Abstract
Emotion theory includes attempts to reduce or assimilate emotions to states such as bodily feelings, beliefs-desire combinations, and evaluative judgements. Resistance to such approaches is motivated by the claim that emotions possess a sui generis phenomenology. Uriah Kriegel defends a new form of emotion reductivism which avoids positing irreducible emotional phenomenology by specifying emotions’ phenomenal character in terms of a combination of other phenomenologies. This article argues Kriegel’s approach, and similar proposals, are unsuccessful, since typical emotional experiences are constituted by sui generis feelings towards value.
Highlights
Reductivism in Emotion TheoryMuch philosophical study of emotions attempts to reduce or assimilate emotions to either one, or a combination of, more familiar states
Note the originality of this approach: in contrast to aforementioned reductions of emotions to familiar mental states, some of which arguably have no phenomenal characters, we reduce emotional phenomenology to other phenomenologies
As is clear from discussion above, in claiming emotional phenomenology is sui generis one needs to provide an account of that phenomenology, and show it irreducible to the phenomenal characters of the state(s) the reductivist suggests
Summary
Much philosophical study of emotions attempts to reduce or assimilate emotions to either one, or a combination of, more familiar states. This article argues Kriegel’s reductivism, and similar proposals in the literature, are unsuccessful because typical emotional experiences include sui generis feelings towards value (FTVs for short).[6] Note, I do not claim FTVs exhaust the phenomenology of emotions—their overall phenomenal character may include proprioceptive, algedonic, conative, and cognitive phenomenology. 5 I go beyond Kriegel’s CP, and consider alternative proposals concerning algedonic, conative, and cognitive phenomenology, explaining why FTVs don’t reduce to combinations of these phenomenologies One worry about this approach is the conjunction of two ostensibly separate projects, (1) a critique of Kriegel’s, and similar forms of, reductivism, and (2) a positive characterization of emotional phenomenology as including sui generis FTVs. as is clear from discussion above, in claiming emotional phenomenology is sui generis one needs to provide an account of that phenomenology, and show it irreducible to the phenomenal characters of the state(s) the reductivist suggests. It is with this constraint in mind that (1) and (2) are pursued in tandem
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