Commentary

Reflexivity and Meta-Emotions in the Interdisciplinary Project for a Better 

Understanding of Emotions

Dina Mendonça

Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

Mendonça. 2023. “Reflexivity in the Interdisciplinary Project for a Better Understanding of Emotions.” Journal of Philosophy of Emotion 5, no. 1: 18-30. https://doi.org/10.33497/2023.summer.3.

Abstract: The localized commentary focuses on the way in which meta-emotions appear in the last chapter, and how reflexivity more generally is addressed. It shows how meta-emotions require a detailed explanation, which should capture  their role and place within the interdisciplinary theoretical proposal in the already dense book. Though the commentary is limited to this specific issue, it is important to acknowledge and admire the proposal for its unity based on an interdisciplinary foundation. It highlights why every theory of emotion seems to capture something important about the nature of emotions. Nevertheless, Mun’s book would have been greatly improved with the connection of her own proposal to previous work done on meta-emotion. Though it is understandable it did not take place in the book, this commentary aims to point out possible future research directions which will connect the unifying hypothesis with reflexivity of emotions. 

Keywords: meta-emotions, reflexivity, language, meta-semantic, intentionality

Interdisciplinary Foundations for the Science of Emotion, by Cecilea Mun (2021), is an ambitious philosophical book that may require more than one reading for a full understanding, and for posterior ongoing discussions. Overall, when a book is as dense as this one, it is almost impossible to give a final assessment of the reach of the project. Therefore, its evaluation will only be progressively attained as the various fields of expertise take up the proposal for the interdisciplinary foundation for the science of emotion. 

This commentary will focus on the way in which meta-emotions appear in the last chapter, and how it embodies reflexivity more generally. It will show how meta-emotions demand a more detailed explanation of their role and 

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their place in the interdisciplinary theoretical proposal than the one that is given in the already dense book. Before diving into this specific issue, it is important to recognize that this serious and thoughtful effort for unity based on an interdisciplinary foundation for the science of emotion is admirable. It underlies why every theory of emotion seems to ring a little bit true, explaining why “[w]hen one reads the various theories of emotion, one is invaded by the weird sense that everyone is right, even when philosophers and different fields of research are saying quite different, and sometimes opposite, things” (Mendonça 2012, 218). In this regard, Interdisciplinary Foundations for the Science of Emotion is a brave and bold attempt to overcome the mere acceptance of a pluralistic scenario concerning theories of emotion (e.g., Brady 2019; De Sousa and Scarantino 2018; Griffiths and Scarantino 2009). Overall the book stands as a step forward for the science of emotion, independently of which further parts of the overall project may be progressively validated by future research on emotion. 

THE UNQUESTIONABLE IMPORTANCE OF META-EMOTIONS

The recognition of the importance of meta-emotions is unquestionable, and it has been the focus of several articles in the recent literature (Jones and Bodtker 2001; Jäger and Bartsch 2006; Mitmansgruber et al. 2009; Hofmann 2013; Mendonça 2013; Jäger and Bänninger-Huber 2015; Norman and Furnes 2016; Howard 2017, Belli and Broncano 2017, Mendonça and Sàágua 2019). Though generally defined as emotions which have another emotion as its object, some thinkers have defined them as an emotional ground. For example, Belli and Broncano write that, “A meta-emotion is not purely an emotion about emotion as Gottman, Katz, and Hooven (1997) argue, but also a pre-emotion, a step before. We use the prefix ‘meta’ to indicate a step before a first-order emotion” (Belli and Broncano 2017, 430). Of course, the phenomenon itself is still to be fully worked out and it is still under discussion in the philosophical literature. Therefore, it is not clear whether there is one common phenomenon about which different scholars disagree on how to best conceptualize; or if the variation is due to the way in which these different scholars are identifying different aspects of emotional processes under the same concept. Given the uncertainty of the issue in the literature it is unfortunate that Mun does not show how her unifying proposal provides a theoretical framework to accommodate (or not) previous definitions of meta-emotions and its various meanings (e.g., Belli and Broncano 2017, 431), and how to critically evaluate them under her unifying proposal. 

Mun’s final chapter would have been greatly improved if it had explained in more detail how her proposal builds upon previous work on meta-emotion. This would have highlighted two important issues. First, how different meta-emotions (e.g., anger, sadness, righteousness) about a first-order emotion (e.g., jealousy) can give a very different take on the meaning of a first-order emotion, and consequently how a first-order emotion can differently impact one’s actions and attitudes. This is especially important for Mun’s project given that Feagin has suggested that there are not two different emotion names for first-order and second-order emotions, which makes it even more difficult to identify the distinction. That is, one recognizes the crucial distinction, even though the way in which first-order emotions and second-order emotions are not infallibly distinguished, because people use the same words to describe both types of emotional response (Feagin 1995, 208). If Mun had taken up this issue in the book I’m sure she would have further contributed to a better understanding of how a meta-emotion can also be understood as a pre-emotion, which anchors other cognitive and emotional processes, or if the description of meta-emotion as a pre-emotion is debatable, or how the same phenomena can be both a 

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secondary emotion as well as a pre-emotion. This would have paved the way to further explain how Mun’s three layers of languages about emotions—the first-order language of embodied emotional experiences, the second-order language of emotion words, and the third layer constituted by a meta-theoretical language of emotion (Mun 2021, 162)—have a great potential in providing tools for thinking more deeply about emotional layers of emotion. 

The importance of meta-emotions cannot be overstated. They have multiple theoretical implications both in other fields of philosophy as well as in other disciplines. For example, the effect of meta-emotions in experience is visible in ethical situations because meta-emotions modify the effect of emotions in action, in general. That is, a person who feels angry may be more inclined to undergo self-correction than a person who is merely sad about their first-order emotions, and a person who feels righteous about their attitudes and actions will, perhaps, act more freely in accordance with their jealous thoughts and feelings, than a person who is sad or angry about their first-order feeling of self-righteousness. The full exploration of these interactions between first-order emotions and meta-emotions is for now a philosophical claim, and the take from empirical research is that it might be useful to transfer what is already known about meta-cognition to further research on meta-emotion (Norman and Furnes 2016), though some recent work explores the connection to emotional intelligence (D’Amico and Geraci 2021). Nevertheless, when layers of emotions are introduced, we are more capable of explaining why, for instance, in the face of injustice, some people will speak out and take action, whereas others will remain silent and passive, depending on the evaluation and the scope of action they think is possible given the risks at stake (Mendonça 2018). 

META-LANGUAGE AND META-EMOTIONS

The meta-language of emotions introduced by Mun can provide further theoretical tools to explain why becoming aware of how meta-emotions offers a more detailed description of persons and situations, and may help people involved in disputes find a resolution to their conflict, as well as an overall good communication between different people (Jones and Bodtker 2001). This would have been an important complement to better understand the possible interactions of the three kinds of languages of emotions enumerated by Mun (common experiences of emotion, sense speech or theoretical language about emotions, and a meta-language for theoretical languages of emotion).

Even though the third layer described by Mun, which is constituted by the meta-theoretical language of emotion, indicates various degrees of reflexivity of the emotional landscape, the book fails to fully explain in detail how the third level, “constitutes the most reflective form of a language of emotion compared to the first two” (Mun 2021, 162). Part of the problem is how ”even though the existence of meta-emotions is undeniable and they have been identified in the literature at least since the 1990’s [Baier 1990, 24], attention of the phenomenon of meta-emotion has only recently become a strong focus of interest” (Mendonça & Sàágua 2019, 124-5). Meta-emotions have been defined as beliefs about primary emotional processes (e.g., Beer and Moneta, 2010; Ferrari and Koyama 2002), and as emotions which have other emotions as their objects (Pugmire 2005, Jäger and Bartsch 2006, Feagin 1995, Mendonça 2013, Howard 2017), others have labeled them as evaluative cognitions (Elster 1999a, 1999b; Bartsch et. al. 2008; 2010), others as conditions for all other emotions (Belli 

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and Broncano 2017), and others as a set of strategies to act on emotional information (Koven 2011) (refer to Mendonça 2013, Mendonça and Sàágua 2019 for further details). Usually, added reflexivity provides additional insight (Rosenberg 1990) that makes issues appear under a different and new light. So, part of the appeal of recognizing reflexivity is to describe the insight it can provide. In the last chapter, in which the reader hopes that this may be fully elaborated, Mun refers back to previous chapter writing that, “[b]ecause the focus of this chapter is to provide a sketch of a theory of emotion, and I provide an example of a meta-theoretical language of emotion in chapters 2 and 3, I will not further discuss this third kind of language of emotion in this chapter” (Mun 2021, 162-3). Thus, the reader is left with the strange impression that to fully understand the insight of the interdisciplinary proposal in what concerns meta-emotions, and reflexivity in general, it is necessary to go back and reread chapters two and three, and specifically on the description of the third language. Yet, if the reader undergoes this revision there will be nothing that helps the reader to illuminate the astonishing impact of reflexivity. In sum, a more direct link between the meta-theoretical language, which is about the already available theories of emotion, and the changes it brings to the first-order theoretical body of language, would have been important for the reader. 

THE REFLEXIVITY OF EMOTIONS

In “Reflexivity and Emotions,” Rosenberg showed that, “human reflexivity transforms the nature of emotions radically” in part because reflexive processes can be identified in virtually every important aspect of human emotions (Rosenberg 1990, 3). Rosenberg defines reflexivity as the process that happens when someone or something acts back upon itself, and there is more than one way to acknowledge reflexivity since it can be done by emotional processes themselves or by other mental processes. That is, reflexivity is testified by the way in which people feel about their own feelings, as in the case of meta-emotions (Mendonça 2013), by the way in which people think about their feelings, by how their desires reflect their feelings, and also by talking about their feelings. Thus, language clearly provides a special possibility for emotional reflexivity being theoretically explored with the third language of emotion proposed by Mun. Luckily, Mun can take up the topic in future research to show that the profundity of her proposal is able to accommodate a more detailed discussion of meta-emotions.

In addition, it is crucial to point out that, as Rosenberg explains, this reflexive ability is socially grounded. One of the reasons why Rosenberg thinks that this reflexive trait sets human emotions apart from the emotions of other species is because “[a]s a result of social interaction and communication, the human being comes to take itself as the object of its own cognitive and agentive processes” (Rosenberg 1990, 11). The social interaction is an unavoidable aspect of human emotion, and its link to language expression seems to be a unique quality of the human emotional experience. In light of this, one can raise the hypothesis that the third layer which proposes a meta-theoretical language of emotion can further explain how to better understand a meta-emotion’s regulatory mechanisms because of how it presents the various theories of emotions already available under a new unifying light, and this might ultimately help us to further understand the importance of the meta level. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that the meta-language is used for logical and semantical analysis and it does not obviously match the ‘meta-’ label used for describing self-conscious and self-reflective mental states. Thus, in addition to the needed discussion about how to take meta-emotions, it would have been important for Mun to 

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connect or separate the two uses of the conceptual philosophical label of ‘meta-’. This might have illuminated how and why reflexivity of emotion can generally contribute to mental health, and how meta-language about theoretical description of emotions can help to better understand the phenomena of emotion itself. Without a doubt, exploring this interconnection will greatly amplify the unification effort of Mun’s Interdisciplinary Foundations for a Science of Emotion. 

META-EMOTIONS AND THE REGULATION OF EMOTIONAL PROCESSES

The way in which meta-emotion can have an important role for the regulation of emotional processes doubly explains their use for explaining the installation of dysfunctional reflexive mechanisms, as well as how to find ways to overcome them. The way in which emotions can be layered, as when emotions take other emotions as their objects (Pugmire 2005, 174), grants the reflexivity of emotions the possibility of a regulatory role in the meaning and value of first-order emotions. For example, being angry about being sad, compared to being proud about being sad, is a completely different emotional experience of sadness. And since meta-emotions can have such an impact, the reflexivity of emotional processes modifies them and promotes a change in the whole emotional experience (Mendonça 2013, 394), which can be captured by a regulatory mechanism (Mendonça and Sàágua 2019). The importance of meta-emotions lies partly in the way in which they influence and mold the impact of a first-order emotional experience, and the transformative effect they can have is what can make them especially relevant (Mendonca 2013, 390). This means that, in addition to their role in the regulation of emotional processes, meta-emotions may offer a specific illuminating role to the linguistic expression and description of emotional episodes. For example, when explaining to another person a sense of mixed feelings about an issue, the introduction of a meta-layer improves communication because to say that one was emotionally confused is vaguer than to say that one was sad but simultaneously happy about being able to feel sad, even though it made the overall emotional experience feel more confused than simply feeling sad about the event. This happens because “information obtained with the description of meta-emotions is not simply a matter of having more information about the experience; the extra knowledge we get from meta-emotions may change the meaning of the experience altogether” (Mendonça 2013, 394). Ultimately, this additional power of naming layers for better descriptions highlights the way in which language helps people deal with emotions, and contributes to better regulate emotional processes. 

When we add to the conception of meta-emotion that they can also anchor situations, it becomes apparent that the way in which language can (or cannot) capture emotional experience makes a difference in the emotional experience and its communication. It would have been important to further develop the reflexivity of meta-emotion connected to the meta-semantic principle and consider its contribution to emotion regulation in opposition to emotion generation. For example, anger can be generated by an unfair situation while the regulation of emotion of anger refers to all the types of processes a person can acquire, develop, and cultivate to deal with the outburst of anger. Recognizing how emotion generation concerns what triggers emotions to appear and that emotion regulation refers to how one continues (or not) to experience the triggered emotion would have given an added sense of strength to the overall book. Importantly, because, according to some perspectives, the distinction between emotion generation and emotion regulation exists “on the assumption that the two are biologically distinct” (Gross and Barrett 2011, 4), Mun’s proposal could have shown its strength by 

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indicating how the interdisciplinary proposal can better deal with this added element of the distinction between emotion generation and emotion regulation. 

One possibility for Mun’s proposal would have been to explain that emotion generation is biologically different from emotion regulation and perhaps how the difference helps to better explain how meta-emotions can be thought, expressed and, consequently, also consciously examined. Mun’s interdisciplinary proposal is ideal for considering a variety of ways in which emotion regulatory processes occur: emotion regulation can be automatic or controlled, it can appear at the conscious or at the unconscious level. In addition, the regulatory process may happen in one go or be the outcome of an ongoing sustained process. This gives Mun the possibility of explaining why reflexivity does not necessarily award a positive self-corrective direction, even though it is an undeniable gateway for fruitful emotional development and improvement in patterns of emotional processes. 

Of course, emotion regulation is more apparent in researchers who adopt a basic emotion perspective or an appraisal perspective as opposed to theorists who see emotions more as a social and psychological construct (Gross and Barrett 2011, 8). Given that language might be the way in which people better grasp their emotional processes, and the way in which the regulation of emotion can be further reinforced, the exploration of this dimension of the philosophy of emotions can help everyone become more aware of how the different theoretical perspectives condition and format certain aspects of emotion research. Thus, the link of meta-emotions to language may turn out to be crucial for Mun’s interdisciplinary foundation for emotion theory, and it would have provided an added contribution to the interdisciplinary project. In addition, it would show experts from all areas interested in contributing a better understanding of emotions how to become aware of the theoretical bends and tendencies of the different theories, and, hopefully, to enable “theorists to be less at the mercy of the consequences of their theoretical assumptions and more able to incorporate areas of emotion research that appear within other theoretical perspectives.” (Mendonça and Sàágua 2019, 127)

So, even though Mun’s last chapter refers to meta-emotions and does justice to the reflexive nature of emotional processes, it fails to incorporate it in the interdisciplinary mood of the overall book project. Mun’s absence is not surprising, and mostly mirrors the general absence in the literature of emotion theory. According to Howard (2017), this happens because meta-emotions cannot satisfactorily be handled by theories of emotion at our disposal. For Mun’s proposal, this means more specifically that the issue of reflexivity in general, and the topic of meta-emotions in particular, was a missed opportunity to overcome this gap in the literature. 

META-EMOTION AND INTENTIONALITY

The challenge to integrate how meta-emotions demand a revision of the standard notion of intentionality (read Howard 2017) could have been taken up in chapters 6 and 7,  through Mun’s own revision of intentionality of emotions. As Howard explains, theories of emotions share an assumption about the intentionality of emotions that make it impossible to deal with meta-emotions properly. Emotion theories assume a type of tripartite model in which intentionality is given by the relation of emotion to the formal object “is mediated by another mental state, such as a belief, perception, memory, or imagining, that represents the object in question” (Howard, 2017, 3). That is, the intentionality of emotions is explained by the way in which the object of an emotion is 

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something given to us by way of other states (Deonna and Teroni 2012, 85). However, as Howard elaborates, “the simplest and most direct episodes of metaemotions . . . turn out to undermine the tripartide model as a thesis about the necessary structure of emotional intentionality” (Howard 2017, 6). That is, even though the tripartite model is capable of dealing with some cases of meta-emotions, it cannot deal with all cases. Theories of emotions are able to deal with meta-emotions when there is another mental state that represents the object of the emotion at stake, such as when one is “secretly proud” of the fact that one feels sad (Howard 2017, 4), because in this case the sadness must be represented to the person who feels it by another state, such as the belief that one is sad (Howard 2017, 4). It turns out that, in many other cases of meta-emotion, no other mental state is necessary to mediate (refer to Howard 2017n for full discussion). It would have been highly significant for Mun’s proposal to show how the interdisciplinary proposal, and her take on the intentionality of emotions, can better deal with this meta-emotion challenge. The chapters on intentionality could have provided the ideal opportunity to offer a way to handle the dense elaboration of how intentionality can be seen in light of the interdisciplinary proposal. 

In addition, because it has also been argued that theories of emotion are incomplete if they do not take up the challenge of meta-emotions (Mendonça 2013, Howard 2015, Belli and Broncano 2017), and at least one attempt has been made to show that a perceptual theory of emotion can overcome that problem (Mitchell 2019), not integrating the notion of meta-emotion within the general framework in more detail can be seen as a major misfortune. In addition, it brings to the surface another opaque issue of emotion theory namely: the link between emotional processes and language continues to be a difficult and yet promising focus for emotion theory. That is, because the notion of meta-emotion is not described in more detail in relation to the already existing literature on the topic, it does not accommodate the way in which the names for emotions and meta-emotions are the same. In an article entitled “The Pleasures of Tragedy,” Susan Feagin describes this difficulty by stating that both in ordinary and aesthetic contexts it is difficult to distinguish between emotions and meta-emotions, because we use the same words to describe both types of emotional response (Feagin 1995, p. 208). 

EMOTIONS AND THEIR LINGUISTIC EXPRESSION AS  KEY ELEMENTS FOR  INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH 

The interconnection between emotions and their linguistic expression in words and phrases is a key element in the interdisciplinary space for research on emotions (Niemeier and Dirven 1997). It is a specifically difficult and problematic issue (Wierzbicka 1999; Wilce 2007) because of its many ramifications and its overall complexity. For the present purpose, three remarks will suffice to show the potentiality of Mun’s work. First, Mun’s proposal did not take up the problematic issue of how research on emotion is connected to common sense taxonomy and descriptions of emotion, nor does it explain how emotion research can transform the common sense vocabulary. Mun seems to assume that there is a continuum between ordinary experiences that many people have about emotions, often translated in common sense language about emotions, and research. She writes:

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“When I speak of ordinary intuitions about emotions, I am speaking of the ordinary experiences that many people have which allow them to determine not only whether or not someone is experiencing an emotion, but also (for many) which allow them to determine what kind of emotion they are experiencing to a certain extent.” (Mun 2021, 67)

However, the overall book is itself an effort to show that there is a loop between research and ordinary descriptions of emotional experience, which means the suggested assumptions might be misplaced. In fact, Mun is quite aware that the names people use to describe their emotions are not part of the standard vocabulary for research on emotions. Her interdisciplinary proposal is a recognition that many fields of research on emotions (e.g., psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience) take great effort to make sense of how hard it can be to bring to conscious awareness certain emotional processes. Not only is it the case that people often badly identify what they are emotionally experiencing, some emotional experiences may also mask others (Pugmire 1994, 114). Also, and perhaps more importantly, part of the research on emotions from a great variety of fields aims to provide insights to the daily life experience of emotions that are not provided by common sense accumulative information about emotions. For example, the notion of meta-emotion can grant a different way to examine people’s disagreements (Jones and Bodtker 2001); and the argument for how instances of akratic feelings are also a part of the emotional landscape can give added insights into how emotions affect action and mental health (Mele 1989, Mendonça 2016). Clearly preventing the readers to make such an assumption will greatly help readers of the book to better understand its greater goal of unification.

Second, when language and emotions are taken into consideration often there is the underlying assumption that everyone speaks a language with full control and full knowledge of the specific language spoken (English, Portuguese, French, German, Mandarin, Spanish, Polish, Arab, etc.). Authors often ignore the variations, and the different ways people speak a language (British, North American, Australians, Jamaican, English as lingua franca, etc.), even though variations occur among different nations or places in the globe, or even between different areas in the same country, and between different individuals. The variations pointed out are ignored despite the way in which they can be decisive for communication. In fact, one might raise the hypothesis that there is a sense in which this variation may be responsible for specific creative activities, and can be seen as a fundamental part of the emotional labor of artistic creative processes. 

Third, if this is true of emotion words, it is also the case for the meaning of the ordinary word emotion. Despite Mun’s statement that there is nothing problematic about the label, because all the different senses refer back to the general English language word of emotion (Mun 2021, 38), some previous research has shown that even this is problematic (Griffiths 1997, Dixon 2003),  and emotion words also partake in historical transformations worth considering (Smith 2015). Consequently, the continual reference and appeal to first-person intuitions demands that variations between people, nations and cultures, as well as historical developments be taken into account, for these have also been refined, changed by both scientific developments and artistic endeavors. 

Mun’s proposal of a meta-semantic level is a good promise for a transformative contribution, and may in the future show its potential. Perhaps it will reveal how language fails to capture emotional experience, or how language enables capturing aspects of emotional information beyond common sense understanding. However, 

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this promise is only half fulfilled and perhaps a more detailed description of the role of meta-emotion combined with the third language of emotion, at the meta-semantical level, may be what is required for its full development. 

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Notwithstanding the limitations identified, it remains important that Mun’s work, Interdisciplinary Foundations for a Science of Emotion, offers a fertile ground to deal with the reflexivity of emotions, given both its recognition of meta-emotions and the promising connection it establishes between emotions and language. In sum, it provides a more complex and layered theoretical picture of the emotional landscape, which can provide future possible research directions for the philosophy of emotion and the general foundation for interdisciplinarity. 

I want to conclude by expressing joy in the fact that Mun’s work unquestionably provides a jump start and renewed opportunity to set out an interdisciplinary foundation for emotion theory. The need for a common ground for the pursuit of interdisciplinary research on emotion has been reinvented, and it will hopefully 

enable further successful dialogue among different research expertise and help every field of expertise to continue to contribute to a better understanding of emotions. 

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Notes

Acknowledgement: This work is supported by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., in the context of the celebration of the program contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of article 23.º of D.L. no. 57/2016 of 29 August, as amended by Law no. 57/2017 of 19 July and by Research Project UIDB/00183/2020. I would also like to thank both reviewers for helpful comments and to Cecilea Mun for the invitation to write the commentary.

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Dina Mendonçd © 2023

Author email: mendonca.emotion[at]gmail.com