ORGANON 44:2012 Robert Zaborowski (Warsaw & Olsztyn, Poland) For L. FEELING OR THOUGHT – BOTH OR NEITHER? A SHORT REVIEW∗ [...] der Gedanke, der ganz Gefühl, ist das Gefühl, das ganz Gedanke zu werden vermag. Thomas Mann I The common and everyday manner of perceiving emotions is to define them as opposite to reason. Since reason is considered as the epistemological standard and because emotions are regarded from reason's perspective it follows that they are presented as secondary to rationality and, consequently, as negative. This fact is reflected in the coinage irrationality, often or mainly referring to affectivity. John Macmurray spoke about this tendency in the following way: Reason means to us thinking and planning, scheming and calculating. [...] reason is just thinking [...] emotion is just feeling [...] these two aspects of our life are in the eternal nature of things distinct and opposite; very apt to come into conflict and requiring to be kept sternly apart [...]1, but he questioned whether [...] we are right in dissociating the two aspects of our experience2. More recently, referring to modern researches, Michael Stocker has said even more sharply: Much of contemporary philosophical psychology is inadequate, and pathologically so. It omits, denies, or radically misunderstands affectivity or feeling. [...] What is notable, rather, is the absence of discussion ∗ The paper was presented at Symposium Fiction, Truth and Reality: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Uniwersytet Śląski, Katowice, Oct. 24–26, 2008. The slightly expanded conference version was ready to be published thereafter but never appeared. I am grateful to Anthony W. Price who made helpful comments at this time. More recently I have received comments from Douglas L. Cairns and Michel Stocker. I thank them both as well. Needless to say that all remaining imperfections of the text are of my own. 1 J. Macmurray, Reason and Emotion, London 1935, p. 15. 2 J. Macmurray, Reason and Emotion, p. 16. Robert Zaborowski 28 of affectivity, much less of the relations between it and reason and desire. This is true of near enough all contemporary philosophical psychologies [...].1 In several previous papers I concentrated on the issue of the relationship between thinking and feeling. Here, I intend to summarize some ideas I have presented earlier2. If however I refer to other philosophers this is because I believe they tackled this issue in an illuminating way even if they were using a different terminology. Hence it would seem odd not to mention them, especially because they give evidence of how long the emotion–reason relationship has been considered in a similar way to mine. If however my historical exemplification is a misinterpretation, I will accept all elements of the presented approach as my own. I need to say it plainly that I shall use feeling instead of emotion and thought instead of reason as generic terms for what is supposed to be the two domains of the family of psychic events, i.e. affectivity and rationality. II The main problem that originates from the so–called opposition between rationality and affectivity is that, if this opposition is to be accepted in terms of rationality and irrationality, it should be asked how rationality and affectivity – which are as different as rationality and irrationality are, i.e. opposed by their very natures – can be compared with one another and, consequently, how they can influence, deny or intensify one another. Furthermore, if they are actually heterogeneous, how it could be possible to postulate their agreement, harmony or anything else? The difficulty was pointed out notably by Spinoza and by David Hume, both of them ruling out the comparison between heterogeneous elements. For Spinoza says: 1 M. Stocker, Psychic Feelings. Their Importance and Irreducibility in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61, 1983, p. 5. 2 More generally, I think that the affectivity is better understood when (1) analyzed by means of multilevel perspective, (2) considered as inseparable from rationality or – to focus on the symmetry I am fond of – in the light of the mutual inseparability of affectivity and rationality. For (1) see R. Zaborowski, Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration as Applied to Homer's Analysis in: Positive Disintegration: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on the Theory of Positive Disintegration, (ed.) N. Duda, Ft. Lauderdale 2002, pp. 383– 393, R. Zaborowski, La crainte et le courage dans l'Iliade et l'Odyssée. Contribution lexicographique à la psychologie homérique des sentiments, Warszawa 2002, R. Zaborowski, Sur le sentiment chez les Présocratiques. Contribution psychologique à la philosophie des sentiments, Warszawa 2008, R. Zaborowski, Nicolai Hartmann's Approach to Affectivity and its Relevance for the Current Debate Over Feelings in: The Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann, (eds.) R. Poli, C. Scognamiglio & F. Tremblay, Berlin – Boston 2011, pp. 159–175 & R. Zaborowski, Max Scheler's model of stratified affectivity and its relevance for research on emotions in: Appraisal 8, 3, 2011, pp. 24–34. For (2) see R. Zaborowski, Les sentiments chez les Préplatoniciens et les modernes – coïncidences ou influences? in: Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki 52, 1/2007, pp. 47–74, R. Zaborowski , Feeling–Thought Linkage and its Forms in the Ancient and Modern Times in: Greek philosophy and the issues of our age, t. 1, (eds.) K. Boudouris & M. Adam, Athens 2009, pp. 230–240 & R. Zaborowski, On Time as a Factor Differentiating Feeling and Thought. Aristotle – Fortenbaugh – Antiphon the Sophist – Weininger in: Organon 42, 2010, pp. 71–82. For a less historical and more philosophical treatment see R. Zaborowski, Can language deal with emotions? in: Organon 37(40), 2008, pp. 257–268, R. Zaborowski, From Thumos to Emotion and Feeling. Some Observations on the Passivity and Activity of Affectivity in: History & Philosophy of Psychology 12, 1/2010, pp. 1–25 & R. Zaborowski, Is the Control of Emotion Possible? in: History & Philosophy of Psychology 14, 1/2012, pp. 34–52. Feeling or Thought – Both or Neither? A Short Review 29 An affect can't be restrained or removed except by another affect that is opposite to it and stronger than it.1 And Hume claims: [...] that as nothing can be contrary to truth or reason, except what has a reference to it, and as the judgments of our understanding only have this reference , it must follow, that passions can be contrary to reason only so far as they are accompany'd with some judgment or opinion2. Last not least, Friedrich Nietzsche's statement can be added: The will to overcome an affect is ultimately only the will of another, or of several other, affects.3 Therefore, the following principle – say a principle of a common denominator in conflict, a principle of homogeneity – can be put forward: two phenomena can be compared, be in accord or in discord, if and only if their generic nature is the same (and they differ as species) or if and only if they are of the same species (and they differ as subspecies). In fact, if feeling and thought can be in conflict, disagreement or agreement, it means either that thought and feeling are only names given to two homogeneous forces or that the description itself of the conflict is, according to Hume, nothing but metaphorical4. As he noticed: We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason.5 While this remark of Hume is often neglected and he is credited with the dichotomizing of passion and reason, in fact it turns out that he rejects the understanding of passion qua passion being in conflict with reason qua reason. III For the last thirty or forty years feelings have became an important topic. Whereas this is correct, we must not forget that affectivity had never ceased to interest philosophers. In the 20th century one of major contributions in this regard (Gefühl, not Emotion) was made by phenomenology. Currently many 1 B. Spinoza, Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order IV, Prop. VII, transl. J. Bennett [available from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com, retrieved May 2011]. 2 D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature II, III, III, (eds.) L. A. Selby–Bigge & P. H. Nidditch, [2nd ed.] Oxford 1978, pp. 415–416. 3 F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil 117, transl. W. Kaufmann in: Basic writings of Nietzsche, New York 2000, p. 276. 4 See R. Zaborowski, Some remarks on reason–emotion dichotomy & affective ambivalence in the light of psychological conflict (unpublished, a paper given in Cork (2010) and in Aberdeen (2011)). 5 D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature II, III, III, p. 415. For a similar way of speaking by using a metaphor or approximation see also Plato, Republic 435c9–d3, transl. P. Shorey, Cambridge MA – London 1969: [...] in my opinion we shall never in the world apprehend this matter from such methods as we are now employing in discussion. For there is another longer and harder way that conducts to this & Plato, Phaedrus 246a4–7, transl. H. N. Fowler, Cambridge MA – London 1947: To tell what it really is would be a matter for utterly superhuman and long discourse, but it is within human power to describe it briefly in a figure; let us therefore speak in that way. We will liken the soul to the composite nature of a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Robert Zaborowski 30 philosophers attempt to give an account of what feelings are. However, one might wonder if many of them are not mistaken. Quite like their opponents who advocate the dominance of rationality and for this reason can be justly accused of the over–intellectualization of emotion1, so they advocate the dominance of affectivity. But are they not then responsible, to a great extent, for an over–emotionalization of thought? Another essential point to be made is that beside the presence of the real supporters of either exclusive dominance of rationality or exclusive dominance of affectivity, there is another misunderstanding. Consider cogito ergo sum2 on the one hand and everything is Feeling on the other. Although it seems that cogito and feeling could not fit, one will be surprised that, instead, they signify here the same thing. For this I need to quote both contexts. The first comes from Descartes who puts it this way: Cogitationis nomine, intelligo illa omnia, quae nobis consciis in nobis sunt, quatenùs eorum in nobis conscientia est. Atque ita non modò intelligere, velle, imaginari, sed etiam sentire, idem est hîc quod cogitare.3 This statement of Descartes is not purely accidental because he maintains elsewhere: Res cogitans. Quid est hoc? Nempe dubitans, intelligens , affirmans, negans, volens, nolens, imaginans quoque, & sentiens.4 and, more explicitly: hoc est proprie quod in me sentire appellatur; atque hoc praecise sic sumptum nihil aliud est quàm cogitare5. The second quote, everything is Feeling, is by J. S. Mill: A Feeling and a State of Consciousness are, in the language of philosophy, equivalent expressions: everything is Feeling, of which the mind is conscious: everything which it feels, or, in other words, which forms a part of its own sentient existence. [...] Feeling, in the proper sense of the term, is a genus, of 1 P. Goldie, The Emotions. A Philosophical Exploration, Oxford 2000, p. 15 etc. 2 R. Descartes, Principia philosophiae I, 7 in: OEuvres de Descartes, t. 8, (eds.) Ch. Adam & P. Tannery, Paris 1957: ego cogito, ergo sum. 3 R. Descartes, Principia philosophiae I, 9. See also R. Descartes, Les principes de la philosophie I, 9 in: OEuvres de Descartes, t. 9, (eds.) Ch. Adam & P. Tannery, Paris 1957: Par le mot penser, j'entends tout ce qui se fait en nous de telle sorte que nous l'appercevons immediatement par nous–mesmes; c'est pourquoy non seulement entendre, vouloir, imaginer, mais aussi sentir, est la mesme chose icy que penser. 4 R. Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia II, 28 in: OEuvres de Descartes, t. 7, (eds.) Ch. Adam & P. Tannery, Paris 1957. See also R. Descartes, Meditations metaphysiques II, 22 in: OEuvres de Descartes, t. 9, (eds.) Ch. Adam & P. Tannery, Paris 1957: une chose qui pense est une chose qui doute, qui conçoit, qui affirme, qui nie, qui veut, qui ne veut pas, qui imagine aussi, & qui sent. 5 R. Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia II, 29. See also R. Descartes, Meditations metaphysiques II, 23: ce qui en moy s'apelle sentir, & cela, pris ainsi precisement, n'est rien autre chose que penser. Feeling or Thought – Both or Neither? A Short Review 31 which Sensation, Emotion, and Thought, are subordinate species.1 and: Of the first leading division of nameable things, viz., Feelings or States of Consciousness, we began by recognizing three sub–divisions; Sensations, Thoughts, and Emotions.2 Thus, each of them, Descartes and Mill, uses a different term, but, in fact, cogito and feeling are general labels designed to speak about the same, that is about the whole of psychic phenomena3. IV Now, one might wonder if this means that such categories as thought (reason) and feeling (emotion) are useless. In order to clarify this, I think, three levels of analysis should be distinguished. One is the linguistic level as in the case of Descartes vs Mill. Here the distinction is verbal because Descartes ' cogito means any psychic item, exactly as Mill's feeling does. There is no material reason to use this rather than that word for the whole of psychic phenomena4. For those who do not know the context5, the resulting impression is so misleading that, later on, it can produce a false interpretation6. For one could wrongly assume that Descartes appears to be over–intellectualizing, while Mill over–emotionalizing. 1 J. S. Mill, A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, t. 1, Book 1, ch. 3, § 3, London 1843, p. 51. 2 J. S. Mill, A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, t. 1, Book 1, ch. 3, § 6, p. 55. 3 This point has been noticed e.g. by R. W. Hoag, J. S. Mill's Language of Pleasures in: Utilitas 4, 2/1992, p. 251, n. 22 [= in: John Stuart Mill's Social and Political Thought: Critical Assessments, t. 1, (ed.) G. W. Smith, London 1998, p. 234, n. 22]: Mill's use of 'feeling' parallels Descartes's introduction of cogito (think) as a technical term to designate diverse sorts of mental states: doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing, imagining, desiring, and sensory perceptions. Meditations on First Philosophy [...]. 4 In some cases language– and culture–related factors can play an important role. This proves that differences between synchronical languages do not matter less than diachronical differences between epochs within the same culture or language. See e.g. R. Zaborowski, From Thumos to Emotion and Feeling. Some Observations on the Passivity and Activity of Affectivity. I wonder if, given the historical burden we inherit and can hardly get rid of, it should not be, at least provisionally, sensible to start using graphs or symbols for designating genera and species of feelings and thoughts, especially if someone is keen on not limiting himself to only one, say English or German language. 5 To refer to only one example, please look at J. Panksepp, Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotions, Oxford 1998, p. 309: Descartes might properly have announced not "I think therefore I am," but "I feel therefore I am." (quoted after K. Oatley, Emotion. A Brief History, Oxford 2004, p. 69). Here, one may doubt if Panksepp gave due consideration to the context. The result is more than misleading, since Descartes said what Panksepp wants him to say. 6 It is worth pointing out that Descartes himself became in this respect the victim of cultural falsification (e.g. Panksepp on Descartes in the previous footnote), quite similarly as he had falsified the Ancient view. See the opening of his The passions of the soul, transl. R. Stoothoff in: The philosophical Writings of Descartes, t. 1, Cambridge 1985, p. 328: The defects of the sciences we have from the ancients are nowhere more apparent than in their writings on the passions. But, in fact, the Ancients he is thinking about are (as it results from his 12th letter to Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia) Epicurus, Zeno and, to the largest extent, Seneca – thus the representatives of the post–Aristotelian period of Greek philosophy and with the last one being not Greek but Roman. This is why G. Madell, Emotion and Feeling in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary vol. 71, 1997, p. 172 is inaccurate when he says that [n]either Lyons nor Descartes gets Aristotle right – for Descartes does not refer to Aristotle in his Passions of the soul at all. Robert Zaborowski 32 The second level of analysis is a formal one. Some scholars speak about the intelligence of emotions1, while others speak about emotional intelligence2. Why? Is the choice of words accidental or deliberate? Apparently, both expressions are equivalent and interchangeable, as one may gather from the following: The field in which emotional reason expresses itself most directly is the field of art. The artist is directly concerned to express his emotional experience of the world. His success depends upon the rationality of his emotions.3 The common feature of both parties, supporters of intelligence of emotions and supporters of emotional intelligence, is, as it seems to me, the rehabilitation of affectivity by attending to its position and importance. But, the idea of bringing out the value of affectivity is not as new as some recent trends want us to believe. To speak only about the 20th century, Henri Bergson wrote: [...] emotion is a stimulus, because it incites the intelligence to undertake ventures and the will to persevere with them. [...] There are emotions which beget thought [...] An emotion is an affective stirring of the soul4, and Carl Gustav Jung5 stated five years later on that: The essential basis of our personality is affectivity. Thought and action are only, as it were, symptoms of affectivity.6 I suppose that the central problem presented by statements such as these is how to grasp the nature of the relationship between thought and feeling, which, as such, is beyond any doubt. The third level of analysis is a philosophical one. Here the first thing to do is to define that what is spoken about. Accordingly, two kinds of definitions must be distinguished, as succinctly stated by Mill7, Spinoza8 and Plato1: the 1 See e.g. M. C. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought. The Intelligence of Emotions, Cambridge 2001. 2 See e.g. D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, New York 1995 & J. Segal, Raising your emotional intelligence, New York 1997. 3 J. Macmurray, Reason and Emotion, p. 30 [emphasis mine]. 4 H. Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion [1932], transl. R. A. Audra – C. Breton – W. H. Carter, London 1935, p. 31. 5 But both, Bergson as well as Jung, are not discussed e.g. in: The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, (ed.) P. Goldie, Oxford 2010. 6 C. G. Jung, Ueber die Psychologie der Dementia praecox, Halle 1937, p. 42 (quoted after the translation of J. Hillman, Emotion, A Comprehensive Phenomenology of Theories and Their Meaning for Therapy, London 1960, p. 59). 7 See J. S. Mill, A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, t. 1, Book 1, ch. 8, § 6: [...] definitions of names, and definitions of things. The former are intended to explain the meaning of a term; the latter, the nature of thing; the last being incomparably the most important. 8 See B. Spinoza, Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order III, explanation to the definition 20, transl. J. Bennett [available from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com, retrieved May 2011]: But my purpose is to explain the nature of things, not the meaning of words. Feeling or Thought – Both or Neither? A Short Review 33 definition of a name is not the definition of a thing. The definitions of words are technically indispensable so that we be able to communicate2, yet from the philosophical point of view what is at stake is the definition of things. This is the fact that feeling and thought have become linguistic terms independent from one another to such an extent that it is hard to believe that they could refer to the same object. But this is also the fact that they both have become vague and polysemous. Nowadays there is no general consensus as to their meaning. If they be useful, it should be clearly explained to what psychic items they are meant to correspond by anyone who uses them. Otherwise, thought and feeling risk to be, and in fact they often are, nothing but empty concepts or hypostases that produce a misunderstanding, in which case it would be sensible not to use them any longer, especially when opposed to one another. Insofar as Macmurray3 and Stocker4, and some others5 make attempts at analyzing feelings as comparable with other psychic phenomena, their approach is inspiring for tackling the problem of feeling–thought relationship. On their view, affectivity is not secondary or subordinate to another domain, thought for instance. Feeling and thought constitute two realms of psychic phenomena, neither of them being reducible to the other. Adopting that kind of stance would be the first step in order to see more accurately the value and role of feeling and thought. V The next step is though to confirm this theoretical distinction. However, when I look for examples that would confirm it, I realize that I can hardly find any6 and, as a result, I would be rather inclined to recognize that it is difficult to distil such items as feeling and thought in crudo. It turns out that neither of 1 See Plato, Cratylus 439b4–8, transl. H. N. Fowler, Cambridge MA – London 1953: How realities are to be learned or discovered is perhaps too great a question for you or me to determine; but it is worth while to have reached even this conclusion, that they are to be learned and sought for, not from names but much better through themselves than through names. 2 And not only to communicate. See G. W. Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding III, 7, transl. J. Bennett [available from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com, retrieved May 2011]: [...] a precise analysis of the meaning of words would tell us more than anything else about the operations of the understanding. 3 See J. Hillman, Emotion, p. 191: The same pair of concepts form the title to Macmurray's book. Again the argument is for the union of the two [...] & E. McIntosh, Introduction to: J. Macmurray, Selected Philosophical Writings, (ed.) E. McIntosh, Exeter 2004, p. 6: Thus, a concept of the person that unites mind and body also redresses the balance between reason and emotion. [...] Macmurray's work is ahead of its time [...]. 4 See M. Stocker, Psychic Feelings ... , p. 5: [...] desire and reason, themselves, cannot be understood without imputing affectivity either to them or to the psyche. [...] affectivity cannot be understood in terms of reason and desire & p. 26: [...] we do have psychic feelings [...] they are interconnected with, but irreducible to, desire and reason. See also F. Alquié, La conscience affective, Paris 1979, p. 80 who focusses on le thème principal de ce livre: conscience affective et conscience intellectuelle [qui] sont irréductibles, but, on the other hand, he argues (p. 28) that: [...] la conscience de l'homme étant d'abord conscience affective. Contra R. Wollheim, Thought and Passion in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 68, 1967–1968, p. 1: [...] every mental state is identified by reference to a thought [...]. 5 I give these two names by way of a simple exemplification. Some others, though from mid–20th century, could be added, e.g. V. J. McGill, Emotions and Reason, Springfield 1954 or J. Hillman, Emotion. 6 See R. Zaborowski, On Time as a Factor Differentiating Feeling and Thought. Robert Zaborowski 34 them is, to use G. Madell's expression1, a theoretically dispensable varnish on the other which might conceivably be cleaned off to leave the other pure. Hence a hypothesis that feeling and thought are inseparable from one another. According to this hypothesis there is neither entirely thoughtless feeling nor completely affectless thought. Speaking about pure feeling tout court and pure thinking tout court is but a way of using technical abstractions for the sake of conceptual analysis2 but in reality they exist inseparably as an indivisible linkage of thought and feeling, i.e. as an ontologically indivisible linkage because made up of inseparable components. Descartes' no mountain without a valley3 would be a nice image of comparison here. The same with thought and feeling: not only there is no such thing as feeling existing in crudo and thought existing in crudo, but moreover, there is no clear–cut divide between them either. It is scarcely possible to indicate where one stops and the other starts. In this regard, when speaking about a psychic event, it is more appropriate to treat feeling and thought as poles rather than as components. Again, as in the case of deeper and shallower valleys and higher and lower mountains, here too, a particular psychic event represents or contains more/less affective and less/more reflective component. Consequently, in what follows I shall consider mostly the affective pole of the phenomenon or, let us say, the phenomenon in its affective perspective. From the historical point of view it is fair to mention that the idea of an indivisible linkage of feeling and thought, both naturally inseparable from one another, can be found in Ancient Greek thought4. This approach is embedded in Ancient Greek language insofar as several linguistic items, of which a well known example are noein and noos5, included feeling– as well as thought– meaning at the same time. Alternatively, in Plato's description of the soul, to quote only one example of a systematic and more explicit approach, each of its three parts relates not separately but simultaneously6 to different psychic 1 From his Emotion and Feeling, pp. 147–162. 2 In this sense I would be willing to accept the claim of P. Griffiths, What Emotions Really Are, Chicago & London 1997 – the most prominent critic of the unity of emotion considered as a natural kind – according to whom emotion is not a natural class but I would do so with a proviso that the same should be claimed about thought. They are not pure natural classes, none of them existing in a pure form. If, contrariwise, either of them is being referred as independent natural class, the conceptual deformation is rendered easier. 3 See R. Descartes, Meditations metaphysiques V, 52. 4 A. Ridley, Emotion and Feeling in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary vol. 71, 1997, p. 170 interpreting Aristotle mentions a picture in which thought and feeling emerge together, so that neither is more basic. Another point: on p. 175 he makes the following note: cf. Heidegger's remarks about the 'equiprimordiality' of thought and feeling: Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), pp. 175–176. I find nothing similar to this in the place indicated by Ridley. What I find is Heidegger's remark in § 31 – i.e. p. 182 of the same translation – on equiprimordiality of state–of–mind (Befindlichkeit) and understanding (Verständnis). The closest to a parallel of thought and feeling would be probably the connection between understanding and mood (the same page): A state–of–mind always has its understanding, even if it merely keeps it suppressed. Understanding always has its mood. 5 One of the most important proponents of this view is K. Kalimtzis, Taming Anger. The Hellenic Approach to the Limitations of Reason, London 2012. 6 For this reason I cannot agree with M. F. Burnyeat, The Truth of Tripartition in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 106, 2006, p. 13 that [...] if we are to understand Plato here, we must set aside the impoverished, instrumental conception of reason epitomized by Hume's famous dictum that 'reason is, and Feeling or Thought – Both or Neither? A Short Review 35 phenomena which we would classify as perceptions, sensations, bodily feelings and emotions of different kinds. VI Now, we are in a better position to see that the horizontal perspective is but a part of the whole panorama. As a matter of fact, it pertains to the inward structure of an ontologically indivisible – and divisible only conceptually – linkage consisting of thought and feeling. But the richness and intricacy of psychic phenomena makes it necessary to push the distinctions further. Affectivity considered conceptually as such or as the affective pole exhibits various characteristics. I take these characteristics to be various modi of affectivity such as, for instance, sorrow, shame, fear, love etc. This is, so to speak, another order of distinction conceived from the horizontal perspective. Thus, there are two at least genera of psychic activity: a psychic event feeling (affectivity–pole) thought (rationality–pole) then, second, species of the affective genus can be presented as follows: a psychic event feeling (affectivity–pole) thought (rationality–pole) joy sorr ow love hatr ed cour age sha me ... ... ... The first conceptual distinction concerns genera of feeling and thought, while the second distinguishes species of feeling (and of thinking – but I do not develop this point here; they can be such as doubt, consideration, judgment, hypothesis, conviction, imagining, suspicion etc.). Yet, they are both conceptual which means that as there is no feeling without thinking nor thinking without feeling, so here too: there is no pure species of joy, sorrow, love, fear etc. but any of these species is mixed up with other components or poles at the species level. Species of feelings do not exist in crudo but in linkages mixed up with other species and, of course, with the reflective component/s or pole as well. They exist in linkages even if in a particular case one component or pole can be slightly or strongly prevailing. What it is mixed up with depends on a particular occasion. So what stands, as argued above, for thought–feeling is valid now for species of feeling of which it would be hard to conceive a pure form of any of them, e.g. pure sorrow or pure love existing in a pure form without any other species of feeling. ought only to be the slave of the passions.' I would rather argue that Plato respects or, more correctly, anticipates what can be designated as Hume's principle (see above). First, as Hume explains it, this dictum has only a not strict and philosophical meaning, second, he states that in order to speak about two conflicting elements they must be akin to one another, third, in Plato's psychology the three parts of the soul are homogeneous in this sense, since they have similar functions, i.e. thinking and feeling etc. See R. Zaborowski, Some remarks on Plato on emotions in: Emotions in Pre– & Early Modern Mediterranean. A special issue of Mirabilia: Electronic Journal of Antiquity & Middle Ages 15, 2/2012, pp. 141–170. Robert Zaborowski 36 It seems to me that such conceptual distinctions may be found in Plato, Laws 896e8–897a4: Very well, then. Soul drives all things in Heaven and earth and sea by its own motions, of which the names are wish, reflection, forethought, counsel, opinion true and false, joy, grief, confidence, fear, hate, love, and all the motions that are akin to these or are prime–working motions [...]1, because Plato speaks here about various species of feelings and thoughts without using the label of feeling and thought. Yet, this second distinction cannot fully do justice to the question of affectivity either. This is so because its richness and intricacy go even further. We are not experiencing sorrow or love as species of affectivity – that would be too general – but rather this or that kind of love, a particular kind of joy. Conceptually – again, only conceptually, but not as separate ontological individuals – they can be conceived of as subspecies of the same species, e.g. for a species of joy there can be subspecies such as pleasure, satisfaction, gladness, happiness, bliss, etc., for love – sympathy, liking, love2, friendship etc. At this point it is important to notice that while the distinction between genera and species is of the horizontal order, the distinction into subspecies is transversal and, as it were, of the vertical order. This is why it is useful to explicate it by means of the notion of hierarchy and levels. What I mean is that these different kinds of sorrow, fear etc. cannot be transformed or obtained from one another. For example, gladness is by no means an extension of pleasure and happiness is not an extension of gladness. Although they are of the same modus, they differ – and should be conceived as differing – in rank or level. When introducing the notion of levels and hierarchy I draw mainly – but not only3 – on the ontological approach of Plato4 and, then, of Nicolai Hartmann5 who made this notion helpful for the construction of the whole reality. 1 Plato, Laws 896e8–897a4, transl. R. G. Bury, Cambridge MA – London 1967–1968 . 2 The same label, once for a species, once for subspecies items; see below. 3 Other philosophers observed too that the same object can be perceived in different ways because of different perspectives, as for instance G. W. Leibniz, Monadology 57, transl. J. Bennett [available from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com, retrieved May 2011]: And just as the same town when seen from different sides will seem quite different – as though it were multiplied perspectivally – the same happens here: because of the infinite multitude of simple substances it's as though there were that many different universes; but they are all perspectives on the same one, differing according to the different points of view of the monads. And also – more importantly because with relation to affectivity – F. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals III, 12 in: Basic Writings of Nietzsche, transl. W. Kaufmann, New York 2000, p. 555: There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective "knowing"; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our "concept" of this thing, our "objectivity," be. But to eliminate the will altogether, to suspend each and every affect, supposing we were capable of this – what would that mean but to castrate the intellect? 4 Plato's approach is, therefore, the most convenient for discussing affectivity within the human mind: he not only comprehended different psychic phenomena as united in linkages (see above) but also presented the human soul as deployed in strata. 5 For structural laws of the real world and category of strata (Schichten) of the real world see N. Hartmann, New Ways of Ontology, transl. R. C. Kuhn, Chicago 1953, pp. 43–53: The Stratified Structure of the World, pp. 73–83: The Strata Laws of the Real World & pp. 84–98: Dependence and Autonomy in the Hierarchy of Strata. See also J. H. Jackson, On Evolution and dissolution of the nervous system. Croonian Lectures in: J. H. Jackson, Feeling or Thought – Both or Neither? A Short Review 37 In what regards affectivity, this notion was made effective by Max Scheler who: [...] find[s] this phenomenal character of the "depth" of feeling to be essentially connected with four well– delineated levels of feeling that correspond to the structure of our entire human existence.1 Therefore, we approach affectivity as a whole by means of two axes – horizontal , i.e. modi of affectivity – and vertical, i.e. levels of these modi. If this proposal is relevant, the horizontality combined with verticality could be represented as follows: modus of sorrow modus of joy modus of fear modus of love ... despair bliss anguish friendship ... unhappiness happiness dread love ... sadness joy fear liking ... unpleasure pleasure concern sympathy ... NB. The choice of words is still provisional2. What I intend to underscore here though is the formal model of division valid for any group of feelings, i.e. any of modi of affectivity. Now, an individual occurrence of a feeling – or a thought – is such an intricate linkage that it is scarcely possible to grasp it conceptually. This is because it is not repeatable identically. For example one's this Monday blue3 is hardly describable in general terms, especially by ready–made concepts. It is, in fact, a linkage of several components at the levels of genera, species and subspecies and it is only one of its components, the one that is prevailing, in this case sadness, that makes us perceive it as sadness rather than unpleasure, sorrow rather than fear, feeling rather than thought. Selected writings, t. 2, (ed.) J. Taylor, London 1932, pp. 45–75 who made it clear that the structure of psychical functions is dynamic and hierarchic. See also Ch. Kennard & M. Swash, Hierarchies in neurology: a reappraisal of a Jacksonian concept, London – New York 1989 and J. Mazurkiewicz, Zarys fizjologicznej teorii uczuć, t. 1– 2, Warszawa 1930, J. Mazurkiewicz, Wstęp do psychofizjologii normalnej, t. 1: Ewolucja aktywności korowo– psychicznej, Warszawa 1950 & t. 2: Dyssolucja aktywności korowo–psychicznej, Warszawa 1958 (see also R. Zaborowski, Le mysticisme de Towiański dans l'analyse médicale de Jan Mazurkiewicz in: Organon 33, 2004, pp. 189–208). As for psychologists who insisted on the stratification of human reality see A. Maslow's hierarchy of human needs in: A. Maslow, A Theory of Human Motivation in: Psychological Review 50, 4/1943, pp. 370– 396, A. Maslow, "Higher" and "lower" needs in: Journal of Psychology 25, 1948, pp. 433–436 & A. Maslow, Motivation and Personality, New York 1954 and K. Dabrowski, Les dynamismes principaux de la desintégration à niveaux multiples in: Annales Médico–Psychologiques 119, 1/1961, pp. 225–234 & K. Dabrowski, Multilevelness of Emotional and Instinctive Functions, [2nd ed.] Lublin 1996 (see also R. Zaborowski, Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration as Applied to Homer's Analysis). 1 M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics and Non–Formal Ethics of Values. A New Attempt toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism, transl. M. S. Frings & R. L. Funk, Evanston 1973, p. 332. As far as I can know the notion of depth had been introduced into philosophy by Heraclitus. See his fr. DK 22 B 45 (DK = H. Diels & W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, t. 1 [1903, 6e ed. 1951], Hildesheim 1989). See also R. Zaborowski , Sur le fragment DK 22 B 85 d'Héraclite d'Ephèse in: Organon 32, 2003, pp. 9–30. 2 On the scarcity of vocabulary see below. 3 See R. S. Peters, Emotions and the Category of Passivity in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 62, 1961–1962, pp. 117–118: [...] our language for the different shades of emotion is too blunt. A man may feel blue on Monday mornings; but we do not have a word for the shade of blue he feels on a particular Monday. Robert Zaborowski 38 When accounting for individual occurrences of feelings we encounter the same problem as in Aristotle's dualism of general words vs individual objects. It means that our linguistic and conceptual tools do not grasp fully the real state of affective matters. Consider for instance the following parallel with the sensual, here optical, domain: if I want to describe the colour of a thing, how precise can I be? Will you still have an exact idea of its particular shade if I describe it without giving its THz? Will you be able to grasp from my description that it is, say, red that I have in mind? And even if I give you the THZ parameter how precise it should be? Is 450THz enough for my red or would 450,1THz be better in order not to think about, say, 450,9THz (I omit here the capacity of the human eye and think only about the degree of precision as to the colour parameter)? VII The above two perspectives, the vertical and the horizontal, are, again, distinguishable only conceptually, while in fact, they are inseparable. What I mean is that they form a conceptual package and neither of them is prior to the other. In this sense we can begin with distinguishing modi and, then, proceed to the levels of feelings or, alternatively, with distinguishing levels and, then, get to the modi of feelings. It means that one can say that there are different levels of the same modus and on the same level there are different modi, but also that there are several modi on the same level and of the same modus there are several levels. Therefore, then is not to be taken literally: we can proceed both ways but in a paper one cannot narrate both simultaneously and has to start with either of them1. From the conceptual point of view I would like to propose the following solution at the level of genera. There is one phenomenon: feeling and thought that are inseparably united2 in the linkage. What is supposed to be feeling and thought as such are two poles of the linkage3. These two poles should be nevertheless spelled out. The suggested bi–polarity consists of: spontaneity vs reflectiveness, immediacy vs delay, directness vs wariness, urgency vs procrastination, immediate calculation vs delayed calculation4. At their extremities these poles are opposing, but in the centre of the linkage the transition is smooth and one can hardly, if at all, pinpoint the border between feeling and thought5, similarly as in the case of a mountain and a valley. 1 For an analysis the other way round see R. Zaborowski, How a concept of hierarchy help to classify emotions? (unpublished, a paper given in Norwich (2009) and in Athens (2013)). 2 There are not separate so the word united is to be taken approximately, or: they are dissociated only by our considering them as separate conceptually, i.e. because of using separate concepts. In a word, the splitting into feeling and thought is only conceptual and if taken ontologically it amounts to a sheer reification. 3 If we assume that the whole act is to be described as feeling–thought–will linkage, then there will be three poles of such a linkage. 4 See S. Kierkegaard's, The Immediate Erotic Stages in: S. Kierkegaard, Either/Or, transl. A. Hannay, London 1972, p. 80: Reflection kills the immediate [...]. To complete this, it could be added: the immediate impede reflection. 5 See R. Zaborowski, On Time as a Factor Differentiating Feeling and Thought. Feeling or Thought – Both or Neither? A Short Review 39 Accordingly, it occurs that in a given phenomenon the more one pole is stronger, the more the other is weaker. Thus linkages can differ in constitution and, therefore, in functioning. If one linkage consists mainly in feeling–pole and its thinking–pole is weaker, in another one, if it consists mainly in feeling too, the proportion of feeling to thinking can be different. Still another one can be predominantly consisting in thinking with a weaker function of feeling. This remark is not limited only to the genera level since the feeling and thinking content can and in fact does differ as to the feeling and thinking species and subspecies too. Then one could say that in the linkage feeling and thinking are in different proportions but that the content of feeling and thinking differs also at the species and subspecies level. While we are used to term psychic events with labels of such and such emotions or thoughts, or such and such kinds of emotions or thoughts, in reality they are intermingled with other feeling and thinking species and subspecies. This is why from the ontological point of view it would be more appropriate to speak about different superposed linkages. The whole combined model – i.e. vertical plus horizontal perspectives – includes levels of linkages formed of what we are used to label as two opposed poles, i.e. feeling and thought. Therefore, instead of speaking from a classificatory point of view about psychic phenomena divided into feeling, thought, etc., and sub–divided into particular psychic phenomena such as joy, courage, fear, anger, love, sadness, etc. (being species of the genus feeling on the one hand) or doubt, consideration, belief, guess, judgment, hypothesis, presumption, conviction, imagining, suspicion etc. (being species of the genus thought on the other), let me suggest another taxonomy: – the most general conceptual level amounts to the family of all psychic phenomena, – at the second level there are conceptual genera of feeling and thought which are inseparable from one another; they are as poles of linkages understood at genera level, – at the third level – as for the genus of feeling – there are species – but, again, only conceptually – of the genus feeling; they are modi of feeling, for example Aquinas' 11 (love and hatred, desire and loathe, joy and sorrow, hope and discourage , fear and courage, and anger), Descartes' 6 (wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness) or Spinoza's 3 (joy, sorrow, and desire) principal emotions, – at the fourth level there are subspecies of modi, i.e. levels of modi, e.g. modus of joy including as sub–species: pleasure, gladness, hilarity, cheerfulness , happiness, bliss and a different modus of, for example, fear includes: alarm, horror, fright, scare, awe, panic, despair, terror, anxiety, anguish, dread, – at the last and most particular, individual level there is an atomic phenomenon , i.e. this or that instance of someone's pleasure, joy, gladness, hilarity, cheerfulness, etc. at such and such moment which, as argued above, is not a simple and pure but consists in various proportions of feeling and thought at the genus level, of several modi of feeling and thinking at species level and of Robert Zaborowski 40 their several subspecies, i.e. levels of modi1. These components at the genera, species and subspecies levels cannot be isolated and we extract them only conceptually2. The whole panorama of modi combined with levels could be presented as follows: family a p s y c h i c e v e n t genera feeling (affectivity–pole) thought (rationality–pole) species (as modi, i.e. horizontal) jo y so rr o w lo ve ha tre d fe ar co ur ag e sh a m e ... ... ... ... ... bli ss de sp air fri en ds hi p an gu is h ha pp in es s un ha pp in es s lo ve dr ea d gl ad ne ss sa dn es s lik in g fe ar subspecies (as levels, i.e. vertical) pl ea su re un pl ea su re sy m pa th y co nc er n NB. This is a theoretical model in which I am more keen on stressing its general shape rather than its particular elements which can and probably should be modified, to some extent at least. VIII That said, it is more clear in what sense when replying to the question from the title of the paper both answers turn out to be right. Either both concepts – feeling and thought – are useless, because they do not exist 1 As shown by Plato, esp. in the Phaedrus, an experience (e.g. lover's souls' experience) is complex in the sense that it is shared by all levels (resp. parts) of the soul. 2 Differently in different languages insofar as the nature of theses languages is different in this respect: if it is not, then they can present the concepts in question in a similar way. Feeling or Thought – Both or Neither? A Short Review 41 independently from one another and are but empty concepts or – for the same reason – they are useful provided that when I accept one, I am committed to accept the other. As long as they exist inseparably within an indivisible linkage they form, as such, a unity. In short, if taken separately neither of them is to be applied, whereas if taken in a linkage both are useful. And this holds both for the genera – feeling vs thinking – level as well as for species and subspecies levels. Yet, the difference between genera and species on the one hand and subspecies on the other should not be dimmed since they are as different as modi and levels are. What appears to us as an individual occurrence of a psychic event is a combination of feeling and thinking if taken at genera level, of several modi of feeling and of thinking if taken at species level, and of several kinds (levels) of modi of feeling and thinking, if considered at subspecies level. The combination at any level is made up of components united in proportions characteristic of this individual occurrence. At this point several further problems arise. First, regrettably, there is no sufficient terminology to deal with the classification of affective phenomena and, therefore, no way to approach them accurately in a satisfactory way. I realize that Heraclitus' and Scheler's depth as well as my polarity are used metaphorically, not strictly and philosophically, because these words describe physical and not psychic features. Next, I myself use level in two senses at least: as level of analysis, i.e. level of genera, of species, subspecies and individual occurrence and, on the other hand, with relation to the levels of modi. I also apply in some cases, e.g. joy or love, the same label for species as well as for subspecies items. Finally, while there is more or less agreement as to the term corporeal or sensible feelings, it is much less clear how to call the highest (or higher) level of affectivity1. Should it be termed e.g. spiritual feeling2, metaphysical feelings3, ontological emotion[s]4, existential emotions5 or existential feelings6? It would also be good to find a single term for the entire family of psychic events because psychic events is not good enough. We have seen that Descartes uses cogito while Mill feelings – provisionally I would go for feeling–thought but this is not satisfactory either. Even if what interests us here is the nature of things, not the meaning of words7, the latter, 1 For example, G. Madell, Emotion and Feeling, p. 155 – as it seems to me because of the inverted commas he puts – makes some reservation as to the term psychic feelings: feeling (whether bodily or 'psychic'). 2 E.g. M. Scheler, Formalism in Ethics ... , p. 332 & pp. 342–344. 3 E.g. S. I. Witkiewicz, Uczucia metafizyczne [1931] in: S. I. Witkiewicz, O znaczeniu filozofii dla krytyki i inne artykuły polemiczne, Warszawa 1976, pp. 28–32 & S. I. Witkiewicz, Geneza uczuć metapsychicznych [1932] in: S. I. Witkiewicz, O znaczeniu filozofii dla krytyki i inne artykuły polemiczne, Warszawa 1976, pp. 57– 60. 4 E.g. W. James, The Sentiment of Rationality in: W. James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, London & Bombay 1905, p. 74. 5 E.g. A. Morton, Existential Emotions, a public lecture given at the Royal Institute of Philosophy, Durham, April 23, 2010. 6 E.g. M. Ratcliffe, The Phenomenology of Mood and the Meaning of Life in: The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, (ed.) P. Goldie, Oxford 2010, pp. 349–371. 7 B. Spinoza, Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order III, explanation to the definition 20, transl. J. Bennett [available from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com, retrieved May 2011]. Robert Zaborowski 42 being a tool for dealing with the former, should be as precise and not metaphorical as possible. As for depth it must not mean intensity since intensity does not refer to separate levels, especially because one level is at no rate the result of an intensification of another. Maybe the structure of the indivisible linkages could be compared to Ingarden's concept of hierarchy of partly isolated systems. But then, it would be fruitful to look into how an atomic phenomenon possesses bi–polar features1. It should be explicated how one thing, one phenomenon presents as various features as what we call feeling and thought. Because of mixed functions it is not simple but complex2. For instance Ingarden claims that a human being, as a person is such a very complicated, partially isolated, system of a higher order, hierarchically built up out of many lower systems [...]3. Obviously, this calls for further investigation. Another problem is to know how feelings can last, if at all, given that they are identified with immediacy and spontaneity. Is there any lasting or repeated spontaneity or is a lasting feeling a continuum of subsequent spontaneities4? On the other hand, spontaneous thoughts should be explained too. To sum up. My aim in this paper has been to show that when it comes to investigate the human reality on its whole both the thought–position and feeling–position are partial. I would be of the opinion that in order to capture it better it is more suitable to adopt the holistic feeling–cum–thought–position. 1 See B. Russell, Introduction to: L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico–Philosophicus, London – New York 1922, p. 12: An atomic fact, although it contains no parts that are facts, nevertheless does contain parts. 2 The issue seems similar to that of knowing whether psyche is monoeides (Rep. 612a4) or polueides (idem): no conclusive solution is given by Plato in the Republic. In my opinion because of its identity it is monoeides, but because of its inner conflicts it is polueides. Another example can be a ball that will be described differently by a chemist, by a geometrician and by a soccer player. Plato's dialogues contain many of such examples, often they lead to aporiai. 3 R. Ingarden, On Responsibility. Its Ontic Foundations in: R. Ingarden, Man and Value, transl. A. Szylewicz, München – Wien 1983 [originally R. Ingarden, Über die Verantwortung. Ihre ontischen Fundamente, Stuttgart 1970], p. 87. 4 See R. Zaborowski, Affectivity in Its Relation to Personal Identity (unpublished, a paper given in Rome (2012) and in Exeter (2013)).