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Philosophy Final Paper
Philosophy and Contemporary Ideas (Liberty
University)
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XXXX XXXX
Philosophy
May 7, 2019
Cognition And Emotion
I. Introduction/Foreword
A. Thesis Statement/Objectives:
The main objective of the research paper is to expand every reader’s knowledge of philosophy
ranging from its foundation or basics to its very solid stage where more complex ideas and topics
which are philosophy-based begins to emanate. The topic of the research paper which is based on
“cognition and emotion” would help readers understand the relationship and concept of
cognition and emotion and how they are both significant in the field of philosophy and
psychology and also how they help link philosophy to psychology.
Cognition and Emotion are “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge through
thought and experience” and “ natural state of mind which is caused by circumstances
surrounding an individual/a complex experience of consciousness, bodily sensation, and
behavior that reflects the personal significance of a thing, an event, or a state of affairs”
respectively. In Philosophy, these are very two exceptional topics which have to do with our
everyday life. Looking at this critically, we can conclude that cognition which involves
acquisition of knowledge is an everyday activity most especially for literates. In this world,
everyone has experiences to share with others, either positive or negative and everyone also is
engaged in the thought process, that is, “thinking of how to deal with situations around you”. It is
said that before someone does something, it must have occurred through his mind either
patiently or briefly. In other words, actions are end products of thoughts. These are all situations
in which
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the cognition process is used since it is natural; This paper also establishes the significance of
cognition in emotion.
B. A brief History/Review of Cognition and Emotion:
Cognition refers to processes such as memory, attention, language, problem solving, and
planning. Many cognitive processes are thought to involve sophisticated functions that may be
unique to primates. They often involve so-called controlled processes, such as when the pursuit
of a goal (e.g., maintaining information in mind) needs to be protected from interference (e.g., a
distracting stimulus). A prototypical example of a neural correlate of a cognitive process is the
sustained firing of cells in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as a monkey maintains information in
mind for brief periods of time.
The idea for ‘Cognition & Emotion’ arose between Fraser Watts and Mark Williams Watts and
Williams were trying to understand the role of cognitive processes in emotion disorders, and how
these could be modified by cognitive therapy. They noted that the interplay between cognition
and emotion was also studied in other fields, such as developmental psychology and social
psychology, but there was little communication between these fields. Watts therefore founded
‘Cognition & Emotion’ as a broadly conceived journal that could bring work from different
disciplines together and help to establish coherence in the study of the cognition–emotion
interface.
II. Cognition and Emotion
CHAPTER ONE (Emotion)
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Based on internet research, Emotion is literally the manifestation of one’s emotional life or being
which is usually determined by an individual’s current status, whether congenial or distressful.
Also, emotion has its own theoretical basis. It is based on two broad prerequisites which are
•Achieving compatibility by using ordinary linguistic
•Achieving theoretical fruitfulness and creativity.
The traditions in the study of Emotions include Feelings, Evaluation, and Tradition
Theories of Emotion :
1. Evolutionary Theories : a theory of evolution by natural selection formulated by Charles
Darwin which explains the process by which organisms change over time as a result of
changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. The evolutionary approach focuses on
the historical setting in which emotions developed. Evolution is simply "change over
generational time" (Brandon, 1990, p. 5). Change to a trait can occur because of natural
selection, chance, genetic drift, or because the trait is genetically linked with some other
trait. A trait is an adaptation if it is produced by natural selection. And a trait is the
result of natural selection only when "its prevalence is due to the fact that it conferred a
greater fitness" (Richardson, 1996, p. 545), where fitness means reproductive success.
However, a trait can enhance fitness without being an adaptation.
2. Social and Cultural Theories : The second main approach to explaining the emotions
begins with the idea that emotions are social constructions. That is, emotions are the
products of societies and cultures, and are acquired or learned by individuals through
experience. The central claim made in these theories is that the social influence is so
significant that emotions are best understood from this perspective. They also look at
the
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important contributions that society makes to individual development. These theories
stress the interaction between developing people and the culture in which they live.
3. Theories of the Emotion Process : The third category of theories contains those that
attempt to describe the emotion process itself. Generally speaking, the emotion process
begins with the perception of a stimulus, although in some cases the "stimulus" may be
internal, for example, a thought or a memory. The early part of the emotion process is
the activity between the perception and the triggering of the bodily response (that is, the
emotion response), and the later part of the emotion process is the bodily response:
changes in heart rate, blood pressure, facial expression, skin conductivity, and so forth.
The theory the emotion process is classified into two subparts:
•Cognitive Theories : This theory asserts that the early part of the emotion process
includes the manipulation of information and so should be understood as a
cognitive process.
•Non- Cognitive Theories : This theory defends the claim that judgments or
appraisals are not part of the emotion process.
The Hybrid Evaluative-Feeling Tradition in Recent Philosophy
It was mentioned earlier that a popular response to the critiques received by philosophical
judgmentalism has been the alternate cognitions strategy, intended to better account for
their intentionality, differentiation, motivational power, and phenomenology, as well as
their potential recalcitrance.
This has led to a gradual convergence of the Evaluative and Feeling Traditions, with the
former now identifying emotions as evaluative perceptions with a distinctive
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phenomenology and the latter identifying emotions as evaluative feelings with a
distinctive intentionality. As a result, the distinction between evaluative (or cognitivist)
theories and feeling theories is increasingly blurred, with most of the dominant accounts
in the philosophy of emotions now qualifying as hybrids. These hybrids are classified
into three:
•Emotions as Evaluative Perceptions : Bonafide perceptual system when we are in the
presence of a dedicated input system with specialized transducers and mental
representations. Sensory perception clearly has input systems dedicated to vision,
olfaction, touch, hearing, and taste. Following in the footsteps of Damasio’s (1994,
2003) neuroscientific work, Prinz suggests that emotions can also rely on a dedicated
system within the somatosensory system. Thus, emotions literally are perceptions of
bodily changes, either at the visceral, hormonal, or musculoskeletal levels, or in the form
of changes in the somatosensory brain areas.
•Emotions as Evaluative Feelings : “emotional feelings are inextricably intertwined with
the world-directed aspect of emotion, so that an adequate account of an emotion’s
intentionality…will at the same time capture an important aspect of its phenomenology.
(Goldie 2002: 242; see also Ratcliffe 2005, 2017)”
•Emotions as Patterns of Salience : “mechanisms that control the crucial factor of salience
among what would otherwise be an unmanageable plethora of objects of attention,
interpretations, and strategies of inference and conduct. (de Sousa 1987: xv; see also
Elgin 2006; Evans 2001; Ben-Ze’ev 2000)”
CHAPTER TWO (Cognition)
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What is Cognition? According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Cognition refers to processes
involved in knowing, which in their completeness include perception and judgment. Cognition
includes all conscious and unconscious processes by which knowledge is accumulated, such as
perceiving, recognizing, conceiving, and reasoning. In other words, cognition is a state or
experience of knowing that can be distinguished from an experience of feeling or willing.
The Components of Attitude
There are three components of attitude which are usually referred to as the “ABC” model of
Attitudes. They are the:
•Affective component : This is the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude. It deals
with feelings or emotions that are brought to the surface about something, such as fear
or hate. An example could be about hating smoking because it is harmful to one’s
health.
•Behavioral component : This component of attitude consists of a person’s tendencies to
behave in a particular way toward an object. It refers to that part of attitude which reflects
the intention of a person in short run or long run. For example, a behavioral attitude
could be ‘Let us keep those smokers out of the cafeteria.’
•Cognitive component : This component refers to the beliefs, thoughts, and attributes we
would associate with an object. It also refers the part of attitude which is related in
general knowledge of a person. They usually come in general facts such as smoking is
harmful to the health or stereotypes such as Africa is a continent engulfed in poverty.
Theories of Cognition
There are three main cognitive theories. They are the;
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•Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory : This states that children construct their
understanding of the world and go through four stages of cognitive development.
The
sensorimotor stage, in which infants construct an understanding of the world by
coordinating sensory experiences. The preoperational stage, children begin connecting
sensory information with physical action and represent the world with images and
drawings. The concrete operational stage, in which children can perform operations that
involve objects and can reason logically as long as reasoning can beapplied to specific
examples, and the formal operational stage in which children begin thinking in a formal
systematic way.
•Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory : This is a sociocultural cognitive theory that emphasizes
how culture and social interaction guide cognitive development.
•Information-processing theory : This theory states and emphasizes that
individuals manipulate information, monitor it, and strategize about it.
Embodiment vs. Tradition
Modularity: Modularity of the mind is the notion that a mind may, at least in part, be
composed of innate neural structures or modules which have distinct established evolutionarily
developed functions. Modular systems are independent, domain specific, encapsulated and
hardwired, and function in a low-to-high processing hierarchy.
Mental Representation : Basic concept of the Computational Theory of Mind, according to which
cognitive states and processes are constituted by the occurrence, transformation and storage (in
the mind/brain) of information-bearing structures (representations) of one kind or another. This
view has three fundamental principles:
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•information conveyed by a mental representation exhibits no modality-specific feature. In
this sense, representations are autonomous from perceptual systems, bodily action, and
their operational details;
•knowledge is organized propositionally, with the meaning of words emerging from
their relations to internal symbols. Determining the meaning of a symbol is like looking
up in the dictionary in order to find which definition is given by its relation to other
symbols;
•internal representations are used to instruct motor programs, which are essentially
separate and independent from cognition. Hence, cognitive processing is not
inextricably shaped by bodily actions.
Nativism: concept which asserts certain concepts are "native" or in the brain at birth. The nativist
theory biologically based theory, which argues that humans are pre-programmed with the innate
ability to develop language. Strong nativists are committed to these two theories;
•the internal structures and processes necessary for the development of an individual
are rich, complex and causally powerful;
•processes external to the individual play a secondary causal role in the acquisition
and development of these structures.
Domains for Embodied Cognition
Visual Consciousness : This is a process which occurs within the human brain. There are two
important key points we should note concerning visual consciousness.
•Vision is not a mere brain process devoted to constructing mental models, but rather a
skill of the whole situated, embodied agent, one whose movements are crucial to
visual
agency (cf. Gibson 1979)
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•Visual processing should be recognized as a temporally extended activity, where
such activity is guided in part by the agent itself.
Concepts and Memory : Concepts are context-independent amodal symbols. Memory refers to the
varied outcomes of the diverse forms of learning of which humans and other agents are capable.
Moral Cognition: The study of the brain's role in moral judgment and decision-making. For
example, recent studies have shown that the feeling of disgust induced by the exposure to a bad
smell or dirty looking room makes moral judgments more severe (Schnall et alia 2008a), and that
subjects who physically cleanse themselves then find certain moral actions to be less wrong than
do participants not exposed to a cleanliness manipulation (Schnall et alia 2008b).
III. Conclusion/Summary
Traditionally emotions have been considered to be non-cognitive by nature, perhaps movements
of the body or feelings or such-like. However, many emotion theorists have thought this
traditional view to be mistaken. Thus it is often argued that emotions have intentional properties
and can be assessed for their rationality - features that seem distinctive of belief and thought.
Moreover some emotions seem clearly to involve cognitive content - for instance, it is difficult
to see how one can be indignant and not have thoughts regarding injustices (philpapers cog.
theories of emotion). However, the study of cognition and emotion in philosophy helps broaden
our knowledge as it demonstrates the fact that philosophy is majorly concerned with human
emotions and ways rational actions are influenced by emotional feelings. It also explains and
clarifies the acquisition of knowledge through thought, experience, and senses (cognitive
processes).
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IV. Bibliography and Sources
1. H andbook of Cognition and Emotion by Michael Robinson, Edward Watkins, and
Eddie Harmon-Jones
2. S tanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (emotion)
3. S tanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (embodied cognition)
4. S cholarpedia (cognition and emotion)
5. W ikipedia (cognition)
6. I nternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (theories of emotion)
7. E ncyclopedia Britannica (science and emotion)
8. E ncyclopedia Britannica (cognition-thought-process)
9. I edu note (components of attitude)
10. S tanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Innateness and contemporary theories of
cognition)
11. B eta Wikiversity (Philosophy of Cognition: Topic1)
12. P hilpapers (Cognitive theories of emotion)
