A Comparison Between William James' and Jean Paul Sartre's Points of View on Emotions
What is an emotion? William James and Jean-Paul Sartre present two different arguments regarding what constitutes an emotion. This paper will explore William James' analysis of emotion as set out in his 1884 essay . It will attempt to discover the main points of his view, and then present Sartre's rebuttal of this view taken from his essay on emotions . Concluding with an explanation regarding why Sartre's account is flawed and James's argument is the stronger of the two, it will use outside examples to demonstrate the various weaknesses and strengths within the two perspectives.
William James analysis of emotion revolves around his theory that an emotion is nothing more than the senses and feelings we experience in our bodies that come about after we perceive something. He says that " … the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion". He gives several premises to back up this theory.
First of all, that if you were to take away the bodily changes and senses that we associate with an emotion that you would have nothing left of the emotion. He refers to the state of fear and how there would be no emotion left, if the feelings of "… quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing…" were taken away. It would simple be a state of being, as opposed to an emotional state. Presenting an emotion with out the bodily changes that are associated with it is, as James states, is "… inconceivable."
As well, James then states how difficult it is for human beings to re-enact the bodily functions that take place when an emotion...
... middle of paper ...
... same time, each representing a specific emotion. But it is much harder to imagine that the mind could transform a person's perception of an object in conflicting ways at the same time.
James' analysis of emotion is a much stronger argument than Sartre's. Its truth can be seen in many examples of past and present day. Although the common public definition of what entails an emotion will most certainly change, it is much more likely to fall in line with, or derive from similarities in James' definition, rather than Sartre's.
Bibliography:
William James,'What Is an Emotion?', from Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy, 3rd Edition, by Bowie, Michaels, Solomon pp. 394-98.
Jean-Paul Sartre,'Emotions as Transformations of the World', from Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy, 3rd Edition, by Bowie, Michaels, Solomon pp. 399-401.
To begin, I will give a brief overview on the effect emotions have on our media viewing experience. In particular, I will be examining the work of Noem Carroll and Carl Plantinga. Second, I will give a brief overview of the research that connects political humor viewing to positive outcomes including increased political knowledge, and the ability to learn various view points as well as greater understanding of one’s own viewpoint. Though, I understand that their is a raging debate between cognitivist and non-cognitivist. My goal is not to take a position on the debate, but I am merely going to give a brief overview of the literature on film and emotion. On one hand, Carl Plantinga argues that emotions can be defined as "Concern Based Construals.” To highlight this meaning, let us imagine that as I am writing this paper, I hear loud noises, as this is going on, unconsciously, my heart rate increases and respiration increase and I begin to develop the emotion of fear. This is similar to Noel Carroll’s theory of emotion, if not complimentary to Plantinga’s view. Carroll would say that emotions act as searchlights to help us focus on the perceptions necessary to deal with the current experience. Plantinga would concede that many of the affects associated with emotions occur in the cognitive unconscious. So, Plantinga is not saying that, “Emotions are mere judgements,” As Robert Solomon would claim, but emotions are driven by experience based on one’s personal perception. In other words, Plantinga is saying the these construals are based on one’s personal experiences, whether conscious or not. However, something should be said about Construals in of itself, th...
To further elaborate, Solomon suggests that emotions are normative judgements. An emotion is a marker of value to an object, action, or situation. Furthermore, in his writing, Solomon is very careful to distinguish a feeling from an emotion, feelings are not emotions. Solomon explains this discrepancy though the following reasoning: Firstly, emotions (and not feelings) are about something. Secondly, emotions cannot be distinguished into feelings. Third, emotions can last while no feelings do. Finally, feelings may persist beyond the experiencing of an emotion.3
Taylor, Richard. "The Mind as a Function of the Body." Exploring Philosophy. 4th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. 131-138. Print.
The situation in which I will be referring to throughout this essay is a family dinner celebrating my brother’s engagement to his fiancé whom my mother approves of but my father does not. The works of Arlie Hochschild on emotional work will be used to analyze the situational context. Arlie Hochschild is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley whose area of interest is in how individuals manage their emotions and perform emotional labor in places that require control over one’s character such as their workplace. Her work suggests the idea that emotion and feeling are social. In this Hochschild (1983) means that there are rules to how we feel in every situation such as birthday parties and trying to stay happy at them or funerals and being expected to express emotions of grief. An individual may engage in emotional work by changing their affective state to match the feeling rules of the situation, Hochschild (1983) refers to this as two concepts: surface acting and deep acting.
...levator, and The Hitchhiker by, all show that emotions can influence a person’s reality. In Monster by Walter Dean Myers, Steve sees everything that happens around him as a movie so he can escape his reality. In The Tall Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe, the main character is so uncomfortable with the old man’s eye that he murders the old man. In The Hitchhiker, Adam is so convince that the old man is a ghost so he is afraid of him when really, Adam is the ghost. Due to those stories, emotions can affect someone’s reality very significantly. In The Elevator, Martin thinks that the old lady is going to eat him, but she’s just looking at him. Emotions even change people’s perceptions in real life too, an example is when you’re home alone and you hear a random noise in your house, because of these reasons, emotion can, and do change a person’s perception about reality.
John B.Watson, R Rayner, (February, 1920), Journal of Experimental Psychology, Conditioned Emotional Reactions, Vol. lll, No. i.
Webb, Wilse. History Of Psychology. Theoretical & Philosophical Psychology 9.1 (1989): 44-45. PsycARTICLES. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Gerassi, John. Jean-Paul Sartre: Hated Conscience of His Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
This is demonstrated in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. On the other hand, the proposition can't be comprehended without an understanding of what precisely an air is. Aristotle accepted that demeanors are one of three aggregations of things that make up the spirit. Emotions and limits are the other two; they contrast from manners in that they are not inclined reactions.
An emotion begins with an individual’s assessment of the personal meaning of some antecedent event – what Lazarus
Hergenhahn, B.R. "CH.16: Psychoanalysis." An Introduction to the History of Psychology. 16th ed. Belmont: Michele Sordi, 2009. 516-45. Print.
Although Lazarus, similarly to Zajonc, believes that emotion and cognition are two separate processes, Lazarus thinks the belief is outdated. While Zajonc belief that emotion and cognition are two separate processes that can still be used for further work in the field. Also, Zajonc supports the idea that “emotion occurs very early in an encounter, perhaps even at the outset, cognitive processes, which take time to unfold, cannot be essential to emotion” (Lazarus, 1981), while Lazarus supports the belief that emotion does emotion does not flow from cognitive processes.
One famous pioneer in this area is Ekman (1973 in Shiraev & Levy, 2007, 2004) who classified six basic facial expressions as being universal and reflecting most emotional states. They are happy, sad, anger, disgust, surprised and fearful. Ekman (1973) proposed that the universality of emotions allows individuals to empathise with others and enables us to read other’s feelings therefore emotions must serve an adaptive purpose hence supporting the claim that they are universal (Darwin, 1972 in John, Ype, Poortinga, Marshall & Pierre 2002). Moreover, emotions are widely accepted to accompany...
The James-Lang theory began from two scholars called William James and Carl Lange . Despite the fact that they added to this hypothesis freely from one another, it is fascinating that they thought of the same thought around the same time (1884-1887). This hypothesis says that feeling is not specifically brought about by the impression of an occasion yet rather by the substantial reaction created by the occasion. This implies that, with a specific end goal to experience feeling, we should first experience the real reaction (e.g., quick breathing, dashing heart, sweat-soaked hands) that relates to the feeling. When we encounter the substantial reaction we encounter the feeling. Fundamentally, the hypothesis expresses that input from your physiological excitement and from the muscles included in your conduct causes your subjective sentiment frightfulness. The theory
Have you ever wondered why people have certain reactions? I chose chapter eight on emotions for my reflection paper because emotions are something that everyone has and feels, yet cannot always explain or react to in the way you would expect. Personally, I have never been great at responding to emotions in a way that I would not regret in the future. Thus, naturally being drawn to this chapter as a way to expand my knowledge on how to react to things more positively. I also wanted to learn why I feel a certain way after events that would not affect most people and be reassured about my feelings. Opposite to that, it is nice to see that, while not always productive, others have the same reaction habits. Overall, emotions are a complicated