[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: [xmca] about emotions
Jay,
I am thinking about a three year old I knew very well explaining that the
girl next door was his best friend because she made him cry -- apparently a
good thing, at least until he learned otherwise from the older people in his
life!
But we adults relearn all the time from the children around us that sadness
(maybe not fear and its opposite, but certainly sadness), is not as
different from happiness as we tend to assume.
Beth
On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 11:59 PM, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:
> I have had Scheff on my reading list for a while, but was away from the
> right kinds of libraries most of last year.
>
> I'm afraid I just don't see why it's important to list something as a
> "basic" emotion? That usually just means that someone wants it to count as
> having academic or intellectual importance, or that they want to link it to
> our baser animal nature, or that it's a candidate for some sort of
> biological universal, pre-determined by evolution. All of which agendas give
> me the creeps!
>
> But I've heard good things about Scheff, so I will get round to him soon.
>
> How about this: there are several hundred "basic" emotions?
>
> In any case, I was thinking of anthropological arguments about "guilt
> cultures" vs. "shame cultures" and the kind of analysis Achilles was citing
> from LSV about how feelings, whatever their biological functions or
> antecdents, get infused and transformed by culture into something a great
> deal more.
>
> Thanks for the reminder about Scheff!
>
>
> JAY.
>
> Jay Lemke
> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> Educational Studies
> University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>
> Visiting Scholar
> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> University of California -- San Diego
> La Jolla, CA
> USA 92093
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Nov 28, 2009, at 8:47 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
>
> Thomas Scheff
>> http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/scheff/
>> makes a good case that guilt is among the basic emotions, Jay.
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> Jay Lemke wrote:
>>
>>> Achilles, and friends --
>>> I am not sure of the best interpretation of LSV's position on these
>>> matters, but it seems to me to be in the spirit of his work and the later
>>> CHAT tradition that we imagine a culturally informed "development" (probably
>>> with phylogenetic antecedents) in which the "higher" functions develop out
>>> of the earlier ones by a progessive layering or refinement, specialization,
>>> and differentiation -- both for higher feelings as well as higher
>>> cognitions.
>>> Indeed I don't think we want to separate affect and cognition, or feeling
>>> and meaning, emotion and reason, too much. A little distinction is useful to
>>> give us purchase on understanding their integration. I would assume that in
>>> the developmental and evolutionary sequence, these two aspects of our
>>> adaptive operating-with-the-world, are initially less separable and less
>>> distinguishable, aspects of a single functional process. And that later in
>>> the sequence we LEARN to MAKE a distinction, and perhaps even to FEEL a
>>> difference between them.
>>> But it is their functional integration which is of the greatest
>>> importance, not their difference (in my opinion). So to the higher mental
>>> functions viewed cognitively (and it is not at all clear that LSV did view
>>> them ONLY cognitively in our modern sense) there must correspond also
>>> "higher feelings", what we might call culturally refined or culturally
>>> differentiated and functionally specialized feelings, which function as part
>>> of the whole engagement in activity that enables us to sometimes get a bit
>>> ahead of our semi-predictable environments. Insight. Intuition. A feeling
>>> for the organism. Good hunches. Good judgment. A nose for useful lines of
>>> research. And so on.
>>> Of course once we are immersed in a complex world of highly culturally
>>> differentiated feelings, we realize that their functions are not simply
>>> practical, not simply dictated by evolutionary fitness. Or at least not in
>>> very obvious ways. And so I have taken to making a heuristic distinction of
>>> my own in terminology among emotions (the more classical ones, triggered by
>>> environmental events, with obvious adaptive significance, like those listed
>>> by Darwin and borrowed by James, such as fear, anger, disgust, desire,
>>> etc.), affects (which I use to mean the "higher" feelings, the more
>>> culturally specific and "refined" ones, like feeling noble or feeling
>>> guilty), and feelings as such (the general category, of which emotions and
>>> affects are subclasses, and which also includes the more auto-perceptual
>>> feelings like feeling tired or feeling dizzy).
>>> Again it is not so much the distinctions here that I value theoretically,
>>> but getting a sense of the scope of the whole domain of feelings, and how to
>>> make sense of any particular feeling-type within it. (Distinguishing again
>>> between the uniqueness of a particular feeling on a particular occasion and
>>> the more generic feeling-types recognized or recognizable culturally across
>>> instances.)
>>> Whew! A lot to chew on ...
>>> JAY.
>>> Jay Lemke
>>> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
>>> Educational Studies
>>> University of Michigan
>>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>>> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>>> Visiting Scholar
>>> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
>>> University of California -- San Diego
>>> La Jolla, CA
>>> USA 92093
>>> On Nov 27, 2009, at 10:45 PM, Achilles Delari Junior wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Jay,
>>>>
>>>> Thank you very much.
>>>>
>>>> Something near to this distinction between feelings and emotions
>>>> was posed by William James too, according Vygotsky, but James
>>>> saw this distinction in terms that these social dimension of affective
>>>> world, the higher feelings, have almost nothing related to biological,
>>>> physiological, material, body, conditions. And Vygotsky criticizes
>>>> this like a way of dualistic thinking - this dualism can be understood
>>>> as based in ideological motivations too: "the human is not an animal,
>>>> nor a material been, but a divine been, in his higher, superior
>>>> feelings..."
>>>>
>>>> A distinction between feelings and emotions is present in Damasio too
>>>> in neurofunctional terms... But Vygotsky proposed the question of
>>>> a systemic inter-relationship in that the lower can turns higher, and
>>>> vice versa... I don't know what we can thing about this... In this
>>>> case, distinction between feelings and emotions are useful, but if
>>>> we want to understand the entire human been, his/her whole personality,
>>>> the integration and inter-functional relations between feelings and
>>>> emotions turns relevant too, In my point of view.
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes.
>>>> Achilles.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> From: jaylemke@umich.edu
>>>>> To: lchcmike@gmail.com; xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] about emotions
>>>>> Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:28:26 -0800
>>>>> CC:
>>>>>
>>>>> I am certainly one of those people interested in emotion, or feeling,
>>>>> or affect, or whatever we choose to make of the phenomenon.
>>>>>
>>>>> The topic seems to have historically accumulated a lot of ideological
>>>>> baggage. And while its expression may be more sophisticated today than
>>>>> in times past, there doesn't seem to be that much less of it (as for
>>>>> example in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy review noted by
>>>>> someone earlier).
>>>>>
>>>>> Emotion tends to be seen as bad in our philosophical tradition. As the
>>>>> enemy of reason, the motor of self-deception, etc. It links us to the
>>>>> animals, to our "baser" nature, etc. A bit of this in the pagan
>>>>> tradition, a lot of it in christian asceticism, and tons of it in
>>>>> Enlightenment rationalism and its successors.
>>>>>
>>>>> Emotions are also associated with the unreliable feminine vs. the cool
>>>>> and collected masculine, with the passions of the mob vs. the
>>>>> thoughtful elite, with peasants, workers, and children, and pretty
>>>>> much every social category whose oppression needs some legitimation.
>>>>> Indeed one of the near universal legitimations of elite power is "we
>>>>> know what's good for you", not just because of what we know, but
>>>>> because you can't be trusted to see your own best interests through
>>>>> the haze of your emotions.
>>>>>
>>>>> Useful as this is to elite interests, it combines further with the
>>>>> cult of individualism to make emotions a purely individual, mental,
>>>>> subjective matter. Non-material, non-social, non-cultural, and
>>>>> universal (the easier to apply the stigma of emotionality to non-
>>>>> European cultures). It is rather hard to crawl out of this pit of mud.
>>>>>
>>>>> As I've been trying to do for the last year or two. There would be too
>>>>> much to say for a short post on this list, but here are a few basic
>>>>> suggestions:
>>>>>
>>>>> Feeling is a broad enough category to get back to the phenomenology of
>>>>> affect/emotion, whereas "emotion" is too narrowly defined within the
>>>>> tradition of animal-like and universal.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are a LOT of different feelings, and that is more important than
>>>>> efforts to identify some small number of basic emotions.
>>>>>
>>>>> Many feelings are associated with evaluative judgments and this may be
>>>>> a key link to re-unify affective and cognitive.
>>>>>
>>>>> Feelings do differ significantly across cultures, and are part of a
>>>>> larger system of meanings-and-feelings specific to a community.
>>>>>
>>>>> You can't make meanings across any longer term process of reasoning
>>>>> without feelings and evaluative judgments.
>>>>>
>>>>> It is likely that feelings have histories, both in cultures and in
>>>>> individuals.
>>>>>
>>>>> Feelings are often reliable guides to survival, to adaptive action,
>>>>> and to finding ways to meet our needs.
>>>>>
>>>>> Feelings are just as situated and distributed as are cognitions. And
>>>>> just as active and actively made and produced.
>>>>>
>>>>> In short -- pretty much everything in our dominant tradition about
>>>>> emotions and feelings is exactly wrong -- and for the worst possible
>>>>> ideological-political reasons, I believe.
>>>>>
>>>>> JAY.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Jay Lemke
>>>>> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
>>>>> Educational Studies
>>>>> University of Michigan
>>>>> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>>>>> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>>>>>
>>>>> Visiting Scholar
>>>>> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
>>>>> University of California -- San Diego
>>>>> La Jolla, CA
>>>>> USA 92093
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Nov 26, 2009, at 8:08 AM, mike cole wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> With so much interest in achieving an integrated understanding of
>>>>>> emotion,
>>>>>> cognition, and development, Achilles, your focus on this topic is a
>>>>>> helpful
>>>>>> reminder of its continued importance.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Seems like one of those many areas in psychological research where
>>>>>> we cannot
>>>>>> keep from murdering to dissect.
>>>>>> mike
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _________________________________________________________________
>>>> Novo site do Windows Live: Novidades, dicas dos produtos e muito mais.
>>>> Conheça!
>>>>
>>>> http://www.windowslive.com.br/?ocid=WindowsLive09_MSN_Hotmail_Tagline_out09_______________________________________________
>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> xmca mailing list
>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>
>>
>> --
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
>> Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov, Ilyenkov $20
>> ea
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> xmca mailing list
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca