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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2022

A Twardowskian account of emotional content

Résumé

There is no discussion around the fact that emotions do have a form of content, but its nature remains unclear [1]. In the wake of Brentano’s theory of intentionality, Twardowski [2] sketched a theory of content that can shed some light on emotional content – provided that we consider emotions as mental acts. Emotions have two peculiar properties that are of interest for us: they are simultaneously highly subjective but easily identifiable by outsiders [3], they can also be directed toward counterfactuals objects the same way they are toward regular ones. We want to show that those two points make the case for a Twardowskian theory of emotional content. First, the content can be the link between the subjective and collective. An intentional theory of emotions with only mind and object fails to account for the unpredictability of emotional reaction: many individuals may react differently to one event, furthermore, one individual is prone to react differently to the repetition of one event – in both case there can be contradictory reactions. Emotions stem from the personal interpretation of the world. When one shares an emotion, one shares two things: a content plus the emotion, and the two are received by outsiders. When Mathieu misses the train that would take him to his wedding, his anger may be directed toward the leaving train, but it makes sense because of the implications and they are not objectives, they are contextual to him. The power of his anger would not make sense for anybody unaware of the wedding, yet everybody would avoid him. Second, emotions can be misdirected: Mathieu is actually on the wrong platform, he did not miss his train. We have to consider the object as nonexistent but then how to make sense of his anger? The content of his anger is the link between the emotion and the counterfactual object. We believe that Twardowski’s ideas about objectless representation brings some clues for accounting for counterfactuals objects of emotions [4]. Twardowski [2] showed that, unlike objects, content exists only dependently to the mind. It behaves like a mental representation of the external world. If the direction of fit [5] of emotion in its conative sense – hence world-to-mind – is the most intuitive, the cognitive sense – mind-to-world – is the most interesting setting to study the content of emotions. This talk is not a rescue party for Twardowski’s theory of objects but a proposal of redirection toward philosophy of emotions. References 1. See Alex, G., Montague, M. (Eds.). (2018). Non-Propositional Intentionality (Oxford University Press, pp. 1–317). Oxford 2. Twardowski, K. (2010). On the Content and Object of Presentations. A Psychological Investigation. Melbourne International Philosophy Series, 4, 1–69. 3. See Ekman, P., « Biological and cultural contribution to body and facial movement in the expression of emotions » pp.73-102, in Rorty, A. O. (Ed.). (1980). Explaining Emotions (pp. 1–553). Berkeley: University of California Press. 4. See Benoist, J. (2001). Repr´esentations sans objet. Presses Universitaires de France. 5. in the sense of (Searl Searle, J. R., Vanderveken, D. (1985). Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. CUP Archive.

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Philosophie
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hal-04009913 , version 1 (01-03-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04009913 , version 1

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Marie Michon. A Twardowskian account of emotional content. The 3rd Context, Cognition and Communication Conference, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Warsaw & Center for Philosophical Research, Sep 2022, Varsovie (Université de Varsovie), Poland. ⟨hal-04009913⟩
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