Abstract
This chapter reconstructs the classical pragmatists’ position on human emotions, by assuming an original inquiring approach. It considers James’s, Dewey’s and Mead’s conceptions as contributions to an open theoretical laboratory in which the suggestions and unresolved difficulties presented by James were first discussed and developed by Dewey and then, immediately afterward, reconsidered and further articulated by Mead. At the same time, the paper develops a constant comparison with current contributions on this subject, coming from the most advanced trends in so-called “4E cognition” studies. The chapter highlights some of the most relevant theses derived from the pragmatist debate, such as the continuity between bodily and mental aspects, as well as emotion and cognition, sensitiveness and appraisal. It shows the possibility of articulating this discourse by distinguishing between emotions and the pervasive aesthetic, qualitative and affective aspects of our experience. Furthermore, it focuses on the social dimension of emotions conceived as basic forms of gestural communication. Many interesting convergences are emphasized that derive from the abovementioned comparison, while Mead’s insight into a primary social configuration of emotions is presented in its enduring relevance for current inquiries in affective neurosciences.
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Notes
- 1.
Both italics and capitals are James’s.
- 2.
- 3.
James distanced himself from Darwin and Lange’s attempt to identify a series of basic emotions and their correlated gestures in the re-elaboration of his essays on emotions, constituting Chapter XXV of his Principles of Psychology. Here he added an introductory section highlighting the limits of their “sort of descriptive work”. James makes explicit reference to Darwin (1998) and Lange (2012).
- 4.
- 5.
See Candiotto (2016) for an interesting comparison between extended mind approaches to intersubjectivity and enactivistic treatments of sociality.
- 6.
I originally developed an inquiry into the pragmatist conception of emotions independently of any engagement with this kind of current debate (in Dreon 2015). However, I think that the comparative inquiry I tried to develop in this work (thanks to Laura Candiotto and Pierre Steiner), makes the whole reconstruction clearer in terms of its theoretical implications as well as, hopefully, more challenging for current discussions.
- 7.
On the difference between Pragmatism and Behaviorism, see Mead (1934).
- 8.
It must be said that Deweyand Mead reserved the terms “mental” and “cognitive” for interactions between human organisms and their environments. Dewey preferred to speak of “sensitivity” in the case of animals capable of locomotion and Mead focused on conversations based on gestures between animals as emotional, not yet verbal gestures. In both cases, the interactions of nonhuman life forms are understood as being meaningful but not yet capable of establishing forms of triadic signification. This point highlights a difference in comparison to the enactivist equation of every form of “sense-making” with cognition. Deweyand Mead strongly felt the need to consider the peculiarities of human behaviour against the background of a basic continuity with other forms of life, although they did not deny that nonhuman animals can display a kind of intelligent and sensible behaviour.
- 9.
On this point, see Dewey (1988b).
- 10.
Jim Garrison suggests the idea that Dewey admired James’s functionalistic account of the psychic and quotes Dewey by pointing out that James’s idea of the organism was not a static one: on the contrary, he tended to “think life in terms of life in action” (Garrison 2003, p. 405).
- 11.
On this aspect, see in particular the chapter James devoted to habits in his book (James 1981). Here he speaks about the development of neural paths through use and environmental exposition.
- 12.
On this conception of the feeling body, see Goldie (2002, p. 236). This point is further confirmed by James’s The Physical Basis of Emotion (James 1983), where he argues that an emotion is a kind of secondary feeling indirectly aroused by an object, that is a feeling of one’s own body being affected by an external object. Besides, in the 1891 paper James speaks about the possibility of both afferent currents in the nervous system going from the objects to the body and of other kinds of affective currents, going from the center to periphery.
- 13.
Mead focuses on this point specifically in an abstract entitled A Theory of Emotions from the Physiological Standpoint.
- 14.
For an interesting convergence, see also Merleau-Ponty (1942, p. 191): “[…] la perception commençante est, beaucoup plus que’une opération cognitive et désintéressée, un contact émotionnel de l’enfant avec les centres d’intérêt de son milieu […]”.
- 15.
Dewey quotes not only from the Principles, but also from James’s paper The Physical Basis of Emotion.
- 16.
- 17.
“Intentional structure” here does not involve an alleged content in one’s own mind; on the contrary, it involves the quality of being referred to something or about something, according to the phenomenological usage of the term.
- 18.
- 19.
He will return to aesthetic stimuli of this kind in his later essay, A Psychological Account of the Use of Stimulants, with interesting suggestions on the origin of the arts (Mead2011, p. 35).
- 20.
At this stage of his thought, Mead probably referred to Wundt’s conception of symbolic stimulus. Symbolic gestures are those who mean indirectly, namely by means of a new application of an already existent sign, which is associated to the concept it represents through one or more ideas. Consequently, a symbolic gesture differs from demonstrative or imitative gestures because the latter kinds of signs are directly connected to what they signify. On this, see Wundt (1921).
- 21.
On the importance of McDougall’s thought for Mead, see Hans Joas (1997, p. 91 and ff.).
- 22.
As noted by Cook (in Cook 1993), Mead had a strong interest in developmental psychology from both a theoretical and experimental perspective. Furthermore, he intertwined this kind of interest with his studies in animal and comparative psychology as well as with a strong attention to their evolutionary implications. This peculiar mix of interests contributed to configuring Mead’s philosophical approach in a way that seems close to more recent and promising research trends at the intersection between philosophy of mind, cognitive and affective neuroscience, and developmental and evolutionary psychology.
- 23.
Similar reflections can be found in the first chapter of Dewey’sHuman Nature and Conduct (Dewey 1983).
- 24.
Analogous remarks could be made for Colombetti, regarding the connections between affectivity and sociality. In her book (Colombetti 2014), she approaches this issue from the perspective of the “feeling others” problem: in other words, sociality is not seen as a basic factor in configuring human affectivity. Her essays “Enactive Affectivity, Extended” (Colombetti 2017) seems to be more promising, even if the point in question is not fully developed.
- 25.
Very briefly, Mead’s position is clearly far from the so-called “Theory-Theory” or “Mind-Reading” account of empathy (Stueber 2006). Maybe more interestingly, his view cannot be considered as a form of Simulation theory, if this account is understood as based on an analogy between one’s own private, introspective experience and the allegedly doubtful experience of an individual different from and external to the one who would establish the analogy.
- 26.
See Dreon 2019.
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Dreon, R. (2019). A Pragmatist View of Emotions: Tracing Its Significance for the Current Debate. In: Candiotto, L. (eds) The Value of Emotions for Knowledge. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15667-1_4
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