DOCSLIB.ORG

Salmose2012.Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Salmose2012.Pdf This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: • This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. • A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. • This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. • The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. • When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Towards a Poetics of Nostalgia: The Nostalgic Experience in Modern Fiction Niklas Salmose PhD English The University of Edinburgh 2012 2 Declaration I hereby declare (a) that the thesis has been composed by me, and (b) that the work is my own, and (c) that the work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. 2012-01-01 _________________________________________________ Date Niklas Salmose, PhD Candidate 3 Abstract In recent years there has been a body of studies relating nostalgia and fiction in political, sociological, feminist, or historical ways. This thesis, instead, sets out to perform an unusual textual study of nostalgia in modern fiction in order to work towards a poetics of nostalgia. Although the experience of emotion is private, the object of analytical discourse must be to approach this experience with objective tools. The thesis therefore develops a method for analyzing the experience of nostalgia in literary texts and then uses this method to study how nostalgia can be evoked in readers. The method works through close textual readings, developed through reader-response and narratological theories and validated through a thorough investigation of modern nostalgia in general. The result is a taxonomy of nostalgic strategies that possibly create nostalgic reactions in readers. 4 5 Table of Content List of Figures and Tables (9) Introduction (11) Chapter One. The Fictive Experience: Art and Emotions (25) Introduction (25) Art and Emotions (25) The Experience of Fiction (29) Fiction as Experience (29) • The Problem of Experience (34) • Cultural Determinators and Emotions in Art (36) • The Nature of Emotional Experience (38) The Experience of Emotion in Fiction (41) The Paradox of Fiction (41) • Fiction as Simulation (44) • The Meta-Experience (46) • Subjectivity and Simulation (52) • Fiction and Mood (54) Towards a Method of Analyzing Emotional Response to Fiction (58) A Direction of Research (58) • The Different Emotional Reactions to Art (60) • Author (62) •Text (Representation) (62) • Text (Aesthetics) (63) • Audience (64) • Non-Textual (65) • The Death of the Author and Birth of the Narrator (65) • The Competent Reader (72) • Theory in Practice (77) • A Method of Analyzing Emotional Experiences in Fiction (81) Chapter Two. The Nostalgic Experience (87) Introduction (87) The Nostalgic Experience (93) • The Nostalgic Reaction (94) Motivation (95) The Nostalgee (96) • Nostalgia and Modernity (101) • Memorative Signs (108) The Nostalgia (118) Memory and Temporality (119) • Internal and External Nostalgia (122) Internal Nostalgia (128) Memorial Nostalgia (128) • Spatial Nostalgia (130) • Hypothetical Nostalgia (134) External Nostalgia (137) Pseudo-Memorial Nostalgia (137) • Metaphysical Nostalgia (138) • Ontological Nostalgia (141) Reflection (144) The Bittersweet Reflective Phase (144) The Nostalgic Mood (147) 6 Chapter Three. The Nostalgic Fictive Experience (153) The Nostalgic Fictive Experience (153) • The Essence of Nostalgia (156) • The Non-Textual Nostalgia (158) • Nostalgic Experience Through the Text (159) • Internal and External Nostalgic Fictive Experiences (159) • Art about Nostalgia or Nostalgic Art? (161) • Testing the Methodology (166) • What is Not Nostalgic (175) • Nostalgia and Literature (180) Chapter Four. Nostalgic Stylistics and Narratology (183) Nostalgic Stylistics (183) Nostalgic Tenses (183) • Past Progressives (184) • Proximate and Non- Proximate Words (187) • Asyndeton and Polysyndeton (188) Narratological Perspectives on Nostalgia (191) Anachronies (191) • Analepsis (192) • Prolepsis (194) • Frequency (200) • Repetitive Frequency (201) • Iterative Frequency (202) • Duration (203) • The Sensations of Anachronies (205) • Narrative Voice (208) • Narrative Mood (210) • Free Indirect Speech (211) • The Phenomenology of Childhood (217) • The Phenomenology of Childhood One: The Waves (217) • The Phenomenology of Childhood Two: Tarjei Vesaas' Is-slottet [ The Ice Palace ] (221) • Distance and Presence in The Great Gatsby (224) Hypothetical Nostalgia (232) Hypothetical Nostalgia in The Great Gatsby (234) Chapter Five. Nostalgic Tropes (241) Nostalgic Tropes (241) • The Romantic Nostalgic Tropes (243) • Nostalgic Motivators (247) • Attracting the Senses (248) • Clock Time (252) • Ruins and Decay (253) • Natural Elements (256) • Seasons (264) • Voyages (266) • Anti-Modernity (270) • The Universal Grief (271) • Childhood (274) • Youth (278) • Dystopian Spaces (283) • Conclusion (285) Chapter Six. Nostalgic Narratives (287) The Analeptic Structure (287) The Analeptic Structure (287) • Revisiting Brideshead Revisited (290) • Summary (297) Textual Memory (298) The Use of Textual Memory (298) Nostalgia within the Text: Textual Memory in The Great Gatsby (305) The Never-Ending Party – The Creation of a Textual Hyper Memory (307) • The Nostalgic Hang-Over (318) Chapter Seven. The Nostalgic Experience in The Sound and the Fury (327) Introduction (327) 7 Benjy's Section: The Age of Childhood (333) Structural Temporalities (333) • Stylistic Temporalities (335) • The Childhood Aspect of Benjy's Section (336) • In Preparation for Quentin (339) Quentin's Section: The Dualism of Time (340) Clock Time: The Temporality of Adulthood (341) • The Involvement of Inner Time (342) • The Sensations of Memory (346) • Mirror Analogies (349) The last Section: Universality of Loss (352) Works Cited (359) Glossary (375) 8 9 List of Figures and Tables Fig. 1. The Emotional Experience in Art (40). Table 1. Different types of narrators (70). Fig. 2. The Experience of Emotion and Mood through a text (84). Fig. 3. The Nostalgic Reaction (95). Fig. 4. Memorative Signs (108). Fig. 5. The Different Nostalgias (128). Fig. 6. The Nature of Emotions by Robert Plutchik (145). Fig. 7. Internal Prolepsis (195). Fig. 8. External Prolepsis (198). Fig. 9. The Analeptic Structure (297). Fig. 10. The Wandering Viewpoint (300). 10 11 Introduction On the back cover of the Penguin edition of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927) one can read: “Virginia Woolf’s lyrical, nostalgic novel […].” Likewise, the back cover of the same company’s edition of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945) reveals that it is indeed the “most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh’s novels.” Apropos of the publishing of Fitzgerald’s short story collection, All the Sad Young Men (1926), Brooks Cottle writes that, Unlike most titles under which books of short stories are published, the tag F. Scott Fitzgerald has put upon his third collection of stories is significant. “All the Sad Young Men” very accurately supplies the key to the dominant mood of the best stories in the book. That mood is the nostalgia of his young men growing out of their youth, the sadness with which they gaze back into that “country of illusion, of youth, of the richness of life, where their winter dreams had flourished.” (276) What do the readers actually mean when they call a work of fiction nostalgic? The answer to that question is the foundation of this thesis. Certainly one aspect of nostalgia is that of content; a narrative about nostalgia naturally can evoke nostalgia in the reader. Brideshead Revisited is about a man who looks back on his past with nostalgia, and the young men in All the Sad Young Men do occasionally dream back to their youthful experiences. Even Mrs. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse has occasional rushes of nostalgia, such as when she is reading a story to her youngest boy, James: 12 Oh, but she never wanted James to grow a day older or Cam either. These two she would have liked to keep for ever just as they were, demons of wickedness, angels of delight, never to see them grow up into long- legged monsters. Nothing made up for the loss. When she read just now to James, ‘and there were numbers of soldiers with kettle-drums and trumpets’, and his eyes darkened, she thought, why should they grow up, and lose all that? (67-68) Mrs. Ramsay obviously feels nostalgic for her own childhood even though this emotion is first directed towards her son, and later at both her son and her daughter. For many readers, the identification with Mrs. Ramsay might make themselves nostalgic since she is nostalgic. However, that is not the kind of nostalgia we will be concerned with for two reasons. First, it is very obvious. If a text is about nostalgia then there is always a chance that this nostalgia will be transferred into the imagination of a reader. Second, and with a similar caution, we will not be interested in what a character feels, unless this affects the mood of the narration. Furthermore, we will not be concerned with what could be called contextual nostalgia, that is, studies of nostalgia
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Art and Emotions1
    International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 10(2): 100–107 (2013) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/aps.1352 Art and Emotions1 PINCHAS NOY AND DORIT NOY-SHARAV ABSTRACT The article explores the different routes by which art, and especially music conveys and arouses emotions. Apart from the three formerly discussed routes: the narrative route of narration-identification, the direct route of isomorphism and the indirect route of ego mastery, a fourth route is presented, based on the emotions produced by the listener himself as the result of his active attempt to process the musical input in his mind. This is a “Meta emotion” reflecting the sum-total of all the disparate and opposing emotions conveyed or aroused by means of the other three routes. The point is made that the assimilation of classical polyphonic music, demands an active effort on the part of the listener. The same is true of other higher rank arts, each one of which has developed its specific means to transmit a wide spectrum of diverse emotions simultaneously. Attached to this challenge, there is the promise of earning a new experience – a Meta-emotion emanating from the ability to integrate the contrarieties inside us. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: aesthetic experience, polyphonic music, artistic enjoyment, emotional response, creativity, perfect form in art, art and emotions In a former paper “How Music Convey Emotions” (Noy, 1993) I presented three different routes by which the artist may succeed in evoking in his or her audience an emotional response.
    [Show full text]
  • Transportation and Homeric Epic
    Transportation and Homeric Epic Michael O’Neill Power A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University May 2006 ii — — iii Statement of Originality Except where due acknowledgement is given, this thesis is the result of my own research carried out under the supervision of Dr Elizabeth Minchin of the Classics Program of the Australian National University with the advice of Dr Judith Slee of the Division of Psychology of the Australian National University. _________________________________ Michael O’Neill Power May 2006 iv — — v Acknowledgements I am very grateful to everyone who has made the completion of this thesis possible: to those with whom I have discussed my ideas (whether at conferences or in cafés); to Dr Alan Rumsey of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies for his advice; and to the staff of the Classics Program at The Australian National University. I must also voice my thanks to Mrs Mary Harber for her assistance in translating Wilhelm Grimm’s “Die Sage von Polyphem” and for correcting a final copy of the manuscript. Early versions of several chapters of this thesis were presented at a range of conferences and seminars and benefited greatly from the questions they evoked: a version of Chapter 2 was delivered at ASCS XXVI, at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand in 1995; versions of Chapter 4 were delivered at The Homer Seminar II, at The Australian National University, Canberra, in 2003, and at ASCS XXV, at La Trobe University, Bendigo, in 2004; and a version of Chapter 5 was presented at The Homer Seminar III, at The Australian National University, Canberra, in 2005.
    [Show full text]
  • Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion
    Canadian Military History Volume 21 Issue 1 Article 5 2015 Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion Laura Brandon Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Laura Brandon "Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion." Canadian Military History 21, 1 (2015) This Canadian War Museum is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. : Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion Cause and Affect War Art and Emotion Laura Brandon ine years ago, I completed a which you bring things you know is a well-known Toronto-based Nhistory PhD here at Carleton and have experienced emotionally artist. She began painting military University. My thesis was published and with which through a dialogue subjects in the aftermath of the 1990 in 2006 as Art or Memorial? The with the artwork, its interpreters, to 1991 Gulf War and, 20 years later, Forgotten History of Canada’s War and other viewers you not only military portraiture remains at the Art.1 Influenced by the then relatively enrich your own understanding of heart of her practice. Her approach new memory theories, especially what you already recognize or have combines a certain accuracy of detail those pertaining to monuments as knowledge of emotionally but you born of her interest in historical “sites of memory,” I argued that also contribute to the emotional documentation combined with the through the act of looking, whether understanding of others.
    [Show full text]
  • I. Produits De La Recherche
    I. Produits de la recherche 1. Journaux / revues Articles scientifiques Aharon, I., Bourgeois-Gironde, S., and Levin, Y. (2015). Special issue on “Complexity modeling in social science and economics”. Mind & Society, 14(2), pp. 153-154. Alsmith, A. and Vignemont de, F. (2012). Embodying the mind & representing the body. In A. Alsmith, and de F. Vignemont de (Eds.), The body represented/Embodied representation. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, Special issue, 3 (1). Arcangeli, M. (2012). Esperimenti mentali [Thought experiments]”. APhEx (Analytical and Philosophical Explanation), 6, pp. 33-72. Arcangeli, M. (2013). Immaginare è simulare: cosa e come? [Imagining is simulating: what and how?]. Rivista di Estetica, s.i. “Nuove teorie dell’immaginazione”, 53/2, pp. 135-154. Arcangeli, M. (2014). Against cognitivism about supposition. Philosophia, 42/3, pp. 607-624. Arcangeli, M. (2017). De l’autre côté du miroir de l’imagination. Imagination et imagerie mentale. Bulletin d’analyse phénoménologique, XIII/2, pp. 108-128 Arcangeli, M. (2017). Interacting with Emotions: Imagination and Supposition. Philosophical Quarterly. Arnold, G., and Auvray, M. (2014). Perceptual learning: Tactile letter recognition transfers across body surfaces. Multisensory Research, 27(1), pp. 71-90. Atran, S. (2012). Talking to the Enemy: An Alternative Approach to Ending Intractable Conflicts. Solutions 3: pp. 41-51. Atran, S. (2012). Parasite stress is not so critical to the history of religions or major group formations. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 35: pp. 79-80. Atran, S. (2013). From mutualism to moral transcendence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 36: pp. 81-82. Atran, S. (2014). Martyrdom’s would-be myth buster. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37: pp.
    [Show full text]
  • The Distancing-Embracing Model of the Enjoyment of Negative Emotions in Art Reception
    BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2017), Page 1 of 63 doi:10.1017/S0140525X17000309, e347 The Distancing-Embracing model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception Winfried Menninghaus1 Department of Language and Literature, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany [email protected] Valentin Wagner Department of Language and Literature, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany [email protected] Julian Hanich Department of Arts, Culture and Media, University of Groningen, 9700 AB Groningen, The Netherlands [email protected] Eugen Wassiliwizky Department of Language and Literature, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany [email protected] Thomas Jacobsen Experimental Psychology Unit, Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, 22043 Hamburg, Germany [email protected] Stefan Koelsch University of Bergen, 5020 Bergen, Norway [email protected] Abstract: Why are negative emotions so central in art reception far beyond tragedy? Revisiting classical aesthetics in the light of recent psychological research, we present a novel model to explain this much discussed (apparent) paradox. We argue that negative emotions are an important resource for the arts in general, rather than a special license for exceptional art forms only. The underlying rationale is that negative emotions have been shown to be particularly powerful in securing attention, intense emotional involvement, and high memorability, and hence is precisely what artworks strive for. Two groups of processing mechanisms are identified that conjointly adopt the particular powers of negative emotions for art’s purposes.
    [Show full text]
  • The Emotions and the Arts in Nineteenth-Century English Literature
    GENERAL TOPIC: The Emotions and the Arts in Nineteenth-century English Literature SPECIFIC THEME: Literary Representations of the Emotions in the Arts Principal Researcher: Paula Alexandra Guimarães Centre for Humanistic Studies (University of Minho) Introductory Remarks Although generated by neurobiological processes, emotions (pathe, affectus) also consist in a process of appraisal and individual judgement, which depends on social and cultural norms and individual proclivities. As they heavily influence social relations and the behaviour of individuals and groups, emotions are socially relevant and, consequently, subject to scrutiny, judgement, and normative intervention. They fulfil social functions and follow social rules. Hence, they are potentially subject to change and are shaped by the society in which they operate. Although it can be argued that emotions are a universal phenomenon, they do have a history and are a very important subject of historical research. This applies both to emotions closely connected with socio-cultural norms (e.g. friendship, pity, honour, shame, pride) and to ‘basic emotions’ (e.g. fear, hope, joy, grief, disgust, despair, love, lust, envy). Emotions are important both as subject and as background of textual sources. Most (if not all) textual and pictorial sources at our disposal are directly or indirectly generated by emotions, display emotions or aim to arouse emotions. Admittedly, the emotional background is more evident and significant in some sources than in others. The study of the emotions is an emergent interdisciplinary ×eld, which means that scholars from different disciplines (mainly literature, history, philosophy and cultural geography) are interested in the subject, and come together to work out how to discuss it.
    [Show full text]
  • Oxford Scholarship Online
    The Arts, Emotion, and Evolution University Press Scholarship Online Oxford Scholarship Online Aesthetics and the Sciences of Mind Greg Currie, Matthew Kieran, Aaron Meskin, and Jon Robson Print publication date: 2014 Print ISBN-13: 9780199669639 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2014 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199669639.001.0001 The Arts, Emotion, and Evolution Noël Carroll DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199669639.003.0009 Abstract and Keywords In this chapter, Carroll attempts to defend the view that art is an adaptation on that grounds that by means of provoking contagious emotions it promotes fellow feeling and thereby abets social cohesion. Keywords: art and emotion, evolution, emotional contagion, Leo Tolstoy, function of art, group selection, origin of art 8.1 Introduction In the opening chapters of What is Art?, Tolstoy comments at length—and often satirically —on the vast investment of resources and labour that went into the production of the art of his day. He writes: For the production of every ballet, circus, opera, operetta, exhibition, picture, concert or printed book, the intense and unwilling labor of thousands of people is Page 1 of 24 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy). Subscriber: CUNY Graduate Center; date: 22 July 2015 The Arts, Emotion, and Evolution needed at what is often harmful and humiliating work.
    [Show full text]
  • ￢ﾀﾜhow Does This Artwork Make You Feel?￢ﾀﾝ a ￢ﾀﾜno-No￢ﾀﾝ
    “How Does This Artwork Make You Feel?” A “No-No” Question in Art Museum Education? Olga M. Hubard The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Volume 49, Number 2, Summer 2015, pp. 82-98 (Article) Published by University of Illinois Press For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/582500 Access provided by Columbia University (4 Jun 2017 14:33 GMT) “How Does This Artwork Make You Feel?” A “No-No” Question in Art Museum Education? OLGA M. HUBARD “Never ask students how an artwork makes them feel. If the work makes them feel happy, or sad, or whatever, that’s fine, but it’s not our concern as educators.” This is advice I received years ago when I became a museum educator and was learning to facilitate group dialogues about works of art. Group dialogues have become central to art museum education over the last two decades. Distinct from traditional lectures, these dialogues involve extended viewing sessions where, guided by an educator, visitors observe individual artworks closely, share insights and impressions, and ultimately make meaning of the works for themselves.1 “What we care about as educators is how spectators are learning to think,” my instructor added, “not about their emotions, which are subjective.” My instructor suggested that, instead of asking spectators how works of art made them feel, educators should ask, “What emotion does this artwork suggest?” followed by, “What do you see that makes you say that?” These questions, she explained, would shift the focus away from the viewers’ subjective emotional states and direct them toward the objective traits of the artwork.
    [Show full text]
  • How Music Makes Us Feel
    Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Philosophy Theses Department of Philosophy 8-7-2012 How Music Makes Us Feel Alexander Economides Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses Recommended Citation Economides, Alexander, "How Music Makes Us Feel." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2012. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses/106 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HOW MUSIC MAKES US FEEL by ALEXANDER ECONOMIDES Under the Direction of Andrea Scarantino ABSTRACT According to folk psychology, instrumental music regularly elicits emotions in listeners. Philos- ophers and psychologists such as Kivy, Konecni and Zangwill have questioned the existence of these musically elicited emotions, arguing that instrumental music elicits moods or aesthetic judgments rather than emotions. I defend the folk psychological position against these skeptics. The first chapter sets up the debate surrounding musically elicited emotions, while chapters two and three defend the thesis that instrumental music elicits emotions against the critics’ argu- ments. Chapter four outlines the implications of this defense for a variety of fields. INDEX WORDS: Emotion, Affect, Mood, Cognitivism,
    [Show full text]
  • The Transcendental Argument of the Novel
    The Transcendental Argument of the Novel Gilbert Plumer June 11, 2017 Journal of the American Philosophical Association accepted manuscript 1. Introduction Attending to a peculiar divergence, Warner (1979: 186) provides a striking description of the reception of Samuel Richardson’s groundbreaking novel Clarissa: When the completed novel is delivered to the public and readers still persist in asserting a misguided understanding of the novel, a new tone of irritation enters Richardson’s correspondence. At best, these readers are guilty of flagrant inattention to the novel’s design; at worst, an immoral admiration for Lovelace. Richardson meets this challenge to his art by carrying out significant changes in the body of Clarissa. These modifications come in two waves. In April 1749, six months after releasing the final installment of the first edition, Richardson publishes a second edition that includes footnotes and a long index summary of the novel, placed at the beginning of the text. Over the next two years, serious “errors” of reading continue, so in the Spring of 1751 Richardson publishes a third edition that weaves two hundred pages of additional material into the text. Similarly, Palmer (1973: 8) says that Clarissa is “a novel in which the central character [whom he regards as Lovelace] breaks the bonds of control of the author and reveals unconscious impulses which Richardson ‘did not understand himself’.” As we might say using commonplace categories, ‘the character took on a life of its own’ or even ‘the story wrote itself’. For this phenomenon of divergence to be possible, there have to be at least two levels of meaning or message of a work—that intended by the author and that conveyed or implicated by the text.
    [Show full text]
  • Explicating Emotions
    EXPLICATING EMOTIONS by Andrea Scarantino B.S., Economics, Bocconi University, 1994 M.S., Philosophy of the Social Sciences, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1997 Ph.D., Economics, Universita’ Cattolica, 2000 M.A., Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, 2005 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of University of Pittsburgh in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2005 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Andrea Scarantino It was defended on July 20, 2005 and approved by Paul Griffiths, ARC Federation Fellow and Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Queensland (Co-Director) Peter Machamer, Professor of Philosophy, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh (Co-Director) Bob Brandom, Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh Ruth Millikan, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Connecticut (Outside Reader) ii Copyright © by Andrea Scarantino 2005 iii EXPLICATING EMOTIONS Andrea Scarantino, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2005 In the course of their long intellectual history, emotions have been identified with items as diverse as perceptions of bodily changes (feeling tradition), judgments (cognitivist tradition), behavioral predispositions (behaviorist tradition), biologically based solutions to fundamental life tasks (evolutionary tradition), and culturally specific social artifacts (social constructionist tradition). The first objective of my work is to put some order in the mare magnum of theories of emotions. I taxonomize them into families and explore the historical origin and current credentials of the arguments and intuitions supporting them. I then evaluate the methodology of past and present emotion theory, defending a bleak conclusion: a great many emotion theorists ask “What is an emotion?” without a clear understanding of what counts as getting the answer right.
    [Show full text]
  • On Music's Subtle Expressiveness
    AVANT, Vol. VII, No. 1/2016 ISSN: 2082-6710 avant.edu.pl/en DOI: 10.26913/70102016.0111.0002 On Music’s Subtle Expressiveness Myriam Albor Institute for Philosophical Research, UNAM Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México [email protected] Abstract I suggest that emotions are not the primary affective attitude towards music. If we are to explain music’s expressiveness according to the Resemblance Theory, that theory should be extended to include feelings. Because of the lack of intentionality in music and the dearth of universal emotional gestures to explain the subtlety of music’s expressive power, explaining this expressiveness by making recourse to music’s relationships with emotions is bound to face challenges. I will argue that, even though the movements in music asso- ciated with musical expressiveness might not necessarily be associated with emotions, they might very well be associated with certain feelings of the movement itself. Keywords: emotions; expressive qualities; feelings; music’s subtle gestures; musical ex⁠pressiveness; musical gestures; Resemblance Theory. In his seminal book On the Musically Beautiful, Eduard Hanslick claimed that emotions1 are not the content of music. Even though I want to argue in favor of musical expressive- ness, I consider that the grounds Hanslick used to argue against the relationship between emotions and music are quite accurate. Letus start by reviewing them. Hanslick considered that emotions are not only dependent upon physiological conditions, but also upon ideas, judgments, and rational thought. Emotions are thus intelligible. His account is consistent with what became known as a “cognitive approach” to the analysis of emotions, and what is highlighted by such an account is the fact that emotions are in- tentional.
    [Show full text]