Year
2020
Season
Fall
Paper Type
Master's Thesis
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Practical Philosophy and Applied Ethics (MA)
Department
Philosophy and Religious Studies
NACO controlled Corporate Body
University of North Florida. Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
First Advisor
Dr. Mitchell Haney
Second Advisor
Dr. Sarah Mattice
Abstract
The aim of this thesis is to call attention to some of the shortcomings of a cognitivist theory’s incorporation of feeling into a philosophy of emotion. There has been a tendency within the cognitivist theories to assume as irreducible the intentional structures through which these theories operate. A consequence of this tendency often sees feelings compartmentalized through internal and external distinctions, such as bodily feelings and world-directed feelings. What appears to be ignored is the notion that prior to all emotional experience we have already found ourselves belonging to a world, and attempts at a phenomenological understanding of a category of feeling as a pre-intentional background sense of belonging to a world prior to experience become obscured or dismissed. I argue for developing a phenomenological approach in illuminating the background structure of emotion presupposed by a cognitivist view.
Suggested Citation
Willard, David R., "Cognitivism, Feelings, and the Background Structures of Emotion" (2020). UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 989.
https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/etd/989