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APPENDIX 3. Emotion and the Common Sense Philosophy

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Business of the Heart
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APPENDIX 3 Emotion and the Common Sense Philosophy Philosophical discourse about emotion reinforced medical theorists' claims for embodied emotion by arguing for the inseparability of emotion, intellect, and will. By interlocking emotion with thinking and doing in the faculty triumvi-rate of the mind, and by describing mental activity as the product of sensory stimulation, they assured that emotion would not be set aside as ethereal spir-itual essence, and they provided a conceptual platform for asserting the crucial relevance of emotion to judgment and choice. Most importantly, they linked feeling to thinking, which meant that, like thinking, the brain and nervous sys-tem somehow were involved in emotion. American disciples of Scottish phi-losophy aggressively pursued these issues in print and in the lecture hall, dis-seminating the "faculty psychology" widely across a middle-class audience, and profoundly influencing the curriculum at Protestant seminaries. Its im-portance for the Businessmen's Revival lies in its informing an understanding of emotion as a mental process subject to scientific investigation and analysis, an artifact of organic existence, phenomenon as much as noumenon. VIBRATIONS AND LAWS "After 1850," wrote H.M. Gardiner in his history of Western theories of emotion, "the hypothesis of a non-physiological mind or soul becomes ex-tremely difficult to hold. . . . The central theories of feeling and emotion become central psychophysiological theories." The Scottish Common Sense philosophy was an important step toward that reorientation of theory in the United States. Thinking, feeling, and doing, or, as such activities were spoken of at the time, intellect, emotion, and will, formed the centerpiece of American discussion about mind in the early nineteenth century. Such discussion was commonly said, in fact, to be about "the science of mind," as it had been estab-lished by Scottish philosophers late in the previous century. Most important were Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, and Thomas Brown, and their predeces-sor, David Hartley, whose Observations on Man (1749), with its emphasis on "vibratiuncles," or traces of sensory "vibration" in the brain, broke the ground for physiological interpretations of the activities of the mind. All physiological 294
© 2020 University of California Press, Berkeley

APPENDIX 3 Emotion and the Common Sense Philosophy Philosophical discourse about emotion reinforced medical theorists' claims for embodied emotion by arguing for the inseparability of emotion, intellect, and will. By interlocking emotion with thinking and doing in the faculty triumvi-rate of the mind, and by describing mental activity as the product of sensory stimulation, they assured that emotion would not be set aside as ethereal spir-itual essence, and they provided a conceptual platform for asserting the crucial relevance of emotion to judgment and choice. Most importantly, they linked feeling to thinking, which meant that, like thinking, the brain and nervous sys-tem somehow were involved in emotion. American disciples of Scottish phi-losophy aggressively pursued these issues in print and in the lecture hall, dis-seminating the "faculty psychology" widely across a middle-class audience, and profoundly influencing the curriculum at Protestant seminaries. Its im-portance for the Businessmen's Revival lies in its informing an understanding of emotion as a mental process subject to scientific investigation and analysis, an artifact of organic existence, phenomenon as much as noumenon. VIBRATIONS AND LAWS "After 1850," wrote H.M. Gardiner in his history of Western theories of emotion, "the hypothesis of a non-physiological mind or soul becomes ex-tremely difficult to hold. . . . The central theories of feeling and emotion become central psychophysiological theories." The Scottish Common Sense philosophy was an important step toward that reorientation of theory in the United States. Thinking, feeling, and doing, or, as such activities were spoken of at the time, intellect, emotion, and will, formed the centerpiece of American discussion about mind in the early nineteenth century. Such discussion was commonly said, in fact, to be about "the science of mind," as it had been estab-lished by Scottish philosophers late in the previous century. Most important were Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, and Thomas Brown, and their predeces-sor, David Hartley, whose Observations on Man (1749), with its emphasis on "vibratiuncles," or traces of sensory "vibration" in the brain, broke the ground for physiological interpretations of the activities of the mind. All physiological 294
© 2020 University of California Press, Berkeley

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents IX
  3. Acknowledgments XI
  4. INTRODUCTION: Religion, Emotion, and the Double Self 1
  5. ONE. The Businessmen's Revival 12
  6. TWO. The Anxiety of Boston at Mid-Century 41
  7. THREE. Overexcitement, Economic Collapse, and the Regulation of Business 61
  8. FOUR. Emotion, Collective Performance, and Value 82
  9. FIVE. Emotional Religion and the Ministerial "Balance-Wheel" 104
  10. SIX. Men, Women, and Emotion 128
  11. SEVEN. Domestic Contracts 163
  12. EIGHT. Clerks, Apprentices, and Boyculture 186
  13. NINE. Prayerful Transactions 207
  14. TEN. Emotion, Character, and Ethnicity 231
  15. EPILOGUE. The Meaning of the Revival and Its Legacy 251
  16. APPENDIX 1. History, Religion, and Emotion: A Historiographical Survey 269
  17. APPENDIX 2. Emotion as Heart, Blood, and Body 281
  18. APPENDIX 3. Emotion and the Common Sense Philosophy 294
  19. Notes 299
  20. Selected Manuscript Diaries, Journals, Correspondences, and Papers 367
  21. Index 371
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https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520924321-017

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents IX
  3. Acknowledgments XI
  4. INTRODUCTION: Religion, Emotion, and the Double Self 1
  5. ONE. The Businessmen's Revival 12
  6. TWO. The Anxiety of Boston at Mid-Century 41
  7. THREE. Overexcitement, Economic Collapse, and the Regulation of Business 61
  8. FOUR. Emotion, Collective Performance, and Value 82
  9. FIVE. Emotional Religion and the Ministerial "Balance-Wheel" 104
  10. SIX. Men, Women, and Emotion 128
  11. SEVEN. Domestic Contracts 163
  12. EIGHT. Clerks, Apprentices, and Boyculture 186
  13. NINE. Prayerful Transactions 207
  14. TEN. Emotion, Character, and Ethnicity 231
  15. EPILOGUE. The Meaning of the Revival and Its Legacy 251
  16. APPENDIX 1. History, Religion, and Emotion: A Historiographical Survey 269
  17. APPENDIX 2. Emotion as Heart, Blood, and Body 281
  18. APPENDIX 3. Emotion and the Common Sense Philosophy 294
  19. Notes 299
  20. Selected Manuscript Diaries, Journals, Correspondences, and Papers 367
  21. Index 371
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