JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 1 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion Uriah Kriegel Abstract: According to the old feeling theory of emotion, an emotion is just a feeling: a conscious experience with a characteristic phenomenal character. This theory is widely dismissed in contemporary discussions of emotion as hopelessly naïve. In particular, it is thought to suffer two fatal drawbacks: its inability to account for the cognitive dimension of emotion (which is thought to go beyond the phenomenal dimension), and its inability to accommodate unconscious emotions (which, of course, lack any phenomenal character). In this paper, I argue that the old feeling theory is in reality only a pair of modifications removed from a highly plausible account of the nature of emotion that retains the essential connection between emotion and feeling. These modifications are, moreover, motivated by recent developments in work on phenomenal consciousness. The first development is the rising recognition of a phenomenal character proper to cognition-so-called cognitive phenomenology. The second is the gathering momentum behind various 'connection principles' that specify some connection that a given state must bear to phenomenally conscious states in order to qualify as mental. These developments make it possible to formulate a new feeling theory of emotion, which would overcome the two fatal drawbacks of the old feeling theory. According to the new feeling theory, an emotion is a mental state that bears the right connection to conscious experiences with the right phenomenal character (involving, among other elements, a cognitive phenomenology). 1. Introduction: The Old Feeling Theory of Emotion The pre-philosophical, 'naïve' view of emotions is that they are essentially feelings-often complicated and subtle feelings, eluding straightforward literal description, but feelings nonetheless. I am persuaded that this is a rather good view of emotion, notwithstanding common wisdom in philosophical circles. The purpose of this paper is to argue that the standard objections taken to be fatal to this view have less merit to them than is commonly thought, and that a proper development of the naïve view could produce an eminently plausible 'feeling theory' of emotion. Whether it is the best theory of emotion is a separate matter; but arguably, given its status as the pre-philosophical position, pending genuine difficulties with it we should at least provisionally embrace it.1 Feeling theories of emotion are of course not unfamiliar in philosophy. The so-called James-Lange theory (James 1884, Lange 1885) identifies emotion with feelings of bodily occurrences. These occurrences are claimed to be typically visceral (in the literal sense of occurring, or rather being felt to occur, in the viscera), but sometimes also muscular or skin-related. On this view, at least some DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2011.00493.x Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited Journal Code: EJOP Proofreader: Mony Article No: EJOP493 Delivery date: 30 November 2011 Page Extent: 23 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 European Journal of Philosophy ••:•• ISSN 0966-8373 pp. ••–•• © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 2 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 changes in one's viscera, muscles, and skin are felt, and one's feeling of them constitutes one's emoting-the emoting just is the feeling of such bodily events.2 The feeling of bodily events is what we call today 'somatic phenomenology', and so the James-Lange theory can be stated simply as the view that emotion is somatic phenomenology-to emote is to undergo an experience with somatic phenomenology. To formulate the theory more precisely, let us adopt the thought that what a philosophical theory of emotion is supposed to do is to provide identity and existence conditions for emotions, in the sense of emotional states. We can then offer a more spelled out statement of the James-Lange theory in terms of what makes an emotional state the emotional state it is (identity conditions) and what makes it an emotional state at all (existence conditions)-as follows: (JLT) For any emotional state E, what makes E the emotional state it is (rather than another emotional state), and an emotional state at all (rather than a non-emotional state), is that E has the somatic phenomenology it does (rather than another somatic phenomenology), and has one at all (rather than having a non-somatic phenomenology or no phenomenology). The more 'portable' version of this, if you will, is the simple thesis 'emotion = somatic phenomenology'.3 The apparent simplicity of the James-Lange theory hides a layer complexity, however. For it is profitably factorized into two distinct theses. One thesis is about the nature of emotion, the other about the feel of emotion. The thesis about the nature of emotion is precisely that the nature of emotion is one and the same as the feel of emotion. Emotions are essentially phenomenal states. Emotional nature/essence is emotional phenomenology. The thesis about the feel of emotion is that it is one and the same as the feel of bodily sensations. Emotional feels are nothing but somatic feels. Emotional phenomenology reduces to somatic phenomenology. It is easy to see that these two theses together entail the James-Lange theory. To do so, we need only frame the two theses-call them NATURE and FEEL-in terms of identity and existence conditions: (NATURE) For any emotional state E, what makes E the emotional state it is, and an emotional state at all, is that E has the emotional phenomenology it does, and has one at all. (FEEL) For any emotional state E, what makes E have the emotional phenomenology it does, and have one at all, is that E has the somatic phenomenology it does, and has one at all. The portable versions here would be 'emotion = emotional phenomenology' and 'emotional phenomenology = somatic phenomenology' (respectively). Whether in their portable or spelled out articulation, it is clear that the conjunction of NATURE and FEEL is logically equivalent to JLT.4 Thus the James-Lange theory's apparent simplicity hides a certain degree of structure. Uriah Kriegel2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 3 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 The James-Lange theory has attracted more attention than followership.5 But my view is that later generations of scholars have drawn exactly the wrong lesson from the theory's demise. Many have rejected NATURE while adopting FEEL. That is, they have tended to accept the Jamesian view of emotional phenomenology as exhausted by somatic phenomenology, rejecting only the claim that such phenomenology captures the nature of emotion (in the sense that it can account for their identity and existence conditions).6 A certain collusion between these two tendencies may be observed: it is partially the starving of emotional phenomenology-its reduction to a relatively simple, unsophisticated kind of feel-that made it singularly unfit to capture the essence of emotion. My own inclination is to take the opposite route, adopting NATURE and rejecting FEEL. My contention is that a more accurate portrayal of emotional phenomenology would cast it as rich and multi-faceted, involving not only somatic components but also cognitive and conative components, and perhaps even an irreducibly affective component-a sort of proprietary emotional phenomenology not accountable for in terms of any other kind of phenomenology.7 Once emotional phenomenology is appreciated in its full glory and sophistication, moreover, it becomes a much better candidate for capturing the nature of emotion. The result is a feeling theory of emotion, though of a distinctly non-Jamesian bent. I call this the new feeling theory of emotion. The precise formulation of this new feeling theory will emerge as the discussion unfolds. What I want to discuss are the main reasons to reject the James-Lange theory; I wish to argue that they fail to carry over to the new feeling theory. Extant objections to the James-Lange theory are many, but two are standard and paramount. One is that the James-Lange theory leaves out the cognitive dimension of emotion, offering an impoverished picture of them. The other is that it cannot be right, since emotions can occur not only consciously but also unconsciously, and when they do they are deprived of any phenomenology, somatic or otherwise. The next two sections address these objections in turn, arguing that, although cogent when targeting the old (James-Lange) feeling theory of emotion, they have little or no force against the new feeling theory of emotion, when the latter is properly developed. 2. Emotion, Feeling, and the Cognitive The charge that the feeling theory leaves out the cognitive dimension of emotion has sometimes been framed in terms of the notion of intentionality. The claim is that emotions cannot be mere somatic feelings, because they are also possessed of intentionality-they are of, or about, or are directed at certain things (their 'intentional objects').8 Bare somatic feelings, by contrast, are not directed at anything-they are mere bodily sensations. In this form, the objection can be overcome simply by denying that somatic phenomenology is non-intentional. According to intentionalists about phenomTowards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 4 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 enal consciousness (e.g., Dretske 1995), all phenomenal properties are reducible to intentional properties. This plausibly applies to the somatic phenomenology characteristic of emotions. For note that James does not identify emotions with bodily occurrences themselves, but rather with feelings of bodily occurrences. The 'of' in 'feelings of bodily occurrence' seems to be the 'of' of intentionality: the experiential feel is directed at the bodily occurrence.9 With this in mind, Tye (1995), for example, develops an account of somatic, and thence emotional, phenomenology in terms of intentional directedness toward bodily events.10 We can debate the plausibility of this account, but its coherence shows that the James-Lange theory is not inherently incapable of accounting for the intentionality of emotion. For one may identify emotion with somatic phenomenology and still hold that emotion is essentially intentional, so long as one accepts an intentional account of somatic phenomenology. What the objector must insist on, therefore, is not just that emotion has intentionality, but that it has a specific kind of intentionality, one that is distinct from the intentionality implicated in somatic phenomenology; that it has, if you will, a non-somatic intentionality. The natural way to develop this objection is to argue that emotion has a specifically cognitive intentionality. 'Cognitive intentionality' is to be understood here in terms of what and how intentional objects are presented. Different kinds of intentionality present (or involve the presentation of) different objects in different manners. We need not develop a systematic account of cognitive intentionality to note that it is distinguished from somatic phenomenology in that it is not directed only at bodily events but also at worldly events (as well as worldly particulars and states of affairs), where 'worldly' is used technically to contrast with 'bodily'.11 The objection at hand is that emotion involves cognitive intentionality inasmuch as it is intentionally directed not (only) at bodily events, but (also) at worldly (non-bodily) events (particulars, states of affairs). Thus construed, the 'cognitivist objection', as we may call it, can be expressed as follows: 1) emotions involve a cognitive intentionality; 2) somatic phenomenology does not involve cognitive intentionality; therefore, 3) emotions are not exhausted by somatic phenomenology. In this form, the objection is quite powerful. It is hard to see how one might resist Premise 2, and while Premise 1 is more controversial, on this score I am satisfied that the common wisdom on emotion is correct: emotion does involve presentation of worldly particulars, events, and states of affairs. As an adolescent, I experienced grief at my grandfather's death; somewhat trivially, the grief was intentionally directed at my grandfather and his death, not (only) at inner bodily changes (if such there were) consequent upon the realization and emotional processing of his death. Similarly pedestrian observations apply to almost all emotions.12 Thus the cognitivist objection, when properly understood, undermines the James-Lange theory rather straightforwardly. Where I think common wisdom overreaches is in claiming that the objection undermines not just the James-Lange theory, but the feeling theory of emotion as such. Recall that the James-Lange theory is just one feeling theory-the one committed to FEEL above. The generic feeling theory, consisting merely of Uriah Kriegel4 111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 5 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 NATURE, is much more flexible than the James-Lange variety, and, I contend, has the resources to withstand the cognitivist objection. Adapted to target the generic variety of the feeling theory, the cognitivist objection would look like this: 1) emotions involve a cognitive intentionality; 2) emotional phenomenology does not involve cognitive intentionality; therefore, 3) emotions are not exhausted by emotional phenomenology. This objection can be handled by rejecting Premise 2. The remainder of this section makes the case for such rejection.13 Start with a distinction between two notions of grief: grief as a process and grief as an episode. The process of grief is often prolonged and involves as components many episodes.14 For all I know, the process of grieving over my grandfather's death is ongoing. But the episodes of grief are more local, and take minutes (or hours) each. When I consider carefully an early grief episode about my grandfather's death, I find that a central element of it was the experience of loss. What was lost, clearly, was not any bodily occurrence. It is not bodily events that were presented as lost, but a person-a person of special importance. Thus the experience of loss had a cognitive intentionality, insofar as it was directed onto a worldly, non-bodily object. What I want to emphasize is that the loss was also phenomenal-it affected very distinctively the overall way it was like for me to undergo an episode of grief. It is not as though my grief consisted in bodily sensations accompanied by a bloodless, unfelt, unconscious, non-experienced appreciation of loss. It is not as though the representation of loss was a mental event occurring in me sub-personally, with the only thing actually showing up in consciousness being the somatic feelings. On the contrary, the loss itself showed up in consciousness-it was 'experientially encoded', if you will. The conscious awareness of loss was part of my overall experience. In that respect, the loss of my grandfather was not only represented, but experienced. Thus although the awareness of loss was an intentional component of my grief episode, the intentionality in question was of a distinctively experiential or phenomenal variety. In this respect, understanding the intentionality involved in such emotional episodes requires use of the notion of phenomenal intentionality. It has been recently noted that, while some intentionality occurs outside phenomenal consciousness (in unconscious mental activity, and perhaps outside the mental realm altogether), some intentionality is inextricably tied up with phenomenal character.15 There is a kind of felt aboutness that many of our conscious experiences exhibit: they feel directed at the world. How exactly to characterize this kind of felt aboutness, or phenomenal intentionality, is a matter for debate, but one that need not be entered into here.16 The point is just this: the component of grief naturally called 'the experience of loss' is very clearly a phenomenal-intentional component, insofar as it is both phenomenal and intentional but in such a way that the phenomenality and the intentionality are inextricably tied together.17 It is thus an instance of phenomenal intentionality. More generally, emotions in general appear to be possessed of characteristic phenomenal intentionality- what Goldie (2002) calls 'feeling-towards', an intentionally directed kind of phenomenal feeling. Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 6 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 Another notion of relevance in this context is that of cognitive phenomenology. Just as traditionally many mental states considered essentially phenomenal were assumed to be non-intentional, so traditionally many mental states considered essentially intentional were assumed to be non-phenomenal. The paradigm here is occurrent thoughts: thinking is always thinking-that, that is, a mental state with a propositional content, but contrary to a long tradition, upon reflection it is also a phenomenal state, insofar as there is something it is like to think that something is the case. For one thing, there is certainly something it is like to think that it is raining as opposed to merely entertaining that it is raining. Additionally, however, it is plausible that there is something it is like to think that it is raining as opposed to thinking that it is snowing. This element of what it is like to think is cognitive phenomenology. That there is such cognitive phenomenology is not altogether uncontroversial, to be sure, but as I (and others) have argued for this elsewhere, I will proceed on the assumption that there does exist cognitive phenomenology.18 The reason I introduce the notion of cognitive phenomenology is that the experience of loss essential to grief, which is a form of phenomenal intentionality, strikes me as an instance of cognitive-phenomenal intentionality, that is, the kind of phenomenal intentionality that cognitive-phenomenal states possess (as opposed to the kind possessed by other phenomenal states). It is likely that in addition to the awareness of loss built into grief, there are many other cognitivephenomenal components in grief. Many who have lost dear ones will be familiar with the experience of trying to grasp the non-existence, the ceasing-to-be, of the grieved person, a ceasing-to-be that feels elusive and at some level ungraspable for at least a few hours. This too is an entirely cognitive exercise, but an experienced one nonetheless-another aspect of the (typical) cognitive phenomenology of grief. These elements appear to involve a kind of cognitive intentionality that is grounded in a corresponding phenomenal character, a distinctively cognitive kind of phenomenal character. That is, they appear to involve cognitive-phenomenal intentionality.19 Similar observations apply to other emotions. The phenomenology of frustration and the phenomenology of indignation certainly often involve bodily sensations, but they also involve much more than that, including centrally an experienced cognitive appreciation of a failure (for frustration) or an injustice (for indignation). Indeed, it is arguable that the somatic phenomenology of frustration and indignation is in fact indistinguishable, and the only phenomenal element that separates feeling disappointed from feeling indignant is this cognitive-phenomenal element.20 In addition to its cognitive element, emotional phenomenology arguably often involves a conative component as well-a feeling of 'doing something about it'. Thus, in addition to the experienced appreciation of a wrong, feeling indignant typically, perhaps universally, involves also an experienced nudge (of varying phenomenal intensity) to rectify the wrong. Depending on its phenomenal intensity, the nudge may not be powerful enough to actually move one to action. But there is a felt force in the direction of action nonetheless. It is an open question Uriah Kriegel6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 7 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 whether feeling this nudge is constitutive of such moral emotions as indignation or merely a contingent-but-stubborn feature of it. But it is not really an open question that the phenomenology of indignation typically has this conative component. And the same applies to many other (including non-moral) emotions. Feeling rage, for example, typically involves a felt desire to exact revenge, inflict violence or otherwise evince excess energy (e.g., run until one is exhausted). It is thus entirely implausible, borderline perverse, to construe emotional phenomenology as consisting in nothing but somatic phenomenology. As we have seen, emotional experience involves much more than bodily sensations. Indeed, visceral phenomenology can be quite vivid, but otherwise it is rather peripheral to the overall experience of most emotions. Cognitive and conative forms of phenomenology are much more central. It has sometimes been argued that emotions even have an irreducibly affective phenomenology, a kind of phenomenology that goes beyond the somatic, the cognitive, and the conative and is proprietary to emotional experience (Stocker 1996 Ch.1, Montague 2009).21 It is not my concern to evaluate this claim here. For our present purposes it suffices we note the rich multifaceted phenomenology of emotion, which makes room for cognitive intentionality aplenty, contrary to Premise 2 in the cognitivist objection to the generic feeling theory.22 These considerations undercut not only the cognitivist objection to the generic feeling theory, but also the theoretical overreactions it has often inspired, namely, the development of 'cognitivist theories' that deny any phenomenal component in the essence of emotion. According to such theories, emotions are just judgments of a certain sort (often: 'evaluative' judgments), or else combinations of belief and desire (judgment and preference).23 Such cognitive accounts are standardly presented as opposing feeling theories, the suppressed assumption evidently being that feelings cannot be cognitive or conative, that is, that there is no cognitive or conative phenomenology. Once this assumption is rejected, the introduction of cognitive and/or conative elements into the theory of emotion is seen to be entirely consistent with a feeling theory.24 In fact, it is instructive that cognitive theorists have typically preferred the term 'judgment' over 'belief'. For at least as far as ordinary talk is concerned, unlike belief, judgment is essentially a conscious act: it is something that one consciously does, and that there is something it is like for one to do. This is not the case for belief. One can (truly) say of a person fast asleep or absorbed in drawing 'she believe that 13.426 > 12.307'; but one cannot (truly) say of such a person 'she judges that 13.426 > 12.307'. Beliefs can be latent, tacit, unconscious states-judgments are always acts of consciousness.25 There is no duality of terms in the case of desire, wanting, or preference (all can be used to denote either a conscious or an unconscious state). Nonetheless, it is notable that often in the course of discussing this aspect of emotion, cognitive theorists employ (what are most naturally interpreted as) phenomenal descriptors. Thus, it is common to stress that the relevant desire may be strong or intense (see, e.g., Marks 1982), where this is most naturally understood as an ascription of something like phenomenal vivacity. Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 8 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 Thus I contend that the animating sensibilities behind cognitive theories of emotion can perfectly well be accommodated in a new feeling theory of emotion, a feeling theory that allowed emotional phenomenology to encompass cognitive and conative elements. What is responsible for the development of cognitive theories in a different, anti-feeling direction appears to be an attachment to the picture of the mind as dividing neatly into phenomenal aspects and intentional aspects. This is what Horgan and Tienson (2002) call 'separatism', which they argue has exerted considerable (and in their view negative) influence over much twentieth-century philosophy of mind. According to separatism, some mental states are phenomenal (e.g., perceptual and bodily sensations) and some are intentional (e.g., beliefs and desires), but none are both. Against the background of separatism, accepting the cognitive dimension of emotion does lead directly to rejecting the feeling theory. But separatism is forsooth quite implausible: on the one hand, perceptual and bodily sensations seem possessed of (phenomenal) intentionality, and on the other, beliefs and desires can often have (cognitive or conative) phenomenology. In any case, separatism certainly appears to underwrite the uncritical leap one discerns in the literature-from accepting the cognitive dimension of emotion to rejecting any feeling theory thereof. It may be objected that I am casting as a substantial, deep, and important point what is in fact nothing but a verbal matter. Cognitive theorists simply use the term 'feeling' to denote not just any old conscious state, but only somatic or visceral ones. They need not oppose the notion that emotions are essentially feelings if that notion is not taken to imply that emotions are raw bodily sensations with no cognitive dimension. Thus there is nothing in the letter or spirit of their view that precludes their embrace of the 'new' feeling theory of emotion, where the term 'feeling' is used quite differently from the way they use it. My response is threefold. First, insofar as cognitive theorists are happy to embrace the new feeling theory of emotion, I have no quarrel with them. I nonetheless suspect the objector is overplaying her openness to the substantive core of the new feeling theory. The substantive core is the claim that emotions are essentially phenomenal states. It may well be that some cognitive theorists are open to this, and simply use 'feeling' to denote not just any phenomenal properties but specifically somatic or visceral ones. I suspect, however, that many also use 'feeling' just as I do, namely to denote any phenomenal properties, and differ from me precisely on the substantive matter of whether there exist cognitive-phenomenal properties in addition to the more widely discussed somatic-phenomenal and perceptual-phenomenal ones. This is, in any case, a sociological matter not much more titillating than any verbal matter. What matters to me is only the consistency of two ideas: that emotions have a cognitive dimension, and that they are essentially phenomenal states.26 Second, unlike terms such as 'phenomenology' and 'somatic', the term 'feeling' is not a term of art. The term enters the theory of emotion not by way Uriah Kriegel8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 9 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 of theoretical postulation, but via the mundane, pre-theoretical use of such expressions as 'feeling angry', 'feeling scared', and 'feeling excited'. To use it in a technical sense divorced from its role in such mundane expressions is to court confusion.27 Now, it is fairly clear, I think, that in its mundane usage the term 'feeling angry' is not intended to denote a specifically somatic phenomenology, but whatever phenomenology turns out to be linked with anger. Thus insofar as cognitive theorists use 'feeling' to denote specifically somatic phenomenology, my claim is simply that they ought not.28 Third, even if cognitivism were considered just a version of the new feeling theory, and thus not immediately problematic for the view I wish to defend, it would still be a very specific version, to which I may not wish to commit. According to this specific version, the identity and existence conditions of emotional phenomenology are fully determined by cognitive phenomenology, or else by a combination of cognitive and conative phenomenology. This is not obviously implausible, but there is no reason for the new feeling theory to rule out other options: that emotional phenomenology is a combination of cognitive, conative, and somatic phenomenology; that emotional phenomenology is an irreducibly (sui generis) affective phenomenology; that emotional phenomenology consists in cognitive, conative, somatic, and irreducibly affective phenomenology; and so on. The fact that there are four potential forms of phenomenology-cognitive, conative, somatic, and affective-that might be implicated in emotional phenomenology means that there are 15 possible accounts of emotional phenomenology: one for each possible combination of at least one among the four.29 It may turn out, of course, that there is no such thing as sui generis affective phenomenology proprietary to emotion, in which case there would be only seven possible accounts of emotional phenomenology (assuming still that there do exist cognitive, conative, and somatic phenomenologies).30 Either way, it is clear that the identification of emotional phenomenology with somatic phenomenology, as per the James-Lange theory, is only one option among many more-quite possibly among 15 coherent and viable positions. It is, moreover, not a particularly antecedently plausible one. Certainly the views that emotional phenomenology is constituted by a combination (a) of cognitive and conative phenomenology, (b) of cognitive, conative, and somatic phenomenology, and (c) of cognitive, conative, somatic, and affective phenomenology are far more antecedently plausible. Indeed, to my mind imagining a creature capable of somatic phenomenology only, and no other phenomenology, is imagining not only a perceptual and cognitive zombie but also an emotional zombie. Thus in the absence of strong reasons to the contrary, it would be wiser to adopt an account of emotional feel that identified it with (a)–(c) rather than with somatic phenomenology only. In light of the above, I conclude that FEEL is extremely implausible. What I would like to assert in its stead is a thesis that identifies emotional feel with some combination of cognitive, conative, somatic, and/or affective phenomenology. This may be formulated as follows: Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 10 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 (FEEL*) There is a combination C of cognitive, conative, somatic, and/or affective phenomenology, such that for any emotional state E, what makes E have the emotional phenomenology it does, and have one at all, is that E has the C-phenomenology it does, and has one at all. Some clarifications are in order. First, FEEL* as such does not commit to the existence of each of the four mentioned kinds of phenomenology; merely to the existence of at least one of them. (In particular, FEEL* is not committed to the existence of sui generis affective phenomenology.) Second, FEEL* should be distinguished from a disjunctive thesis that identifies emotional phenomenology with any rather than some combination of the four mentioned phenomenologies. Thus it disallows that different emotions can have the emotional phenomenology they do, and have one at all, in virtue of different combinations of the four mentioned phenomenologies.31 Third, note that FEEL* in itself makes no commitment on the nature or essence of emotion. It is a thesis merely concerning emotional feel that is silent on the question of emotional nature. At the same time, FEEL* is consistent with a feeling theory of emotion, and provides the resources for such a theory to resist the cognitivist critique of the old feeling theory of emotion. Conjoined with NATURE, it would generate the following Relaxed Feeling Theory of emotion: (RFT) There is a combination C of cognitive, conative, somatic, and/or affective phenomenology, such that for any emotional state E, what makes E the emotion it is, and an emotion at all, is that E has the C-phenomenology it does, and has one at all. I contend that, despite retaining the commitment to the phenomenal nature of emotion, RFT survives the cognitivist critique that undermined the James-Lange theory. Unfortunately, however, there is another kind of critique of the JamesLange theory that it does not survive. This is the topic of the next section. 3. Emotion, Feeling, and the Unconscious The other major objection to the old feeling theory of emotion is the Freudianinspired one that much of our emotional life is unconscious, and when it is it involves no feel whatsoever, as unconscious states do not have a phenomenal feel. If so, NATURE cannot be right. For some emotional states are not such (and perforce are not the emotional states they are) in virtue of their phenomenal feel. It may be, however, that a variation on NATURE may still be tenable. Consider, for instance, Searle's (1992) 'connection principle', according to which every intentional state is potentially conscious. Given that every conscious state has phenomenal character, the connection principle entails that every intentional state potentially has phenomenal character. If one held that every emotional state is intentional, it would also follow that every emotional state potentially has a phenomenal character. This would be an alternative connection principle, one Uriah Kriegel10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 11 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 connecting not intentional and conscious states but emotional and phenomenal states. Moreover, if one did not hold that every emotional state is intentional, one might still find such an alternative connection principle (connecting emotional and phenomenal states) independently plausible. How does a connection principle of this sort help the cause of a feeling theory of emotion? It may inspire a weakened version of NATURE that relaxes the connection between the identity and existence conditions of emotion, on the one hand, and emotional phenomenology, on the other. Perhaps it is false that what makes an emotion the emotion it is, and an emotion at all, is the emotional phenomenology it actually has. It may yet be true that what makes an emotion the emotion it is, and an emotion at all, is the emotional phenomenology it potentially has. The idea would be that while some emotions may have no phenomenology (the unconscious ones), all emotions are such that they potentially have a phenomenology. There are many problems with this kind of move. First, the very intelligibility of the connection principles under consideration is questionable, insofar as it is unclear what is involved in mental states being 'potentially' phenomenal (Fodor and Lepore 1994). Second, Searle's original connection principle suffers from certain straightforward counter-examples (Davies 1995, Horgan and Kriegel 2008, Kriegel 2011 Ch.4), and the alternative principle (connecting emotionality with phenomenality) is in all likelihood equally susceptible.32 Third, Searle's own argument for his connection principle is highly problematic (Fodor and Lepore 1994, Kriegel 2003), and moreover does not carry over to the alternative (emotionality-phenomenality) connection principle, leaving the latter unmotivated.33 Finally, either connection principle is in fact far weaker than what a feeling theory of emotion would require: the former impose a necessary condition on the existence of an emotional (or intentional state), whereas the latter requires also a sufficient condition on the existence of such a state, one which moreover is a sufficient condition on the identity of the state and furthermore grounds ('makes') its existence and identity. The literature on these problems offers a number of possible responses in defense of some connection principle. Some authors have attempted to unpack potentiality talk in modal terms (Fodor and Lepore 1994, Kriegel 2003) or dispositional terms (Mendelovici 2010, Smithies Ms, but see also Cohen 1992 Ch.1).34 Some have offered alternative connection principles in which the connection is non-potentiality-based (Loar 2003, Horgan and Graham forthcoming). Others have offered alternative arguments for their connection principle (Horgan and Tienson 2002, Loar 2003, Bourget 2010, Kriegel 2011 Ch.1, Smithies Ms), some that may well carry over to the case of emotion. Rather than sift through this ever growing literature in search of help for a feeling theory of emotion, I will proceed by articulating the generic kind of connection principle that would be needed and then propose an argument in its favor. As noted above, NATURE is falsified by the existence of unconscious, nonphenomenal emotional states. Still, the spirit of a feeling theory of emotion Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 12 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 can be preserved if some essential connection can be established between any emotional state and emotional phenomenology. The generic form of such a connection would be to claim that there is some relation R that every emotional state E must bear to some phenomenal emotional state(s), and in virtue of which E is the emotional state it is and an emotional state at all. R may be the relation of potentially being, but it may also be some other non-trivial relation.35 A strengthened connection principle would claim that bearing R is both necessary and sufficient for, and moreover grounds, E's being the emotional state it is and an emotional state at all. The result would be the following variation on NATURE: (NATURE*) There is a relation R, such that for any emotional state E, what makes E the emotional state it is, and an emotional state at all, is that E bears R to the emotional phenomenology it does, and bears R to an emotional phenomenology at all. NATURE* effectively constitutes a connection principle connecting emotionality and phenomenality in a sufficiently strong way to generate a feeling theory of emotion. That the spirit of the feeling theory of emotion is preserved here can be appreciated from the fact that NATURE* is not merely a thesis offering necessary and sufficient conditions for a state being emotional, but a thesis about what makes a mental state emotional-about the grounds of its status as an emotional state. In fact, NATURE* is a relaxation of NATURE, insofar as NATURE is just NATURE* where R is construed as the having (or instantiating) relation.36 The argument I will sketch in support of NATURE* is non-demonstrative and proceeds in two phases. The first phase concerns a central problem of the philosophy of mind that has received oddly little attention in recent decades: the question of what constitutes the mark of the mental, what makes a given state a mental state. I will argue (mostly by elimination) that the most promising view is that mental states are distinguished from non-mental states in being suitably related to phenomenal states. The second phase of the argument suggests that this view of the mark of the mental leads naturally to NATURE*, through two considerations of general theoretical unity. I start, then, by considering possible approaches to the mark of the mental. Intentionality as the Mark of the Mental The notion of the mark of the mental is due to Brentano (1874), who argued that intentionality is it. Some have argued that intentionality is too narrow to mark the mental, as some mental states (e.g., moods) are non-intentional (Searle 1983).37 The more serious challenge to intentionality as the mark of the mental is that it appears to be too broad: linguistic expressions, traffic signs, and paintings all appear to be about something, be contentful. Yet they are clearly not mental. Uriah Kriegel12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 13 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 Privileged Intentionality as the Mark of the Mental It may be retorted that although non-mental phenomena are sometimes intentional, they are so only parasitically and derivatively-for they derive their intentionality from mental states. This may suggest that underived (or 'intrinsic') intentionality may be the mark of the mental. Such a view solves the breadth problem by ruling out the relevant non-mental phenomena. There is still the narrowness problem, but many hold that it is no problem at all, and that in fact all mental phenomena-including moods-are (non-derivatively) intentional (Seager 1999, Crane 2001).38 The real problem with this mark thesis is a certain instability regarding the scope of underived intentionality. On the one hand, it has sometimes been argued that linguistic expressions are possessed of the very same underived intentionality that mental states are (Millikan 1984 Ch.3). Meanwhile, other philosophers have argued that in truth only phenomenal mental states are non-derivatively intentional (McGinn 1988, Kriegel 2003, Bourget 2010). What both camps have in common is an insistence on the equal status of non-phenomenal mental states and linguistic expressions. And indeed it is difficult to see what is supposed to set them apart. What would endow an unconscious mental state, such as a tacit belief or a sub-doxastic state of visual cortex, say, with an intentionality inherently different from that of a linguistic expression? They both track their environments, play a certain functional role within their respective systems, and so forth.39,40 Functional Role as the Mark of the Mental Given the prominence of functionalist theories of the mind in the past halfcentury, it might be thought that mental states could be distinguished from non-mental phenomena by their functional role. Put this way, the suggestion is clearly unworkable, as many non-mental phenomena play a functional role in other, non-mental systems. Privileged Functional Role as the Mark of the Mental What this suggests, however, is that there may be a privileged functional role peculiar to mental states. One suggestion, for example, might be that mental states play an intra-cranial functional role. But this is doubly problematic. On the one hand, there are hormonal states of the brain that are clearly non-mental but play an intra-cranial functional role (this is a problem of breadth). On the other hand, there are extra-cranial states that some philosophers have argued are mental (Clark and Chalmers 1998) precisely on the grounds that they play the same functional role as unquestionably mental states (a problem of narrowness). In addition, there appears to be something arbitrary and non-substantive about the appeal to the cranium: even if all mental states are in it after all, that would appear to be an accidental feature of the mental. A more 'scientifically sounding' variant Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 13 22 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 14 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 might appeal not to intra-cranial functional role but to something like neurofunctional role. But the above problems appear to apply with similar force: some neuro-functional states are likely non-mental; some mental states may be realized in non-neural substrate (perhaps in silicon chips following corrective surgery); and the neural (as opposed to non-neural) realization of the mental in any case appears to be accidental rather than essential to the mind.41 One might hope that there be some other way to specify a special, privileged kind of functional role allegedly common and peculiar to mental states. However, it is unclear why, for any given functional role, there could not be some element in some entirely non-mental system (an ecological system, say) that played an isomorphic functional role in it. This consideration generates an a priori suspicion that a privileged functional role would always be too broad a mark for the mental. 'State of a Mind' These considerations suggest that what makes a mental state mental is not so much the properties it has in isolation, but rather its being a state of a mind. Thus the mark of the mental should first demarcate mental systems and then elucidate mental states in terms of those, rather than the other way round. The question here, of course, is how to demarcate mental systems.42 The best answer I can think of appeals to phenomenal consciousness: a mental system is a system endowed of phenomenal consciousness, or a system capable of entering phenomenally conscious states.43 This would, however, straightforwardly entail a connection principle: a given state is mental only if it is a state of a system capable of entering phenomenally conscious states.44 There are a number of other potential and actual mark theses that are likely to collapse into a phenomenally based marks under reasonable assumptions. Consider, for example, the claim that the mark of the mental is introspectibility: all and only mental states are introspectible (Tartaglia 2008). Regardless of how plausible this is (and the existence of non-introspectible sub-personal representations in the visual system suggests that it might be too narrow), depending on one's account of introspection this may well collapse onto a phenomenally based mark thesis. For it is quite plausible that all introspectible states are phenomenal, or potentially phenomenal, or otherwise necessarily related to phenomenal states. Likewise for the notion that the mark of the mental is privacy (Ducasse 1961): in all probability, once the notion of privacy is adequately elucidated, it would turn out that all and only phenomenal states are private in the relevant sense.45 Full argumentation for the kind of collapse I am claiming would require a foray into the nature of introspection and privacy that would take us too far afield, so I will leave the case in this germinal form. If nothing else, it can be taken as a challenge to the opponent of a phenomenally based mark of the mental: show us a mark that plausibly avoids reference to the phenomenal. Elsewhere, I have developed an account of the mark of the mental that (1) casts the concept of mind as a prototype concept and (2) identifies the prototype Uriah Kriegel14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 15 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 with phenomenal states (see Horgan and Kriegel 2008). A prototype concept is one whose instances qualify as such in virtue of resembling certain prototypes, or more generally bearing some crucial relation to prototypes (Rosch 1973). If the concept of mind is such a concept, then states qualify as mental in virtue of bearing the right relation to prototypical mental states. It is highly plausible that the prototypical mental states are all phenomenally conscious.46 This can be understood either as an empirical hypothesis about the folk concept of mind or as a philosophical thesis about a more nuanced, more developed concept of mind. Either way, the result is a thesis according to which a state qualifies as mental iff it bears the right relation to states with some phenomenology. This thesis leads, in turn, to NATURE* through two non-demonstrative considerations having to do with general theoretical unity. Observe, first, that the mark thesis just stated concerns only the existence conditions of mentality, without commenting on its identity conditions. Yet typically existence and identity conditions do not really come apart: the existence condition is simply the determinable of which the identity conditions are determinates. Thus, those who hold that properties are just funds of causal powers (e.g., Shoemaker 1979), such that what makes a property a property is that it has some causal powers, typically also hold that properties individuate in terms of their causal powers, such that what makes a property the property it is (and not another property) is that it has the causal powers it does (and not others). It would be extremely odd, and very much in need of justification, to maintain causal existence conditions for properties but reject causal identity conditions (or conversely). Likewise, then, with the mark thesis according to which what makes a state mental is that it is suitably related to phenomenal states. It would be odd and puzzling to hold it in dissociation from the corresponding thesis about the identity of mental states. The latter is the thesis that a mental state is the state it is (and not a different one) in virtue of being suitably related to the phenomenal states it is (and not to others). Together, the two theses amount to this: There is a relation R, such that for any mental state M, what makes M the mental state it is, and a mental state at all, is that M bears R to the phenomenology it does, and bears R to a phenomenology at all. Clearly, this is a generalization of NATURE* from the case of emotion to the case of mentality in general. As such, it recommends NATURE*. For consider: if one maintains (as is plausible) that the mind divides into different more or less 'natural' dimensions or faculties, one would need also mark theses for the various subdivisions of the mental: the mark of the cognitive, the mark of the conative, and indeed the mark of the emotional. Although the phenomenally based mark of the mental we have settled on nowise entails similarly formed marks for those mental subdivisions, it nonetheless creates a presumption in their favor, inasmuch as it naturally goes hand in hand with them, offering a relatively unified portrait of the mind. And again the generalization from existence to identity conditions would be natural as well. According to the emerging portrait of the mind, what makes a cognitive state the cognitive state it is, and a cognitive Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 15 33 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 16 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 state at all, is that it is suitably related to states with cognitive phenomenology; what makes a conative state the conative state it is, and a conative state at all, is that it is suitably related to states with conative phenomenology; what makes an emotional state the emotional state it is, and an emotional state at all, is that it is suitably related to states with emotional phenomenology; and so on. This last is effectively NATURE*. Thus given the generic phenomenally based mark of the mental, there are general theoretical considerations that create a presumption in favor of a generic phenomenally based mark of the emotional-NATURE*.47 This is a defeasible presumption, of course, which may be defeated by special undermining or rebutting considerations recommending a picture of the mind that is not committed to NATURE*. For that matter, the very case for the phenomenally based mark of the mental I have adopted was non-demonstrative, and relied on a merely partial argument by elimination. That, too, then, was merely a prima facie case for that mark thesis. Still, until an ultima facie case for a different mark thesis is presented, and/or concrete defeaters for the inference from the mark thesis to NATURE* are offered, we are well justified-prima facie and defeasibly justified, but justified nonetheless-in holding on to NATURE*. I conclude that, although the old feeling theory's identification of emotion with emotional feel is untenable, given the existence of unconscious emotional states, a subtler thesis of the same spirit is not only tenable but highly plausible. This subtler thesis maintains that while some emotional states are unconscious, and thus involve no feel, all emotional states must be somehow connected to emotional feelings, and the connection in question in fact makes them the emotional states they are (and emotional states at all). Thus it appears to go to the essence of emotion that it is suitably connected to a certain kind of feeling. 4. Conclusion: The New Feeling Theory of Emotion Recall that in Section 2 we formulated an account of emotional feeling, or phenomenology, that is considerably subtler than the old feeling theory's; this was FEEL*. When we combine FEEL* with NATURE*, we obtain what I call the New Feeling Theory of emotion: (NFT) There is a combination C of cognitive, conative, somatic, and/or affective phenomenology, and a relation R, such that for any emotional state E, what makes E the emotional state it is, and an emotional state at all, is that E bears R to the C-phenomenology it does, and bears R to a C-phenomenology at all. According to NFT, the identity and existence conditions of emotional states are indirectly determined by a certain type of phenomenology, though not the emaciated phenomenology designated by James and Lange, but a rather rich phenomenology including, among other things, a cognitive dimension. NFT is doubly subtler, and more plausible than, JLT (the James-Lange Theory): first Uriah Kriegel16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 17 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 insofar as NATURE* is subtler and more plausible than NATURE, and secondly insofar as FEEL* is subtler and more plausible than FEEL. My contention is that the old feeling theory of emotion had the right idea: that the phenomenology of emotion is somehow essential to emotion. Its specific way of developing this insight, however, was implausible. On the one hand, it misconstrued the nature of the essential tie between emotion and phenomenology, casting it as tighter and simpler than it truly is. On the other hand, it misconstrued the character of emotional phenomenology, casting it as barer and simpler than it truly is. When these two wrong turns are avoided, however, a highly plausible picture of the nature of emotion emerges. This is the picture made precise by NFT above. On this picture, it is in the essence of emotion to be connected in the right way to a certain combination of cognitive, conative, somatic, and/or affective phenomenology.48 Uriah Kriegel Department of Philosophy University of Arizona USA theuriah@gmail.com NOTES 1 This would be a matter of what is sometimes called the theoretical virtue of 'conservatism,' or the maxim of minimum mutilation (Quine and Ullian 1970), recommend the least departure necessary from established belief. 2 It is not entirely clear whether James (or Lange, for that matter) thought that every feeling of bodily occurrence constituted an emotion or only the converse, that every emotion was constituted by bodily occurrences, allowing some bodily occurrences not to constitute an emotion. If the latter is the case, then we would have to refine the statement of the thesis in the text. It is noteworthy that James' contemporaries appear to have taken him to mean the former. Thus, Cannon 1915 argues against James that the same visceral changes that sometimes occur in emotional states can also occur in non-emotional states. This would be a criticism of James only if he was committed to the thesis that every feeling of bodily occurrence constituted an emotion. 3 Given the previous note, we may need to change the portable version of the thesis to 'emotion = subset of somatic phenomenology'. A corresponding change to the spelled out articulation of JLT would require specifying a kind of somatic phenomenology. Similar adjustment would be called for in the case of the other indented theses to be discussed later in this section, but I am not going to remark on this matter again. 4 It is also clear that a generic 'feeling theory' of emotion is committed only to NATURE, not to FEEL. The generic theory insists that the nature of emotion can be captured in terms of their feel, what it is like to experience them. It is altogether silent on the question of what emotional feel is in fact like, what the characteristic phenomenology of emotion is. 5 The theory is often dismissed as hopeless, for reasons we will encounter shortly. A rare exception is Prinz 2004, who defends a broadly Jamesian theory of emotions as 'gut reactions'. Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 18 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 6 The rejection of the feeling theory of emotion is well-documented and is in fact the starting point for many philosophical theories of emotion of the past century. The implicit acceptance of the Jamesian account of emotional phenomenology has been less highlighted, but is evidenced over and over in twentieth-century analytic philosophy of mind. One prominent mid-century instance is Armstrong's account of emotion (1968 Ch.8), a later one is Tye's (1995 Ch.4). I will discuss Tye's views later, but here is a representative passage from Armstrong (1968: 180; emphasis in original): 'I suspect that this close connection between emotion and bodily sensation explains why we speak of "feeling" emotions. The etymologically original sense of the word "feel" seems to be that connected with tactual and bodily perceptions (see O.E.D.). Bodily perceptions (that is, sensations) are phenomenologically conspicuous in first-person experience of emotions, and so we speak of feeling angry. (And where the sensations are absent, it is natural to speak of being angry, but not feeling it.)' I should stress that none of this is meant to imply that there have been no exceptions to these tendencies. One philosopher who has resisted both, as I will later on, though in an importantly different way, is Stocker 1996. 7 The notion of 'proprietary' phenomenology comes from Pitt 2004, who explicates it as follows: a type of non-perceptual mental state M has a proprietary phenomenology if there is a kind of phenomenology that M exhibits which is different from perceptual phenomenology in the same way that the phenomenologies of perceptual experiences in different modalities differ from one another. Thus to say that emotional states have a proprietary phenomenology is to say that there is a phenomenology they exhibit which differs from perceptual phenomenology in the same way perceptual phenomenologies differ from one another. 8 For influential early work on the intentionality of emotion, see Kenny 1963, though the matter is also discussed, without the terminology, by Dewey 1894, indeed precisely in the context of criticizing the James-Lange theory. Here as often elsewhere, however, the very first modern discussion of emotion's intentionality can be found in Brentano (1874 Chs. 6, 8). 9 It might be said that the feel represents the bodily event. This implies that it can also misrepresent it-and indeed it can, for example in cases of pain experienced in phantom limbs. This consideration is often adduced in defense of an intentionalist account of pain (see, e.g., Tye 1997). 10 Tye holds (a) that emotional phenomenology is nothing but somatic phenomenology and (b) that somatic phenomenology is intentional. Consider the following passage (Tye 1995: 126; emphasis in original): 'Suppose you suddenly feel extremely angry. Your body will change in all sorts of ways: for example, you blood pressure will rise, your nostrils will flare, your face will flush . . . These physical changes are registered in the sensory receptors distributed throughout your body. In response to the activity in your receptors, you will mechanically build up a complex sensory representation of how your body has changed, of the new body state you are in. In this way, you will feel the bodily changes. The feeling you undergo consists in the complex sensory representation of these changes.' 11 There is an obvious sense, of course, in which the body is part of the world, and so anything bodily is also worldly. This is why the present usage of 'worldly' is technical: it is built into it that it is not merely bodily. Note that the difference between cognitive and somatic intentionality presented in the text concerns what intentional objects are presented. In addition, it is plausible, though entirely unnecessary for the point I am making here, that there is a difference is how intentional objects are presented. A cognitive intentionality presents worldly particulars as existing, worldly events as occurring, worldly Uriah Kriegel18 44 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 19 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 states of affairs as obtaining, etc. It presents its intentional objects, in other words, as real. Arguably, somatic intentionality presents its objects as stimulating (or as 'irritating' in an archaic sense). 12 Sustained analyses of the intentionality of emotion as cognitive in this sense (of being directed at the world as opposed to the body) can be found in Kenny 1963 and Lazarus 1994, among others. 13 This is not to say that I reject the argument's conclusion as well. In the next section, I will argue that the conclusion is strictly speaking true, though a modification thereof can be rejected that retains its spirit. 14 This is not to say that grief process is nothing but the sum of those grief episodes. 15 The notion of phenomenal intentionality is introduced under this terminology independently by Horgan and Tienson 2002 and Loar 2003. But the general idea that there is a distinctively experiential kind of intentionality is present already in Loar 1987 and McGinn 1988, and indeed Brentano 1874. 16 For my own take on the matter, see Kriegel 2011 Chs 1–3. For a partial survey of work on this notion, see Kriegel forthcoming. 17 I offer my own account of what phenomenal intentionality exactly is, including how we should understand talk of being 'inextricably tied,' in Kriegel 2011 Ch.1. 18 The term 'cognitive phenomenology' comes from Pitt 2004, but the notion expressed by it, and the phenomenon denoted by it, are argued for already by Goldman 1993 and Strawson 1994. 19 In any event, such elements of grief involve a phenomenal intentionality is directed at (non-bodily) worldly objects. 20 Solomon 1976 argues for the somatic indistinguishability of many emotion pairs. Solomon also infers from this a phenomenal indistinguishability, though I contend that he does so only because of an illicit acceptance of the Jamesian conception of emotional phenomenology. It is remarkable that from a first-person point of view we can certainly effortlessly and non-inferentially distinguish disappointment from indignation, which suggests (though not entails) that there is more to their overall phenomenology than their somatic phenomenology. 21 Arguably this is also Brentano's 1874 view. Brentano argues that the emotive and the conative belong together in one department of the mind, opposed as it were to the cognitive. He does not propose, however, to reduce the emotive to the conative. His reason for classifying the conative and the emotive together is that, on his view, their intentionality presents the good in the same sense the cognitive presents the true. The claim that emotion presents the good is in fact shared by Stocker (1996 Ch.2) and thus is unlikely to undermine the irreducibility of affectivity. 22 This is (recall) the objection that proceeded as follows: 1) emotions involve a cognitive intentionality; 2) emotional phenomenology does not involve cognitive intentionality; therefore, 3) emotions are not exhausted by emotional phenomenology. 23 For pure cognitivism, see Solomon 1976 and Nussbaum 2001; for what we may call 'impure cognitivism,' see Marks 1982 and Gordon 1987-all inter alia. 24 Indeed, although I am not going to go over this here, a superficial survey of discussions of the cognitive (or conative) dimension of emotion in the relevant literature reveals that the kind of cognitive (or conative) state the author belabors is virtually always a paradigmatically conscious one, the kind of state that is a perfect candidate for being described as possessing cognitive (or conative) phenomenology. I entreat the reader see this for himself or herself by looking at the relevant literature (e.g., the cognitivist authors cited above). Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 20 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 25 It is an independent question whether beliefs can also be conscious. In everyday talk, the expression seems somewhat forced, and some have argued that belief is necessarily unconscious (Crane 2001). 26 Thus whatever the place of the term 'feeling' in one's bookkeeping system, as long as the cognitive dimension of emotion is agreed to be consistent with the notion that emotion is essentially phenomenal, I am happy. To the extent that cognitive theorists are happy with this as well, there is indeed no disagreement between us here. To the extent that cognitive theorists are unhappy with this, and take their cognitivism to undermine the essential phenomenality of emotions, there is. 27 If a technical notion is needed for some theoretical purpose, let a theoretical label be introduced for it-'a17' might prove good, as it would wear its technical nature on its sleeve! 28 I suspect that what in fact happened was rather subtle process, whereby the separatist picture that casts feeling as essentially non-intentional had been at some point so entrenched that commitment to the non-intentionality of feeling had become so deep that it treaded on the vague border zones between what is analytic to 'feeling' and what is synthetic. Sadly, this dynamic appears pervasive in philosophy. 29 They are: (1) cognitive; (2) conative; (3) somatic; (4) affective; (5) cognitive and conative; (6) cognitive and somatic; (7) cognitive and affective; (8) conative and somatic; (9) conative and affective; (10) somatic and affective; (11) cognitive, conative, and somatic; (12) cognitive, conative, and affective; (13) cognitive, somatic, and affective; (14) conative, somatic, and affective; (15) cognitive, conative, somatic, and affective. 30 They are combinations (1), (2), (3), (5), (6), (8), and (11) in the note 29. 31 This kind of brutely disjunctive thesis would be better stated as follows: for any emotion E, what makes E have the emotional phenomenology it does, and have one at all, is that E has the cognitive, conative, somatic, and/or affective phenomenology it does, and has one at all. This differs from FEEL* with respect to the scope of the universal quantifier. 32 Davies' 1995 counter-example is of sub-personal computational states in the visual system-Mark's 1982 '2.5D sketches'. Different examples also involving sub-personal mental states-whether computational or neural-are provided in Horgan and Kriegel 2008 and Kriegel (2011 Ch.4). It is plausible that, just as the visual system has computational and neural states that are not even potentially conscious, so the emotional system has such states. Thus, surely some emotional processing in the amygdala results in cerebral states that qualify as emotional but that are not even potentially conscious. 33 Searle's argument is that the intentionality of mental states exhibits an aspectual shape (e.g., they can represent Venus as Phosphorus without representing it as Hesperus), and this is a feature that only consciousness can bring into the picture-brute neural states cannot discriminate between Phosphorus and Hesperus. This argument is problematic in a number of ways, discussed by the commentators cited in the text. In addition, it is a substantive claim that emotional states' intentionality also features aspectual shape, though arguably quite a plausible one (see Montague 2009). 34 Writing independently of Searle, as far as I can tell, Cohen (1992: 4) writes this: 'belief that p is a disposition . . . normally to feel it true that p and false that not-p, whether or not one is willing to act, speak, or reason accordingly.' In addition, he explicates the 'feeling of truth' as follows: 'Feeling it true that p may thus be compared with feeling it good that p. All credal feelings, whether weak or strong, share the distinctive feature of constituting some kind of orientation on the "True or false?" issue in relation to their propositional objects, whereas affective mental feelings, like those of anger or desire, constitute some kind of orientation on the "Good or bad?" issue.' (ibid.: 11) Uriah Kriegel20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 21 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 35 The non-triviality is intended to rule out, for example, relations specified in disjunctive terms. Consider the relation of being either identical to or conscious. This is a relation to conscious states that any mental state bears, yet it does not seem to underwrite the kind of substantive connection principle we seek. It would be nice if we had a general and informative characterization of what makes a relation non-trivial, but short of that I am just lumping them all under a label . . . 36 Thus just as FEEL is only one particularly restrictive version of FEEL*, so NATURE is just one particularly restrictive version of NATURE*. 37 It used to be something of an article of faith that moods are non-intentional. In recent years, more and more philosophers have come to think that moods are intentional but have a somewhat peculiar intentional profile. More on this momentarily. 38 Consider this passage by Seager (1999: 183; emphasis in original) on what is perhaps the paradigmatic mood, depression: 'Being depressed in this way is then a way of being conscious in general: everything seems worthless, or pointless, dull and profitless. That is, more or less, everything is represented as worthless, or pointless, dull and profitless. It is, thankfully but also significantly, impossible for a conscious being to be in a state of consciousness that consists of nothing but unfocussed depression; there always remains a host of objects of consciousness and without these objects there would be no remaining state of consciousness.' 39 The general strategy of ruling out non-mental phenomena by homing in on a particular, privileged kind of intentionality may yet be viable, even if the version that identifies that privilege with being underived is not. Obviously, though, some concrete suggestion of how this would work would still be needed. 40 It might be suggested that mental states are distinguished by their potential to become phenomenally conscious, say, but this would clearly make the Privileged Intentionality suggestion collapse onto NATURE* (rather than present an alternative to it). 41 Indeed, this is arguably the main insight behind Putnam's 1967 argument for (and from) multiple realizability. 42 It cannot be a matter of being a system some states of which are (non-derivatively) intentional or play a certain (privileged) functional, for the reasons encountered in our discussion of the previous proposed mark theses. 43 It may be thought an intuitive cost of this view that it casts zombies as non-minded creatures. However, it is unclear that this is indeed a consequence of the view, nor that it is an untoward consequence. It may not be a consequence of the view for the following reason: although zombies are defined as creatures who are never in phenomenal states, it is not clear that they are by definition incapable of being in such states. It is a priori coherent for there to be a creature that never enters a phenomenal state but is nonetheless perfectly capable of doing so. Consider views of phenomenal consciousness according to which a state is phenomenal just in case it represents the right environmental features; and consider a creature that lives in a possible world that simply happens to contain none of those features. It would seem that, on such representational theories, the creature is never in a phenomenal state, but is nonetheless perfectly capable of being in one, at least in the sense that if it lived in a different possible world it would routinely represent the relevant environmental features. Thus it is only creatures who are incapable in principle of entering phenomenal states that are ruled unminded on the suggestion under consideration-and for such creatures it seems, upon reflection, quite plausible that they are not genuinely minded. 44 Indeed, it would entail a substitution instance of a certain generalization of NATURE* to all mental states (and not only emotional ones), namely, where Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. JOBNAME: No Job Name PAGE: 22 SESS: 10 OUTPUT: Wed Nov 30 18:22:14 2011 /v2451/blackwell/3G_journals/ejop_v0_i0/ejop_493 R is the relation of x-being-a-state-of-a-system-capable-of-entering-states-that-havey. 45 Ducasse's suggestion is also clearly too narrow, as many unconscious states are not private in all but the most esoteric senses of the term. For both Tartaglia and Ducasse, it makes sense to route their mark theses through the whole system: a mental state is a state of a system capable of entering introspectible/private mental states. The probable co-extension of the introspectible/private with the phenomenal would then make the suggestion collapse onto that of the last paragraph. In the same vein, one might hold that a state is mental just in case it is a state of a system capable of entering states possessed of phenomenal intentionality (something like this appears to be in the background of Horgan and Graham forthcoming). 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Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion 23 55 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.