Emotions in Understanding of Researchers of Different Directions and Traditions - Essay Example

Running head: EMOTIONS Emotions in Understanding of Researchers of Different Directions and Traditions EMOTIONS Emotions in Understanding of Researchers of Different Directions and Traditions This paper is dedicated to the representation of emotions in understanding of researchers of different directions and eras. In common sense, emotion is a mental state, arising suddenly through some physiological changes and external conditions. It has been mentioning in the works of philosophers, theologians and psychologists from the 15th century. I would like to tell about some of the most famous opinions and theories of emotions. The history of this term takes us back to the times of Aristotle, who had chosen the term “pathos” [pl. pathe] for the emotions. Like Plato, he was convinced that only a reasonable regulation can give the true freedom and responsibility, but his experience (theoretical, medical and pedagogical) showed that the fight with emotions is useless. Aristotle was the first who identified several kinds of emotions, feelings and affects dividing them by the degree of their influence on behaviour (Irwin, 1995). Feelings and emotions, according to his point of view, can be understood by reason and therefore do not necessarily affect the behaviour, giving only some emotional context to our reasonable actions. At the same time, a positive emotions help to perform certain actions while the negative, on the contrary, hinder. Aristotle did not pose emotions neither as virtues nor as vices. He agreed the pathe influence people’s lives, and always affect on the person’s judgments, not only in pernicious cases. Aristotle’s Book II of the Rhetoric was devoted in large amount to physiognomy of the emotions. He had chosen 14 passions to his list. Each emotion EMOTIONS was given an interpretation and analysis of its causes. As a result Aristotle got a complex content for the emotion description. Book II of the Rhetoric contains the author’s description of mental conditions necessary for feeling of the emotions. The following emotions can be found in his list: friendship, anger, fear, kindness, envy, enmity, shame, shamelessness, calm, pity, indignation, confidence, emulation and unkindness. It is interesting that Aristotle organized his list as division of emotions into contrasting pairs, however sometimes it can be difficult to see the connection of these pairs. In his work Aristotle thought that the general psychology of the emotions would be represented differently on the different character types, on people of different age and so on. Aristotle gave the following assessment of the pathe: they can be ruled by reason and lead to good life and they can also ruin person’s mind and activity, being used for nefarious ends. Talking about the ancient researchers, I would like to mention one of the most recognizable figures for early modern philosophers, Aquinas, whose treatment of the emotions can be found in the Summa Theologicae and in de Veritate. He took some features from the interpretations of Aristotle, Cicero and Augustine and called the emotions as “passions of the soul”, which both humans and animals can experience (Aquinas 1981). “Estimative” power, according to Aquinas, were the movements and acts of the sensitive power caused by external reasons. He used to think that passions of the soul depend also on physical changes of the body, such as temperature and heart rhythm, for example. To use simple definition, Aquinas thought that of some EMOTIONS feeling has a kind of receptivity of sense-perception or understanding, it can be called a passion. Aquinass conception of the emotions and their analyses was in the fact of recovering to nature and causes, and, furthermore, to their effects. Aquinas does not deny the existence of the emotions; however he does not pay much attention to their phenomenological aspects (Aquinas 1981). He classified emotions according to the scheme of concupiscible and irascible passions. His classification was based on the Aristotelian works. He thought of existence of six important passions, such as love and hate, desire and aversion; joy and pain. Unlike Aristotle, Aquinas denied the existence of a contrary term for anger. In fact, Aquinass interpretation of emotions is not the clearest one. On the one hand he thought that human and animal lives are served with passions, as they help to find and establish the goals of life and pleasure because of the existence. On the contrary, he posed the emotions as a subject of deceleration, which did not allow a person to get fully actualized. This argument Aquinas proves with the sentence that neither the God not the angels have passions, being the on the higher position of the ladder, as their happy existence depends only on rational volitions. The time passed, and new interpretation emotions and passions got in the works of Bernardino Telesio (1509-1588). Seeking to explain the psychic condition from natural laws, he organized the first Society of Naturalists, whose mission was to study nature in all its parts, explaining it from itself. In his opinion development of the mind is subject to the law of self-preservation, and the mind and emotions govern the process. In this case, in positive emotions power of the soul is manifested, and in the negative - her weakness that prevents self-preservation is EMOTIONS represented (Ekman 2003). Mind assesses the situation from this point of view. Comparing these views of Telezio with the provisions of subsequent psychological concepts, which prove the connection of the mind and emotions with the desire to adapt; their affinity can be seen, associated with the desire to explain the mental with its role of keeping the system alive. Sensual side of knowledge and therefore the weight and importance of empirical knowledge are treated by Telezio in an alchemical way, where there is no sharp line between the sensible and reasonable, where the visibility observations of natural processes consistently raises to comprehend spiritual principles. The base of the sensationalistic Telezio`s method, therefore, was not excessive confidence to sensual side of knowledge, but the general principle of mystical and hermetic consistent of isomorphism of macrocosm and microcosm, the principle of the direct relationship between external and internal phenomenological, epistemological, spiritual phenomena of the nature of things (Ekman 2003). The senses and the mind of man Telezio does not divorce with irremovable barriers of reality, but thinks about them as modifications of the general holistic ensemble. In fact from the time when philosophers and naturalists began seriously thinking about the nature and essence of emotion, there were two main theories. Scientists, who believed in intellectualist one, the most clearly defined by I.F. Herbart (1824-1825), argued that the organic manifestation of emotions is a consequence of mental phenomena. According to Herbart, emotion is a link that is established between the representations. Emotion is a mental disorder caused by a mismatch (conflict) between views. This affective state involuntarily causes the autonomic changes. EMOTIONS Herbart believed that feelings can be seen as a response to conflict of ideas. For example, the image of a close dead relative in comparison to his alive image creates sorrow (Ekman 2003).. In turn, this emotion spontaneously, almost reflexively, causes tears and just bodily changes that characterize grief. Later, W. James and K. Lange changed notion, based on the common sense, that emotion creates physical changes, claiming that the bodily changes are a direct result of the perception of the exciting object, and a sense of these changes is what we call “emotions” (James, 1950). James-Lange theory of emotions has been unconditionally accepted and soon led to a fatal reduction of the interest of academic psychologists to analyze emotions. American psychologist William James (1950) created the so-called "peripheral" theory of emotions based on the fact that emotions are associated with certain physiological reactions. Regardless of W. James the Danish pathologist K. Lange in 1895 published a paper in which he expressed similar thoughts. However, if James thought the organic changes were limited to the visceral (internal organs), then his opponent’s idea was they were mainly vasomotor. Joy, from his point of view, is a combination of two phenomena: the strengthening of motor innervations and expansion of blood vessels (Lange et al., 1922). The expression of this emotion is carried from this fact: fast, powerful movements, loud speech, laughing. Sadness, on the contrary, is a consequence of weakening of motor innervations and vasoconstriction. We are able to notice slow movements, weakness and soundless voice, relaxed and quiet. From the standpoint of James-Lange theory, the act of occurrence of emotions is happened in the following way: the meaning of this paradoxical statement is that any change in facial expressions and pantomime leads to EMOTIONS involuntary of the prompted emotion. Express angry and you will begin to feel this emotion; start laughing, then you will become ridiculous; try to walk in the morning, barely dragging the feet, put your hands down, keep sad mien on your face - and you really spoil the mood. On the other hand, suppress the outward manifestation of emotion, and it will disappear. James provided audience with not always clear evidence of his hypothesis. For example, he described the story of his friend, who felt fear with seizures associated with the difficulty of taking a deep breath, and considered it as a proof that emotion was just a feeling of bodily condition in that case and it was caused only by purely physiological process (James, 1950). However, the emergence of fear in the case described can be explained in another way: a person in the event of difficulty in inhaling feared that he would suffocate, and this consciousness caused his feeling of fear. The theory, formulated as the law of James-Lange, suggests the possibility of controlling of internal feelings and emotions: performing actions that are typical of an inner feeling, we usually start feeling it. Thus, according to the views of both James and Lange, emotion is based on purely peripheral bodily processes; it is represented as a certain complex of sensations, so there is no need to allow the existence of fundamentally different emotional processes along with cognitive mental processes. A bit earlier we met Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic theory, which hold a special place in psychology. It is very difficult to submit a complete definition of emotions by Freud, because this concept in his theory is widely regarded, and he is attributed the different roles in the development of this theory. In his early works EMOTIONS emotion was just a motivating force of human mental life, and only in his later works, he noted that they give a rise for fantasies and dreams. First of all, Freuds theory operated with negative emotions. This explains the predominant role of suppression as a defence mechanism. If this suppression fails, there is a conflict between the conscious and the unconscious, and emotions can emerge in consciousness. Another concept of Freud was desire. He showed that they are the basis of dreams. “Emotions” by Freud can be defined as the enhancement or reduction of discomfort in the brain. In his early works Freud called emotion as a mental energy that rules a person’s behaviour (Freud, 1933). Nowadays many theorists continued researches based upon the Freuds theory, Schechter was among them; he emphasized on organizing and constructive function of emotions. He ascribed them an important role in social relationships and made a distinction between internal and activating emotions. According to Schechter, emotional state is the result of the interaction of two components: the arousal and the conclusion of the person about the reasons of his excitement on the basis of analysis of the situation in which the emotion appeared (Wolfe et al., 2010). Schechter noted that the emergence of emotions, along with perceived stimuli and generation of physiological changes in the body, are influenced with humans past experience and assessment of the present situation in terms of available currently needs and interests. Thus, visceral reaction causes an emotion not directly, but indirectly. Emotions are seen as experiential-motivational phenomena that have adaptive functions. The theory of differential emotions defines emotion as a complex EMOTIONS process with neurophysiologic and logical, neuromuscular and phenomenological aspects. On the neurophysiologic level, the emotion is determined by the electrochemical activity of the nervous system, in particular, the cortex, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, limbic system, and the facial trigeminal nerve. At the neuromuscular level emotion is, primarily, mimic reaction and the secondary - pantomime, visceral - endocrine and sometimes vocal responses. At the phenomenological level emotion is manifested as either strongly motivated experience, or as an experience that has direct relevance to the subject. Emotions cause the process in the mind, which is completely independent from cognitive processes. Such explanation is given by American psychologist C.Izard. He considers emotions not only as the primary motivational system, but also as personal processes that give meaning to human existence. He offered the classification of ten basic emotions (Izard, 1991). Each of these emotions has its unique motivational quality. However, C. Izard recognizes himself that certain emotions, related to basic, do not have all of the necessary features (Izard, 1992). For example, the emotion of guilt does not have a clear mimic and pantomimic expression. In the cognitive theory of emotions by M. Arnold and R. Lazarus, intuitive evaluation of the object appears as determinant of emotions. Emotion, as well as the action, is following this determinant. Arnold believes that once a person would come to the conclusion that one or another subject should be possessed, he immediately feels the appeal of this subject (Arnold, 2008). Once a person intuitively enters that something is threatening him, he immediately feels that it has acquired a repulsive character, and it should be avoided. The concept of R. Lazarus (Lazarus et al., 1970) EMOTIONS is also containing cognitive determination emotion as a central idea. He believes that cognitive mediation is a prerequisite for the emergence of emotions. The concept of Lazarus has two central positions: • Every emotional reaction, regardless of its content, is a function of a special kind of knowledge or assessment; • Emotional response is a syndrome, each of the components of which reflects a significant moment in the overall reaction. Thus, the scheme of the emotional response according to Lazarus looks the following way: every single emotion is associated with its different assessment. To sum up, I would like to say, that the interpretation of emotions, the theory of emotions and their study and analysis have been changed, expanded and supplemented through the ages. In addition to the approaches of these theorists, although some of them do not give direct meaning of emotions unlike the dictionaries do, other points of view of other venerable scientists also exist. Today such studies are continuing. This topic, despite its complexity and ambiguity, still excites mankind with its secrets. References Aristotle. (1995). Selections (T. Irwin & G. Fine, Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Arnold Magda B. (2008) Contributions to Emotion Research and Theory: A Special Issue of Cognition and Emotion (Special Issues of Cognition and Emotion), Psychology Press. Charles T. Wolfe, Ofer Gal (2010) The Body as Object and Instrument of Knowledge: Embodied Empiricism in Early Modern Science. Springer Science & Business Media. Ekman, P. (2003). Emotions revealed. New York: Times Books. Freud, S. (1933). New Introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. Standard Edition. Vol. 22. London: Hogarth Press. Izard, C.E. (1991). The psychology of emotions. New York: Plenum Press. Izard, C.E. (1992). Basic emotions, relations among emotions, and emotion-cognition relations. Psychological Review, 99, 561– 565. James, W. (1950). The principles of emotion (Vol. 2). New York: Dover Publications. (Original work published 1890). Lange Carl Georg,  James William (1922). The Emotions, vol.4, Williams & Wilkins. Lazarus, R. S., Averill, J. R., Opton, E. M. Jr. 1970. Toward a cognitive theory of emotions. In Feelings and Emotions, ed. M. Arnold, pp. 207-32. New York: Academic St. Thomas Aquinas (1981). The Summa Theologica, Christian Classics. Read More