Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to offer up a structure of what I call Emotional Self-Knowledge—roughly, knowledge of one’s own emotions. I begin with a broad understanding of an emotion event, according to which emotion events include a set of bodily feelings in response to some object. I then argue that knowledge of the object and the feeling of the emotion are required parts of knowing one’s own emotions if we expect emotional self-knowledge to be prudentially useful. I then outlining three levels of emotional self. The first requires knowledge of the feeling on is experiencing; the second requires that knowledge plus knowledge of the emotionally-salient object. The final level is knowledge of one’s emotional dispositions, and as such is the most robust form of emotional self-knowledge. I conclude by examining some cases in which emotional self-knowledge can be usefully applied towards an agents own prudential goals.