Early Philosophical Theories of Emotion

To begin where most philosophical accounts of anything begin, Plato seemed rather to look down on emotion. Reason, spirit and appetite made up his tripartite soul, so emotion had no central position. If anything, Plato saw emotion as something that confounds, interrupts, gets in the way of or otherwise detracts from human reason. Solomon argues that Plato placed emotion somewhere between spirit and appetite, but it is clear that he viewed it as base. Amazingly, this view is still prevalent in everyday folk theory about emotion. We are expected to curb our base passions, even though few other than evangelical preachers would use such language any more. For Aristotle emotions were much more interesting facets of existence. He viewed them as being accounted for by a mixture of higher cognitive life and a lower sensual life. Pre-dating much of modern cognitive psychology, Aristotle saw at least some of our feelings as arising from our views of the world around. He also saw emotion as being linked with pleasure and pain, and listed various specific emotions such as anger, fear and pity.

Aristotle also made an interestingly complete analysis of anger, which he based very much on the idea of a “slight”, and also stressed the importance of revenge, a behavioral component. According to Solomon’s (1993) analysis, Aristotle’s account of emotion should be seen within an ethical framework. Viewed in this way, emotions such as anger are in some cases justified and in others not. Again, this view permeates much of everyday thought; some people judge others with respect to the appropriate-ness or not of their emotional reactions. “You shouldn”t be feeling jealous; you should be flattered.’ “You shouldn”t feel afraid; it won’t hurt.’

Although Aristotle’s ideas on emotion clearly strike chords today, they did not last for long at the time. Lyons (1992) believes this was because the theologians who followed tried to transform Aristotle’s ideas back into Plato, which of course had very little role for emotion. The second reason that Aristotle’s account of emotion fell into disfavor according to Lyons also happens to be the reason for the eventual development of many new ways of looking at emotion – namely, the 17th century rise of a science based on observation and experiment. In effect, Aristotle’s cognitive account of emotion had to wait to be revived until the new science could embrace cognitions more generally.

Following Aristotle, it was Descartes’ conceptualization of emotion that was to predominate until psychological theories started to be generated at the end of the last century. Descartes’ name is almost synonymous with dualism, there being a physiological body and a mind that somehow also doubles up as a soul and mediates a decidedly non-corporeal consciousness. Within this framework, Descartes placed emotions uncompromisingly in the soul and made them a solely human affair – animals only have bodies.

As with Aristotle, Descartes’ account of emotion was essentially cognitive. Foreshadowing much of what was to come from psychology, Descartes had a place in emotion not only for physiological changes and behaviour but also for mental processes such as perception, belief and memory. But the experience of emotion and hence its essence or core takes places in the soul. The information about the world is carried to the soul via the pineal gland, the soul makes its deliberations and then sends messages back to the body, again via the pineal gland, about what to do. However, the most significant aspect of this is the conscious experience that is occurring in the soul. Animals might be able to react bodily as though experiencing emotion, but the experience is actually impossible for them. After sending messages to the body, the soul then produces “. . . a final mirror-image feeling of all that is going on” (Lyons, 1992, p. 299). This is emotion.

As Solomon (1993) points out: for Descartes, emotion was one type of passion.

Passions are not like “clear” cognitions and are rather hazardous to judgment. Emotions are particularly difficult in this way, even though it is possible for reason to have an effect on them. So, from this view, it is possible for us to manipulate our emotions to some extent, even though they tend to obscure proper judgment. This is perhaps an early precursor to the view that emotion regulation is not only possible but an integral part of daily life. Like many who have followed him, then, Descartes had a somewhat confused view of emotion, although he did place it in the soul and therefore as among the higher, more interesting capacities of human beings. His primitive passions of wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness are not base and animal-like, but particularly human.