Emotions Are The Reason That Anything Matters
What is the reason for our existence?
The cycle of life is to be born, survive, reproduce, and then die. We live so that we can continue living so that our species can continue living also. Yet we suffer, we feel pain, and we also feel happiness. Emotion is what makes our lives 'matter'. In the grand scheme of things, we are nothing. The human race is so small and insignificant and in x amount of years we will all be forgotten and nothing, in the end, will matter at all. So why does it matter?
Emotions are what makes things 'matter'. Without emotions, our primary function would just be to survive and keep the species going. If you didn't have emotions you would feel no desire or need to do anything other than 'live'. Emotions are what changes this. Having the ability to feel sad or happy about something allows us to view things as good or bad depending on the way it makes us feel. With this comes the ability to determine what we want to do and what we don't. With the ability to feel emotions we change the meaning of life from this meaninglessness to something more, the ability to want things is what now drives our lives and allows us to want to do more than just survive. It means we have our own goals and desires to fulfil in life and makes us study or work hard depending on who we are. Without them, none of this would matter.
If a close friend or family died, even a random stranger, we are inclined to feel upset by this fact, however, if emotions didn't exist this would not necessarily bother us. So as well as the fact that emotions make our lives mean something more, it actually helps us stay alive as a species from the desire to live.
Our lives as a whole seem to be insignificant yet our emotions change this as we are able to stay in the present reality and have our own meaning of life regardless of the grand scheme of things.
What do you think of this? Is there another reason to exist other than our own feelings?
The cycle of life is to be born, survive, reproduce, and then die. We live so that we can continue living so that our species can continue living also. Yet we suffer, we feel pain, and we also feel happiness. Emotion is what makes our lives 'matter'. In the grand scheme of things, we are nothing. The human race is so small and insignificant and in x amount of years we will all be forgotten and nothing, in the end, will matter at all. So why does it matter?
Emotions are what makes things 'matter'. Without emotions, our primary function would just be to survive and keep the species going. If you didn't have emotions you would feel no desire or need to do anything other than 'live'. Emotions are what changes this. Having the ability to feel sad or happy about something allows us to view things as good or bad depending on the way it makes us feel. With this comes the ability to determine what we want to do and what we don't. With the ability to feel emotions we change the meaning of life from this meaninglessness to something more, the ability to want things is what now drives our lives and allows us to want to do more than just survive. It means we have our own goals and desires to fulfil in life and makes us study or work hard depending on who we are. Without them, none of this would matter.
If a close friend or family died, even a random stranger, we are inclined to feel upset by this fact, however, if emotions didn't exist this would not necessarily bother us. So as well as the fact that emotions make our lives mean something more, it actually helps us stay alive as a species from the desire to live.
Our lives as a whole seem to be insignificant yet our emotions change this as we are able to stay in the present reality and have our own meaning of life regardless of the grand scheme of things.
What do you think of this? Is there another reason to exist other than our own feelings?
Comments (39)
Quoting existentialcrisis
I think emotions play a large part in our reason to persist in existing, but they can also end it: suicide. If someone is feeling so depressed, anxious, or angry at existence they can end their own life. They have domain over that, not anyone else. What I find interesting is that while emotions may have significance in making life what is called 'life.' But, I subscribe also to the belief of Friedrich Nietzsche's Will to Power. Every living thing has the desire and will to survive and move with life, and this is described by the Will to Power. Some humans want power in material form. Some humans want power in the form of knowledge and wisdom. Some humans want power in the form of overcoming suffering. Some humans want power in form of helping others and making an influence.
I subscribe to the view that life is meaningless until you make meaning for yourself. Emotions play a part in life but also this desire to survive, live, and grow in some way. Everyone wants to grow in some way and at some point. Doesn't matter who the person is, and it doesn't matter what form it takes, there is always this desire to live, grow, or even the action of exerting power by taking your own life.
Quoting existentialcrisis
I have no idea what the reason for our existence is. No one can give a clear answer. There have been many views, but no definite clear answer. In my opinion, our 'reason for existence' is nothing. I feel as it is different for each person based on the view that life is meaningless, and the individual gets to decide, first, whether they want to live or commit suicide based on this belief about life (referencing Albert Camus's philosophy in The Myth of Sisyphus - this is the subject of the book). From here, the human, if choosing to live, can then make their own meaning themselves, and themselves alone. No form of suffering can take away this person's beliefs, perceptions, and interpretations of the meaning of their life and the reason for their existence in their mind.
For instance, a child is brought into the world, recognizes his existence, and then decides to live or not. Once the child is older, in its teenage years, he will confront this problem again. Once it's an adult, the same. Therefore, the reason for an individual existing could start being explained or questioned here. But the reason for the existence of the human race appears to be too grand for a human to ever know. The problem of God comes to mind here. No one truly knows if God exists or if he doesn't exist. They have faith in one side of the argument or not, but there is no evidence. In my opinion, logic doesn't help either case, it's actually a waste of time for the God existing or not arguments. It helps a human try and tackle the problem, but what human has tackled it? If there is a God, then maybe he has an answer? If there isn't a God, then maybe our existence is a coincidence? Maybe there are multiple universes going on? Maybe we are merely in a complex program? Maybe we are all part of a dream? No one really knows the answer to this question. So it is extremely hard...
Have you read existential philosophy? Philosophers in this camp such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, Jean Paul-Sartre, Fydor Dostoevsky, Soren Kierkegaard, and many others present these questions in their works and their beliefs on the matter. This is my favorite camp of philosophy and it constantly deals with the human experience of existing, whether life has meaning or not, and what to do...
Well apparently with your omniscience you qualify as some sort of god so there's that. /sly
Interesting point. I agree, taking a position on whether the human race is small or large, as well as significant or not, is presuming that you know all of this in relation to other races in the universe or if we are alone.
The intellect determines what matters, emotions are not an essential part of the process, only the intellect's ability to understand the concept of something "mattering". Characterisations, descriptions and categorisations are determined by the intellect, their or their species' significance or insignificance, their smallness or self-importance. Basically, the reason for our existence is whatever I believe it is and that's what meaning is. There's no atom comprising meaning that contradicts the beliefs of the intellect, the intellect can only be challenged by another intellect but effectively even that is of no consequence.
If so, what gives any 'intellect' of any persuasion or level any meaning beyond itself? Feeling, as the OP states?
I prefer to look at it as: nonexistence [unknown duration], existence [briefly], and then, nonexistence [eternally].
Quoting existentialcrisis
I'm not sure about this but I've always looked at emotions as reactions and being reactions, value precedes them.
The intellect only needs to convince themselves, to provide reason sufficient for their own belief. Meaning is always based on establishing prerequisites for assertions and then making assertions. Thus the assertions are not random or meaningless but are justified by the prerequisites being met. The complex layers of meaning are generally far too difficult for any foreign agent to untangle. Provided the intellect has convinced themselves, that's sufficient, convincing other people is an entirely different discussion. The process is absolutely influenced by emotion but I don't think it's hinged on it, the process is logic-based.
I can't answer your "What is the meaning of our existence?" question.
However I can say that I broadly agree with you - just replace the 'emotions' with 'experience', and don't equate 'motivation' to 'meaning'. Humans are more than just their emotions and the experience of being human also includes things like thought, sensation, and instinct as well as emotions.
The sum of that human experience is basically the only thing that is real to us. You can choose to assign a meaning to that or not. Everything comes through the lens of that human experience - without it there is no perspective from which to interpret the universe. None of this has anything to do with a grand purpose though.
There is a taxonomy to emotions. Some of them are deep rooted and served survival purposes(cooperation instincts, fear of failure,...) and some of them are tuned by experiences of our life(childhood traumas,hopeful dreams about our future,..).
I think every emotion has a reason for existing. So, human "emotional anatomy" suggests a purpose, a meaning.
["Emotional anatomy" to all its complexity ] and [ purpose to all its complexity ] are opposite sides of a coin...
Emotions make life meaningful, and we have meaningful interactions with other people and animals that we recognize also posses emotions. It is the emotional empathy that makes the interaction meaningful. The quality of interaction is diminished when interacting with something that is not emotional. Seems to be a sensible move to attribute emotions to all living creatures and hence improve the quality of our life by enriching our interactions with them, in my opinion.
Quoting Pop
I really think emotions do not play such a crucial part in the big picture of things.
Consider an Earth without animals. Only the physical phenomena of the ecosystem and floral life (forests, trees, plants). In this senario there is definitely life going on.There is life and death, reproduction, evolution, etc. Every part has a role in this global life. On the other hand there are no emotions.( one can extend the definition of "emotion" and argue that plants can have emotion too, but I assume you are referring to animal-like emotions)
edit: When we add animal life we are just creating a larger circle of global life in which again every part has a role. Emotions are just a regulatory and optimization mechanism of some parts.
Quoting Pop
The same logic can be applied here. Plants and cells : they are alive so ,according to the above, they must have consciousness and emotions. Do you agree with this ? Again, we are pushing the boundaries of the definitions, which is very interesting, but I'll stop here because the post is about human emotions.
Yes, this is how I see it. Dopamine, melatonin, serotonin, and other neurotransmitters have been isolated in plants. There is no evidence, that I am aware of, that they do not possess emotions of some kind.
that is the most powerful energy that exists
How do I know this? Well, I have suffered from depression for much of my life. Not "sadness", but there are times when I feel...nothing. I gain no pleasure from activities I normally enjoy. I feel no empathy or care for anything in the world. So how do I function? By rational choice. Sure, I may not feel like I enjoy my work that day, but I do it because I know I need my employer to see I am stable so that I can make money. Yes, I could sit on my couch and zone out for hours without a care in the world. But I rationally know that's not good. So I get up and I do "something".
When your life is run by emotions, then you are a slave to them. You are an animal that merely exists for the chemical whims of your pleasure and pain centers of the brain. But you can be more than that as a human being. You can think long term. You can make actions despite your body feeling nothing, or even screaming not to do it. When you feel nothing, you have to come to a conclusion on your own why your life is worth living. I have. It is worth living, simply to be. Even if one day I lost all emotion, and it never came back, I would still choose to live. I would still choose morals, and try to live a good path. Not because of feelings, but because I know what is right, and that my life is worth living.
Quoting aylon
Quoting Regretomancer
Quoting Judaka
Quoting existentialcrisis
I think there is an equivocation at the heart of this thread in the word 'matters'
The word can mean 'is cared about' and the word can mean 'has important effects regarding'.
The defenders of the the idea that only emotions matter (cough cough) are thinking in the first definition.
The only reason I care about marriage, a good job, understanding something is due to emotions. In a sense it is tautological. Care is a kind of emotion (in the sense being used here). I care about X, means I have emotions regarding it.
The people who are arguing against emotions being the reason that anything matters are, I think, more aligned with the second meaning. Of course the logical analytical part of the mind matters. It affects so much of what we do, think, decide, create....etc. It matters. It plays a powerful role.
And what that facility does matters to us (in the first sense of being emotionally important or is something we care about) precisely because it matters (in the second sense of has a core role) in all sorts of facets of out lives.
I do think there may be some fundamental disagreements between the two sides of this debate, but at the very least it is being exacerbated by the equivocation.
Even those who don’t go as far as Heidegger in integrating affect and cognition argue that affect is indispensable:
The emotion theorist Matthew Ratcliffe says :
“ “...affect binds us to things, making them relevant and ‘lighting up' aspects of the world in such a way as to call forth actions and thoughts. Without the world-structuring orientation that they provide, we are disoriented, cut off from the world, which no longer solicits thoughts and actions and is consequently devoid of value. In effect, [William] James is saying that our very sense of reality is constituted by world-orienting feelings that bind us to things .” (Ratcliffe 2005)
“ The absence of emotion comprises a state of cognitive and behavioural paralysis rather than fully functional cognition, stripped of ‘mere' affect. A phenomenology without affect is a phenomenology that guts the world of all its significance. The experienced world is ordinarily enriched by the feelings that we sew into it, that imbue it with value and light it up as an arena of cognitive and behavioural possibilities. So cognition without affect is not, according to James, in any sense complete. It is an extreme privation that strips the world of alll meaning.”
I think you are pretty much right.
i was too lazy to read the whole thing. I'll read the whole thing in 2 to 3 hours. I read the last 2 paragraphs and the OP's topic is on point. The concept is counter-intuitive and intuitive depending on the person. One thing though assuming you didn't mention this. Mathematics and even Physical force is neccesary in some cases and any one who wants to learn mathematics can obtain that goal through self-doubt or even self-hatred. The only way to be happy is to miss details.
Is duty an emotion? Is fairness a feeling? I might agree that part of what is important to us, what matters, is "what we want to do and what we don't". But to limit what interests us to emotions is to cheapen our motivations and remove our reasoning altogether.
Quoting existentialcrisis
Even as an intuitive theory of moral guidance in judging good and bad, "the way it makes us feel" seems arbitrary and, I want to say, left to a state of nature. In any event, even if we do have moments where we are left without guidance, most of our actions are simply following rules and standards ordinarily unquestioned--beyond that, our actions morally define us. What would it look like to have an emotional state always deciding what is good or bad? If you are angry and hate something, does that automatically make it bad? For everyone?
It appears to be a rather complicated issue, emotions and mattering but I find it helpful to distinguish between two kinds of significance/importance (mattering) viz. subjective significance and objective significance although it appears the the boundary between the two is blurred.
Subjective significance is, as the description suggests, peculiar to an individual. For example there are people who collect mementos, usually inexpensive small objects they pick up during their travels to distant lands. These objects matter to folks who keep them because they would like to be reminded of the amazing experiences they've had. They loved the times they spent in those places and that's what gives the souvenirs their significance. To someone who didn't share the experience, these souvenirs wouldn't matter at all. In short, subjective significance has emotional roots.
Objective significance is a different animal. Take for example a battery-operated watch on somebody's wrist. The battery matters for without it the watch won't run. I'm sure we could scale up this analogy to include the entire universe itself or even scale it down to as small as possible and the message is still clear: an objective significance transcends emotions in the sense that emotions are irrelevant i.e. no matter how one feels about it, whether one assigns subjective significance to it or not, it matters.
Remember how I talked about "...the boundary between the two is blurred." I mean two things by this:
1. People seem to be drawn to objective significance i.e. they're likely to invest, big time, emotionally in it. An odd state of affairs comes to be - we're infused with passion both in subjective and in objective significance. The difference is that in the former, emotions are the reason why things matter and in the latter, things matter at a non-emotional level but that evokes feelings.
2. What started off as something of subjective significance turns out to be of great objective significance and what we thought of as possessing huge objective significance is later discovered to be of subjective significance.
I'm not willing to go so far as make a value judgment on subjective and objective significance and assert that one is greater/lesser than the other because of "1. People seem to be drawn to objective significance i.e. they're likely to invest, big time, emotionally in it" and this, if nothing else, bespeaks an innate, intuitive, grasp of not just what matters but what should matter. What should matter exists in a world beyond our own and remembering that objective significance, to discover it, assuming it even exists at a level that satisfies us, is far from being a walk in the park, the least we can do is give our nod of approval to subjective significance for the reason that it acknowledges the role of emotions in things that matter or rather the things that should matter.
I've dissected what matters/things that matter (significance) into two viz. 1. subjective significance and 2. objective significance and these two, as explained above, differ in terms of which of the two - significance or emotions - causally precedes the other. That out of the way, take note of the fact that in both cases, emotions are involved. In conversational mode, I'd be saying, "you're going to get emotional with things that matter (both subjective and objective significance)". Our situation then is analogous to being told that there are buried treasures of gold and silver coins [things that matter (both objective and subjective significance respectively), given a metal detector (emotions), and told to look for it (if we so desire of course). Quite naturally, every time our metal detector beeps (we experience emotions), we'll come to the conclusion that we've discovered a buried treasure (things that matter). To get right to the point, emotions are good at sniffing out things that matter/what matters (significance) whether of subjective or objective significance.
The mystery in all this is whether the distinction subjective and objective significance is real or just a figment of my imagination? The metal detector (emotions) can't tell the difference between gold and silver coins (between objective and subjective significance respectively). What if, and this is at the heart of the matter (at least for me), everything that we get emotional about (metal detector beeps) possesses profound objective subjective significance (buried treasure of gold)?
Yes, but this statement must be thought by someone. It doesn’t rest in some eternal space of fact. When it is thought, it is thought with certain aims and purposes in mind, and arises within a certain context. There is always a reason why it should occur to someone at a certain point in time that a watch needs a battery to run , and that reason pertains to their concerns at that point in time. The particular felt significance the fact has to them cannot be separated from the fact itself. The way a word concept matters to us not only colors but co-defines the very sense of the word. Wittgenstein shows how the use of a word in activity with others determines its meaning. That implies affective as well
as ‘rational’ sense. If I think of something that doesn’t matter to me, it’s not mattering is still an attitude I take toward it , a way in which it affects me.
Quoting Joshs
I'm not sure it matters here. If we say that emotions are like hunger, anger, love, etc. and that "feelings" are our emotions about situations, statements, opinions, etc., we are still removing things that matter to us like, interest, need, fairness, right/wrong.
Quoting Joshs
I would say if you have an opinion about a situation, it muddles the discussion to say that is "the way something appears to me" as that gives the impression that this is something internal to only you, that you hold that opinion beyond our public language and the distinctive forms of our concepts. Adding that "feeling" is another way of talking about what is basically solipsism only makes the matter worse, as then it is reduced to an unintelligible position with the assumption that it is as valid as a rational discussion. You can of course feel however you want and claim that your point of view need not have any justification other than it is yours, but that narrows the grounds for agreement and isolates you to taking a stand without any responsibility to others by simply maintaining something private, i.e., its a copout.
Quoting Joshs
Concepts (action, knowledge, an apology, etc.) are public and so understanding is not from a "point of view" so much as, say, two people getting clear about a particular context and the sense in which a concept is being used; of course we can have a position on that ("That wasn't the act of firing the pistol, it was a mistake.") but our position ("feelings" if you like) does not dictate the grounds of that discussion.
Quoting Joshs
Saying "experience" is mine implies that it is not also others as well. Granted, you are you, in the sense of being separate, but to say your experience is different than any others' is to claim a ground where you can not be reached or that you speak uniquely by the shear fact that you claim an (imagined) quality for your self. Now this is not to say that "awareness" is not different than being unaware, say, of the implications and consequences of what you do and say, and that you can't deliberately decide what expressions you commit yourself to, or to consciously enter into a contract with society regarding justice, etc. But our being aware does not imply (ever) that the experience is yours, only that the choice (or not) and the responsibility for the consequences are yours to make and suffer.
Quoting Joshs
Part of this confusion ("must" 'always") is the idea that everything that is said is connected to a thought (or feeling) or to some intention. Our reasons for saying something most of the time are only developed afterwards when we are asked why we said (or did) something outside the ordinary course of a concept within a certain situation (see J.L. Austin). If I say "A watch needs a battery to run", that is strange enough to elicit such responses as "Don't you know there are spring-powered watches?" or an explanation such as "What I mean is that everyone needs energy to stay productive, so take care of yourself." Someone is responsible for a statement--it is not connected to an internal (hidden) cause (this is not to say that people do sometimes consciously try (intend) to say something particular--controversial, deliberate, etc.). And, though I don't think this is the place for this discussion, facts do exist apart from us. That is the allure of them--that the methods of science remove our responsibility for them.
Quoting Joshs
Again, saying the significance of a fact is "felt" by us reduces our relationship to facts to a private, non-rational, personal connection. It may be true that we feel a certain way about a fact, but hardly always, and never necessarily. Most times we simply accept the larger paradigm that gives the fact significance in a scientific theory--doubting a fact/theory is not a feeling; it's a claim.
Quoting Joshs
This is so close I would only clarify that "us" is not "me". The way a concept matters is baked into the (most times unspoken) criteria people have developed through the ways we live for identity, performance, judgment, consequences, etc., for that concept. Our feelings do not change that, though our actions might (including claiming only a personal connection to language). Wittgenstein uses these criteria to show that our concepts are flexible and intelligible in different particular senses, but there is not a "meaning" that is determined by (connected to) "use" so much as if we look at the use of a concept in a certain (present) context we can see the particular sense of that concept there (see my post on Witt's "use" of his lion quote). Again, if that is not assumed, accepted without concern, we must turn to the Other and asks them to explain what (external) sense they were using.
I think you make the mistake of separating 'our lives' from 'our emotions'. They are part of the same whole. Consider a dog, who has both but lacks the brainpower and language to conceptualise as you do. The dog's life doesn't need a meaning. It is simply driven by its instincts, which are an expression of its genetic programming, which is geared to its survival. This explains why we similarly exist - our evolution is just a few steps more sophiosticated than the dog's. If you want to consider 'meaning' you need to clarify that vague term. By 'meaning' I'm guessing you're asking 'What should we do with our lives, given that our survival is taken care of?"
The dog doesnt have that problem (luckily for it!) The answer is different for different people. My advice is to look around and see whom you admire. There will be someone. They will perhaps have put into practice a set of priorities that will suit you..
constructivist. I don’t think anything I say about the relationship between self and other , affect and intention, or the basis of norms and practices would be coherent to you if you believe it makes any sense to talk about a world independent of out construals of it , that our models correspond to. Yes, the world that I perceive offers accordances and constraints, as Jj Gibson points out(I can make up any old world I want to, but only certain construal will work, will be pragmatically useful in relation to my own goals and prior understanding. The affordance s and constraints emerge in relation to my ongoing cognitive
processes, not independently of them. On the other hand , if you can support Kuhn and Feyerabend against Popper on the theory-dependence of fact, and the enactivists on the basis of knowledge in structural coupling between embodied system and environment, then there are points of agreement between us.
Here’s more on my position concerning how the social basis of language should be understood. If you glance at the paper , you’ll notice that I locate my position to the ‘left’ of social constructionism. If you are a metaphysical realist , then your position is to the ‘right’ of social constructionism. I think that’s a huge gap to cross in discussion.
https://www.academia.edu/1342908/Embodied_Perception_Redefining_the_Social
quote="TheMadFool;483467"]The mystery in all this is whether the distinction subjective and objective significance is real or just a figment of my imagination?[/quote]
As I said differently above, Witt would say that the way a concept matters (its importance, significance)--publically as it were, not to us personally--is baked into the criteria of what counts for us in sorting out all its distinctions in different contexts from our lives and living: for identity, performance, judgment, consequences, etc.. Our personal feelings do not change that (say, each time). We may feel a particular way, and so say something based on that (or without thinking), but that does not change the concept and the senses in which it is used in contexts, or the way those are discussed (their/our rational).
Does such a claim necessarily belong to a solipsist, idealist or rationalist thinking, or can there be a more
immediate and intimate site of the social than that of identically ‘shared’discursive. meaning arising from the the ‘same’ social milieu?
Quoting Joshs
This is a misunderstanding. When I said "facts do exist apart from us", I meant: apart from us personally--our feelings about them--not, as apart from humans in (or in relation to) a metaphysical "world" or "reality". Though my point that facts are based in method doesn't mean that we can't have an opinion about how the science was done, or also about the paradigm they are a part of--but the rationality of that discussion is its own matter (as Kuhn, etc. discuss).
In briefly reviewing the essay: I do like the idea of an "event", which brings in the context Witt focuses on as well as Nietzsche's sense of the historicity of our concepts; I believe I studied someone French in the '90s--DeLeuze? And I'll grant there is change and extension in the sense of our concepts as well (over time; or in the moment, along certain possibilities), but I still think there is a confusion here between the personal and the public in terms of control, "intention", "meaning", etc. The explanation seems tied in knots to hang on to the idea of something unique and ever-present and "affected" to/by us, compared to Witt's (and Emerson's, and Austin's) idea that we mostly don't (and don't need to) assert ourselves into our expressions--not everything is an "event". In response to "cognitive and affective processes ...to situate or attune the context of our conceptual dealings with the world." I would say we usually only situate ourselves and examine the context of the concepts we use ("our conceptual dealings") in order to clarify (afterwards) the sense of an expression to another. "The sky is blue." "Do you mean: we should go surfing? It's not going to rain? or are you just remarking on the brilliant color?" All these concerns of course may not need investigating (either to the Other or myself) based on the context.
Quoting Joshs
Reading this from the perspective and terminology of Wittgenstein: There is a context, but it is not a fixed thing, nor "shared", nor the "same". The purpose of a context is an endless, if necessary, event of distinctions, if we need to understand in what sense a concept is/was used (by someone). Let's try to let go off equating/connecting "meaning" with words (language), and broaden the idea of a "word" to Witt's term "concept", so, "Can two people... end up with slightly different sense of a word [concept]?" Yes, misunderstandings happen all the time; see the different senses of just the expression "The sky is blue" above, or "knowledge": of a fact, of a skill, acknowledging the other, etc.
Quoting Joshs
No. The individual (feelings, intention, cause) does not change the senses of words. They may use a word (concept) in its different senses, but they are not "changing" anything about the workings of that concept. That's not to say there is not the possibility of the extension of a concept, particularly into a new context, that does change/add/diminish/invigorate/cheapen our concepts, but this is as much to change our lives/culture as our words, so not "immediate" nor "intimate" and without the idea of an "identically ‘shared’ discursive meaning" (though it can be said that an individual can change our lives/culture).
You know , of course, that the way a color appears to us changes in relation to many factors, such as the color of the background it appears against, the level of illumination, etc. Is there some veridical
color that these changes are
distortions of, or is it better tto recognize that perceptions in general appear against a bodily interactive field that is never identical from one point of time to the next? Are not perceptions forms of language themselves? If two people have slightly different perceptions of the ‘same’ color they are both looking at , is this a ‘misunderstanding’? Do we communicate with others despite such ‘misunderstandings’ or because of them? That is, perhaps the notion that there is such a thing as an unchanging word use is a derived abstraction, rather than the fundamental case. Husserl pointed out that objectivity is the result of intersubjective correlations. We convince ourselves that what is in fact only similar from one person to the next in our understanding of social conventions like words is identically shared between people.
I think what John Shotter said about science is true of word concepts.
“ although two scientists might not differ at all in
doing calculations, making predictions, and in pro-
viding explanations when working with scientific
formulae, differences could still occur between them
in the connections and relations they sense as exist-
ing within the phenomena of their inquiries. But
these would only show up, notes Hanson (1958) in
the different directions their new inquiries would
take, “in ‘frontier’ thinking – where the direction of
new inquiry has regularly to be redetermined”
(p.118).”
How should a psychotherapist proceed in understanding what their client means in their use of word concepts if not by attempting to discover the idiosyncratic ways in which such concepts are interrelated with a personal system
of meanings for that client?
Each of us lives in slightly different worlds, and we manage to communicate not by eliminating this fact but by accommodating to it. Most of the time the general nature of our social dealings masks these inter-individual differences in interpretation of word concepts. But when situations come up that expose these pre-existing differences , we are stunned to find that our neighbor voted for so and so, or ascribed to
such and such conspiracy theory. We then say they distorted , misread, misinterpreted the ‘true’ meaning of the concepts because we assumed that ...how did you put it?... “ they are not "changing" anything about the workings of that concept.”
Quoting Joshs
This extrapolation of the evolution of our scientific paradigms is somewhat analogous to the extension/adaptation/change that does happen with our concepts (Witt discusses it as "continuing a series"). But how this works with scientific theories is different than in the moral realm or with modern art or political discourse, etc. In science, we may put facts together under a different paradigm, but we do not have facts in the other instances (though we might wish to have the "fact" of the certainty of our own "experience", etc.), and we are not changing a paradigm or theory; our words and our lives are tied together, though we are not always able to work out our differences--understanding is not ensured.
Quoting Joshs
But here we do have a "verification color"--the swatch in the paint store (not a metaphysical "color"). We do not "misunderstand" each other about a color, we disagree in particular, intelligible, resolvable ways. If we agree, they are the same color (we do not each have our own and simply agree that they are the same). These distinctions and pathways are part of how the concept of color works. But the generalization of color schema for the meaningfulness of everything is to run roughshod over all the different ways concepts work (there is no universal theory of "meaning"). Our identification and description of color is different than that for objects or headaches, etc. (Stanley Cavell, in "Knowing and Acknowledging" from Must We Mean What We Say does a good job of investigating the ways in which we talk about color, pain, etc. regarding knowledge of other minds.)
The implication of a private "perception" (thought, intention, meaning) is to wish to hang on to our own experience (apart from that answerable to others)--they are not "language"; language is for expression (even to myself). As I explain in my other post on Witt's lion quote, his observation is that the desire for certainty, universality, predictability, and something private or hidden, is so that, among other things, I must know myself and can never really know the other. If I say something, I always have something extra to hold back:"my experience", so that I can avoid the responsibility I have to what I express.
Quoting Joshs
And here, in order to hold onto the idea of an internal, private something, we fold ourselves over with theoretical explanations, rather than looking to see how a concept is used (this is not "an unchanging word use"), in an expressive event (not all expression) in an ordinary (temporal, situational) context.
Quoting Joshs
My understanding, limited as it is, is that therapy is to bring the client to terms with the ordinary repercussions of their idea of themselves, and with the regular reactions one might have to their trauma, in contrast to the "personal system of meanings" created by their denial and avoidance. So, basically, exactly the opposite of finding "them"--dragging them into the public world.
Quoting Joshs
A. Saying there is a "'true' meaning of [a] concept" is to miss my point entirely that there is no "meaning"--there are ways that a concept is meaningful to us, and these are exactly the different criteria that frame its functioning. Also, "true" (and false) is not how most concepts (other than, e.g., true/false statements) work--you wouldn't say an apology was false, other than to say it was disingenuous.
C. People do not normally (have to) examine the workings of a concept in order to use it correctly or know when someone else is not. We grew up in a world where you must say "I do" in order to get married, that you must acknowledge some wrong in order to apologize correctly, that there is usually something fishy when you ask what someone intended, what the difference is between a game and just playing, etc. These, by the way, are the tools of Ordinary Language Philosophy (like Wittgenstein)--that there are ordinary uses for our concepts and that they work in different, semi-rational (not certain but intelligible, discussable) ways.
B. Though speaking of "semi" rational, you are now using political discourse as an example, which we can say anything about--no amount of my pointing out something isn't fair (part of how fairness is measured) may help. Though this is not to say that it is impossible to have a meaningful, productive conversation about politics--the existence of its failure does not negate its possibility. We are responsible for our denial of the other and our acceptance of our disappointments in our refusal to continue the conversation of justice. Calamitizing based on our failure in, say, the moral realm, is the skeptic's resort to throw up their hands about every concept and desire to, say, internalize something (for me), or otherwise find some solution to maintain the idea of a nevertheless workable world outside of our responsibility for/to it. I would point out that it is exactly the creation of a private world that allows someone to claim "that's not (you don't know) what I meant!" or otherwise renege on their bond for their expressions. Austin points out that it is the saying of "I do" that is crucial in marrying someone, not the idea of an internal experience of "meaning it" (apart from just a normal lie)--reserving a private experience is, among other things, the desire for a world apart from our failings.
For many who follow Wittgenstein public requires other discursive partners. either present or internalized. Because the public is formulated this way, it leaves no alternative except a solipsistic, rationalist realm called the private, some space sealed off from
exposure to the outside , the other, alterity, sel-transformation, creativity, etc. What this binary completely misses is a notion of the social, alterity, otherness, sociality that begins at a more intimate site than that of discurisve conventions and language games between people. It misses the idea that a self, an ‘I’ , is alway already from moment to moment not only exposed to otherness and sociality, but changed by it whether one is ‘alone’ or with other people. The self is already a sequentially sel-transforming community. There is never a self-identical’I’ to return back to from moment to moment , because the very sense of this ‘I’ has been subtly changed by its being in the world. As Heidegger says, the self is a ‘between’ , not a private space.
The avoidance of solipsism is accomplished in a more radical fashion through this thinking than via the Wittgenstienian approach.
Trevor Butt (1998a) concurs with Merleau-Ponty that "sociality can be seen as more primitive for
humankind than individuality, when our status as body-subjects is appreciated and dualist ideas
are abandoned.”
By sociality, Butt means joint ownership of meaning, which he opposes to the cognitivist
presumption of a computer-like subject controlling their own thoughts.
Chiari(2015) adds: “In other words, it is possible to conceive the relationship between two or
more persons not in terms of "interacting" individuals, but of elements of an inseparable system
in which the relationship precedes the individual psychologies.”
Along similar lines, but from a realist rather than postmodern perspective, Harry Procter has
proposed the heuristic of a ‘family construct system’, wherein relationship dynamics among the
individual members of a family function comparably to the elements
of an individual’s personal construct system.
Shaun Gallagher(2017), a writer embracing hermeneutic as well as Merleau-Ponty themes, offers
a co-conditioning model of sociality that accords with Butt’s depiction of construing as
intersubjective:
On ‘socially distributed cognition’, he writes:
“To the extent that the instituted narrative, even if formed over time by many individuals,
transcends those individuals and may persist beyond them, it may loop around to constrain or
dominate the group members or the group as a whole.”
“Collective (institutional, corporate) narratives often take on a life (an autonomy)
of their own and may come to oppose or undermine the intentions of the individual
members. Narrative practices in both extended institutional and collective structures and
practices can be positive in allowing us to see certain possibilities, but at the same time, they
can carry our cognitive processes and social interactions in specific directions and blind us
to other possibilities."
The above treatments of the social space as centered configuration makes individual behavior in
social situations the product of narrative norms, reciprocities, shared practices and social
constraints. The presupposition here is the belief that essentially the same social signs are
available to all who interrelate within a particular community, that there are such things as
non-person-specific meanings, originating in an impersonal expressive agency. I’m not
suggesting that joint activity implies a complete fusion of horizons amenable to a third-person
perspective, except perhaps in the case of Procter’s group construct system. Rather , the
first-personal stance becomes subordinated to a second-personal ‘we’, as “an inseparable system
in which the relationship precedes the individual psychologies.”
Let’s not misunderstand what I mean by making this distinction between a WITHIN-person
and a BETWEEN-person dynamic. The within-person dynamic is already a between in that it is a
thoroughgoing exposure to an outside, an alterity, an otherness. For Kelly and Heidegger, the
radically inseparable interaffecting between my history and new experience exposes me to the
world in an immediate, constant and thoroughgoing manner. I am not arguing that the meaning of
social cues is simply person-specific rather than located intersubjectively as an impersonal
expressive agency. Before there is a pre-reflective personal ‘I’ or interpersonal ‘we’, there is
already within what would be considered THE person a fully social site of simultaneously
subjective and objective process overtaking attempts to understand human action based on either
within-person constancies or between-person conditionings.
So, rather than a retreat from a thoroughgoing notion of sociality, Personal construct theory
would be a re-situating of the site of the social as a more originary and primordial grounding than
that of the over-determined abstractions represented by discursive intersubjectivities. Those
larger patterns of human belonging abstracted from local joint activity, which Merleau-Ponty’s
intercorporeal approach discerns in terms of cultural language practices, hide within themselves
a more primary patterning. While our experience as individuals is characterized by stable
relations of relative belonging or alienation with respect to other individuals and groups, the site
of this interactivity, whether we find ourselves in greater or lesser agreement with a world within
which we are enmeshed, has a character of peculiar within-person continuity. It also has a
character of relentless creative activity that undermines and overflows attempts to understand
human action based on between-person configurations or fields. We may identify to a greater or
lesser extent with various larger paradigmatic communities, delicately united by intertwining
values. But the contribution of each member of a community to the whole would not originate at
the level of spoken or bodily language interchange among voices; such constructs repress as
much as they reveal. Even in a community of five individuals in a room, I, as participant, can
perceive a locus of integrity undergirding the participation of each of the others to the responsive
conversation. To find common ground in a polarized political environment is not to find an
intersect among combatants, a centrifugal ground of commonality, but to find as many intersects
as there are participants. Each person perceives the basis of the commonality in the terms of their
own construct system.
In my dealings with other persons, I would be able to discern a thread of continuity organizing
their participation in dialogue with me, dictating the manner and extent to which I can be said to
influence their thinking and they mine. My thinking can not properly be seen as `determined' by
his response, and his ideas are not simply `shaped' by my contribution to our correspondence.
The extent to which I could be said to be embedded within a particular set of cultural practices
would be a function of how closely other persons I encounter resonate with my own ongoing
experiential process. I can only shape my action to fit socially legitimate goals or permitted
institutionalized forms to the extent that those goals or forms are already implicated in my
ongoing experiential movement. Even then, what is implicated for me is not `the' social forms, but
aspects hidden within these so-called forms which are unique to the organizational structure of my
construct system; what I perceive as socially `permitted' rhetorical argumentation is already
stylistically distinctive in relation to what other participants perceive as permitted. Each individual
who feels belonging to an extent in a larger ethico-political collectivity perceives that collectivity's
functions in a unique, but peculiarly coherent way relative to their own history, even when they
believe that in moving forward in life their behavior is guided by the constraints imposed by
essentially the `same' discursive conventions as the others in their community.
Eugene Gendlin, whose work is closely related to Heidegger’s, says “ The higher animals live quite complex lives without culture. Culture does not create; it elaborates. Then we live creatively much further with and after culture. To think that we are the creation of culture is not a view one can maintain if one senses ongoing bodily experiencing directly. Culture is crude and inhuman in comparison with what we find directly. The intricacy you are now living vastly exceeds what cultural forms have contributed to you. With focusing we discover that we are much more organized from the inside out. “
Quoting Joshs
Your summation of Wittgenstein reverses his objective: he is trying to do away with the "private", the "self" (not to say, the personal). Yes, we are "sealed off from... the other" except through language/action (we could say we are even sealed off from ourselves (our subconcious) in the same way); this is not solipsism (there is nothing kept in reserve--our makeup is, as it were, entirely public), but rather a fact of our human condition. The Other just is separate--it is our responsibility to bridge that gap through expression and understanding (where does Heidegger conflict with this?); there is no more certain, theoretical explanation or solution for our situation--no "more intimate site", and, more importantly why do we feel the need for there to be?
Heidegger does not say the Other is separate . He
says that it is built into the very notion of self. The Other is already within me, as belonging to the very definition of self. Not a self that has to reach out to the other, but a same-other differential that precedes any notion of self relating to an external other. Self and other aren’t entities in relation. They are edges of a dimension of
change. Self is never a state , self is always a change in self. Thus the ‘I’ ‘ is’ as finding itself changed(Befindlichkeit). The self ‘is’ as expression , which is why he puts discourse as equiprimoridal with attunement and understanding. To render dasein as subject encountering object is to perform what Heidegger calls a present-to-hand
modification which distorts and flattens it into a propositional statement.
Quoting Joshs
I agree here (though still not sure where this Heidegger is from--I assume Being and Time), though I don't see why our ordinary means aren't sufficient here. Our identity, as it were, our character, our individuality, our aversion to conformity Emerson would say, is not given, but claimed, by our voicing, our expression (including actions). Emerson removes the "therefore" and simply says " 'I think', 'I am' " as emphatic assertions, as it were: standing up for what matters to us, being responsible for the public language we say. To use your Heidegger--the self is an expression; it does not exist, it is expressed. As it is, we may not exist; we carve ourselves out, or not (aligning with others, along party lines, against our mother, etc.). Being and thinking are not ever-present states of the human condition--only possibilities.
And I agree with the post-metaphysical position you assume is necessary to any modern philosophy. I would only hope that you might see that the desire to have the relationship to the Other as constant, ensured, and/or pre-existent, and thus not subject to rejection/termination, is born of the same desire for the private, hidden self or subject--that these theoretical machinations are born of the same fear of our fragile, ephemeral (or lack of any) connection to the Other and of our personal burden to our voice and to answer the claim on us of the Other. This is not subject-object; it is two individual people left with the failure of knowledge to connect them.
Or perhaps you are thinking of something as easy as the context that precedes and allows for the possibilities of our concepts, communication.
Quoting existentialcrisis
To return to the topic at hand, although I balked at the phrasing of "emotions" or "feelings" initially, I do agree that what makes us human is our interest, our attraction, our desires, our needs--as you say, what matters to us. Without that, not only would we just be surviving (which I would argue some only do), but those interests are the framework of all the criteria which shape our concepts. Unfortunately, philosophy has been neurotic about allowing our human expressions of these interests (or disinterest) to be what comprises us, without its theoretical nets.
Emotions are a personal departure from Reality. What is taking place has no inherent meaning outside of that which you give it.
If you believe that emotion gives meaning to life, then your life is simply your personal reality (which is the way it seems to be for most).
In adult life, the taking of responsibility is what gives meaning to life. Survival through doing what needs to be done is very meaningful (particularly if others are dependent on you).