Knowledge and Self-Knowledge of Emotions

Knowledge and Self-Knowledge of Emotions Edoardo Zamuner Ph.D. University of Edinburgh 2008 ABSTRACT This thesis addresses two questions. One concerns the metaphysics of emotions and asks what kinds of mental states emotions are. The other asks how the metaphysics of emotions bears on first and third-personal knowledge of emotions. There are two prevailing views on the nature of emotions. They are the perception and cognitive views . The perception view argues that emotions are bodily feelings. The cognitive view, by contrast, contends that emotions are some sorts of evaluative judgments. I show that both views provide inadequate accounts of the nature of emotions. The perception view fails to do justice to the fact that emotions may not involve any bodily feeling. The cognitive view, by contrast, cannot account for the fact that emotions are states that adult humans have in common with infants and animals. On the basis of these criticisms, I put forward an alternative account of emotions. This involves five main arguments. The first is that emotions are enduring non-episodic dispositions that may or may not manifest themselves in experiential episodes such as emotional feelings and behaviour episodes such as expressions . The second argument is that emotional feelings are perceptions of specific bodily changes brought about by emotions. These feelings serve as clues as to what kinds of emotions the subject has. The third argument is that expressions are observable manifestations of emotions in virtue of which emotions can be perceived and subsequently known, directly and non-inferentially, by other people. The fourth argument is that when someone has an emotion without feeling it, she can still come to know it by believing true ascriptions that other people make about the emotion they perceive in her expression. The fifth argument is that full knowledge of emotions requires knowledge of the emotion objects . 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 2 Table of Contents 3 Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 8 I Are Emotions Natural Kinds? 1. Introduction 14 2. The Semantics of Natural Kind Terms 20 3. The Reference of Emotion Terms 23 4. The Extension of Emotion Terms 30 5. Emotions as Social Kinds 45 6. Conclusion 50 II Philosophical Theories of Emotions 1. Introduction 52 2.1 The Experiential View 54 2.2 The Sensation View 55 2.3 A Modest Perception View – 56 James’ Theory of Emotions 2.4 Problems with James’ Theory 59 3.1 The Cognitive View 62 3.2 Problems with the Cognitive View 68 4.1 An Immodest Perception View – 74 Prinz’s Perceptual Theory of Emotions 4.2 Problems with Prinz’s Theory 82 5. Wollheim’s Dispositional View 85 6. Conclusion 90 III The Metaphysics of Emotions 1. Introduction 91 2. Emotions as Reactions 93 3. “Emotions are states that we feel in the body” 107 4. “Emotions affect behaviour” 111 3 5. Emotions and Objects 117 6. Emotions, Moods, and Personality Traits 124 7. Conclusion 130 IV Emotional Experience 1. Introduction 131 2. The Sensation View 132 3.1 The Perception View 137 3.2 The Phenomenal Character of Emotional Feelings 145 3.3 Emotional Feelings and Misperceptions 152 4. The Metaphysics of Emotional Feelings 158 5. Emotional Feelings and Higher Emotions 161 6. Conclusion 172 V Emotions and Expressions 1. Introduction 173 2. Emotions and Perceivable Manifestations 176 3.1 Emotions and Observational Properties 182 3.2 Emotions and the Perceptual System 192 4. From Perception to Direct Knowledge of Emotions 201 5. Conclusion 207 VI Self-Knowledge of Emotions 1. Introduction 208 2.1 Peacocke’s Account of Self-Knowledge of Beliefs 209 2.2 Self-Knowledge of Emotions 215 3.1 Varieties of Self-Knowledge of Emotions 222 3.2 Emotional Feelings 223 3.3 Emotional Thoughts 229 3.4 Expressions and Emotional Behaviour 234 4. Knowledge of Emotion Objects 235 5. Knowledge of Unfelt Emotions 240 6. Conclusion 248 Bibliography 250 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are so many people and institutions who helped me reach the point where I can write these acknowledgements. I owe my thanks to the AHRC and the to Philosophy Department of the University of Edinburgh, which jointly funded my Ph.D. training from 2003 to 2006. I am grateful to the Jacobsen Trust and the Royal Institute of Philosophy that funded the final year of my Ph.D. with a Jacobsen Fellowship. I am also grateful to the Australian Department of Education and Training for awarding me an Endeavour Research Fellowship to visit the University of Melbourne. My greatest intellectual debt is to my supervisor, Matt Nudds. The thoughts in this thesis would have been far less developed without his help and his rigorous supervision. I am grateful to him for instilling in me a sense of the importance of arguing clearly and thoroughly. He changed my way of seeing and doing philosophy. Most importantly, he taught me a profession. Matt, thank you. My deepest gratitude and affection goes to two friends: Julian Kiverstein and David Levy. They made every single day of my research enjoyable and worthwhile. Julian has been a delightful office mate and a caring friend. Moreover, he granted me access to his immense philosophy collection that made the university library virtually unnecessary. David helped me through some difficult moments. Without him my life in Edinburgh would have been far lonelier. I spent beautiful moments with him and his family. I acknowledge his 5 understanding of the frequent bewilderment of writing my thesis in a language other than my native Italian. There are many people with whom I discussed drafts of this thesis. I am very grateful to Lisa Bortolotti who patiently commented on early drafts. Thanks also to Julian Kiverstein and Jamie Dow. I am especially indebted to Karen Jones with whom I had many fruitful discussions on the emotions. Her knowledge of the topic helped me immensely in the process of writing and working out my ideas. I would also like to thank Walter Cavini for encouraging me to apply to Edinburgh, and Dino Buzzetti, Rema Rossini Favretti, Giorgio Sandri, and Eva Picardi for believing in my research. I am grateful to Andy Clark, Michael Brady, Mathew Chrisman, Pascal Engel, Cordelia Fine, Peter Goldie, Richard Holton, Thomas Johansen, Peter Kail, Rae Langton, Hanna Pickard, and Pepa Toribio for useful feedback and advice. I should also mention my friends Ana Barandalla, Catriona Black, Jonathan Cameron, Carlotta Capuccino, Giovanna Cosenza, Antonella Cosi, Valentina Di Lascio, Giovanni Fassa, John Godfrey, Laura Hamilton, Alan Jones, Boon Low, Lisa McKeown, Conor McHugh, and Alex Mai. I owe special thanks to Betty, Alistair, Lorna, Gill, and David, and “the boys” of the Philip family with whom I spent wonderful Sunday evenings in Edinburgh. To Lorenzo Ntogramatzidis and Domenic Santilli-Centofanti, thank you for making my settlement in Melbourne easy and enjoyable. Thank you also to Aisling Crean, Ed Hare, Julian Kiverstein, David Levy, and Roddy Tannahill for their generous help with proofreading. 6 I remember with affection Susan Hurley, who passed away in August this year. Susan was a kind and generous person. She patiently read and commented on early versions of my work and encouraged me to continue in philosophy. I hold beautiful memories of her. I miss her a great deal. I reserve special thanks for my parents, Medi and Giuliano Zamuner, and my sister, Eleonora – you always feel close to me despite being so far away. I would like to make particular mention of Dr. Enrico Borghesi. The ideas I discuss in this thesis stem from the work I did with him during those “50- minute hours” also known as psychoanalysis. Finally, I dedicate this work to the memory of two people I loved intensely and who I miss everyday of my life. Despite their efforts to preserve me from the disruptive emotions of life, they in fact gave me a reason for facing life as it is – complete with its emotional highs and lows. I dedicate this work to the memory of Letizia and Carlo Caropresi, my grandparents. Edoardo Zamuner 15 th November, 2007 7 INTRODUCTION The topic of this thesis is how we come to know our own and other people’s emotions. Often the attempt to explain how we know a certain thing requires consideration about the nature of that thing. This suggests that an answer to the question of how we know emotions requires determining the nature of emotions. Authors like William James and Jesse Prinz have put forward a perception view according to which emotions are bodily feelings. If this were the case, we would then know emotions in the same way as we know other feelings and sensations. On the other hand, authors like Robert Solomon and Martha Nussbaum have proposed a cognitive view according to which emotions are states like judgements. If this were correct, we would then know emotions in the same way as we know judgements. There is, however, reason to doubt that either view is correct. The cognitive view fails to do justice to the fact that higher animals and infants have emotions, even though they are not capable of making judgements. The perception view, by contrast, confines itself to the claim that everything that needs to be explained about emotions can be explained in terms of bodily feelings. Although this view has the potential to account for emotions in humans as well as in animals, it overlooks the fact that emotions do not necessarily involve feelings. This suggests that emotions are not mere bodily experiences but another kind of state. So, neither the perception nor the cognitive view succeeds in providing a plausible and exhaustive account of 8 emotions.

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