Bruno Poli
University of Geneva
The presentation’s main objective is to offer a comparison between contemporary and Austro-German cognitivist theories of emotions. More specifically, our aim is to bring them into dialogue by highlighting the similarities in their defended theses.
In the philosophy of emotions, cognitivist theories can be described as the ones “that make some aspect of thought, usually a belief, central to the concept of emotion […].” (Lyons, 1980) The idea is that something is an emotion E only if E is related to some belief B/judgment J. The predicate “is related to” can be read in many ways, two of which are prominent in the contemporary debate. The first one is to claim that emotions involve beliefs in some non-specific way (Kenny, 1963). For instance, to fear something x involves the belief that x is dangerous. Here the emotion depends on the belief, but it is not reducible to it. This is the doxastic position. The second one treats it as expressing identity. In this conception, emotions are beliefs or, more specifically, evaluative beliefs (Solomon, 1993; Nussbaum, 2001). According to this view, fear would just be the judgment that x is dangerous. This is the judgmentalist position.
Both views are already present in Austro-German philosophy, albeit in different ways. The doxastic position is first defended by Brentano (2009a), who argues that emotions have as their basis [Grundlage] both presentations and judgments. This view is taken up in nearly the same form by several of his followers, including Husserl (1901) and Stumpf (1928). But although these authors advocate views similar to those of contemporary theorists, a key difference lies in their account of the dependency between the two mental states, which they conceive in mereological terms. The predicate “is related to” is here analyzed in terms of relations between separable and non-separable parts of mental states (Brentano, 1982; Husserl, 1901).
The judgmentalist position, in turn, is not defended by any of these authors but rather criticized. Their main critique concerns the view that the intentionality of emotion is reducible to judgment via its content. According to the judgmentalist, fearing x just is the belief that . What distinguishes the intentionality of the emotion from the intentionality of other beliefs is that an evaluation appears in the bracketed part (believed content). According to many authors of the Austro-German tradition, however, this seems implausible because when one, for instance, fears x, the object of fear is not that but arguably just (Brentano, 2009a; Stumpf, 1928). Thus, judgmentalists would have a false conception of the intentionality of emotions.
Our presentation will be divided into three parts. The first part will present the main theses of cognitivist theories as defended in contemporary philosophy, with a particular focus on the doxastic and judgmentalist positions. The second part will examine the corresponding theses in Austro-German philosophy, drawing attention to both the similarities and the differences in comparison with their contemporary counterparts. Finally, we will take stock and argue, on conceptual grounds, in favor of the position we consider to be more robust and preferable.
References:
Brentano, F. (1982). Deskriptive Psychologie. Felix Meiner Verlag.
Brentano, F. (2009a). Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. New York, NY: Routledge. (Original work published 1874).
Husserl, E. (1988 [1901]). Logische Untersuchungen [Logical Investigations]. Felix Meiner.
Kenny, A. (2003). Action, emotion and will. Routledge.
Lyons, W. (1980). Emotion. Cambridge University Press.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2001). Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge University Press.
Solomon, R. C. (1993). The passions: Emotions and the meaning of life (2nd ed.). Hackett Publishing.
Stumpf, C. (1928). Einleitung. In Gefühl und Gefühlsempfindungen (1928). Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth, Leipzig.
Chair: Sofia Sgarbi
Time: 05 September, 14:40 – 15:10 (Cancelled)
Location: SR 1.007
SOPhiA 2026 