Intentionality and Feeling. A Sketch for a Two-Level Account of Emotional Affectivity
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Mikko Salmela
Abstract
Two main theories of emotional affectivity exist in the modern philosophy of emotion: sensationalism and ‘cognitivism’. The fundamental dispute between these theories concerns the question of whether feeling merely accompanies the evaluative content of emotion or is directed toward it. I reject both sensationalism and cognitivism as general theories of emotional affectivity. Instead, I propose a twolevel account of emotional affectivity that allows both theories their proper due. We must distinguish between feelings with primitive and full-fledged intentionality. Both involve a sense and a reference to an object, but only the latter exhibits experiential directedness toward an object. Primitively intentional first-order feelings emerge as analog representations of changes in one's organismic and/or attitudinal mental state. They amount to a hedonically valenced experience of one's own state, as the sensationalist view suggests. Second-order feelings with full-fledged intentionality emerge when a ‘pure’ feeling is interpreted and categorized in terms of the evaluative content of one's present emotion. They are feelings toward the object of one's emotion, as the cognitivist theory holds.
© Philosophia Press 2002
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- Transzendentale Wahrheit. Das metaphysische Vernunftinteresse bei Kant
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- Intentionality and Feeling. A Sketch for a Two-Level Account of Emotional Affectivity
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- Critical Notice of Armstrong's and Lewis' Concepts of Supervenience
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- Günther Witzany: Life: The Communicative Structure - a new philosophy of biology, Libri Books on Demand, Hamburg 2000
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wiener Aufgabe Band 11: ‘The Big Typescript’. Micheal Nedo (red.), Vienna: Springer 2000. 546 pp.
- Slavoj Žižek: Det skrøbelige absolutte - eller hvorfor er den kristne arv værd at kæmpe for? Oversat til dansk af Henrik Mossin. Forord ved Kirsten Hyldgaard. Gyldendal, 2001. 271s
- Wrathall, M. & Malpas, J. (eds.) Heidegger, Authenticity, and Modernity: Essays in Honor of Hubert L. Dreyfus, Volume 1. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000 Wrathall, M. & Malpas, J. (eds.) Heidegger, Coping, and Cognitive Science: Essays in Honor of Hubert L. Dreyfus, Volume 2. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000
Articles in the same Issue
- Transzendentale Wahrheit. Das metaphysische Vernunftinteresse bei Kant
- The Liar Syndrome
- Intentionality and Feeling. A Sketch for a Two-Level Account of Emotional Affectivity
- Gadamer on Authority
- Reflections on the Philosophy of Science beyond Realism and Constructivism
- On Victimhood
- Critical Notice of Armstrong's and Lewis' Concepts of Supervenience
- On Colin McGinn, Ethics, Evil, and Fiction
- Timothy Williamson. Knowledge and Its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xi + 340
- Niels Thomassen: Ulykke og lykke. Et livsfilosofisk udspil med stadigt hensyn til Søren Kierkegaard. København: Gyldendal, 2001. 488 sider
- Stephen Davies, Musical Works & Performances, A Philosophical Exploration, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001
- Gunnar Schrøder Kristiansen: Jens Kraft og Opplysningen: Filosofi og Vitenskap i Danmark-Norge i det 18. Århundre, Spartacus Forlag, Oslo 2001
- Günther Witzany: Life: The Communicative Structure - a new philosophy of biology, Libri Books on Demand, Hamburg 2000
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wiener Aufgabe Band 11: ‘The Big Typescript’. Micheal Nedo (red.), Vienna: Springer 2000. 546 pp.
- Slavoj Žižek: Det skrøbelige absolutte - eller hvorfor er den kristne arv værd at kæmpe for? Oversat til dansk af Henrik Mossin. Forord ved Kirsten Hyldgaard. Gyldendal, 2001. 271s
- Wrathall, M. & Malpas, J. (eds.) Heidegger, Authenticity, and Modernity: Essays in Honor of Hubert L. Dreyfus, Volume 1. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000 Wrathall, M. & Malpas, J. (eds.) Heidegger, Coping, and Cognitive Science: Essays in Honor of Hubert L. Dreyfus, Volume 2. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000
