This is the penultimate and peer-reviewed version of Chapter 5 from Elpidorou, A., The Anatomy of Boredom, to be published by Oxford University Press in late 2024/early 2025. Please note that this version may differ from the final published version. All rights to this work, including but not limited to rights of reproduction and distribution, are reserved by the publisher, Oxford University Press.

This is the penultimate and peer-reviewed version of Chapter 5 from The Anatomy of Boredom, to be published by Oxford University Press in late 2024/early 2025. Please note that this version may differ from the final published version. All rights to this work, including but not limited to rights of reproduction and distribution, are reserved by the publisher, Oxford University Press.

This article derives from the Buddhist Nikāya Suttas the idea that fear has an intentional object that is best analysed in anticipatory terms. Something is feared, I argue, if construed as dangerous, where to construe something as dangerous is to anticipate it will cause certain unwanted effects. To help explain what this means, I appeal to the concept of formal objects in the philosophy of emotions and to predictive processing accounts of perception. I demonstrate how this analysis of fear can (...) do exegetical work in the context of the Nikāya Suttas, and respond to philosophical issues concerning the relation between the intentional and anticipatory dimensions of fear; the relevant anticipated effects of feared objects; and whether fearing subjects necessarily know they anticipate unwanted effects. I also draw an analogy to allostatic sensations to engage issues concering how the anticipatory dimension of fear relates to the motivational. (shrink)

What is the relationship between pain and the body? I claim that pain is best explained as a type of personal experience and the bodily response during pain is best explained in terms of a type of mechanical neurophysiologic operation. I apply the radical philosophy of identity theory from philosophy of mind to the relationship between the personal experience of pain and specific neurophysiologic mechanism and argue that the relationship between them is best explained as one of type identity. Specifically, (...) pain is a specific type of personal experience identical to a specific type of allostatic stress response comprised of interdependent nervous, endocrine and immune mechanical operations. (shrink)