What is an emotion and why do we have them? Some definitions

Loading...

From the course by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Emotions: a Philosophical Introduction

181 ratings

Explore Related Videos

At Coursera, you will find the best lectures in the world. Here are some of our personalized recommendations for you

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Emotions: a Philosophical Introduction

181 ratings

Philosophy is like sex: sure you can get some interesting results, but that's not why we do it. Going one step beyond…why do you FEEL pain or pleasure? Do plants have emotions? How is possible that some people do not understand other’s emotions? Emotions seem to be everywhere, giving meaning to all events of our lives. They are the backbone of social activities as well as they drive the cognitive processes of several living entities. Several animals, including humans, have emotions but…what about machines?...Do machine can have emotions? This course will help you to understand and to identify most important philosophical ideas and debates about emotions, as well as it will provide you a rich source of data about neurological, psychological or anthropological analysis of emotions. In a nutshell: this is a course to feel and think about.

From the lesson

Where do emotions come from?

At the very beginning of this course we will look at the basic definitions and concepts related to the emotional events. At the same time we will introduce basic philosophical ideas in order to make possible the understanding of the nature of emotional values.

What is an emotion and why do we have them? Some definitions9:40

The ABC of emotional processes6:11

Why do emotions exist and how many living entities have emotions?11:42

How did emotions evolve?8:54

Where do emotions happen?9:12

Meet the Instructors

Jordi Vallverdú
Professor Dr.
Philosophy Department

[MUSIC]

Hi, welcome to this course.

You, the bravest among the brave.

Or perhaps the craziest among the crazy.

But anyhow, you are here, and me too.

And we will talk about the relationship between philosophy and emotions.

So, let's go.

As you see in this, in this [LAUGH] initial conceptual map,

there are several relative concepts that explain what is an emotion.

Well in fact, and the truth is that while I was speaking,

you has not been able to see anything at all, because I was joking.

You were feeling different things while I was explaining these and, and

why, in the moment that your brain was trying to check what, what was happening.

The problem with the video configuration and and, and, and other possible options.

And the fact is that, perhaps you have felt anger, sadness, perhaps surprise,

or, or, or worry about what was happening, just at the beginning of this course.

And surely, after my small joke, you has been smiling or

felt joy or perhaps surprise, again, or, or even anger against me again.

[LAUGH] Well, what has happened there in this moment?

That you have felt an emotion and why?

Because they are useful in order to decide things.

So, what is an emotion?

The truth is that there is a strong disagreement about

what emotions are because of several, several pro, pro, problems.

For example, there are very strong disciplinary divergences regarding

methodologies, instruments, models, used for

the studies of, of emotion, emotions or emotional events.

Now, that come from different research areas.

For example, philosophy, psychology, neurology, sociology, anthropology.

And it implies that there is not agree, and

agreement about what really an emotion is and about the, the nature of emotions.

At the same time, there's a second problem, that emotions imply something

very, very where that is the private experience.

We feel the emotions but it,

it's very difficult to explain what I really feeling at the special moment.

For example, you can see here, several examples of

different reactions different emotional displays, or, or, or

are all arousals that has happened during this process.

In which my avatar is making stupid things like always.

So, if we take a concept of, a phrase of Augustino Hippo.

And turn to the philosophical research on emotions.

And we ask ourselves, what is, then, an emotion?

If no one asks me, I know what it is.

But if I wish to explain it with it to him who asks, I don't know.

So this is the real situation with the analysis of emotions.

Anyhow we need to describe at, at, at least

very briefly, what are the affective phenomena.

Initially, we have one concept, emotion that can be explained by several ways.

You have, you see, you hear, we, we'll read

the Oxford Dictionary's descriptions and definitions.

Here, emotion is a strong feeling that reaffirm one's circumstances, mood, or

relationships with others.

Affect is the touch, the feeling of, or to move, emotionally.

The mood is a temporary state of mind or feeling.

Feeling is an emotional state or reaction.

And emotional is something related to a person's emotions.

I don't know if, if you has understood correctly all these definitions but

if you think carefully, you will see this.

That there is a, a vicious cycle between feeling emotion that

pass this emotion to a feeling and

this feeling create an emotion, the emotion a feeling.

It's nothing that can be really solved.

For that reason, I suggest a different definition, more academic,

in which affective phenomena can be described following similar theories,

perhaps a more emotion, affect, mood or feeling.

And, for example, emotion is a multi-situated body mechanism.

To give semantic meaning and coordination to internal and

external data in order to create action states.

So, it's a process that happens inside the brain but it's,

it's shared with other brains and with other bodies.

And, and it's managed culturally and,

and symbolically in order to pro, produce some reactions.

Then we have, also, the affect that is an outward or

physical signs on a, of emotion.

Then a very important aspect of emotion that eh, is the, the notion of mood,

that is a pervasive emotion that longs over or

happens over a longer period of time.

That it also gives an explanation for

the existence of characters of, of personalities.

And finally, the feeling.

The self-perception of an emotional event.

And you see at the bottom of this video

several, several links.

In which you can see how the emotional state changed the,

the reaction and, and the coordination of,

of social or, or even not very intensive social insects.

So, we have seen things like anger, surprise, fear or

even sadness in the same situation.

Just because the the, the units are feeling entity's that are,

are perceiving this action are categorizing or

creating tags or, or trying to understand what is happening.

And then trying to adapt to this situation provoking a response.

So, if you think again carefully,

emotions are interactive social processes.

Why do we need them emotions?

Because, not only we need them, but we need them for several purposes.

And it explains them in multimodal nature.

First, they provide some, somatic or physiological responses.

Secondly, they, they provide behavioral and

expressive ways to interact with other entities.

At the same time, they, they are always interacting and, and, and making dipping

influences all throughout the cognitive processes that happens into our bodies.

And finally, they are the basis of our experiential and

subjective relationship with the world.

So, you can see here an example, you can feel pain at the first moment.

Secondly, you can cry.

At the third moment, you try to avoid the painful input and

finally, you can understand the whole situation and feel fair.

So, there are useful for several purposes from survival,

to social interactions.

So, which is the nature, in a sense, of, of emotions?

There are obviously psychobiological hard wire aspects of emotions,

that are dealing with our bodily structure.

And at the same time, emotions are, are running,

are, are being performed at the symbolic and, and

ideological level, because they are placed into a cultural environment.

So, in order to finish this initial classroom,

I, I know that it's a lot of information.

But we can conclude saying that there is not a true agreement

among experts about the definition of, of what is an emotion.

At the same time, we know that emotions, or we have just introduced the point that

emotions are a mixture of bodily and cultural processes.

And finally, the another complex aspect of emotions.

Emotions are multimodal.

So, thank you so much for feeing, for being here.

I hope we can meet in the second video of this course and

referring to a, great popular philosopher.

I will say, you take care of yourself and each other.

Bye.

Thank you so much.

Explore our Catalog

Join for free and get personalized recommendations, updates and offers.

Coursera provides universal access to the world’s best education, partnering with top universities and organizations to offer courses online.

© 2019 Coursera Inc. All rights reserved.

Download on the App Store

Get it on Google Play