Emotion as a Way of Knowing

TaK - Emotion

An enemy of reason?

or

An important precondition for knowledge?

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

What are emotions for?

TaK - Emotion

Do you think that Emotion is often looked atwith suspicion?

If so, why?

Emotion (noun)

• A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes;

• a feeling

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

Emotion Reason

Opposition?

TaK - Emotion

Emotion Reason

Opposition?

“We think and name in one world, we live and feel in another”

Marcel Proust

Do you agree?

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

Emotion Reason

Balance?

TaK - EmotionEmotion Reason

Balance?

Emotion and Reason

Furious Gettingannoyed

Solving amaths problem

ReasonEmotion

TaK - Emotion

Not ‘either – or’,but ‘more - or – less’

TaK - Emotion

Why are we attracted to some human faces but not to others?

TaK - Emotion

Without emotion …

We would feel neither approval nor disapproval; attraction or repulsion; like or dislike…

Everything would be of equal valueNo part of the world more important than any another…

There could be no interest in any human relationship, in any work, in any play…

With no emotions, can there be goals?

TaK - Emotion

“Nothing great is accomplished in the world without passion”

Hegel

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

To what extent are we able to control our emotions?

Has anyone ever said to you,

“Stop crying, you’re being irrational!”

“You have no reason to be angry!”

“There is no reason to be afraid!”

Which emotion is the hardest to control?

“Anyone can be angry – that is easy.But to be angry with the right person

to the right degree,at the right time,

for the right purposeand in the right way – that is not easy.”

Aristotle

TaK - Emotion

Happiness

Sadness

Fear

Anger

Surprise

Disgust

TaK - Emotion

Primary or Universal Emotions

TaK - Emotion

Secondary or Social Emotions (Socially conditioned)

Embarrassment

Jealousy

Guilt

Pride

TaK - Emotion

Secondary or Social Emotions (Socially conditioned)

TaK - Emotion

Background Emotions (frequently not conscious)

• Well-being / Malaise

• Calm / Tension

• Fatigue / Energy

• Anticipation / Dread

TaK - Emotion

An Emotion Wheel designed by Robert Plutchik in 1980.

Eight basic emotions with their opposites.

Combinations: Optimism is composed of Anticipation and Joy. It’s opposite is Disapproval.etc

How does she feel?

How do you know?

The title is ‘Absinthe’Does that affect your understanding and interpretation of the picture?

Knowing emotion through perception

TaK - Emotion

Emotions as an obstacle to knowledge

• Perception – “love is blind”?• Reason – “my theory right or wrong!”• Language – use of slanted language –

“Oh, you can be so stupid!”

TaK - Emotion

Rationalisations

ExperiencesPowerful Emotions

Biased Perception

Fallacious Reasoning

Emotive Language

TaK - Emotion

Bill sees some people he assumes are immigrants standing on the street corner…

He feels irritated and angry …

He notices only lazy immigrants and overlooks hard-working ones …

He makes hasty generalisations from his own experience…

He concludes that immigrants ‘are idle’ and ‘don’t know the meaning of hard work!’ …

The above factors reinforce the original prejudice and make it difficult for Bill to be objective.

Emotions as a source of knowledge

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to choose between two equally

attractive options?

How did you come to a decision?

TaK - Emotion

What role do you think is usually played by emotion when

people decide which universities to apply to?

TaK - Emotion

Intuition• Core intuitions - our most fundamental

intuitions about life the universe and everything.

All human beings are created equal My friends are not aliens Murder is wrong Life is not a dream The laws of Physics will not break

down tomorrow

Things we consider to be ‘obvious’

TaK - Emotion

Intuition• Subject-specific intuitions – the intuitions

we have in various areas of knowledge such as science and ethics

Imagine you are standing on a flat plain holding a bullet in one hand, and a loaded gun in the other.

If you fire the gun horizontally, and drop the bullet at exactly the same time which of the two bullets will hit the ground first?

TaK - Emotion

Intuition

• Educated Intuition ‘Eureka!’ moments

TaK - Emotion

Intuition• Social intuitions – our intuitions about other

people, what they are like, whether or not they can be trusted etc

TaK - Emotion

Paul has arranged to meet Tom at 3pm. Tom arrives at 3.02pm and apologises for being late. Rather than accept the apology, Paul starts screaming and shouting about Tom’s lack of consideration and completely loses his self-control.

TaK - Emotion

The hospital phones Jane with terrible news. Her husband has been assaulted and is lying unconscious in Intensive Care. “Oh dear”, she says, “that is annoying! I was hoping to play tennis this afternoon, but I suppose I had better come and visit him.”

Showing too little emotion is, perhaps,as irrational as showing too much

TaK - Emotion

Imagine that you are presented with a special gift: a machine - the “Happiness Machine” – that can give you wonderfully positive emotions.

All you have to do is hook yourself up ... and switch it on.

But there’s a price: once the machine is switched on, you will not remember anything that happened before switching on the machine. Ever again.

Do you want to switch the machine on?Why?

TaK - Emotion

TaK - EmotionSome key points:

• The emotions are relevant to the search for knowledge because they provide us with energy, affect our thinking and are sometimes used to justify our beliefs

• The six primary emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust are found in all cultures

• Emotions are sometimes an obstacle to knowledge. Strong emotions can color our perception, distort our thinking and inflame our language

• Rather than think of reason and emotion as opposites, it may make more sense to say that our emotions can themselves be more or less rational

• Intuition is an immediate insight into something – sometimes valuable, sometimes to be treated with caution.

Questions…• How might it be said that all decisions and therefore

actions are based on emotion? Why is it we rely on these feelings as a higher form of certainty than raw, objective empirical data?

• What are the flaws in relying solely on emotion as a way of knowing?

• Despite these flaws, how do we integrate emotion to create justified true belief?

• In what areas of knowledge is emotion important?

TaK - Emotion

TaK - Emotion

What is the role of Emotion in your IB subjects?

ToK Essay Prescribed Title 2008:

“There can be no knowledge without emotion .... until we have felt the force

of the knowledge, it is not ours”

Discuss this vision of the relationship between knowledge and emotion.

TaK - Emotion

Emotion

LanguageIs language used more to persuade

or describe?

ReasonAre we driven

more by reason or emotion?

EthicsIs ethics more a

matter of the heart than the

head?

ArtsDo the arts

provoke emotions or purge them?

HistoryWhat role does empathy play in the historian’s

work?

Human Sciences

How much of a problem is bias in

the social sciences?

MathsHow important is

intuition in mathematics?

Natural Sciences

What does biology tell us

about the emotions?

TaK - Emotion