Hwa Chong Institution
EL Strand One 2012
Prepared by Mrs Jenny Wong
Emoticons
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“Be reasonable” rather than “be emotional”
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“If only he will stop being so angry and listen to reason.”
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“Will you calm down and stop being so emotional?”

“Stop being so hysterical and historical; be rational.”

“…most of the strongest passions are destructive-hate
and resentment and jealousy, remorse and despair,
outraged pride and the fury of the unjustly
oppressed…”
-Bertrand Russell
History of Western Philosophy
By the end of this lecture, students will
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be able to define and characterize emotions and feelings;
Be able to discuss the relationships between emotions and
the physical signs of emotions;
Be able to comment on both the traditional and modern views
of emotion and reason;
Understand what is meant by intuition;
Understand why our emotions are products of our
engagement with the world;
Understand that emotion can be a source of knowledge;
Understand that emotion can be an obstacle to knowledge.
Bertrand Russell
“I must, before I die, find some means of saying the essential
thing which is in me, which I have not yet said, a thing which
is neither love nor hate nor pity nor scorn but the very breath
of life, shining and coming from afar, which will link into
human life the immensity, the frightening, the wondrous and
implacable forces of the non-human.”
(British philosopher, logician, mathematician,
historian and social critic)
What is an emotion?
From Latin verb `movere’ meaning `to move’
“Impulses to act, the instant plans for handling life that
evolution has instilled in us.”
-D. Goleman
(Author , Psychologist and Science Journalist)
“A strong mental feeling.”
-Oxford Dictionary
“Emotions are feelings that are expressed through
physiological functions such as facial expressions, faster
heartbeat, and behaviours such as aggression, crying, or
covering the face with hands.”
-Linda Davidoff
(Psychologist and Author)
Defining an emotion

It consists of various internal feelings and external forms.
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It varies in intensity.
Passion: A strong emotion.
Mood: An emotion which continues for a period of time.
Primary Emotions
Which one is happy, surprised, angry, sad, fearful or disgusted?
Can you guess what are their emotions?
2 possible distinctions
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Instinctive emotions: anger, love
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Social emotions: guilt, shame
Inward-looking emotions: fear, where we are `drawn into
ourselves’
Outward-looking emotions: wonder, where we are drawn `out
of ourselves’
Do emotions cause changes in the body?
James-Lange Theory on the Origin and Nature of Emotions
“Within human beings, as a response to experience in the
world, the autonomic nervous system creates physiological
events such as muscular tension, a rise in heart rate,
perspiration, and dryness of the mouth.”
-Psychologist William James and physiologist Carl Lange.
Imagine…
You are about to sit an exam and you are feeling very
nervous. Your mouth is dry, you have a sinking feeling in the
pit of your stomach, the palms of your hands are sweaty, and
you want to go to the washroom. Now remove each of these
physical symptoms one by one.
What is left of your exam nerves?
Beliefs
Mental
How does emotion distort
other ways of knowing?
anguage
 Perception
 Reason
L
Rationalisation
A famished fox saw some clusters of ripe black grapes
hanging from a vine. She resorted to all her tricks to get at
them, but wearied herself in vain for she could not reach
them. At last she turned away, hiding her disappointment and
saying:
`The grapes are sour, and not ripe as I thought.’
Cigarettes are bad for
your health
I accept that smoking
is unhealthy
Either
I give up smoking
Feeling of tension
I continue smoking
or
I question the evidence
Rationalisation
Biased perception
Powerful emotions
Fallacious reasoning
Emotive language
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“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change.
Tell him you disagree and he turns away.
Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources.
Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.
We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a
strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has
some investment in his belief.”
Leon Festinger (1919-90)
(American Social Psychologist )
Irrational Behaviour
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Our emotion can distort our belief.
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Our emotion can lead us to make poor decisions.
How often have you said something in a moment of anger that
you immediately regretted?
Have you given in to temptation when it would have been better
to exercise self-control?
The Stoics believe that we should accept
our destinies unquestioningly.
Is the ideal situation one in which
we do not have any emotion
at all and could look at the world
in a balanced and objective way?
Apathy: literally `without passion’
-a situation in which the mind
could mirror reality in a calm and
untroubled way.
Emotion provides us with the energy to engage in intellectual
activity.
Emotion comes after empirical data has been processed rationally.
“The emotions help us to make rational decisions about things
by narrowing down our options so that we can choose between
a manageable number of them.”
.
-Antonio Damasio
Behavioural Neurobiologist
Going Further:
The quest to understand consciousness
http://www.ted.com/talks/antonio_damasio_the
_quest_to_understand_consciousness.html
Emotion-Reason Continuum
Emotional
Furious
Analytical
Getting annoyed
Solving a math problem
Decisions…
Peter has decided that he wants Helen to be his girlfriend.
He came to his decision by weighing up all of Helen’s good
points and bad points and comparing them with those of
other potential girls. Helen came out as the most rational
choice.
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What can be said for and against this way of deciding whom
you would go with or eventually marry?
How would you feel if you were Helen?
Knowledge Issues
Are emotions thoughts or
are thoughts emotions?
Are feelings emotions or
are emotions feelings?
Are feelings thoughts or
are thoughts feelings?
Irrational Emotions?
Yummy?
How do
you know
you are
in Love?
First Love
I ne'er was struck before that hour
First
Loveand so sweet,
With love so
sudden
I
ne'er
was
struck
before
that hour
Her face it bloomed like
a sweet
flower
With love so sudden and so sweet,
And stole my heart away complete.
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
My face
turned
pale as
deadly
pale.
And stole
my heart
away
complete.
My
legs
refused
todeadly
walk away,
My
face
turned
pale as
pale.
And when
what
My she
legs looked,
refused to
walkcould
away, I ail?
Andlife
when
shealllooked,
what
could Ito
ail?
My
and
seemed
turned
clay.
My
life
and
all
seemed
turned
to
clay.
And then my blood rushed to my face
And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away,
And took my eyesight quite away,
The
trees
roundthe
the
place
The
treesand
andbushes
bushes round
place
Seemed
atnoonday.
noonday.
Seemedmidnight
midnight at
I could
singlething,
thing,
I couldnot
not see
see aa single
Words
from
my
eyes
did
start-Words from my eyes did start-They
spokeasaschords
chords do
string,
They spoke
dofrom
fromthe
the
string,
And blood burnt round my heart.
And blood burnt round my heart.
Are flowers the winter's choice?
Are flowers
choice?
Is love'sthe
bedwinter's
always snow?
love'stobed
snow?
SheIs
seemed
hearalways
my silent
voice,
She seemed
to hear
my to
silent
Not love's
appeals
know.voice,
I
never
saw
so
sweet
a
Not love's appeals toface
know.
As
that
I
stood
before.
I never saw so sweet a face
My heart has left its dwelling-place
As that I stood before.
And can return no more.
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.
John Clare
1. You know, because you have been told by your significant other that your
deep feelings are returned in kind.
2. The object of your affections makes you feel special and good about yourself.
3. If/When you feel jealous, it is always fleeting; you trust your partner not to betray you or
hurt your relationship.
4. Nothing makes you feel as serene as when you and your partner are together.
5. When you fight with your partner, you usually make up within a few hours and you
always agree that nothing is more important than you both being able to express your true
feelings (even if they sometimes cause conflict).
6.Your partner never asks you to choose between him/her and your loyalties to your family
and friends-if you do choose him/her over them, you always have a good reason and it is
always YOUR decision and your decision alone.
7. Neither you or your partner feel the need to test the other’s loyalties or feelings.
8. You are more yourself when with your partner than you are with anybody else.
Teenadvice.com
“At the core of infatuation, is a chemical called
phenylethylamine (PEA). PEA comes from secretions through the
nervous system and bloodstream and it makes your heart
palpitate, your hands sweat, and your insides go funny.
Lovemaps are carvings of pain or pleasure axed in our brains
in early responses to our family members, our childhood
friends and our chance encounters. They are indelibly etched
into our subconscious. Without them there would be no falling
in love, no mating, and no breeding of the species.”
Dr John Money
(Psychologist and Author)
A moment of insight when you suddenly see the solution to a
problem without going through any conscious process of
reasoning.
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`Eureka! Eureka!’ Archimedes (287-212 BC).
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Flashes of creative insight.
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`Sixth sense’ hunches.
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Feelings we can’t really justified at time, but which are
strong and turn out correct.
KNOWING SOMETHING WITHOUT KNOWING HOW YOU KNOW IT
How do you know:
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I exist?
Life is not a dream?
1+1=2?
How to keep your heart beating?
Your friends are not androids?
You love your favourite type of music?
JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEFS?
Core intuitions-our most fundamental intuitions about life, the
universe and everything.
Subject-specific intuitions-the intuitions we have in various
areas of knowledge such as science and ethics.
Social intuitions-our intuitions about other people, what they
are like, whether or not they can be trusted, etc.
Reason-the laws of logic.
Perception-we cannot be sure on the evidence of our senses
alone that life is not a dream.
In an abstract sense, is all our knowledge
based on intuitions?
Romanticism
Emphasis on the importance
of the emotions for making
sense of the world.
“The heart has its reasons of which reason
knows nothing.” - Blaise Pascal
(French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher)
“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the
passions, and can never pretend to any other office
than to serve and obey them.” -David Hume
(Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his
philosophical empiricism, and scepticism)
Subject-specific intuitions
 Physics
 Biology
 Ethics
Could one of the aims of education be to
debug human intuition?
Social Intuitions
We tend to put a lot of trust in our intuitions about other people
and we pride ourselves on being good judges of character.
Can you tell someone is lying to you?
If something is intuitively obvious, must everyone
agree about it?
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Could you be wrong in thinking that something is intuitively
obvious?
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Whose intuitions should you trust?
Distinction between natural and educated intuitions, e.g. Chess
grandmaster
“By logic we prove, but by intuition that we discover.”
- Henri Poincare
(French mathematician and theoretical physicist, and a philosopher of
science)
Two necessary conditions for having good ideas:
1. A thorough knowledge of the relevant field.
2. Unusually good powers of concentration.
Expert intuition is generally more reliable than
natural intuition.
We need to test intuitions against other sources of
knowledge: reason, experience, other people’s
intuitions.
Difficult when reason and intuition may contradict.
At the end of the day, most people tend to go with
their intuitions.
Emotion is relevant in the search of knowledge.
Emotion provides the energy that fuels intellectual
endeavor.
Emotion plays a central role in our mental lives.
Some of our deepest beliefs about the world seem to be as
much intuitive matters of the heart as rational matters of
the head.
A balanced intellectual outlook requires both reason and
emotion.
Emotion can sometimes be an obstacle to knowledge
Having strong convictions about something does not in
itself guarantee it is true.
Rather than rely on any one way of knowing, we need to
test them against one another when trying to establish the
truth.
Knowledge issues:
Is there any kind of knowledge that can be attained solely
through emotion?
Is emotion an essential ingredient of the pursuit or validation
of scientific or artistic knowledge?
Can there be creativity without emotion?
Do people from different cultures experience their emotions
differently?
Reference:
Alchin, Nicholas. Theory of Knowledge. London: Hodder
Murray, 2006.
Acknowledgement with thanks:
Reference material from Mr Wong Ping Loong
Anglo-Chinese School (Independent)