Summary |
What
is a chair? What is a plant? What is reasoning? What is an emotion? Philosophers
are interested in these questions for different reasons. The reason why they
were interested in emotions was for a very long time that many of them considered emotions and rationality to be opposites. This is not the case any longer. There
exist appraisal theories, narrative theories, cognitive theories, perceptual theories and natural
reaction theories about emotions. Correspondingly to the particular theories
emotions are reconstructed as evaluative or normative judgments, as desires, beliefs,
appraisals, narratives, as perceptions, as an innate disposition, or else they combine one or
two of these aspects. Philosophers are interested in emotions nowadays for
quite many reasons. The relation between rationality and emotions is one of
them, not because they are regarded to be opponents any longer but
because of the cognitive role that emotions are thought to have. And then there
is a substantial interest in emotions in philosophy of mind. Emotions are considered
to be mental states, they are intentionally directed towards a situation or an
object and at the same time they seem to be bodily reactions that are caused by
something. These aspects make them to be ideal subjects for discussing
reductionism and representationism concerning consciousness and phenomenal
mental states. But these are not the only areas of interest when it comes to
emotions. Their role as values is also much discussed in ethics, namely in value theory, the area of
moral philosophy that is concerned with theoretical questions about value and
goodness of all varieties. The role of emotions for motivation is eventually discussed in action
theory. |