Are emotions
constituted by feelings, thoughts or both? The emotional phenomenon of
‘heartbreak’ (which is well-documented in Western popular culture) supports the
commonly held view that emotions consist of bodily feelings and sensations.
Most people when asked to articulate the emotion of heartbreak would refer to
the sensation of pain in the heart or chest. However, despite much empirical
evidence for this common view of the emotions, various philosophers and
psychologists, over the past few decades, have criticized it as being flawed or
untenable. Although not always dispensing completely with the link between
emotion and body, such theorists have claimed that emotions are rational and
cognitive (i.e. not irrational, passive bodily feelings) because they involve
judgments and thoughts (i.e. cognitions). In his excellent new book, Gut
Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of the Emotion, Jesse Prinz challenges this
trend for cognitive theories of emotion via a re-examination and consideration
of the notion of emotion as connected to the body. Prinz concludes that emotion
is connected to the body far more than most cognitive theories allow or
recognize.  For Prinz, emotions are somatic (they are perceptions (conscious or
unconscious) of patterned changes in the body) even though they are also
fundamentally semantic.  In the first chapter of the book, Prinz gives a lucid
and interesting review of contemporary theories of emotion. This is an
excellent introduction for the reader who is unfamiliar with scientific and
philosophical research on emotion.  The second chapter is a detailed discussion
of the prevailing cognitive theories and Prinz’s claim that emotions are not
cognitive. Other chapters in the book consider important questions such as the
role of nature and nurture in emotions, how moods and motivations relate to
emotions, emotional valence and the distinction between positive and negative
emotions.  For the purposes of this review, I will focus on the second chapter
which forms the basis for Prinz’s overall thesis.

According to cognitive theories, emotions involve
judgments as to what we do and don’t care about; they evaluate, assess and
appraise.  For example, a person cannot be genuinely angry with someone unless
they think that someone has done some wrong to them. If someone has betrayed
one’s trust, one may feel indignation regardless as to whether their behavior
has had genuinely harmful effects. For cognitive theorists, the arousal of the
emotion ‘anger’ in this kind of case involves a judgment (or propositional
attitude) that ethical behavior is not just about consequences of actions.
Although philosophical cognitive theories of emotion differ in some respects
from those offered by psychology, Prinz argues that cognitive theories are
generally united by three core claims. First, that the cognitive components of
emotion are something above and beyond the bodily changes or inner states, i.e.
they are disembodied. Second, emotions are identified with appraisal judgments
and these appraisals can be used to individuate emotions. Third, emotions
require the possession of complex concepts. In summary, cognitive theories are
united by their vision of emotions as conceptualized, disembodied, appraisals.

Prinz’s
objections to cognitive theories are well supported and persuasive. First, the
fact that emotions take propositional objects does not entail that they must be
constituted by propositional attitudes or comparable cognitive states (Prinz
gives the example of feeling sickened by something as demonstrating this).
Second, Prinz is critical of the intuitive approach relied on by some
philosophers. As we all know, intuitions can be idiosyncratic and theoretically
biased. For Prinz, the intuition (found in many philosophical cognitive
theories) that one cannot be angry at someone without believing that someone
acted wrongfully can be easily doubted. It is perfectly intelligible for
someone to say that a drug made them feel angry. Conceptual analysis of
emotions is also prey to our intuitive beliefs about emotions and thus is prone
to error. For example, the things I may have learned about emotions from
others’ testimony or from my own musings may be inaccurate; there is no
guarantee therefore that conceptual analysis will give me a correct theory of
what emotions are. As Prinz eloquently puts it philosophical "reflection
may reveal more about the person reflecting than about the phenomenon on which
she is reflecting." The point Prinz is making here is that the reason some
people support or sign up to a cognitive theory of emotion may be more to do
with their own view or experience of emotion as opposed to an objective
analysis. Many of us will have come across or know people whose ’emotional
life’ seems quite dead or dull (mainly because they do not report or experience
emotions as deeply or powerfully as we do). Although it is certainly
understandable that a person who has never really experienced the searing power
of a bodily emotional response may find the cognitive theory of emotion more
‘intuitively’ appealing, that is not evidence for its universal correctness. As
Prinz argues in another paper on this subject, we can justifiably dismiss the
cognitive theorists’ supposed examples of disembodied emotions (such as the
aesthetic emotion felt by the well-trained art critic or enduring love) as
‘vague imitations’ or as insincere. To avoid these intuitive errors, and to
make our theories more objective, Prinz advises a combination of philosophical
reflection and conceptual analysis with scientific data.

The issue at
stake here is not whether thoughts can indeed effect emotions (this is an
obvious truism according to Prinz) but whether we can a) identify the thoughts
that influence the emotion and b) whether thoughts are necessary for emotions. Prinz
effectively points out that experimental evidence does not categorically show
either a) or b), particularly as many experiments rely on subjects’
self-introspection (which is not always reliable) and is often guided by very
specific, leading questions. According to Prinz, the way to respond to these
issues is to clarify what we mean by cognition. For Prinz, there is a
difference between a cognition (or a thought) and a cognitive act (or
thinking). One can have thoughts without thinking.  Prinz argues that emotions
do not occur as acts of cognition, that most of the time emotions are passive:
"When we react to a snake or an exam, it is not by act of will. We do not
choose to be afraid. In fact we often explicitly try not to be afraid." So
if emotions do not involve acts of cognition are they cognitive? According to
cognitive theorists the answer is yes. The ability to imagine emotions such as
anger, joy and fear suggests that we exercise cognitive control over our
emotions. However, as Prinz effectively argues, our capacity to willfully
generate emotions (based on memory) does not mean that our everyday emotional
episodes are conceptual (i.e. thoughts). The fact that we have stored copies of
our emotions in memory does not render them cognitive just as the fact that we
have the concept red does not make ordinary red experiences conceptual.
Moreover we may have no concepts, or capacity, to recognize some of our
emotions. In conclusion, Prinz claims that most of the time emotions are not
generated by acts of cognition and are not conceptual.

Although Prinz does not think that emotions are
cognitive, he is nonetheless concerned that somatic theories of emotion do not
adequately address the intentionality of emotions. Prinz’s aim is to fix this
problem without abandoning the core idea of somatic theories. To do this, Prinz
concludes that emotions are embodied appraisals (explored in detail in Chapter
10) and his argument for this conclusion is overwhelming persuasive.  First, Prinz
marshals together substantial empirical evidence which confirms the claim that
emotions are embodied. The most famous example is the ‘subtraction argument’,
offered by James and Lange, which claims that if we imagine an emotion and then
subtract all bodily changes characteristic of that emotion we are left with no
‘mind-stuff’ out of which the emotion can be constituted.  There is also
empirical evidence that people with spinal chord injuries or bodily anaesthesia
show a major reduction in emotion.  Furthermore, we often voluntarily change
our bodily states to impact our undesirable emotions (e.g. "smiles produce
happiness").  Also, direct scientific evidence comes from functional neuroimaging
studies which show that when people experience emotions, brain areas that
detect bodily changes are activated.  Second, and central to Prinz’s claim
about emotions being appraisals (albeit embodied ones), is Lazarus’s notion of
‘core relational themes’, i.e. organism/environment relations that bear on
well-being. Examples of core relational themes are dangers, losses, threats,
achievements and transgressions. In each case, there is an object, situation or
event that bears some relation to the organism. On the somatic theory, emotions
are perceptions of bodily states that are caused by changes in the body.  For Prinz,
if those changes in the body are reliably caused by the instantiation of core
relational themes, then our perceptions of the body may also represent those
themes (if we follow contemporary theories of mental representation whereby a
mental state gets its intentional content in virtue of being reliably caused).
We do not, therefore, have to abandon the core idea of the somatic theory in
order to capture the intentionality of emotions. An appraisal, for Prinz, is
not an evaluative judgment, but any representation of an organism/environment
relation that bears on well-being. Certain bodily perceptions have this
property and thus carry information about how we are faring in the world.

Prinz’s book is
utterly compelling and a valuable read for any student or researcher of the
emotions, philosophy of mind and perception. Although the book is superbly
written, a lot of the language is technical and many of the issues discussed do
require a reasonable familiarity with theories in philosophy and cognitive
science.  One objection to Prinz’s thesis is that it involves an acceptance of
his theoretical claims about cognitions, perceptions and mental representations
(which people may want to take issue with). (For more information on Prinz’s
theory about concepts see his book  Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and their
Perceptual Basis (2002) reviewed by James R Beebe on Metapsychology in March 2002).  However, based on
the evidence and argument in this book, there is no clear reason why we
cannot accept Prinz’s commitments and conclusion.  The notion that our bodies
have the capacity to appraise, and thus carry and generate meaning, is not only
very interesting but also confirms our everyday experience of emotion.
Following Plato and Descartes, Western philosophy has often blindly accepted
the view that the mind (or brain depending on your theoretical commitments) is
the sole carrier and producer of rational thought and understanding.
Philosophers who have challenged this view include Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger
and, over the past few decades, feminist thinkers who have successfully argued
that the privileging of ‘mind’ over ‘body’ has played a significant role in a
sexist hierarchy of language, where ‘mind’ is male and ‘body’ is female (with
‘body’ implicitly meaning inferior and irrational). However, historical
assumptions are hard to shift and even though nowadays it is generally accepted
that most communication is non-verbal, many philosophers still privilege
conceptual thought and speech as producers and bearers of meaning and
understanding. The idea that our bodies carry significant emotional information,
and with that the capacity for meaning and understanding, is not to degrade or
diminish our emotions. By recognizing that our emotions are embodied we give
them real substance. In summary then, our ‘gut reactions’ to situations or
people are not necessarily irrational and may tell us a lot more about
ourselves and the world than our mind could ever know or conceptualize. Or as
Shakespeare famously put it: "There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

© 2005 Adele Tomlin

Adele Tomlin is
a PhD student in Philosophy at King’s College, London and a Visiting Lecturer
in the Philosophy Department, University of Hertfordshire. Her current research
is on the value and significance of emotion in both ethical and aesthetic
experience. Forthcoming publications include Aesthetic Experience and
Perception (Routledge), co-edited with Prof. Richard Shusterman. More
information on Adele can be found at her website  http://www.freewebs.com/atomgirl/cv.htm

Categories: Philosophical, Psychology