Abstract
In this chapter, I argue that we can understand how original intentionality (i.e., a genuine mental life) fits into a natural and scientific understanding of the world through an understanding of the import of the intentionality of emotions to our knowledge of the world in which we live. To do so, I first argue that emotions demonstrate our original intentionality (i.e., a genuine mental life). I then explain how the intentionality of emotions is necessary for us to have knowledge of the world in virtue of our emotional responses. I conclude with a brief discussion of how the neuroscience of emotion can help to provide an explanation of how we can know in virtue of our emotional experiences—how epistemology can be naturalized via emotions.
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Notes
- 1.
I say “hopefully” here because providing an adequate scientific theory of original intentionality—a genuine mental life—may be more dependent on the politics of scholarly theorizing, which, unfortunately, has not always been deferential to truth above everything else. For historical examples, see Feyerabend ([1975] 1988).
- 2.
Note that this demonstration does not necessarily entail that the subject of an emotional experience has any theoretical knowledge about their emotional experience.
- 3.
- 4.
Cf. my arguments here, which in some sense can be taken as extending de Sousa’s (1987) arguments, with others who have argued for the claim that emotions are vehicles of knowledge (for example, Nussbaum 2001; Solomon 2007; Furtak 2018). I say “in some sense” because there are some significant differences between my view and de Sousa’s view, although there are also some considerable overlaps. For example, I do not take desires to be emotions (see 34n).
- 5.
All my uses of “or,” without the use of “either,” ought to be taken as mutually inclusive disjunctions. Every mutually exclusive disjunction is indicated by the use of “either, or.”
- 6.
I am simply highlighting here the distinction between “intentionality,” spelled with a “t,” and “intensionality,” spelled with an “s.” Kenny’s use of the word “intensionality” indicates the underlining connection between his notion of intensionality and the meaning of a linguistic item, which Kenny takes to be essentially mental. The “meaning” of a word, phrase, or sentence is often referred to in the area of philosophy of language as the “intension” of a word, phrase, or sentence (see Putnam 1973), and it is related to the Fregean notion of “sense,” which is contrasted with the notion of reference (see Kripke 2011). Comparing Kenny’s notion of intensionality with more recent works on intentionality, such as de Sousa’s (1987), suggests the idea that talk of intentionality/intensionality need not be associated with or directly associated with the meaning of linguistic items. de Sousa’s use of the word “intentionality” stands at the intersection of uses that necessarily entail a relation to the meaning of linguistic items and those that do not (such as an understanding of intentionality in terms of information processing that has no linguistic component; for example, the intentionality of some perceptual experiences). This is primarily because de Sousa, while acknowledging the significance of the meaning of a linguistic item to concerns about intentionality, also, unlike Kenny, considers the significance of the properties of the targets of emotion, and the causal relations between an emotion and its target, in his discussions about the intentionality of emotions. As I suggest at the end of the following section, what explains the shift from Kenny’s use of the word “intensionality” to de Sousa’s use of the word “intentionality” is de Sousa’s interest in naturalizing emotions.
- 7.
Cf. this discussion about the relationship between emotion concepts and the ontology of emotions, especially the intentionality of emotions, with my discussion of “the lack of metaphysical dependence between the cultural diversity of emotion words, or concepts, and the objective kind status of Emotion” (Mun 2016b, p. 265). In that paper, I was specifically addressing concerns regarding the metaphysical status of emotion (and emotion types/species) as an objective kind whereas what I am speaking of here concerns the import of the rationality of emotions to the intentionality of emotions. One can, however, regard what is stated in this chapter as a clarification or extension of some of my points in my previous paper on the rationalities of emotion (Mun 2016a).
- 8.
All references to words when used as words are placed in double-quotation marks, although some words placed in double-quotation marks are not intended to indicate references to words but instead indicate a quoted passage. The context should help the reader differentiate between these cases.
- 9.
This example was inspired by Kenny’s example of a man saying that he is afraid of winning £10,000 (192).
- 10.
de Sousa only explicitly noted that he was following C. D. Broad (1954) in his understanding of an emotion’s formal object (de Sousa 1987, p. 121), yet a careful reading of de Sousa’s (1987) and Kenny’s ([1963] 1966) works suggests that de Sousa was also inspired by Kenny. Although the comparisons between Kenny and de Sousa’s thoughts presented in this paper suggest this, compare de Sousa’s notion of a criterion of success with Kenny’s discussion of a criteria for success for the emotion of enjoyment ([1963] 1966, p. 150) for further support for this claim. Also see de Sousa (2018). Searle (1984) and Chalmers (2010) also spoke of something very similar in regard to the intentionality of mental states as “conditions of satisfaction.”
- 11.
de Sousa states this principle, the principle of Success, in the following way: “The formal object of a representational state defines that state’s criterion of success, in terms of which the rationality of that state is assessed” (de Sousa 1987, p. 159).
- 12.
According to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, as amended by the HEARTH Act (42 U.S.C. §103), “chronically homeless” is defined in terms of the following criteria, “(i) is homeless and lives or resides in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven, or in an emergency shelter; (ii) has been homeless and living or residing in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven, or in an emergency shelter continuously for at least 1 year or on at least 4 separate occasions in the last 3 years; and (iii) has an adult head of household (or a minor head of household if no adult is present in the household) with a diagnosable substance use disorder, serious mental illness, developmental disability (as defined in section 102 of the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 2000 (42 U.S.C. 15002)), post traumatic stress disorder, cognitive impairments resulting from a brain injury, or chronic physical illness or disability, including the co-occurrence of 2 or more of those conditions.” Also, according to the April 2014 policy briefing paper, “Discrimination and Economic Profiling among the Homeless of Washington, DC,” by the National Coalition for Homelessness, “approximately 93% (132) of the respondents from a sample of 142 respondents experienced discrimination; 70.4% from private businesses, 66.6% from law enforcement, 49.7% from medical services, and 43.7% from social services” (5). For ideas about alternative possibilities, see the Camphill Association of North America website (www.camphill.org).
- 13.
That the homeless man was wasting his life away was a significant aspect of what the young man’s contempt was about rather than being all of what the young man’s contempt was about since the young man’s contempt also included information about how the homeless man affected the young man’s well-being if the homeless man was actually wasting his life away. There may be various ways in which the homeless man can affect the young man’s well-being if the homeless man were in fact wasting his life away. For example, the homeless man, in wasting his life away, can be taken by the young man as a contrasting case for the young man’s self-understanding. This may be why contempt is often associated with pride, in that pride often motivates contempt, and contempt often reinforces pride. Cf. this account of contempt with the accounts discussed by de Sousa (2019).
- 14.
The emotional shift from pity to contempt is a rational shift since the shift occurred as a result of the young man maintaining the logical consistency between the information he acquired from his father and the constraints on rationality placed on him by his emotion’s formal object. For a more detailed discussion of the constraints on rationality that can be placed by an emotion’s formal object, see Mun (2019a).
- 15.
A “unit of explanation” can be generally understood as that through which an explanation is given and understood. Also see Mun (2019b).
- 16.
As noted in the previous section, Kenny’s criticisms of Descartes’ and Hume’s theories of emotion, as well as Ryle’s theory of emotion, was a rejection of a purely causal, and therefore contingent relation, between an emotion and its proper target, and such causal explanations often indicate naturalistic approaches.
- 17.
See de Sousa (1987, pp. 60–63, 75–76).
- 18.
Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia is usually identified in the discipline of philosophy as the first person to have conceived the “problem of the explanatory gap,” in response to René Descartes’ new physics, especially in regard to concerns about the interaction between physical bodies and mental minds. Also see Chalmers (2010) for a related discussion about the problem of the explanatory gap within the contemporary discourse in the philosophy of consciousness.
- 19.
A similar point is also made by Jackson’s (1982) thought experiments. Furthermore, the problem of complex objects may also be understood as the problem of specifying bridge principles that link materialistic, functional accounts to mentalistic, intentional accounts, although this would be the case only under the assumption of an approach to the problem of complex objects that assumes the necessity of something like a unified language for the science of emotion, broadly construed. Note that my proposal for an interdisciplinary science of emotion is not for a unified language of emotion or emotions, but rather for a unified meta-language (a language about theories of emotion) and for the necessity of translators or speakers of many languages (see Mun, forthcoming).
- 20.
If the problem of composition is understood in terms of a problem of providing bridge principles for a unified science of emotion, then the problem of complex objects can be understood as the problem of justifying these bridge principles.
- 21.
See de Sousa’s (1987) discussion of the contextual barrier and its relationship to the simulation barrier (74).
- 22.
What Dretske (1981) referred to as the “flow of information.”
- 23.
Note that this solution to the problem of composition should be understood as being given within the context of a more general explanation of how our emotions, given our individual natures, which are consequences of both our evolutionary and biographical history (phylogenesis and ontogenesis), allow us to know about the world, and that at least one way in which emotions do so is in virtue of their intentionality (de Sousa1987, p. 203; also see de Sousa 2011, Chapter 3).
- 24.
For de Sousa’s discussion of how the philosophers’ frame problem relates to the discussion of frame problems in artificial intelligence, see de Sousa (2011, p. 154).
- 25.
Also see de Sousa’s (1987) BH1, New Biological Hypothesis 1 (195).
- 26.
Note that being a vehicle of knowledge does not entail that what is represented in virtue of the vehicle of knowledge (e.g., the contents of an emotion) is necessarily known. A vehicle of knowledge simply makes it possible for the content of the vehicle to be known. The vehicle of knowledge is not what makes the content of the vehicle known. It simply allows the content of the vehicle to be known. Furthermore, not all vehicles of representation are vehicles of knowledge. For example, street signs are vehicles of representation, but they are not vehicles of knowledge since they are not states of epistemic beings.
- 27.
See Chalmers (2010, p. 362). Generally speaking, modes of presentation are ways in which one can understand, conceptualize, or conceive a referent of a term. As such, it would be more accurate to liken modes of presentation to an emotion’s formal object or intentional content rather than liken modes of presentation to vehicles of representation.
- 28.
See de Sousa (2011), Chapter 2, “What Emotions Have to Say,” for a list and discussion of possible truths from various perspectives about what emotions are (26–44). Also, due to some ambiguities in his text and some of his comments, which were personally conveyed to me, it’s not clear to me whether de Sousa would agree with this defense of his solution to his problem of composition. But if he does not, one can consider that this is at least one point at which de Sousa’s view and mine diverge.
- 29.
The validity of this argument can be understood with the use of a Venn diagram. If we grant, from one perspective, that it is true that all emotions are patterns of salience, and we grant, from another perspective, that it is true that emotions are vehicles of knowledge, then it will necessarily be the case that all emotions as patterns of salience are emotions as vehicles of knowledge, and vice versa, as long as both perspectives share the same object of inquiry—emotion or an emotion.
- 30.
By “experienced” I mean that there is something it is like for a subject of an emotional experience to have such an experience, although the subject need not be aware that they are having such an experience. For example, a person may have an experience of fear without being aware that they are having an experience of fear. They may simply have an experience of freezing without being aware that this experience is an experience of fear. Cf. Chalmers’ (1995) discussion of experience, consciousness, and awareness. I avoid using the word “consciousness” in my explanations in order to stay away from introducing any unnecessary complications.
- 31.
See de Sousa (1987, pp. 149–150), on phenomenology. I would also like to thank James A. Russell for helping me understand the distinction between an experience and one’s awareness of that experience.
- 32.
See Prinz (2004) for a discussion of warrant with respect to emotions.
- 33.
See Nussbaum (2001), Prinz (2004), and Mun (forthcoming) regarding the intentionality of emotion and how it is constituted by a relation between aspects of the world and our well-being. de Sousa, however, denies that emotion, as a class, has a formal object (1987, p. 20), although he does not necessarily deny that every emotion involves a relation between aspects of the world and our well-being as indicated by my discussion in this passage.
- 34.
Also note that for de Sousa (2011), “mere desires” are “degenerate or zero-level cases of emotions” (101). de Sousa’s and my account can be said to be distinct in at least this one respect. I do not regard desires to be emotions, although I regard them to be significant components of at least some emotions.
- 35.
de Sousa (1987, p. 203). Note, however, that according to more recent comments personally given to me by de Sousa (December 2018), he would no longer include perceptions in this statement. According to de Sousa, when he spoke of emotions as being perceptions he was using perception as an analogy and not an identification, and part of his reason for not intending to make an identity claim was his belief that perceptions cannot be irrational although emotions can be.
- 36.
Cf. with Mun’s (2016a) observation that “emotion or an emotion as a superordinate inference rule runs outside considerations of traditional or standard logical systems that dictate how assessments of warrant, rational thoughts, and rational judgments are to be evaluated” (54).
- 37.
See de Sousa (1987, pp. 194–202).
- 38.
Note that I am not suggesting that I am adopting de Sousa’s expressions of superordinate inference rules as my own. For an example of my proposal for the superordinate inference rule of shame, see Mun’s (2019b).
- 39.
It is important to note here that the foregoing ought not to be understood as an explication of de Sousa’s (1987) view about the rationality of emotion, but instead as an explication of my view regarding the rationality, intentionality, and epistemic import of emotions, which builds on some of the foundations laid by de Sousa and Millikan. To be sure, there are some considerable overlaps between my view and de Sousa’s view, however, there are also some significant differences between our two views, some of which I have noted throughout this chapter.
- 40.
This claim does not entail that emotions as superordinate inference rules only constitute aspects of human emotions (see Mun 2016a), although my conclusion here is restricted to human emotions.
- 41.
For an example of a proposal of a neuroscientific approach that may be able to sufficiently do so, see Adolphs and Andler (2018).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the University of Edinburgh and its Department of Philosophy, Andy Clark, and Laura Candiotto for hosting me as a visiting scholar while I worked on this paper. I would also like to thank the University of Edinburgh’s Philosophy, Psychology, and Informatics Group (PPIG) for inviting me to present my research at one of its meetings, and the Eidyn research center and Laura Candiotto for allowing me to present a previous version of this paper at the “Feeling Reasons. The Role of Emotions in Reasoning” conference. Finally, I would like to thank the Society for Philosophy of Emotion and Theodore Bach for respectively hosting and co-organizing a reading group on Ruth Millikan’s Beyond Concepts, Ruth Millikan for her email participation in the reading group, and Ronald de Sousa for his helpful comments.
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Mun, C. (2019). How Emotions Know: Naturalizing Epistemology via Emotions. In: Candiotto, L. (eds) The Value of Emotions for Knowledge. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15667-1_2
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