emotion as a way of knowing
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TaK - Emotion. Emotion as a Way of Knowing. TaK - Emotion. An enemy of reason? or An important precondition for knowledge?. TaK - Emotion. What are emotions for?. Do you think that Emotion is often looked at with suspicion? If so, why? . TaK - Emotion. TaK - Emotion. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Emotion as a Way of Knowing
TaK - Emotion
An enemy of reason?
or
An important precondition for knowledge?
TaK - Emotion
TaK - Emotion
What are emotions for?
TaK - Emotion
Do you think that Emotion is often looked atwith suspicion?
If so, why?
Emotion (noun)
• A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes;
• a feeling
TaK - Emotion
TaK - Emotion
Emotion Reason
Opposition?
TaK - Emotion
Emotion Reason
Opposition?
“We think and name in one world, we live and feel in another”
Marcel Proust
Do you agree?
TaK - Emotion
TaK - Emotion
TaK - Emotion
Emotion Reason
Balance?
TaK - EmotionEmotion Reason
Balance?
Emotion and Reason
Furious Gettingannoyed
Solving amaths problem
ReasonEmotion
TaK - Emotion
Not ‘either – or’,but ‘more - or – less’
TaK - Emotion
Why are we attracted to some human faces but not to others?
TaK - Emotion
Without emotion …
We would feel neither approval nor disapproval; attraction or repulsion; like or dislike…
Everything would be of equal valueNo part of the world more important than any another…
There could be no interest in any human relationship, in any work, in any play…
With no emotions, can there be goals?
TaK - Emotion
“Nothing great is accomplished in the world without passion”
Hegel
TaK - Emotion
TaK - Emotion
To what extent are we able to control our emotions?
Has anyone ever said to you,
“Stop crying, you’re being irrational!”
“You have no reason to be angry!”
“There is no reason to be afraid!”
Which emotion is the hardest to control?
“Anyone can be angry – that is easy.But to be angry with the right person
to the right degree,at the right time,
for the right purposeand in the right way – that is not easy.”
Aristotle
TaK - Emotion
Happiness
Sadness
Fear
Anger
Surprise
Disgust
TaK - Emotion
Primary or Universal Emotions
TaK - Emotion
Secondary or Social Emotions (Socially conditioned)
Embarrassment
Jealousy
Guilt
Pride
TaK - Emotion
Secondary or Social Emotions (Socially conditioned)
TaK - Emotion
Background Emotions (frequently not conscious)
• Well-being / Malaise
• Calm / Tension
• Fatigue / Energy
• Anticipation / Dread
TaK - Emotion
An Emotion Wheel designed by Robert Plutchik in 1980.
Eight basic emotions with their opposites.
Combinations: Optimism is composed of Anticipation and Joy. It’s opposite is Disapproval.etc
How does she feel?
How do you know?
The title is ‘Absinthe’Does that affect your understanding and interpretation of the picture?
Knowing emotion through perception
TaK - Emotion
Emotions as an obstacle to knowledge
• Perception – “love is blind”?• Reason – “my theory right or wrong!”• Language – use of slanted language –
“Oh, you can be so stupid!”
TaK - Emotion
Rationalisations
ExperiencesPowerful Emotions
Biased Perception
Fallacious Reasoning
Emotive Language
TaK - Emotion
Bill sees some people he assumes are immigrants standing on the street corner…
He feels irritated and angry …
He notices only lazy immigrants and overlooks hard-working ones …
He makes hasty generalisations from his own experience…
He concludes that immigrants ‘are idle’ and ‘don’t know the meaning of hard work!’ …
The above factors reinforce the original prejudice and make it difficult for Bill to be objective.
Emotions as a source of knowledge
Have you ever been in a situation where you had to choose between two equally
attractive options?
How did you come to a decision?
TaK - Emotion
What role do you think is usually played by emotion when
people decide which universities to apply to?
TaK - Emotion
Intuition• Core intuitions - our most fundamental
intuitions about life the universe and everything.
All human beings are created equal My friends are not aliens Murder is wrong Life is not a dream The laws of Physics will not break
down tomorrow
Things we consider to be ‘obvious’
TaK - Emotion
Intuition• Subject-specific intuitions – the intuitions
we have in various areas of knowledge such as science and ethics
Imagine you are standing on a flat plain holding a bullet in one hand, and a loaded gun in the other.
If you fire the gun horizontally, and drop the bullet at exactly the same time which of the two bullets will hit the ground first?
TaK - Emotion
Intuition
• Educated Intuition ‘Eureka!’ moments
TaK - Emotion
Intuition• Social intuitions – our intuitions about other
people, what they are like, whether or not they can be trusted etc
TaK - Emotion
Paul has arranged to meet Tom at 3pm. Tom arrives at 3.02pm and apologises for being late. Rather than accept the apology, Paul starts screaming and shouting about Tom’s lack of consideration and completely loses his self-control.
TaK - Emotion
The hospital phones Jane with terrible news. Her husband has been assaulted and is lying unconscious in Intensive Care. “Oh dear”, she says, “that is annoying! I was hoping to play tennis this afternoon, but I suppose I had better come and visit him.”
Showing too little emotion is, perhaps,as irrational as showing too much
TaK - Emotion
Imagine that you are presented with a special gift: a machine - the “Happiness Machine” – that can give you wonderfully positive emotions.
All you have to do is hook yourself up ... and switch it on.
But there’s a price: once the machine is switched on, you will not remember anything that happened before switching on the machine. Ever again.
Do you want to switch the machine on?Why?
TaK - Emotion
TaK - EmotionSome key points:
• The emotions are relevant to the search for knowledge because they provide us with energy, affect our thinking and are sometimes used to justify our beliefs
• The six primary emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust are found in all cultures
• Emotions are sometimes an obstacle to knowledge. Strong emotions can color our perception, distort our thinking and inflame our language
• Rather than think of reason and emotion as opposites, it may make more sense to say that our emotions can themselves be more or less rational
• Intuition is an immediate insight into something – sometimes valuable, sometimes to be treated with caution.
Questions…• How might it be said that all decisions and therefore
actions are based on emotion? Why is it we rely on these feelings as a higher form of certainty than raw, objective empirical data?
• What are the flaws in relying solely on emotion as a way of knowing?
• Despite these flaws, how do we integrate emotion to create justified true belief?
• In what areas of knowledge is emotion important?
TaK - Emotion
TaK - Emotion
What is the role of Emotion in your IB subjects?
ToK Essay Prescribed Title 2008:
“There can be no knowledge without emotion .... until we have felt the force
of the knowledge, it is not ours”
Discuss this vision of the relationship between knowledge and emotion.
TaK - Emotion
Emotion
LanguageIs language used more to persuade
or describe?
ReasonAre we driven
more by reason or emotion?
EthicsIs ethics more a
matter of the heart than the
head?
ArtsDo the arts
provoke emotions or purge them?
HistoryWhat role does empathy play in the historian’s
work?
Human Sciences
How much of a problem is bias in
the social sciences?
MathsHow important is
intuition in mathematics?
Natural Sciences
What does biology tell us
about the emotions?
TaK - Emotion