The Logic of Emotion

Bill Tomlinson, M.A.(1)

 

Abstract

There is a logic to emotion, when logic is taken to be a study of implication, a semantical inquiry. Emotions are a subset of all feelings, specifically the feelings that arise from thinking. Believing is one cognitive activity, but there are others. Whenever the attention to one's cognitive activity becomes pleasant or unpleasant the result is an emotion, semantically, not causally. The most common kind of emotion exists when beliefs about the satisfaction of a preference are pleasant or unpleasant when attended to. This definition for "emotion" generates templates for defining specific emotions. These definitions can be used by a reflective person as a tool for understanding his/her emotions or beliefs. Moods are defined as a state with special potential to become the emotion with the same name. We can also say that moods feel like the corresponding emotion but without an easily identifiable object to be about.

The Paper

When asked to consider what logic there might be to emotions, most will respond that there is none. Quite possibly their focus is upon the question as to whether a person has a ability to be logical about their emotions while in an emotional state. Most of us have little luck with reasoning well at that time about anything, and thus might consider the logic of emotion to be a concept without extension. But if we think of logic as a study of inferences then the question "Are there inferences to be drawn from statements about emotions?" can be seen as a very different question from "Does one have adequate reasoning abilities about an emotion during an emotional state?" We can answer the first question by citing a few obvious facts:

 

These impossibilities correspond to inferences. Thus, when someone says that they are disappointed, we may infer minimally that they had expectations that were not met. We know this because we are users of the language. Without inferences in natural language we would have little in the way of a response to someone who reports his/her feelings, and the language of emotion would not have much use if there were no way to continue the discussion. We know these terms. We use them successfully, for the most part (2), to convey information and so it should come as no shock to discover that there are inferences at work in the language of emotion.

Clearly, this study of inferences regarding emotion without presupposing that the users of the language know theory is not psychology, but is instead a semantical discipline concerning how we use emotion terms and what the statements that incorporate those terms convey.

These understandings could be quite important, for consider: There is nothing of importance in the world whose value cannot be traced to its foundation in valued experiences. If something enables or provides positive experiences then we value that something, not for its own sake but for its value as an instrument to those experiences. Feelings are a kind of experience, maybe the most valued kind, and emotions are a kind of feeling. Thus, understanding emotions is promising in the quest to understand a valuable kind of experience and value itself. To understand the inferences or logic in the language of emotion is one way to understand one part of emotion.

 

Feelings and Emotions

'Feelings' is the most general category of personal experience. In this category we have sensation, desire, mood, belief, emotion and maybe more. When we feel a need to scratch, we might say "I feel itchy" (sensation). When sexually aroused we might say "I feel randy" (desire). If we are low in spirit, we say "I feel depressed" (mood). If we have an opinion, we may say "I feel that it is true that..." (belief) and when we dislike what someone did we may say "I feel angry that..." (emotion). All of these are examples of statements of personal experience. The language of feeling is the language that helps us express the way experience appears to us and in what ways we enjoy that appearance.

 

The Theory

Let us start with the assumption that to discover the meaning of a part of language we must look at the role that it plays in the language. The theory presented here is that the role that the language of emotion plays is to convey information about pleasant or unpleasant experiences of a certain kind. To be more specific, on occasion we have the need to convey information about pleasure or displeasures resulting from the process of thinking. So, using this as a guide we move straightforwardly to the definition of an emotion as the pleasure or displeasure resulting from attention to thinking.

Let us consider 'thinking' in a broad sense of the term, as in 'cognitive activity'. Usually 'He thinks that...' means 'He believes that...'. However, we should not make 'believing' the only activity of the thinking kind. We could also include activities like questioning, counting upon, expecting, wondering, being sure, preferring, preparing for, etc., the objects for all of which can be taken as states of affairs. Let us express the pleasure (or displeasure) of attending to a cognition symbolically as P(A(c)).

With that in mind we should also note that the emotions most commonly referred to are really belief based. For this type of emotion an interesting and more detailed structure arises. In particular for these emotions, believing that a preference is satisfied (or not) is much of the information carried by the assertion of its existence.

For the positive emotions, let us posit that these emotions (belief based) have the following form...

Emotion+(b)= pleasure of the attention to the belief that a preference is satisfied

For a negative emotion we have..

Emotion-(b)= displeasure of the attention to the belief that a preference is not satisfied (3)

 

So taking positive emotions as a example we can see that there is a lot of "aboutness" in this structure. The pleasure is about the attention. The attention is about the belief. The belief is about satisfaction. The satisfaction is about the preference. Viewing it the other way around, at the core of this kind of emotion we have a preference or a caring (or more accurately: what we believe our preference or caring to be).

On the next level out we have a belief about whether that preference is satisfied. One more level out we have attention to that belief. And finally we are sometimes pleased or displeased as a result of attending.

Symbolically, and treating a preference as an specific object, we have

P(A(B(Sp))): The Pleasure of the Attention to the Belief that p is Satisfied

 

If you cut this functional chain anywhere then the corresponding emotion will disappear. Thus, to change the emotion you could...

This is not to say that we are always free to change things, but if any of these do change then the existence of the emotion will also change. If we take the intensity of the emotion to be proportional to the strength of its components then the intensity of the emotion will change with...

So when a person tells us that they are strongly disappointed, for instance, this minimally tells us that the person had expectations that the person preferred to be the case, they believe the expectations were not satisfied, and when they think about this (they attend to it), it is very unpleasant.

We might ask: is it true that every time someone attends to a satisfaction of a preferred state that it is pleasant? This can't be right. For example, consider this: I strongly prefer that the Earth be three quarters covered with water than that it be covered with acid. I strongly believe that it is covered with water. I'm attending to it right now very intensely. Why am I not therefore thrown into a state of extreme pleasure?

The theory above doesn't say I will experience pleasure at the thought, it just says that if I do feel resulting pleasure then an emotion exists. To answer the question as to why pleasures or displeasures occur is not a semantical question, but a psychological one. We might conjecture that in this example, the alternative of the Earth covered with acid did not have a certainvitality. I never, for one second, believed that the Earth might be covered with acid or that sometime soon it will be covered with acid, and so the preference has little interest for me as a live comparison.

We may be able to do a bit of analysis accounting for some of the sensitivity of an individual to 'attending' by looking into this comparative nature of a preference, but for the most part the degree of sensitivity is a psychological property and not subject to semantical analysis. For example, the psychologist might account for a sensitivity or lack of it by noting the kinds of drugs, or diet or lack of sleep that the person has suffered lately. Or he/she may note a recent mood or note problems of other sorts that made the person more sensitive to the pain or pleasure of some kinds of thoughts.

This issue of 'sensitivity' may be a good illustration of a boundary between science and semantics. It might be tempting while working on semantics to cross the line. With emotional terms we convey information to a person with no scientific background. To discover the logic of these terms we need to focus on the information conveyed to the person who has no theoretical psychological presuppositions.

A most interesting feature about belief based emotions is that they do not depend upon actual states of affairs for their existence but instead on what the person believes the states of affairs actually is. Thus, if we belief someone we care about has died, but in reality they have not, we may feel grief. On the other hand if we believe they have not died, but in fact they have, then grief is not present. Thus, in both cases, the emotion follows the belief, not the reality.

Another interesting and related feature is that because of the structure of these most common emotions, these feelings are exceptionally vulnerable to change by reflection. By containing beliefs and preferences as their fundamental cognitive states they are especially mutable, we know this primarily because we commonly and often experience a change in beliefs and preferences whenever we reflect upon them, whether they are connected to emotional states or not.

 

Discovering the definitions of particular emotions

With a general definition of "emotion" and insights gained from the definition of belief based emotions, we may set ourselves the task of defining some particular emotions using the general structures as templates. So, let us try "disappointment".

 

Definition 1

A person P is disappointed about x if and only if,

Notice that there are two cognitions here other than preference and belief. We might asked if they are necessary. If we had a belief about what was to happen and we were forced to change that belief and as a result had displeasure, would that constitute disappointment, or just some kind of sadness? We can use this counter-example methodology to probe the definition. It would be important to note again that we are not asking 'when would displeasure result?' but instead 'when it results, what would we call this feeling?'

Often the way we resolve or dissolve disappointment is to become better prepared for this new appearance of things. This may be a good indicator that clause 3 is necessary, but to find the best definition we ultimately have to consider the cases, like our personal experiences, and look for examples where we were sufficiently prepared and still claimed disappointment or where we were not prepared for what happened but dissatisfied and would not classify it as 'disappointment'. Resolution is left to the reader.

 

Now, let us try another definition, like 'anger'

 

Definition 2

A person P feels anger with Q, if and only if.

Anger is the feeling we have when we have an unfulfilled desire for someone (or something) to be harmed or removed. One can be angry at objects. Often this desire to have an object removed is because it is a source of frustration. But note that not all anger is frustration related and that any thesis about such is psychological and not a semantical one.

We can also seemingly be angry at a person when the true object of the anger is the person's behavior or type of behavior. This behavior may be the object of the anger and the object that the person wants removed. Thus, in this case, a strong assurance that the kind of behavior will not reoccur will often make the anger go away.

One of the methods we could use for gaining insight into a definition is to ask 'under what conditions would this emotion resolve or dissolve?' So, for instance, since sometimes indignation will go away when someone makes a sincere apology, indignation is more complicated than merely being based upon the preference that someone had not done something wrong. Sometimes indignation will go away when the right price is paid, and so we should find a way to build that into the definition.

With anger other definitions that focused more upon 'wrong behavior' seem possible. We might hesitate to build 'harm' into the definition as we did, because anger doesn't seem to be a purely undesirable emotion and yet 'to harm' does seem almost always undesirable. But to realize that sometimes we just want something to go away and be 'out of our face' is not so undesirable, and so definition 2 is not too negative. Also what we mean by harm might include that the other person feel some stress or discomfort or have paid a price for what they have done, a temporary harm that may in fact lead to a long term benefit for the person, because of the learning involved, although that might not be the intention.

Because of the relationship between cognitive states and emotions, we can use the definitions to go either way. That is to say, not only could we gain insights into what emotions we are capable of by reflecting upon our background beliefs; but we can also use both positive and negative emotions, when we can identify and label them, to gain insights into what our beliefs and preferences really are. This is possible because often we can identify our emotion without reference to the definition. We may, for instance, associate some of our behaviors with certain emotions, but we may not associate those behaviors with certain beliefs or preferences as of yet, and so by using the emotion's definition we might provide a link between our behavior and our fundamental assumptions or beliefs.

As a quick example, if we realize that we are acting indignantly, we may infer the emotion of indignance and from that we may conclude that a belief about some specific wrong action is involved. This naturally invites reflection upon our belief about the wrongness of the action.

 

Changing beliefs, preferences and other cognitions

To what extent can we choose to change an emotion by reflection, say for instance, if we don't want to have that feeling any more? With some emotions like 'worry' it might be easiest to focus on the 'attending' part of the equation. Maybe some distractions will suffice to lessen or temporarily eliminate a worry. But to what extent can we change beliefs and preferences that are at the core of most emotions?

 

Changing a belief

Although beliefs are subjective (vary from person to person), this does not mean that we can change a belief by will alone. We can sometimes brainwash ourselves by repetitive thoughts or rituals, but this process cannot be recommended. The only advisable method for changing a belief is to reflect upon our evidence for that belief. Often beliefs, unreflectively formed or formed a long time ago, take on an extreme nature in their statement, or sometimes the degree in which they are believed is exaggerated. Thus, even if the existence of a belief does not change upon reflection, it still could easily change in strength with reflection, lessening the intensity of an emotion.

Background beliefs, beliefs that we carry with us at all times as rules for interpreting reality, are the most important for determining which emotions we are capable of. These beliefs are mostly metaphysical or ethical beliefs that few reflect carefully upon, except for those who are trained in dealing with philosophical theses. Now the philosopher, at least, can use the relationship between emotions and the beliefs presupposed to examine his beliefs via his emotions or his emotions by way of his beliefs.

 

Changing a preference:

An important thing to note about preferences is that all preferences, that are not fundamental, contain presuppositional beliefs. Thus, if we prefer to go to the local movie theater tonight, it may be because we believe it has a movie we want to see. If we discover that the movie is not playing there, our stated preference could change.

This is a rather unremarkable example, for many preferences are richer than this, but the concept is the same. By reflecting on our reasons for the preference we can ask ourselves about whether or not this is our real preference upon reflection. Does the evidence support the fact that this is what we really want?

Another way of viewing a similar point is that sometimes the reason for an intense emotion is that the preference being focused upon reflects a narrow focus or a narrow set of values. When we have the ability to look at all of our values and enjoy a bigger perspective, then our perceived preference changes to a more reflected preference. Often the reflected preference with a larger perspective makes the thing we were upset about seem not so serious. However, we cannot always take the larger perspective at will. If we overuse an attempt to see the bigger picture by saying to ourselves something like "well, at least I still have my health", it may become cliché and thus lose its effectiveness

Another way to change a preference is when upon occasion we have the opportunity to establish meanings or symbols to change our preferences. Thus, for example, we may assign to New Year's day a symbol that would make a resolution valuable and because it was made at this special time (to us), some behaviors under the ruling of the resolution become more preferred than they would have been without the symbology.

And finally, we may change our preferences by changing our situation. We cannot have a preference to go to the local theater, if we've moved to an area that has no local theater. This does not change a core preference, but it may not be a core preference that we are really trying to change. However, it may redirect our attention to other things and thus the preference is not in the fore.

 

Changing other cognitions:

Other cognitions are also subject to change by reflection. In general the method for addressing each may depend uniquely on the cognition. Take 'wonder', for instance. Wonder is an emotion based upon questioning about what is true about some particular. Wonder seems quite nice, for the most part, so we may not want to change it, but, if we did wish to, then if by reflection we could answer the question of wonder then the wonder would go away.

Alternatively, we could embark on a study to discover the truth of the matter. If we were successful this would also erase the wonder, unless we were unlucky enough along the way to find other things to wonder about.

Feeling expectant, may be seen to be an emotion, or more easily seen as part of an emotion like disappointment or feeling betrayed. What expectations we are set to acquire may be different, if we reflect on our method of forming expectations in the first place. If disappointment were a large negative feature of our lives, reflecting upon expectation formation would often be preferable to finding a way not to care about those expected things. (5)

Feeling 'not prepared for' may be another cognition that we could focus on in defense of falling into other more dire emotions like disappointment, grief, loss, worry or anxiety. A simple strategy for dealing with worry, for instance, is to rehearse the worst case and prepare yourself for it. This may also be a good way to deal with disappointment before it is upon us, and in many cases more effective than examining the ways in which we form our expectations. But many times disappointment is upon us because we had not thought it likely that the expected event would not occur, and thus we are not prepared.

Another interesting thing to consider is whether a list of cognitions is redundant, in the sense that some of them can be defined in terms of the others. For instance, we might conjecture that the cognition 'to count upon P' could be defined as 'not prepared for not P'. Maybe 'to be sure that P' is really a kind of belief, as in 'to believe that the Probability of P is beyond some standardized value'. This would be another interesting area for discovery in the logic of emotion. With a little effort, though, it's easy to see that not all cognitions can be defined in terms of belief.

 

The Language of Feeling

One of the most confusing things about an emotional term is that the same term can often fall into distinctly different categories. Take 'anger', for instance. We can have an angry emotion, an angry mood or be an angry person.

But what is a mood? We may be able to define a mood as a mental state which predisposes one to fall into the emotion with the same name. This would require that we have the abiliity to sense a predisposition to emotion. Moods seem to feel similar to the emotion they mirror except they have no object, or at least not an easily identifiable object. So, if a person says 'I'm angry' and someone asks 'what are you angry about?' and the person says 'I'm angry about such and such', then that would indicate that the feeling is an emotion. But if the person says 'I don't know, I just feel angry, not necessarily about or at anything in particular', then that would indicate the presence of a mood. So, it is almost as if a mood is looking for something to be about so that it can become an emotion. It would be a psychological question to ask: would a rapid sequence of emotion of the same kind, like anger, create the corresponding mood?

When a person we know commonly falls into angry moods, then we call that person an angry person. Or we might say 'he/she has the character trait of being angry'. The language to convey character traits is rich with emotional terminology. Some character terms reflect the emotion they are named after, other terms may be defined by the strategies developed to deal with potential emotions. We talk of depressed people, curious people, worry-warts and cowards to represent common tendencies for the person to be depressed, be full of wonder, be worried, and be fearful or have a run-away strategy for dealing with fear, respectively. Providing a few more links to other aspects of our cognitive life, we may conjecture that relaying character information is one of the major functions of the language of ethics.

There is a more fundamental non-cognitive feeling of 'anger'. Let us call it 'primal anger'. It appears that non-cognitive entities experience anger and on occasion cognitive entities experience anger on a non-cognitive level, like rage, for instance. The pre-linguistic feelings may be the source of the power of many emotions, although emotions like guilt seem to require more linguistic apparatus than non-linguistic entities would be capable of. We may even classify these pre-linguistic feelings as emotions, but whether we do or not, it is still important to keep them separate and to note that they are not feelings that are accessible to possible change by reflection as the cognitive emotions are.

 

Emotions, Reflection and Wisdom.

Because of the relationship between emotions and reflection, emotions and ethics and metaphysics, emotions and character, emotions and action, we might start suspecting that emotions are connected to everything of importance in our lives, especially if we have philosophical interests. The word 'emotion' coming from 'to move', has the same root as 'to motivate'. The presupposition being that emotions are a great contributor to action. Indeed, one might wonder what would be worth doing at all, if people had no emotions or feelings about anything.

From another angle, we can see that ethical beliefs, metaphysical beliefs, other background beliefs and our fundamental preferences set up for us what emotions we are capable of. Our potential emotions are at least part of the definition of many of our character traits. In a particular situation our character traits will strongly influence our focus and what feelings we have. This, in turn, often leads to action. What else is there of any importance in life that is not based somewhere in this chain?

These relationships form a webish life structure. If we don't like some part of our personal picture, we may see part of this web as amenable to change. For instance, if we don't like a character trait we own, we could question the beliefs connected to that trait. An opportunity for reflection arises. There are tradeoffs to consider.

Thus, the logic of emotion constitutes one more tool that those interested in philosophy might use to access their presuppositions and their entire view of the world by reflection. In the process, they may even get lucky and make fundamental and positive changes in the structure of their lives. The power is there. Let us see where that potential takes us. (6)

 

 

1) Instructor, Dept. of Philosophy, California State University Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff St. Northridge, CA 91330. Phone: 818-677-2757, E-mail: bill.tomlinson@csun.edu

2) Although there are often mistakes, e.g., when people declare that they are jealous of someone, when what they mean is that they are envious.

3) Note that 'beliefs' are not strictly speaking the objects of pleasure and displeasure but instead it is the process of believing, 'the act of believing' being a kind of experience.

4) One way to do this might be to actually alter the truth of the belief by changing the world and noting the change.

5) It is worth considering as to whether some stratgies like 'not caring', or 'lowering expectations' in attempting to deal with future disappointments actually lead to being depressed in some cases. This is beyond the range of our semantical inquiries.

6) For more elaboration on this thesis, you may go to http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/LOE3.html Site Meter