Helpsheet created for Phi 383W, Spring 2002.
(Some overlap with Spring 2000 Jaggar helpsheet.)
Helpsheet for Assignment on
ALISON JAGGAR
Ancient Greek philosophers saw need for both rationality and passion (the charioteer and
the horse, to use Plato's metaphor). The point was to keep them in the proper ratio.
The 17th century redefined reason. It took the distinctions among reason, emotion, and
sense, and regarded them in this way: "reason" now meant deductive, inferential
reasoning; "emotion" was regarded as irrational. "Sense" if taken as "sensuality" was
assimilated with emotion as irrational, but, at the same time, "sense" was rehabilitated by
regarding sense perception as the raw data for inferential reason to act upon.
Jaggar's project can be seen as a (limited) attempt to "rehabilitate" emotion, which the
tradition has continued largely to associate with irrationality, and to devalue.
Contrary to the positivist tradition, emotions are:
 intentional: they are "about" something, not just "dumb" physiological
disturbances social constructs, not just individual physiological responses;
 our culture’s linguistic and cognitive resources influence what emotions
we think there are, as well as what sorts of emotional expression we think
are appropriate.
active engagements with the world;
 in fact, for the study of emotion, the distinction active/passive is
inadequate. Emotions are better thought of as habitual responses--and this
means they can be re-constructed.

implicated in observation (b) the experiential basis for values
NB: This means that emotion:
reveals something about the world
reveals something about society and is influenced by society
is a potential force for change
is a link between observation and valuation
The "Myth of Dispassionate Observation" is the idea that knowing results from detached,
dispassionate observation, while emotion has no place in the validation of knowledge.
The results of these beliefs include the following:
- Males are trained to be lacking in emotional awareness and flexibility, and, at the same
time are granted epistemic authority. Thus dominant [masculinist] values are
"naturalized" (made to seem natural or inevitable).
- Women also assume these dominant values--but not entirely; they also experience
dissonant, "outlaw" emotions.
Functions that "outlaw emotions" can have include:
- They can motivate inquiry
- They can allow us to perceive things differently
- They can lead to the articulation of the standpoint of the oppressed, which usually
provides less distorted knowledge than the standpoint of the dominant.
Conclusions:
- Emotions are "epistemologically indispensable, but not indisputable."
- Reconstructing knowledge is a process that requires a simultaneous reconstructing of
the self.
- Hence, attention to emotion, critical self-examination, and time spent developing
emotional acumen are essential parts both of social theorizing and of political practice.