The Rationality of Emotion

by De Sousa, Ronald

• ISBN13: 9780262540575
• ISBN10: 0262540576
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1990-03-14
• Publisher: Bradford Books

Summary

In this urbane and witty book, Ronald de Sousa disputes the widespread notion that reason and emotion are natural antagonists. He argues that emotions are a kind of perception, that their roots in the paradigm scenarios in which they are learned give them an essentially dramatic structure, and that they have a crucial role to-play in rational beliefs, desires, and decisions by breaking the deadlocks of pure reason. The book's twelve chapters take up the following topics: alternative models of mind and emotion; the relation between evolutionary, physiological, and social factors in emotions; a taxonomy of objects of emotions; assessments of emotions for correctness and rationality; the regulation by emotions of logical and practical reasoning; emotion and time; the mechanism of emotional self-deception; the ethics of laughter; and the roles of emotions in the conduct of life. There is also an illustrative interlude, in the form of a lively dialogue about the ideology of love, jealousy, and sexual exclusiveness. Ronald de Sousa teaches philosophy at the University of Toronto. A Bradford Book.

Author Biography

Ronald de Sousa teaches philosophy at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	xv
Getting Philosophically Involved with Emotion	1	(20)
Summary	1	(3)
Rationality	4	(5)
Objectivity	9	(1)
Activity and Passivity	10	(2)
The True Self; or, The Antinomy of Integrity	12	(2)
The Indeterminism of Reason and Nature	14	(3)
Ambivalence	17	(1)
Emotions as a Philosophical Hub	18	(3)
Models of Mind and Emotion	21	(26)
Summary	21	(3)
Parts and Functions	24	(6)
Two General Strategies	30	(6)
Some Typical Modern Theories	36	(11)
Emotion and Biology: Physiology and Function	47	(30)
Summary	47	(1)
The Chemistry of Love: Emotion and Physiological Control	48	(1)
Physiology and the Vocabulary of Emotional Description	49	(2)
William James's Theory	51	(12)
The Story So Far	63	(6)
The Systems Approach: Top-Down Biology	69	(8)
Evolution and Teleology: From Instinct to Intentionality	77	(30)
Summary	77	(3)
Evolutionary Explanations	80	(5)
Freudian Instinct: Determinism or Teleology?	85	(1)
Teleology and Natural Selection	86	(5)
Relative Irreducibility	91	(1)
The Unconscious Mind	92	(4)
Quasi Intentionality	96	(1)
The Importance of Singular Reference	97	(6)
Emotions and the ``Biologically Natural''	103	(2)
Three Morals	105	(2)
Emotions and Their Objects	107	(34)
Summary	107	(2)
What Are Objects? Six Problems	109	(4)
A Skeptical View	113	(1)
The Typology of Objects	114	(9)
Two Approaches to Canonical Emotion Ascriptions	123	(7)
Fungibility Revisited	130	(4)
Nonexistent Objects Again	134	(3)
Propositional Objects and Thought-Dependency	137	(4)
The Rational and the Objective	141	(30)
Summary	141	(2)
Truth, Objectivity, and Rationality	143	(6)
The Analogy of Perception	149	(9)
Six Principles of Rationality	158	(7)
The Irreducibility of Emotion	165	(4)
The Axiological Level	169	(2)
The Rationality of Emotion	171	(34)
Summary	171	(2)
Rational Desire	173	(4)
Subjective and Objective Desires	177	(3)
Self-Related Desires	180	(1)
Paradigm Scenarios	181	(3)
The Principles of Rationality Applied	184	(2)
Some Objections	186	(4)
What Are Emotions For? A New Biological Hypothesis	190	(6)
Some Consequences	196	(5)
Salience and Paradigm Scenarios: The Euthyphro Once More	201	(4)
Desire and Time	205	(30)
Summary	205	(2)
Desire and Temporal Aspect	207	(13)
Temporal Transference and Temporal Discounting	220	(4)
The Perspectival Relativity of Desire	224	(7)
Time and Rationality	231	(4)
Pathologies of Bootstrapping: Self and Others	235	(30)
Summary	235	(1)
How Much Can a Bootstrap Hoist?	236	(2)
Cognitive Bootstrapping	238	(3)
Self-Feigning	241	(2)
Attention and Will	243	(1)
Freudian Transference	244	(5)
The Social Dimension of Emotions	249	(4)
Lovers' Arguments	253	(5)
The Ideology of Emotions: Two Examples from the Natural History of Sexism	258	(3)
The Dialectic of Fungibility	261	(1)
The Paradox of the Phony	262	(3)
Interlude	265	(10)
True Love: A Meta-Lovers' Argument	265	(10)
When Is It Wrong to Laugh?	275	(26)
Summary	275	(3)
Three Arguments against Taking the Subject Seriously	278	(3)
Origins and Consequences	281	(2)
The Comic and the Tragic	283	(4)
Feeling and Thinking: The Walberg View	287	(2)
Phthonos, Wit, and Anhypothetical Humor	289	(3)
The Social Factor	292	(1)
Identification and Alienation: Inside and Outside	293	(2)
An Axiological Perspective on Laughter	295	(2)
Frivolity and Utopia	297	(4)
Emotion and the Conduct of Life	301	(34)
Summary	301	(2)
Ethics and the Avoidance of Emotion	303	(2)
Are Some Emotions More Moral Than Others?	305	(9)
The Expansion of the Ethical	314	(5)
Authenticity	319	(6)
Layers of Ambivalence	325	(4)
Three Basic Tragedies of Life	329	(2)
Conclusion	331	(4)
Appendix Labeled Sentences and Principles Discussed	335	(4)
Notes	339	(8)
References	347	(12)
Index	359