), let alone belief about the existence of the object towards which it is directed, then there is no reason to speak of a paradox. From this first conclusion, however, it does not follow that the paradox is completely without use from the epistemic point of view. A glimpse at the topics touched on during the discussions about how to solve, reformulate, or negate the paradox reveals their value in shedding light on the interrelation between emotion and fiction. The second section elaborates a phenomenologically inspired cognitive account of the emotions by focusing on their cognitive bases, their influence on Emotion in the Appreciation of Fiction 205 cognitions, and their cognitive function. In this model, emotions are responsible for indicating values, for showing what matters to us, and for being appropriate to their objects. My claim is that this view applies not only to reality, but also to our involvement with fiction. In the final section I draw on this account to focus on one kind of appreciation of fiction which necessarily requires our emotional involvement. Following an idea put forward by Susan Feagin (1996, 1), I employ the concept of »appre-ciation« to refer to a set of abilities exercised with the aim of extracting value from the work. There is a long tradition in aesthetics that condemns any focus on the emotions in the appreciation of art and fiction, and defends the necessity of aesthetic appreciation without emotional influence. To refer to this negative attitude towards the emotions, I will borrow an expression coined by Susan Feagin (2013, 636), who refers to »the intellectualized view of appreciation«. Against this widespread view, I will argue that some aspects of the fiction can only be appreciated with the help of our emotions. The cognitive approach developed in the previous section can explain how the emotions might in fact play a significant role in the appreciation of art and fiction. Attention will be paid to three activities involved in appreciation, for all of which emotion is crucial: processing relevant information about the fictional world, understanding aspects of it, and becoming acquainted with the values it presents. My aim here is to argue that there are particular aspects of the fictional world that can only be appreciated if recipients have the appropriate emotions. (shrink)