The World-Directedness of Emotional Feeling: On Affect and Intentionality

ISBN-13: 9783030238193 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 155 str.

Jean Muller

Opis

This book engages with what are widely recognized as the two core dimensions of emotion. When we are afraid, glad or disappointed, we feel a certain way; moreover, our emotion is intentional or directed at something: we are afraid of something, glad or disappointed about something. Connecting with a vital strand of recent philosophical thinking, Müller conceives of these two aspects of emotion as unified. Examining different possible ways of developing the view that the feeling dimension of emotion is itself intentional, he argues against the currently popular view that it is a form of perception-like receptivity to value. Müller instead proposes that emotional feeling is a specific type of response to value, an affective 'position-taking'. This alternative conceives of emotional feeling as intimately related to our cares and concerns. While situating itself within the analytic-philosophical debate on emotion, the discussion crucially draws on ideas from the early phenomenological tradition and thinks past the theoretical strictures of many contemporary approaches to this subject. The result is an innovative view of emotional feeling as a thoroughly personal form of engagement with value.

Recenzje

"Only at the moment when I feel awed by the breathtaking beauty of the Grand Canyon have I taken a stance, as it were, toward this beauty, which I already knew something about. So the more I notice how Müller's view does capture aspects of lived experience, the more plausible it becomes. I encourage others interested in the philosophy of emotions to spend time with this compelling new book." (Rick Anthony Furtak , The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 75 (298), December, 2021)

"This book should be read by those with interest in emotion. It is a perspicuous development of a distinctive view of emotional feeling." (Jonathan Mitchell, The Philosophical Quarterly, May 19, 2020)

Spis treści

Chapter 1: Introduction.- 1.1: The Significance of Emotional Feeling.- 1.2: Feeling, 'Cognizance-Taking' and 'Position-Taking'.- 1.3: Overview of Individual Chapters.- Chapter 2: Feelings and Formal Objects.- 2.1: The Felt Aspect of Emotion.- 2.1.1: Jamesian Aensations.- 2.1.2: Hedonic Tones.- 2.2: Formal Objections.- 2.2.1: The Significance of Formal Objects.- 2.2.2: Axiological Realism.- 2.3: Conclusion.- Chapter 3: Emotional Feeling as Receptivity to Value.- 3.1: The Manifest Image of Occurent Emotion According to the Axiological Receptivity View.- 3.2: How the Axiological Receptivity View Fails the Manifest Image of Emotion: Feeling Towards.- 3.3: Feeling Towards and Responsiveness.- 3.4: A Possible Concern: Affectivity and Directedness.- 3.5: Implications for the Significance and Structure of Formal Objects.- 3.6: Conclusion.- Chapter 4: Emotional Feeling as Position-Taking.- 4.1: The Idea.- 4.2: Substantiating the Notion of Emotional Position-Taking.- 4.2.1: The Personal Dimension of Hedonic Tone.- 4.2.2: Hedonic Tone as Position-Taking.- 4.3: Emotional Feeling as Position-Taking and as Evaluative Attitude.- 4.4: Conclusion.- Chapter 5: The Evaluative Foundation of Emotion Feeling.- 5.1: Feeling Value.- 5.2: Concern-Based Construals as Receptivity to Value.- 5.3: Construals and Conceptual Capacities.- 5.4: How to Think of Construals as a Form of Epistemic Access.- 5.5: Conclusion.- Chapter 6: Conclusion.

O autorze

Jean Moritz Müller, PhD, is a research associate at the University of Bonn, Germany. He works in the philosophy of mind, with a particular emphasis on the philosophy of emotion, and related areas of meta-ethics.

Blurb

 “The sustained criticisms Müller offers of standard accounts of emotional feeling should be taken seriously, and Müller's positive account is rich and interesting on its own […] The World-Directedness of Emotional Feeling amply repays the time invested in reading it.“

— Bennett Helm, Franklin & Marshall College, Pennsylvania, USA

“Concerning the widely discussed idea of the specific intentionality of emotions, Müller provides an original account. […] Rigorous, clear and accurate, this is a very fruitful endeavour.”

— Eva Weber-Guskar, Guest Professor of Philosophy, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany 

This book engages with what are widely recognized as the two core dimensions of emotion. When we are afraid, glad or disappointed, we feel a certain way; moreover, our emotion is intentional or directed at something: we are afraid of something, glad or disappointed about something. Connecting with a vital strand of recent philosophical thinking, Müller conceives of these two aspects of emotion as unified. Examining different possible ways of developing the view that the feeling dimension of emotion is itself intentional, he argues against the currently popular view that it is a form of perception-like receptivity to value. Müller instead proposes that emotional feeling is a specific type of response to value, an affective ‘position-taking’. This alternative conceives of emotional feeling as intimately related to our cares and concerns. While situating itself within the analytic-philosophical debate on emotion, the discussion crucially draws on ideas from the early phenomenological tradition and thinks past the theoretical strictures of many contemporary approaches to this subject. The result is an innovative view of emotional feeling as a thoroughly personal form of engagement with value.