TOK
2015-16
Name: ________________________________
Notes on WOK #4: Emotion
Essential Questions:
 What are emotions? Can we distinguish between emotions and feelings?
 Are there primary and secondary emotions?
 What is the nature of the interplay between emotion and reason?
 What are the purposes of emotions?
 Is emotion an obstacle to (filter) or a source (lens) of knowledge?
Quotations
 “To understand via the heart is not to understand.” (Michel Eyquem de Montaigne)
 “The mind leads, the emotions follow.” (Ayn Rand)
 “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)
 “No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.” (Eric Hoffer)
 “We think and name in one world, we live and feel in another.” (Marcel Proust)
 “The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground
exists; indeed, the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction.”
(Bertrand Russell)
 “Conquer your passions and you conquer the world.” (Hindu proverb)
1. Initial thoughts: What role does emotion play in the pursuit or acquisition of knowledge?
2. Primary emotions: fear, anger, disgust, surprise, happiness, sadness. (Do you agree?)
3. Secondary emotions: sympathy, embarrassment, shame, guilt, pride, jealousy, envy, gratitude,
admiration, indignation, and contempt
4. Some notes on the reading from Steven Pinker (“Hotheads”):
a. According to Pinker, are emotions universal or culturally determined? (And what is some
of the evidence he cites?)
b. What is Pinker’s (and Chesterton’s) view on whether emotions are determined or limited
(or even fully revealed) by language?
c. What does Pinker mean when he states that he presents “a distinctly unromantic theory
of emotions” in this chapter?
d. What, in Pinker’s view, is the “incorrect theory” of the Triune Brain?
e. This excerpt ends with Pinker’s claim for “the key to why we have emotions.” What is it?
5. If we have emotions so that we can set goals, are emotions necessary for the acquisition of
knowledge?
6. Is there a kind of knowledge that is emotional intelligence?
7. “Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right
degree, at the right time, for the right reason and in the right way – that is not easy.” (Aristotle)
Can that be taught?
8. Does pop culture shape how we experience love or other emotions?
9. Is emotion an obstacle (filter) to knowledge or a source (lens) of knowledge?
10. What is the nature of the interplay between emotion and reason?
Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio Damasio
(1994)
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“Emotion, feeling, and biological regulation all play a role in human reason. The lowly orders of an
organism are in the loop of high reason.”
The Phineas Cage story. What did it reveal? Something in the brain was concerned with human
properties such as the ability to anticipate and plan the future, sense of responsibility to self and
others. Ethics, responsibility. Decision-making little influenced by old knowledge
Cage lost the ability to plan his future as a social being. What does that imply about responsibility
and free will? What about others with similar difficulties but no apparent brain injuries?
Evidence: metaphorically, reason and emotion “intersect” in the ventromedial prefrontal cortext
Areas under investigation seem to be involved in
a. Planning and deciding
b. Processing emotions
c. Holding in mind over an extended period the image of a relevant but no longer present object
(Class thought experiment: What are the considerations and strategies that go into deciding where to
go for lunch with a friend?)
With James, says that emotions exist primarily as physical/body response. But differs by seeing
stimulus of mental processes – to evaluate, filter, modulate
Primary emotions – child – prewired --- triggers a bodily state (fear, e.g.). Stimulus – response.
Humans add a second step – to evaluate and to decide on behavioral options
Feelings and emotions are different. All emotions generate feelings. Not all feelings originate in
emotions.
Feelings based on emotions – happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust. Partly the emotion is created
by the body signals.
Damasio: mind comes from brain, but it is not brain only. Includes the rest of the organism and the
surrounding physical and social environment.
Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain by Antonio Damasio
(2003)
1. Emotions and feelings come together, but emotions seem to come first.
2. Emotions and related reactions are aligned with the body, feelings aligned with the mind. Thoughts
trigger emotions. Bodily emotions become the kind of thoughts we call feelings.
3. As Spinoza anticipated, science now sees “Living organisms are designed with an ability to react
emotionally to different objects and events. The reaction is followed by some pattern of feeling, and a
variation of pleasure or pain is a necessary component of feeling.”
4. Emotions precede feelings, even though feelings are principal – feelings are what really count.
5. Evolutionarily, emotions came first and feelings later. Emotions are built from simple reactions that
can promote the survival of an organism.
6. In all organisms, there is a relentless striving for self preservation – the fundamental essence of the
organism: survival and well-being,
7. Primary emotions – disgust, fear, happiness, etc. – aim directly at life regulation by staving off
dangers or helping organisms take advantage of opportunity, or indirectly by facilitating social
relations. Emotions’ evolutionary role. Some emotions in current human circumstances may be
maladaptive.
8. Our brain still carries the machinery to react negatively toward differences in people – racism and
stereotyping. A response that was useful at one time. But no longer. Need to be disregarded.
9. These emotions are innate but also learned. Need to be observed.
10. All emotions – life regulating phenomenon – have to do directly or indirectly with the integrity and
health of the organism
11. In humans, emotions result in feelings. Also humans can choose to (attempt to) override the
automaticity and mindlessness of the emotional machinery.
12. Emotions result in a temporary change in the state of the body
13. Prior to the emotional response, there is an appraisal phase
14. One of the key purposes of our educational development is to intersperse a non-automatic evaluative
step between causative objects and emotional responses
15. Evolution provided machinery for emotion – to produce reactions to an object or event. Then
machinery for brain map – mental idea of image and producing/changing the state of the
organism: feeling. Emotion allows organisms to respond effectively but not creatively.
Feelings (1) introduced a mental alert for the good or bad circumstances. (2) Prolonged the
impact of emotions by affecting attention and memory lastingly. In combination, with past
memories, imagination, and feelings, allowed for foresight and the possibility of novel, nonstereotypical responses.
16. Through either innate design or by learning, we react to most, perhaps all, objects with emotions,
however weak, and subsequent feelings, however feeble.
17. Damasio’s findings and hypotheses are in agreement with William James’ conjecture that when we
feel emotions we perceive body states!
18. What are feelings for? Emotions and feelings are necessary for decision-making – shaping the future
as beneficially as possible.
19. Emotions/feelings lead us to categorize the situations we experience. Emotions/feelings can be
associated with future outcomes of action, signaling an anticipation of the consequences of action –
signaling “Do” or “Do not” -- narrows decision-making space
20. The emotional signal is not a substitute for proper reasoning – it has an auxiliary role – increasing
efficiency of reasoning process and making it speedier
21. “Normal decision-making uses two complimentary paths;” one is reason-focused (A), the other is
dominated by emotions/feelings (B). Corresponded to Kahneman’s thinking fast (system 1) and slow
(system 2)
22. For humans, for 10,000 years at least, human survival and well-being has depended on additional
kind of non-automated (not innate/instinctual) governance.
23. Feelings, conscious mental events, call attention to the emotions that begat them, and to the
objects/events that trigger the emotions, as well as to their consequences. Feelings generate a
concern for the individual experiencing them. Concern for past, present, future, and thus
influence reasoning and decision-making process. Feelings improve and amplify the process
of managing life. Problem-solving requires (1) information-gathering provided by mental
processes, and (2) mental concern provided by feelings.