Should philosophy consider emotions and feelings?

A. Heart-Mind (Xin)
1. Mind (Thinkers)
2. Heart (Feelers)

B. Body
3. Body (Workers).

We've managed to offload most physical work, part of our minds (basic logic) onto machines. In other words, we're soon gonna shed our abilities as workers and thinkers and what'll remain with us is our emotions, we'll all be feelers. Then a symbiosis will occur and the age of cyborgs will dawn.

The connection between epistemology and emotions is a thing and has been a thing for a while:
https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/epistemology-and-emotions/

Quoting Angelo Cannata

we cannot rely on our emotions to determine if reality exists,

Anxiety that reality might not exist, feelings of disembodiment and a fear that other people may not be persons with minds like ours are all genuine emotions. These feelings can be related to psychological trauma. Managing the anxiety will reduce the tendency to be interested in the questions. But taking the edge off psychological discomfort may be different from actually answering the questions.

Quoting Angelo Cannata

about truth, knowledge, metaphysics, ontology, being, it seems that we need to ignore emotions: we cannot rely on our emotions to determine if reality exists, if doubting is productive, if knowledge is possible, what being means.
Even when we consider the possibility of emotions in AI machines, discussions are not based on our emotions, but on scientific criteria. So, it seems to me that today there are two kinds of philosophy, divorced from each other. It reminds me the divorce between analytical and continental philosophy.

The divorce you’re talking about is the same Cartesian split that divides the subjective from the objective. It depends on a fact-value divide. When one accepts
that there are no value-free facts, one realizes that
being and knowledge are valuations. Desires, motives and emotions are intrinsic to facts. This has been recognized by Nietzsche, Wittgenstein Sartre, Heidegger and many others.

Thinking about reality requires that the emotions be observed because our minds are embodied. Maintaining philosophical enquiry long enough to achieve coherence (thinking through to a conclusion) generally requires emotional sustenance. We have to experience a reward of pleasure in the process. If not, we will eventually stop.

Emotion and cognition aren't separated, opposed systems.

Quoting Angelo Cannata

Even when we consider the possibility of emotions in AI machines, discussions are not based on our emotions, but on scientific criteria.

True. But scientific criteria features intersubjective agreement and predictability, while emotions can be messy and in conflict with other's emotions. Science is the same in Australia as it is in Germany, but emotions may vary from person to person. How do you suggest this be reconciled and how does one make use of emotions?

Reply to Tom Storm Quoting Tom Storm

scientific criteria features intersubjective agreement and predictability, while emotions can be messy and in conflict with other's emotions. Science is the same in Australia as it is in Germany, but emotions may vary from person to person

One could adjust this to read:Because scientific criteria of intersubjective agreement and predictability are designed to be so generic, general and abstract , they cause us to overlook the fact that our individual interpretations of the ‘same’ agreed upon scientific meanings are messy and differ from others’ interpretations. We simply assume as obvious that Science is the ‘same’ in Australia as it is in Germany, and that it is only the emotions that vary from person to person, as if affective relevance were somehow separable from the intricate sense of the agreed upon meanings.

So how do we reconcile this? By looking beyond and within the generic abstractions we call ‘agreed-upon facts’ to the actual affectively relevant way that each of us contextually forms and uses the sense of an agreed-upon fact.

Quoting Joshs

So how do we reconcile this? By looking beyond and within the generic abstractions we call ‘agreed-upon facts’ to the actual affectively relevant way that each of us contextually forms the sense of an agreed-upon fact.

I don't disagree but I need to see this in action for it to be useful.

Reply to Tom Storm
Yes, that is actually the core question, I think. My perception is that philosophy today is going to be stuck either in being a copycat of science, or endlessly and unfruitfully discussions in deciding if reality exists or not, or other reflections that look to me like just trying how some ideas interact together, with the same criterion we use to test computers and software. So, I thought something common to these sterile activities is that they ignore the emotional, spiritual side of us as humans.
I think that, as a consequence, the work of philosophy should be a kind of research that tries to connect reasoning and emotions, rather than dealing with them as with alternative worlds. For example: we can discuss technically about the problem if reality exists: this is one side, the rational side. Or we can discuss how the existence or non existence of reality involves our emotions: this is the emotional side. So far, they have been treated still as divorced fields. The connection happens if we ask: can we make a decision, if reality exists or not, based on our emotions? Does it make any sense to decide that we will consider reality existent or non existent depending on our mood? Does it make sense to consider the world of our emotions and feelings as the real world and, as a consequence, the rational reflections about it just as a derivative part? Does it make sense to philosophize with the conscious intention of experiencing some emotional feelings, produced by our artistic playing with ideas, rather than considering ideas as a way to reach truth and reality? Does it make sense to consider philosophy like a kind of “playing ideas”, the same way one can play a piano, or a guitar?

Reply to Angelo Cannata Quoting Angelo Cannata

we can discuss technically about the problem if reality exists: this is one side, the rational side. Or we can discuss how the existence or non existence of reality involves our emotions: this is the emotional side. So far, they have been treated still as divorced fields

you’ve been reading the wrong philosophy. Try this from Evan Thompson. (Mind in Life(

“In recent years, however, it has become increasingly clear to many researchers that cognitive science is incomplete. Cognitive science has focused on cognition while neglecting emotion, affect, and motivation . One common thread running through the following chapters is a re-liance on the philosophical tradition of phenomenology, inaugurated by Edmund Husserl and developed in various directions by numerous others, most notably for my purposes by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Moran 2000; Sokolowski 2000; Spiegelberg 1994). 1 ( ) My aim, however, is not to repeat this tradition's analyses, as they are found in this or that author or text, but to present them anew in light of present-day con-cerns in the sciences of mind. Thus this book can be seen as con-tributing to the work of a new generation of phenomenologists who strive to "naturalize" phenomenology (Petitot et al. 1999). The project of naturalizing phenomenology can be understood in different ways, and my own way of thinking about it will emerge later in this book. The basic idea for the moment is that it is not enough for phenomenology simply to describe and philosophically analyze lived experience; phe-nomenology needs to be able to understand and interpret its investiga-tions in relation to those of biology and mind science.

Yet mind science has much to learn from the analyses of lived expe-rience accomplished by phenomenologists. Indeed, once science turns its attention to subjectivity and consciousness, to experience as it is lived, then it cannot do without phenomenology, which thus needs to be recognized and cultivated as an indispensable partner to the ex-perimental sciences of mind and life. As we will see, this scientific turn to phenomenology leads as much to a renewed understanding of na-ture, life, and mind as to a naturalization of phenomenology (Zahavi 2004b).”

Reply to Joshs It's good as far as it goes, but where does it go? I like the little Thompson I have read. But it seems to have limited applicability to most folk who don't have PhD's in the appropriate branch of philosophy being priviledged here. Do we wait until this complex material filters down to the rest (assuming we have time for this process) or do we have to recognize that this is a 'boutique' interest with certain subcultures within academe?

Reply to Joshs
I think what you quoted is still different from what I mean. It seems to me that Evan Thompson deals with phenomenology and emotions by using an analytical an rational mind. Does Evan Thompson base his own research on his own emotions as an instrument of research?
I mean, there is a difference between studying music and playing music. Evan Thompson, in this metaphor, studies music, while what I am talking about is playing music.
This would rise the question how philosophy will be different from literature and poetry. I think it can be different, while still adopting their similar ways of expressing things.

Reply to Tom Storm Quoting Tom Storm

in the appropriate branch of philosophy being priviledged here. Do we wait until this complex material filters down to the rest (assuming we have time for this process) or do we have to recognize that this is a 'boutique' interest with certain subcultures within academe?

Client-centered therapy is very accessible to the public, and it is compatible with what Thompson is doing.