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Publication Details

Body and Feelings. Three Ideas Pertaining to the Ontology of Emotions

(Original title: Tělo a pocity: tři ideje k ontologii emocí)
Filozofia, 77 (2022), 5, 371 - 379.
Type of work: Reflections
Publication language: Czech
Abstract

The paper describes different ways in which emotions are felt by the body-Based on phenomenological philosophy, an enactive approach in the cognitive sciences, and contemporary psychology, the article puts forward three arguments for the corporeality of emotion. Emotion is bodily because 1. bodily sensations provide context to an emotional situation; 2. the basic form of expression of emotion is the bodily readiness to act; 3. the full form of expression of emotion is either bodily movement or is based on a movement. The common element of these arguments is a conception of the sensing and moving body, which cannot be reduced either to a physiological machine or a bodily localized sensation in the focus of attention. The article is framed by a critique of the sharp cognitivist distinction between the nature and expression of emotion, which it replaces with the concept of mutual sense-bestowal between behavior and experience on the one hand and situation on the other.

Keywords

Emotion, Affectivity, Corporeity, Phenomenology, Enactivism, Ontology, Expression

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