Some philosophers hold that the depth of an emotion is a question of how embedded it is among the person’s other mental states. That means, the emotion is inter-connected with other states such that its alteration or removal would lead to widespread changes in the mind. This paper argues that it is necessary to distinguish two different concepts of embeddedness: the inter-connections could either be rational or causal. The difference is non-trivial. This paper argues that the rational approach cannot (...) admit that certain types of recalcitrant emotion are deep without violating requirements of charity in the interpretation of others. Furthermore, it also argues that the causal approach is necessary to explain the depth of even non-recalcitrant emotions. So, if emotional depth is to be conceived as a kind of embeddedness, the relevant concept of embeddedness must be the causal one. (shrink)

_Philosophically explores the topic of emotional depth._.

Unpleasant emotions can be strongly “propulsive,” spurring us to make changes to our situation, perspective, values, and commitments. These changes are often positive, even crucial to our pursuit of the good life. But under what conditions are unpleasant emotions strongly propulsive? I argue that the source of affective propulsion should not be located in the mere unpleasantness of a given emotion, but, rather, in the emotional context in which the emotion arises. Drawing on Martin Heidegger’s comparative analysis of “shallow” (...) and “deep” boredom, I claim that the propulsive quality of an emotion arises not from its intrinsic properties but from the ambivalence generated when two affective states simultaneously influence our sense-making activity in opposing ways. (shrink)

It is generally maintained that emotions consist of intentional states and /or bodily feelings. This paper offers a phenomenological analysis of guilt in severe depression, in order to illustrate how such conceptions fail to adequately accommodate a way in which some emotional experiences are said to be deeper than others. Many emotions are intentional states. However, I propose that the deepest emotions are not intentional but pre-intentional, meaning that they determine which kinds of intentional state are possible. I go (...) on to suggest that pre-intentional emotions are at the same time feelings. In so doing, I reject the distinction that is often made between bodily feelings and the world-oriented aspects of emotion. (shrink)

The article explores how a new dimension of emotion – depth – is crucially important for a better understanding of emotion and its connection to rationality. It begins by identifying that depth is trapped in a circularity in which deep emotions are important because they refer to deep and important aspects of people’s lives. Following Danto’s discussion of deep interpretation (1981), it suggests that it is the contrast between deep and superficial that grants emotional perspective and the (...) ability to identify levels of emotional depth. After arguing that the emotional perspective is grasped by the narrative structure of emotion, it raises several objections that provide the ground to establish a difference between deep and profound. Then the paper concludes that the meaning of emotional depth is only fully understood in the ongoing contrast with the superficial described before, and states how further research on depth of emotion may provide the key to understanding the ambivalent status of emotions regarding their link to rationality. (shrink)

Emotions have long been of interest to philosophers and have deep historical roots going back to the Ancients. They have also become one of the most exciting areas of current research in philosophy, the cognitive sciences, and beyond. -/- This book explains the philosophy of the emotions, structuring the investigation around seven fundamental questions: What are emotions? Are emotions natural kinds? Do animals have emotions? Are emotions epistemically valuable? Are emotions the foundation for value and morality? Are emotions the basis (...) for responsibility? Do emotions make us better people? -/- In the course of exploring these questions, the book also discusses cutting-edge empirical research on emotion, feminist approaches to emotions and their value, and methodological questions on how to theorize about the emotions. The book also contains in-depth discussions of specific emotions like compassion, disgust, anxiety, and curiosity. It also highlights emerging trends in emotion research. (shrink)

Bentley et al.--O’Brien bypass the relevance of emotions in decision-making, resulting in a possible over-simplification of behavioral types. We propose integrating emotions, both in the north-south axis (in relation to cognition) as well as in the west-east axis (in relation to social influence), by suggesting a Z axis, in charge of registering emotional depth and involvement.

This 1996 book is the result of a uniquely productive union of philosophy, psychoanalysis and anthropology, and explores the complexity and importance of emotions. Michael Stocker places emotions at the very centre of human identity, life and value. He lays bare how our culture's idealisation of rationality pervades the philosophical tradition and leads those who wrestle with serious ethical and philosophical problems into distortion and misunderstanding. Professor Stocker shows how important are the social and emotional contexts of ethical dilemmas (...) and inner conflicts, and he challenges philosophical theories that try to overgeneralise and over-simplify by leaving out the particulars of each situation. In offering a realistic account of emotions and an in-depth analysis of how psychological factors affect judgments of all kind, this book will interest a broad range of readers across the disciplines of philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

In reflecting on events of considerable significance, it is commonplace to remark that ‘it hasn’t sunk in yet’ or ‘it’s still sinking in’. Such talk is sometimes associated with things seeming unreal, surreal, unfathomable, or somehow impossible. In this paper, I develop an account of what these experiences consist of. First of all, I suggest that they involve explicitly acknowledging the reality of one’s situation, while at the same time experiencing it as inconsistent with the organization of one’s life. I (...) go on to show how this tension is experienced dynamically, through disturbances of unfolding patterns of anticipation. I suggest that these patterns contribute to our grasp of what is and is not the case, thus accommodating the manner in which things can seem ‘unbelievable’ or ‘unreal’. (shrink)

Was love invented by European poets in the middle ages, as C. S. Lewis claimed, or is it part of human nature? Will winning the lottery really make you happy? Is it possible to build robots that have feelings? These are just some of the intriguing questions explored in this new guide to the latest thinking about the emotions. Drawing on a wide range of scientific research, from anthropology and psychology to neuroscience and artificial intelligence, Emotion: The Science of Sentiment (...) takes the reader on a fascinating journey into the human heart. Illustrating his points with entertaining examples from fiction, film, and popular culture, Dylan Evans ranges from the evolution of the emotions to the nature of love and happiness to the language of feelings, offering readers the most recent thinking on real life topics that touch us all. But Emotion is also a book filled with surprises. Readers will discover, for instance, that the basic emotions are felt the world over--whether we live in the shadow of Times Square or in the depths of the rain forest, we all feel the emotions of disgust, joy, surprise, anger, fear, and distress. We find out that, according to research, winning the lottery does not cause a lasting increase in happiness--a short-lived euphoria is followed in almost every case with a return to our usual emotional state, if not worse. And we meet Kismet, an MIT robot that can express a wide range of emotions, from fear to happiness. Fun to read and based on the latest scientific thinking, here is a stimulating look at our emotions. (shrink)

This paper takes part in the ongoing debate on how emotions can be dealt with by argumentation theory. Its main goal is to formulate a relationship between emotion and argumentation which differs from that usually found in most of the literature on the subject. In the “standard” conception, emotions are seen as the objects of appeals which function as adjuvants to argumentation: speakers appeal to pity, fear, shame and the like in order to enhance the cogency of an argument which (...) bears on something else—whether it be the validity of a disputable opinion or the opportunity of a course of action. According to the “alternative” conception which I propose to consider, emotions themselves may be viewed, in some cases, as the very objects of argumentation. This conception lays emphasis on the arguability of emotions. Drawing on insights from current psychological and philosophical theories, it involves a reassessment of the Aristotelian concept of pathos, as well as an in-depth critical discussion of normative and descriptive approaches to emotional appeals. (shrink)

Among children and adolescents, emotion understanding relates to academic achievement and higher well-being. This study investigates the role of general and emotion-specific language skills in children’s and adolescents’ emotion understanding, building on previous research highlighting the significance of domain-specific language skills in conceptual development. We employ a novel inventory (CEVVT) to assess emotion-specific vocabulary. The study involved 10–11-year-old children (N = 29) and 16–17-year-old adolescents (N = 28), examining their emotion recognition and knowledge of emotion regulation strategies. Results highlight the (...) ongoing development of emotion-specific vocabulary across these age groups. Emotion recognition correlated with general vocabulary in the younger group. In the older age group, emotion recognition was related to emotion-specific vocabulary size, but this effect only became apparent when controlling for the depth of emotion-specific vocabulary. Against expectation, there were no significant contributions of general or emotion-specific vocabulary to knowledge of emotion regulation strategies in either age group. These findings enhance our comprehension of the nuanced interplay between language and emotion across developmental stages. (shrink)

Robert Roberts’s fourth secular and eleventh total monograph, Emotions in the Moral Life, exemplifies his characteristic insight, depth, earnestness, humanity, and religious commitment. Poised midway between Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) and Attention to Virtues (in progress), Emotions in the Moral Life draws on the resources Roberts has already developed for analysing emotions as concerned-based construals in order to show how such construals contribute in diverse ways to moral (and immoral) cognition, (...) action, relationships, and character. (shrink)

Describing, understanding, and explaining subjective experience in depression is a great challenge for psychopathology. Attempts to uncover neurobiological mechanisms of those experiences are in need of theoretical concepts that are able to bridge phenomenological descriptions and neurocognitive approaches, which allow us to measure indicators of those experiences in quantitative terms. Based on our own on going work with patients who suffer from depersonalization disorder and describe their experience as flat and detached from self, body, and world, we introduce the idea (...) of phenomenal depth as such a concept. Phenomenal depth is conceptualized as a dimension inherent to all experiences, describing the relatedness of one's self with one's mental processes, body, and the world. More precisely, it captures the experience of this relatedness and embeddedness of one's experiences, and it is thus a meta- or secondorder experience. The psychopathology of DPD patients can be understood very generally as an instance of reduced phenomenal depth. We will argue that similar experiences in depression can also be understood as a reduction in phenomenal depth. We relate those ideas to neurocognitive studies of perception, emotion regulation, and the idea of predictive coding. Finally, we will speculate about possible neurobiological underpinnings of the dimension of phenomenal depth. (shrink)

Emotive Interjections in British English: A corpus-based study on variation in acquisition, function and usage constitutes the first in-depth corpus-based study on the use of emotive interjections in Present Day British English. In a novel approach, it systematically distinguishes between child and adult speakers, providing new insights into how they use Ow!, Ouch!, Ugh!, Yuck!, Whoops!, Whoopsadaisy! and Wow! in everyday spoken language. It studies in detail their acquisition by children and pinpoints changes and developments in their use throughout (...) early childhood. The study highlights particularities displayed by child and adult speakers in general and identifies crucial differences regarding how adults use emotive interjections depending on whether they are interacting with children or other adults. This book thus offers an exhaustive overview on the functions of emotive interjections based on thorough empirical research and will appeal to linguists concerned with pragmatics, child language acquisition, the expression of emotion and interjections. (shrink)

Imagine a scenario where you are cooking and suddenly, the contents of the pot start to come out, and the oven bell rings. You would have to stop what you are doing and start responding to the changing demands, switching between different objects, operations and mental sets. This ability is known as cognitive flexibility. Now, add to this scenario a strong emotional atmosphere that invades you as you spontaneously recall a difficult situation you had that morning. How would you (...) behave? Recent studies suggest that emotional states do modulate cognitive flexibility, but these findings are still controversial. Moreover, there is a lack of evidence regarding the underlying brain processes. The purpose of the present study was, therefore, to examine such interaction while monitoring changes in ongoing cortical activity using EEG. In order to answer this question, we used two musical stimuli to induce emotional states (positive/high arousal/open stance and negative/high arousal/closed stance). Twenty-nine participants performed two blocks of the Madrid Card Sorting Task (MCST) in a neutral silence condition and then four blocks while listening to the counterbalanced musical stimuli. To explore this interaction, we used a combination of first-person (micro-phenomenological interview) and third-person (behavior and EEG) approaches. Our results show that compared to the positive stimuli and silence condition, negative stimuli decrease reaction times (RTs) for the shift signal. Our data show that the valance of the first emotional block is determinant in the RTs of the subsequent blocks. Additionally, the analysis of the micro-phenomenological interview and the integration of first- and third-person data show that the emotional disposition generated by the music could facilitate task performance for some participants or hamper it for others, independently of its emotional valence. When the emotional disposition hampered task execution, RTs were slower, and the P300 potential showed a reduced amplitude compared to the facilitated condition. These findings show that the interaction between emotion and cognitive flexibility is more complex than previously thought and points to a new way of understanding the underlying mechanisms by incorporating an in-depth analysis of individual subjective experience. (shrink)

Background:The acquisition of experience is a major concern for nurses in intensive care units. Although the emotional component of the clinical practice of these nurses has been widely studied, greater examination is required to determine how this component influences their learning and practical experience.Objective:To discover the relationships between emotion, memory and learning and the impacts on nursing clinical practice.Research design:This is a qualitative phenomenological study. The data were collected from open, in-depth interviews. A total of 22 intensive care (...) unit nurses participated in this research between January 2012 and December 2014.Ethical considerations:The School of Nursing Ethics Committee approved the study, which complied with ethical principles and required informed consent.Findings:We found a clear relationship between emotion, memory and the acquisition of experience. This relationship grouped three dimensions: (1) satisfaction, to relieve the patient’s pain or discomfort, give confidence and a sense of security to the patient, enable the presence of family members into the intensive care unit and provide family members with a realistic view of the patient’s situation; (2) error experience, which nurses feel when a patient dies, when they fail to accompany a patient in his or her decision to abandon the struggle to live or when they fail to lend support to the patient’s family; and (3) the feel bad–feel good paradox, which occurs when a mistake in the patient’s care or handling of his or her family is repaired.Conclusion:Emotion is a capacity that impacts on nurses’ experience and influences improvements in clinical practice. Recalling stories of satisfaction helps to reinforce good practice, while recalling stories of errors helps to identify difficulties in the profession and recognise new forms of action. The articulation of emotional competencies may support the development of nursing ethics in the intensive care unit to protect and defend their patients and improve their relationships with families in order to maximise the potential for patient care. (shrink)

For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age--the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity--point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature, eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope. This eloquent volume reconciles the modern scientific understanding of reality with our timeless spiritual yearnings for reverence and (...) continuity. Looking at topics such as evolution, emotions, sexuality, and death, Goodenough writes with rich, uncluttered detail about the workings of nature in general and of living creatures in particular. Her luminous clarity makes it possible for even non-scientists to appreciate that the origins of life and the universe are no less meaningful because of our increasingly scientific understanding of them. At the end of each chapter, Goodenough's spiritual reflections respond to the complexity of nature with vibrant emotional intensity and a sense of reverent wonder. A beautifully written celebration of molecular biology with meditations on the spiritual and religious meaning that can be found at the heart of science, this volume makes an important contribution to the ongoing dialog between science and religion. This book will engage anyone who was ever mesmerized--or terrified--by the mysteries of existence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 98-99 [Access article in PDF] Henrik Lagerlund and Mikko Yrjönsuuri, editors. Emotions and Choice from Boethius to Descartes. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002. Pp. xi + 342. Paper $38.00. This book contains twelve essays that work together to trace a variety of theories of emotion, intellect, and will, specifically connected to the possibility of moral decision and action, that run (...) from the late ancient period to the early modern period. Though some essays are more history than philosophy, the collection nevertheless balances out and brings to the reader an in-depth study of what the editors rightly describe as a neglected field of research. Contributors are: Calvin Normore, Simo Knuuttila, Risto Saarinen, Mikko Yrjonsuuri, John Boler, Vesa Hirvonen, Henrik Lagerlund, Lorenzo Casini, Peter King, Deborah Brown, and Lilli Alanen.It is clear from the editors' introduction that the idea behind the collection is the piecing together of a complex patchwork of theories, showing how they form a single, coherent intellectual history from Boethius to Descartes. Time will tell whether the story told holds up. Several of the essays bring to light previously ignored philosophers of the medieval and scholastic periods who are seen as important players in the history being worked out. And, several essays (Brown's and Alanen's, e.g.) forward new and interesting—though arguably controversial—takes on philosophers well known to many (in their cases, Descartes). So, there is much worth looking at here.There are a few philosophical landmines. For example, in places authors seem unconcerned about potential problems arising from the way in which a view is stated. For instance, in explaining how a human being wills, the view that the willing is done via a faculty inherent in the soul is developed. This, of course, is all well and good. But, the author goes on to say, "If whatever the will wills is attained..." (18), which makes the will the subject of willing, not the human being. The will is also said to have passions, and the rational part of the soul an appetitive faculty (ibid.). So, is it that human beings do not will and do not have passions, but the wills will and have passions? Doesn't such a 'theory' simply push back what it is that needs to be explained? For, how does the will will? Does it have a faculty that wills, and so on? The trouble is that the reader is not sure whether the landmine is inherent in the view being discussed, an artifact of the text, or something invented by an author in the exegesis itself. [End Page 98]The river is high with respect to the readings. And so, it is not recommended to those coming, for example, to the topics of rational choice, free will, or weakness of will for the first time. However, it is highly recommended to those whose research deals with such topics, or is in the field of the history of philosophy of mind. Kurt Smith Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania... (shrink)

Previous studies have reported a significant positive association between ability emotional intelligence and attachment security. However, these studies may, to some extent, be misleading because they relied on self-report measures of attachment security. Furthermore, to our knowledge, no study has yet investigated the relationship between ability EI and mentalization, operazionalized as reflective functioning, although EI and RF were assumed to be “conceptual cousins.” In an attempt to overcome some of the limitations of the previous research, the current study investigated (...) the relationships between ability EI, attachment security, and mentalization measured via the Adult Attachment Interview. Ninety-three volunteer participants from an Italian community population, aged from 27 to 55 years, took part in the study. Significant positive correlations were found between ability EI, attachment security, and RF. The results shed some light on the relationship between different attachment strategies and ability EI. Hyperactivating attachment strategies correlated negatively with ability EI, while the correlation between ability EI and attachment deactivating strategies depend on which defensive strategy is used: avoiding the painful emotional contact with the memory of unpleasant childhood attachment experiences positively correlated with experiential EI, whilst the resort to derogation of the attachment needs correlated with impairment in EI. Findings from the current study suggest that future studies in developmental psychology are needed to investigate the development of the ability EI in relation to the quality of the attachment models more in-depth. (shrink)

This wide-ranging work explores what the emotions, "if approached on their own terms," can tell us about our world and our selves. By doing so sensitively, it fills a missing space in Western philosophy, literary theory and psychology, in which the emotions are seen for the first time as the primary way of understanding experience through the depth of the sensual-perceptual, rather than as mere handmaidens to reason or biology. The work weaves together diverse philosophical and literary works, from (...) Merleau-Ponty to Melville, Duras to James, contrasts Eastern and Western perspectives, and arrives at a new vision of reality as "becoming" and philosophy as "fragile ontology.". (shrink)

A widespread claim, which I call ‘the Emotionality Claim’, is that imagination but not supposition is intimately linked to emotion. In more cognitive jargon, imagination is connected to the affect system, whereas supposition is not. EC is open to several interpretations which yield very different views about the nature of supposition. The literature lacks an in-depth analysis of EC which sorts out these different readings and ways to carve supposition and imagination at their joints. The aim of this paper (...) is to fill this gap. I shall argue that existing readings of EC fail to properly account for the emotional asymmetry between imagination and supposition. The tendency is to start from narrow conceptions of both imagination and supposition. I shall argue for a novel interpretation of EC pivoting on different ways a mental state can connect to the affect system. (shrink)

For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age--the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity-- point to an existence that is bleak, devoid of meaning, pointless. But in The Sacred Depths of Nature, eminent biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that the scientific world view need not be a source of despair. Indeed, it can be a wellspring of solace and hope. This eloquent volume reconciles the modern scientific understanding of reality with our timeless spiritual yearnings for reverence (...) and continuity. Looking at topics such as evolution, emotions, sexuality, and death, Goodenough writes with rich, uncluttered detail about the workings of nature in general and of living creatures in particular. Her luminous clarity makes it possible for even non-scientists to appreciate that the origins of life and the universe are no less meaningful because of our increasingly scientific understanding of them. At the end of each chapter, Goodenough's spiritual reflections respond to the complexity of nature with vibrant emotional intensity and a sense of reverent wonder. A beautifully written celebration of molecular biology with meditations on the spiritual and religious meaning that can be found at the heart of science, this volume makes an important contribution to the ongoing dialog between science and religion. This book will engage anyone who was ever mesmerized--or terrified--by the mysteries of existence. (shrink)

A profusion of jobs has arisen in contemporary capitalism involving ‘connective labor’, or the work of emotional recognition. Yet the expansion of this interpersonal work occurs at the same time as its systematization, as pressures of efficiency, measurement and automation reshape the work, generating a ‘colliding intensification’. Existing scholarship offers three different ways of understanding the role of emotions in connective labor – as tool, commodity or vulnerability – depending on their view of systematization as useful, inseparable or dehumanizing. (...) Based on 106 in-depth interviews and 300+ hours of observations, I found that vestiges of all three models lurked in the experience of providing connective labor, yet none fully captured the profound meaning practitioners reported finding in their work. Systems varied on three dimensions, reflecting the relative worth of worker, recipient or the work, extracting value from the forged connections, while the meanings workers derived shaped their perspective on its systematization. (shrink)

This book explores ways we make contact with the depths in ourselves and each other. We are deeply moved by contact we make with life, yet also puzzled by a need to break or lose contact, and often suffer wounds by failure of contact to be born. Our sense of contact is tenacious and fragile, subject to deformations, plagued with a sense of jeopardy. Chapters focus on ways we make-and-break contact in the wounded aloneness of addiction, the wounded beauty of (...) psychosis, the importance of not knowing and wordlessness, ways we transmit emotions, the need to start over, and harm we cause by trying to get rid of and misuse tendencies that are part of our makeup. Our contact with life, ourselves, each other is challenged. And through it all, we have need for deep contact, contact with the depths, fulfilling and suspenseful. Contact we never stop growing into, part of the mystery, care and love of everyday life. (shrink)

This article examines how migration contributes to the plurality of masculinities among Guatemalan men, particularly among migrant men and their families. I argue that migration offers an opportunity to men, both migrant and nonmigrant, to reflect on their emotional relations with distinct family members, and show how, by engaging in this reflexivity, these men also have the opportunity to vent those emotions in a way that offsets some of the negative traits associated to a hegemonic masculinity, such as being (...) unemotional, nonnurturing, aggressive, and dispassionate. This study contributes to transnational migration studies in three ways: by examining the more personal and emotional side of transnational life, by examining ways in which men step away from culturally expected hegemonic masculine identity, and by providing an empirical study of subaltern masculinities, particularly among transnational immigrant men. Drawing on multi-sited, in-depth interviews conducted in Guatemala and California, my research contributes to our understanding of the emotional costs of transnational migration for migrants and their families, particularly for men, by examining the interplay among gender, family, and transnational migration. (shrink)

Manifestations and expressions of emotion are elements of an ensemble of immediate reactive and responsive behaviour, emotion‐eliciting situation, past relationships and events, persistent emotions exhibited in intentional and emotionally motivated speech and action. These elements form, and reform, highly complex patterns – but, like the patterns of tribal carpets, the patterns display varying degrees of irregularity and asymmetry, which vary from rug to rug. The constitutional indeterminacy of the emotions, of their depth and authenticity, and of the motives to (...) which they give rise is part of the human condition. Susceptibility to emotions is a feature of advanced forms of animal life. For one's emotions should be felt for the right reasons, directed at the right objects, made manifest and expressed on the right occasions, and felt to the right degree. Then one's emotions are reasonable and justifiable, even though people cannot feel an emotion at will. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is the relationship between religion and sport. The aim of my considerations is to criticise the position presented by the American philosopher Eric Bain-Selbo, according to which sporting experiences may quite rightly be described as religious experiences. In the first part of the article, I reconstruct Wayne Proudfoot’s concept of religious experience that underlies Bain-Selbo’s analysis. I then discuss the research conducted by Bain-Selbo and the conclusions he draws from it. In the next part of (...) the article, referring to Charles Taylor’s hermeneutical approach, I show that Proudfoot’s and Bain-Selbo’s methodology leads to a theoretically unjustified reductionism. I argue that an in-depth articulation of individual self-interpretation allows for an insight into the dynamics of sporting and religious experiences, and thus to see the differences that separate them. In the last part of the article, I invoke the considerations of William James, John Hick and Robert Roberts and try to show that, given the moral consequences of our experiences and their phenomenological description (intentionality), the experiences evoked by sport and religion can by no means be identified with each other. (shrink)

Heidegger tries to explain our emotional life applying three schemes: causal explanation, mental internalisation of emotions and metaphorical expression. None of the three schemes explains emotion though. Either because the causal nexus does not always occur or because objects and people in the external world are carriers of emotional agents or because language is already on a metaphorical level. Moreover, how is it possible that there are presently emotions constituting our life without our being aware of their existence? (...) From the analysis of boredom in its three varieties (“bored by X”, “get oneself bored”, and “it is boring”) we will get to the depth where emotions lie, trying to rouse them and to keep them awake. Although it surfaces with the force and energy of the present, every emotion has its past and future constitution. How can we understand the future of a present emotion along with its past? (shrink)

A successor to the acclaimed 'Music and Emotion', The Handbook of Music and Emotion provides comprehensive coverage of the field, in all its breadth and depth. As well as summarizing what is currently known about music and emotion, it will also stimulate further research in promising directions that have been little studied.

This chapter examines Stoic thinking on the good emotions of the wise, rather than their much better-known ideas about misguided or foolish emotions. It asks whether the picture given by our sources of the character and scope of the positive emotions shows that they can make an adequate contribution to what we can recognize as a rich human life. The main sources considered are Andronicus’s doxographical treatment, Epictetus’s Discourses and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the last of which is discussed (...) in some depth. It is argued that Marcus especially helps to bring out the range and depth of the Stoic positive emotions, and the discussion shows how they fit into a full human life, which gives room for deeply felt interpersonal relationships. (shrink)

What does it mean for emotion to be well-constituted? What distinguishes good feeling from (just) feeling good? Is there such a distinction at all? The answer to these questions becomes clearer if we realize that for an emotion to be all it seems, it must be responsible as well as responsive to what it is about. It may be that good feeling depends on feeling truly if we are to be really moved, moved in the way that avoids the need (...) for constant, fretful replenishment and reinforcement. To be sound, emotions may need to be capable of genuineness, depth, and other kinds of integrity. And that, in turn, may require certain virtues of mind, such as truthfulness, temperateness, and even courage, that are more familiar at the level of action. The governing aim of this book is to demonstrate that there can be problems of a structural kind with the adequacy of emotions and the emotional life. (shrink)

This innovative new volume analyses the role of emotions in knowledge acquisition. It focuses on the field of philosophy of emotions at the exciting intersection between epistemology and philosophy of mind and cognitive science to bring us an in-depth analysis of the epistemological value of emotions in reasoning. With twelve chapters by leading and up-and-coming academics, this edited collection shows that emotions do count for our epistemic enterprise. Against scepticism about the possible positive role emotions play in knowledge, the (...) authors highlight the how and the why of this potential, lucidly exploring the key aspects of the functionality of emotions. This is explored in relation to: specific kinds of knowledge such as self-understanding, group-knowledge and wisdom; specific functions played by certain emotions in these cases, such as disorientation in enquiry and contempt in practical reason; the affective experience of the epistemic subjects and communities. (shrink)

This article considers a central ethically relevant interpersonal emotion, guilt. It is argued that guilt, as an irreducible moral category, has a constitutive role to play in our ways of conceptualizing our relations to other people. Without experiencing guilt, or being able to do so, we would not be capable of employing the moral concepts and judgments we do employ. Elaborating on this argument, the paper deals with what may be described as the "metaphysics of guilt." More generally, it is (...) suggested, through a case study on the concept of guilt, that a moral theory avoiding naïve emotivism yet emphasizing the role of emotions in morality can and should pay attention to the transcendental status of emotions such as guilt--emotions constitutive of our concept of moral seriousness. Instead of psychologizing moral emotions, the paper employs Raimond Gaita's Wittgenstein-inspired way of examining the place of the concepts of guilt and remorse in our ethical language-use. Finally, some methodological remarks on the possibility of transcendental reflection in moral philosophy are presented. While it is not necessary to commit oneself to any specific religious tradition in order to emphasize the constitutive role of guilt in the way suggested in the paper, it turns out that the moral depth of this concept requires that one is least open to religiously relevant ways of using moral language. In the fundamental metaphysical sense examined in the paper, guilt is a concept whose home language-game is religious rather than secular ethics. (shrink)

With the rapid development of Internet technology and the reform of the education model, online education has been widely recognized and applied. In the process of online learning, various types of browsing behavior characteristic data such as learning engagement and attitude will be generated. These learning behaviors are closely related to academic performance. In-depth exploration of the laws contained in the data can provide teaching assistance for education administrators. In this paper, the random forest algorithm is used to determine (...) the importance of factors for the relationship between 11 learning behavior data and students' psychological quality test data, a total of 12-dimensional feature data and grades, and extracts six factors that have a greater impact on grades. Through the research of this paper, the method of random forest is innovatively used, and it is found that the psychological factor is one of the six important factors. This paper innovatively uses BP neural network as the prediction model, takes six important factors as input, and establishes a complete method of online learning performance prediction. The research in this paper can help teachers monitor students' learning status, detect abnormal learning behaviors and problems in time, and make timely and effective teaching interventions and adjustments in advance according to the abnormal status of students found. (shrink)

Drawing on fieldwork and in-depth interviews with homeschooling mothers in the Pacific Northwest, the author reveals several ways the temporal experience of motherhood was emotionally problematic. The intensive demands of homeschooling left them stressed and dissatisfied with the amount of time they had to pursue their own interests. Mothers tried to allocate their time differently to manage these feelings, yet their efforts were unsuccessful, which led them to become frustrated and resentful. To resolve these troublesome feelings, mothers resorted to (...) manipulating their subjective experiences of time through a process the author calls “temporal emotion work.” In the conclusion, the author examines the theoretical confluence of emotions and temporality, suggesting that the dominant form of motherhood is culturally defined as a “time-sensitive identity” and that “temporal emotions” are unique tools in managing the emotional difficulties inherent in the trajectories of some identities. (shrink)

The study of genocide and mass atrocity abounds with references to emotions: fear, anger, horror, shame and hatred. Yet we don't understand enough about how 'ordinary' emotions behave in such extreme contexts. Emotions are not merely subjective and interpersonal phenomena; they are also powerful social and political forces, deeply involved in the history of mass violence. Drawing on recent insights from philosophy, psychology, history, and the social sciences, this volume examines the emotions of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. Editors Thomas Brudholm (...) and Johannes Lang have brought together an interdisciplinary group of prominent scholars to provide an in-depth analysis of the nature, value, and role of emotions as they relate to the causes and dynamics of mass atrocities. The result is a new perspective on the social, political, and moral dimensions of emotions in the history of collective violence and its aftermath. (shrink)

A project manager’s emotional intelligence (EI) is essential to project success. However, the mechanism in this cause and effect remains a black box in extant literature. China is now the world’s largest construction market, and figuring out the mechanism of construction project manager’s (CPM’s) EI on project success is meaningful for developing the global construction market. This study conducted an in-depth interview with 24 CPMs with more than 5-year experience in construction project management. The grounded theory was employed (...) to profile the application of CPM’s EI and to build the multilevel mechanism that explains the influence of CPM’s EI on project success. The mechanism framework conforms to the existed input–process–output (IPO) theory. It consists of a team-level mechanism (including the positive team atmosphere, shared vision, and team cohesion) and an individual-level mechanism (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior directed at the organization, perceived supervisor support, trust in leader, and subordinate’s psychological and emotional health). This study further proposed that the effect of this mechanism does not work immediately but develops with time passing. Implications for further research and project management practice are discussed in the end. (shrink)

Financial market and economic growth and development trends can be regarded as an extremely complex system, and the in-depth study and prediction of this complex system has always been the focus of attention of economists and other scholars. Emotion recognition algorithm is a pattern recognition technology that integrates a number of emerging science and technology, and has good non-linear system fitting capabilities. However, using emotion recognition algorithm models to analyze and predict financial market and economic growth and development trends (...) can yield more accurate prediction results. This article first gives a detailed introduction to the existing financial development and economic growth status and development trend forecasting problems, and then gives a brief overview of the concept of emotion recognition algorithms. Then, it describes the emotion recognition methods, including statistical emotion recognition methods, mixed emotion recognition methods, and emotion recognition methods based on knowledge technology, and conducts in-depth research on the three algorithm models of statistical emotion recognition methods, they are the support vector machine algorithm model, the artificial neural network algorithm model, and the long and short-term memory network algorithm model. Finally, these three algorithm models are applied to the financial market and economic growth and development trend prediction experiments. Experimental results show that the average absolute error of the three algorithms is below 25, which verifies that the emotion recognition algorithm has good operability and feasibility for the prediction of financial market and economic growth and development trends. (shrink)

Academic emotions can play a major role in students’ learning in their English classes. The literature about emotional scaffolding strategies is not widely developed; most of the studies merely focus on negative emotions in EFL contexts. However, in today’s world of varied psychological elements, it is more critical than ever before to scaffold students’ positive emotions to provide more opportunities for their classroom engagement. This study is to explore teachers’ strategies of enhancing students’ positive emotions in English classes in (...) Iran. To investigate the correspondence between students’ and teachers’ views on the effective emotional scaffolding strategies of English teachers, an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design was conducted. First, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 high school students of Salami School in Kazeroun to collect in-depth qualitative data. Then, the interview-based Likert scale questionnaires were distributed and completed by 60 high school English teachers in Kazeroun for the quantitative data. According to the teachers’ self-reports, expressing optimism and hope about the students’ future lives and prospective jobs was the most frequently used strategy. There was a significant difference among the teachers’ views on the emotional scaffolding strategies. Moreover, some of the strategies taken into consideration as effective strategies by the students are the least frequently used ones according to the teachers’ reports. The results and findings have several theoretical and practical implications for English teachers in EFL contexts; they might bolster their understanding of appropriate emotional scaffolding strategies preparing them to play a contributing role as great facilitators in English classes. (shrink)

This paper reports a literature review on the topic of ethical issues in in-depth interviews. The review returned three types of article: general discussion, issues in particular studies, and studies of interview-based research ethics. Whilst many of the issues discussed in these articles are generic to research ethics, such as confidentiality, they often had particular manifestations in this type of research. For example, privacy was a significant problem as interviews sometimes probe unexpected areas. For similar reasons, it is difficult (...) to give full information of the nature of a particular interview at the outset, hence informed consent is problematic. Where a pair is interviewed (such as carer and cared-for) there are major difficulties in maintaining confidentiality and protecting privacy. The potential for interviews to harm participants emotionally is noted in some papers, although this is often set against potential therapeutic benefit. As well as these generic issues, there are some ethical issues fairly specific to in-depth interviews. The problem of dual role is noted in many papers. It can take many forms: an interviewer might be nurse and researcher, scientist and counsellor, or reporter and evangelist. There are other specific issues such as taking sides in an interview, and protecting vulnerable groups. Little specific study of the ethics of in-depth interviews has taken place. However, that which has shows some important findings. For example, one study shows participants are not averse to discussing painful issues provided they feel the study is worthwhile. Some papers make recommendations for researchers. One such is that they should consider using a model of continuous (or process) consent rather than viewing consent as occurring once, at signature, prior to the interview. However, there is a need for further study of this area, both philosophical and empirical. (shrink)

Emotional labor generally exists in organization members. Emotional labor will not only affect employees’ interpersonal relationships, but also affect employees’ mental health. Affected by many factors such as the economic environment, they often need to bear multiple pressures. The degree of stress is positively correlated with the depth of the development of the times and people’s education. As mental health research has become the frontier and hot spot in the field of psychology, the role of mental health (...) in the process of employee creativity has been paid more and more attention. Therefore, this paper proposes a study on the causes of employees’ psychological stress based on emotional feature clustering. Based on the clustering of emotional characteristics, this paper analyzes the causes of employees’ mental health stress from an economic perspective. For teams with low level of team openness, with the improvement of team heterogeneity, team task performance shows a slight upward trend. It is clear from the experiment that when the number of experiments reaches 100, the task performance of high atmosphere level is 12.14, while the task performance of low atmosphere level is only 9.89. Therefore, the atmosphere of team employees is very important to team task performance. Through the cluster analysis of employees’ mental health characteristics, it not only increases employees’ spare time life, but also reduces employees’ daily contradictions. It eases the work pressure of employees, and becomes a platform for employees to improve their awareness and a promoter of harmonious employee relations. (shrink)

Philosophy with children often focuses on abstract reasoning skills, but as David Bohm points out the “entire process of mind” consists of our abstract thought as well as our “tacit, concrete process of thought.” Philosophy with children should address the “entire process of mind.” Our tacit, concrete process of thought refers to the process of thought that involves our actions such as the process of thought that goes into riding a bicycle. Bohm contends that we need to develop an awareness (...) or proprioception of thinking as well. When Socrates enters into dialogue with his interlocutors, he shows the limitations of purely abstract thought by leading them to admit that they really “don’t know.” But, of course, they know. We know what bravery is or what love is, even though we can never “explain” these concepts in abstract terms. Life has taught us through experience what these concepts mean and we have developed an understanding of them. We can recognize when a person acts bravely. This is where I see the link between our tacit, concrete process of thought and emotional intelligence. We need emotional intelligence to learn how to be brave, to learn how to love, and be just in the way we act in the world. Knowing what justice is abstractly does not make us act justly. We have to develop awareness of our actions in order to develop the skills necessary to act the part. This is also where emotional intelligence comes in. In the bulletin of the play Romeo and Juliet, director Barry Edelstein wrote the following: “To perform Romeo and Juliet, actors need a series of skills… they must have the emotional and psychological awareness and openness of uncommon depth; they must listen with acuteness, they must possess an imagination of real suppleness and subtlety…” An abstract portrayal would not bring these characters to life. We can surely agree – abstractly – that racism is destructive, but still act racist, without being even slightly aware of it. My contention is that while our abstract sense of racism has evolved, our tacit, concrete knowledge has not, which explains that racism is for the most part still rampant, even though we know abstractly that it is wrong. So how do we educate and develop the awareness of the tacit, concrete knowledge that informs our actions, and develop the emotional intelligence to give a depth of understanding to what we know and believe abstractly. (shrink)

[Anne:] “I can't, I'm in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the depths of despair?”“I've never been in the depths of despair, so I can't say,” said Marilla.“Weren't you? Well did you ever try to imagine you were in the depths of despair?”” No, I didn't.”“Then I don't think you can understand what it's like. It's a very uncomfortable feeling indeed. When you try to eat a lump comes right up in your throat and you (...) can't swallow anything, not even if it was a chocolate caramel.”—L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables.Emotion, as a “suprarational” property, transcends rationality in that it can be thought of as a group, contextual rather than as a solely individual trait, and thus is a higher order property, as the above quote suggests. This proposal arises from a metatheoretical analysis of models available to broach questions of emotion. I use metatheoretical in the sense of both the context of theory production and the theory of theory. From the first arose the idea that emotion, through the use of irrationality, has surfaced as a working equivalent to inexplicability or rational relativity, and can be modelled more adequately as suprarational, with a unique nature in its own right. The latter led me to propose that the concept of emotion as contextual, a higher order group level property, is possible and tentatively profitable. (shrink)

This splendid book is a collection of twenty-three of John Cooper’s papers on Greek ethical philosophy: seven are on Socrates and Plato, twelve are on Aristotle and four are on the Hellenistics; nineteen have appeared elsewhere, two are newly written essays incorporating previously published material, and two are new essays written for this volume. Many of these papers are justly regarded as classics of contemporary scholarship and some of them are located in out of the way journals or volumes: we (...) thus have the usual reasons for being grateful that they are at last collected together in one place. But more important, bringing these papers together has synergistic effects: we see Cooper returning to related issues in different contexts and elaborating the scope and depth of his analyses. (shrink)

In this inductive, exploratory study, we explore how emotions affect the agency of vulnerable persons and their engagement in social innovation to challenge oppressive institutional constraints. By presenting the in-depth case of a successful entrepreneur from a shantytown, we show how emotions affect the construction of a self that contributes to the reproduction of social order rather than change, and how effective interventions can break the cycle of poverty and hopelessness that is dominant among excluded people. We find that (...) this process is fragile and contingent on the presence of known strangers—that is, a web of actors that contributes not only resources but also emotional engagement that helps the emergence and development of low-power actors’ projectivity. We identify mechanisms for and provide a model of the development and emergence of the projective self that is necessary to engage in future-oriented agency. (shrink)