Abstract
Current theories of emotions and emotional machines often assume too homogeneous a conception of what emotions are in terms of whether they are experienced as one's own emotions (“internal” emotions) or whether they are perceived as the emotions of other agents (“external” emotions). In contrast, this paper argues, first, that an answer to the question of whether machines can possess emotions requires such a distinction—the distinction between internal emotions-had and external emotions-perceived. Second, it argues that the emotions we perceive in other agents can be explicated as indicators of likely imminent paths or patterns of behavior of those agents. As will be shown, perceiving emotions in others does not necessarily involve the ontological attribution of corresponding emotions-had to the subject which is perceived as exhibiting a particular emotion-perceived. Thus, it will be shown that we can, for example, perceive an agent as angry without (ontologically) attributing anger (as an emotion-had) to that agent. If we apply this reasoning to emotional robots, it follows that there is no deception involved in perceiving a robot as exhibiting a particular emotion, as long as its behavior realizes and continues to realize the behavioral form of that external emotion-perceived. Thus, a robot’s behavior can fully instantiate emotions-perceived. In order to elaborate these claims, the presented view will be contrasted with Gibson’s conception of “affordances.” The final section discusses whether these considerations might have broader implications for our view of human perception in general.
I would like to thank Tobias Störzinger for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
“So ging ich einmal mit einigen meiner Freunde spazieren. Nun mußte uns gerade eine Ziege im Wege liegen. Ich gab der Ziege einige Schläge mit meinem Stocke, meine Freunde warfen mir meine Grausamkeit vor. Ich aber erwiederte: was Grausamkeit? Glaubt ihr denn, daß die Ziege einen Schmerz fühlt, wenn ich sie schlage? ihr irrt euch hierin sehr. Die Ziege ist (nach dem Sturm, der ein Karthesianer war) eine bloße Maschine. [] Diese lachten herzlich darüber, und sagten, aber hörst du nicht, daß die Ziege schreyt, wenn du sie schlägst? worauf ich antwortete: ja freylich schreyet sie; wenn ihr aber auf eine Trommel schlagt, so schreyet sie auch.” (Maimon, 1792, p. 146 f.).
- 2.
This distinction is related, though not identical, to the distinction between experiencing an emotion and expressing an emotion. The main difference is that emotions-had and emotions-perceived refer to two kinds of objects of conscious experience: one’s own emotions and the emotions one (directly) perceives in others.
- 3.
This points toward the phenomenological difference between a perceived aggression and a perceived threat, say, from a falling rock. The threat posed by a falling rock is not experienced as pointing toward and following you. The threat of a Terminator-robot, however, is.
- 4.
A similar point is made by Jean-Paul Sartre in his Being and Nothingness: “[T]o be exact, the anger which the Other feels is one phenomenon, and the furious expression which I perceive is another and different phenomenon.” (Sartre, 1956, p. 226). “[T]he anger of the Other-as-object as it is manifested to me across his cries, his stamping, and his threatening gestures is not the sign of a subjective and hidden anger; it refers to nothing except to other gestures and to other cries.” (Ibid., p. 294).
- 5.
It may also be the case that Tom does not directly perceive Tobias as angry, but at the same time correctly attributes anger as an emotion-had to him because he knows him well enough to suspect that he is angry under certain circumstances, even if he does not show it in any conspicuous way.
- 6.
Maybe because, as one might speculate, ordinary language is much more focused on the—somewhat outward-facing—ontological than on the—rather inward-facing—phenomenological aspect of phenomena.
- 7.
An analogous phenomenological differentiation concerns the distinction between one’s own emotions-had and one’s own emotions-expressed (one’s own emotions-perceived from the perspective of others). If a person is sad, she might still express amusement, for example, when making fun with her friends, without necessarily deceiving them with regard to her ‘true’ emotions-had. In reality, however, we often find all shades of mixed emotions and in-between cases.
- 8.
This claim may seem trivial when one thinks of cases in which one is deceived by a skillful actor about his true feelings.
- 9.
Uexküll and Kriszat (1934) use color coding to signify the way in which different kinds of objects in the surrounding of different subjects are perceived as belonging to different object-categories (like food, obstacles, tools, and so on).
- 10.
There exists an alternative interpretation of Gibsonian affordances which takes “biological norms” to be an important part of them, such that a subject doesn’t only perceive possibilities for action relative to its abilities when it perceives affordances, but rather possibilities for action as evaluated through emotions where this evaluation can be traced back to biological norms (Hufendiek, 2016). The affordance of “being dangerous” and the “fear” by which this dangerousness is disclosed might be an example: “fear doesn’t represent the chemical structure of the snake’s venom; rather, it represents the snake’s being dangerous for our bodily well-being” (Ibid.). However, this interpretation of affordances, although it seems quite promising in itself, brings affordances closer to what Gestalt psychologists like Lewin an Koffka called the “demand character” of things. A conception, however, Gibson explicitly disagrees with.
- 11.
Plessner talks here of the “subjective–objective indifference” of the meaningful objects of perception (Plessner, 2003, p. 87).
- 12.
The idea that what a thing is and what it enables are not distinct is not a Gibsonian Invention, but traces back to at least the Gestalt theoretical tradition. As Koffka writes: “To primitive man each thing says what it is and what he ought to do with it: a fruit says, ‘Eat me’; water says, ‘Drink me’; thunder says, ‘Fear me,’ and woman says, ‘Love me.’” (Koffka, 1935, p. 7).
- 13.
Hufendiek (2016) argues, that affordances are constituted by “observer-independent relational properties” (like x being dangerous for y) as well as by “evolved responses to them” (like y being afraid and avoidant of x) such that an organism might learn to perceive the affordance of x being “a danger-to-be-avoided”. This analysis can be reconstructed as addressing the problem that while affordances seem to be objective in so far as they concern the relation between the abilities of an observer and its environment, there still seems to be the need for the observer to correctly grasp the existence of such a relation. A frozen lake may be walk-on-able for a certain subject (relative to its weight, its walking abilities, etc.), however, it might not be able to perceive this affordance (because it might not be used to walking on ice regularly).
- 14.
A critique of Searle’s account concerning his idea that social construction begins where status-functions are constituted which go beyond mere physical possibility can be found in Poljanšek, 2015. There I argue, as the example of the coffee mug exemplifies, that socially constructed status functions do not have to go beyond the possibilities previously available because of brute physical facts, but that such status functions can also specifically limit the horizon of socially acceptable options (“We don’t drink cold carbonated beverages from coffee mugs”).
- 15.
Even if one takes biological norms to be constitutive of common affordances (Hufendiek, 2016), socially constructed affordances seem to need something more to count as such.
- 16.
Such a conception of emotions-had as disclosing affordances bears some striking resemblance to Robert C. Roberts’ account of emotions as “concern-based construals”, “ways things appear to the subject” (Roberts, 2003, p. 75) which are “imbued, flavored, colored, drenched, suffused, laden, informed, or permeated with concern” (ibid., p. 79).
- 17.
In the same way, you can express joy over a gift from a friend and really mean it, even though at the same moment you are not able to really feel joy. From a phenomenological point of view, such cases can be quite intricate, insofar as one can, ‘externally’ so to speak, feel joy in and through the expression of joy, while ‘internally’ one does not feel joyful.
References
Allen, C. (2014). Umwelt or Umwelten? How should shared representation be understood given such diversity? Semiotica, 198, 137–158.
Bourdieu, P. (2009). Entwurf einer Theorie der Praxis auf der ethnologischen Grundlage der kabylischen Gesellschaft. Suhrkamp.
Chemero, A. (2009). Radical embodied cognitive science. MIT Press.
Clark, A. (2016). Surfing uncertainty. Prediction, action, and the embodied mind. Oxford University Press.
de Sousa, R. (1987). The rationality of emotions. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dennett, D. (2017). From bacteria to Bach and back again. Penguin.
Eddington, S. A. S. (2012 [1928]). The nature of the physical world. Cambridge University Press.
Fajen, B., & Turvey, M. (2003). Perception, categories and possibilities for action. Adaptive Behaviour, 11(4), 276–278.
Fajen, B. (2005). Perceiving possibilities for action: On the necessity of calibration and visual learning for the visual guiding of actions. Perception, 34, 717–740.
Floridi, L. (2005). Is semantic information meaningful data? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXX, 351–370.
Frank, R. H. (1988). Passions within reason: The strategic role of emotions. Norton.
Gibson, J. J. (1982). Notes on affordances. In E. Reed & R. Jones (eds.), Reasons for realism. Selected essays of James Gibson (pp. 401–418). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gibson, J. J. (1986). The ecological approach to visual perception. Routledge.
Gibson, J. J. (1950). The perception of the visual world. Houghton Mifflin.
Heft, H. (1989). Affordances and the body. An intentional analysis of Gibson’s ecological approach to visual perception. Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior, 19(1), 1–30.
Hirshleifer, J. (1987). On the emotions as guarantors of threats and promises. In J. Dupré (ed.), The latest on the best: Essays on evolution and optimality (pp. 307–26). MIT Press.
Hufendiek, R. (2016). Affordances and the normativity of emotions. Synthese, 194(11), 4455–4476.
Husserl, E. (1968). Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanuskripten 1918–1926. In M. Fleischer (ed.). Husserliana Volume XI. Nijhof. (= Hua XI)
Husserl, E. (1983). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. First book. General introduction to a pure phenomenology. Nijhof.
Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch. Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. In K. Schuhmann (ed.). Husserliana Volume III/1. Nijhof. (= Hua III/1)
Jensen, T. W., & Pedersen, S. B. (2016). Affect and affordances—The role of action and emotion in social interaction. Cognitive Semiotics, 9(1), 79–103.
Kenny, A. (1963). Action, emotion and will. Routledge.
Kiverstein, J., & Rietveld, E. (2012). Dealing with context through action-oriented predictive processing. Frontiers in Psychology: Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 3(421), 1–2.
Koffka, K. (1935). Principles of gestalt psychology. Routledge.
Lewin, K. (1982). Feldtheorie. Kurt-Lewin-Gesamtausgabe (Vol. 4). Klett Cotta Stuttgart.
Lo Presti, P. (2020). Persons and affordances. Ecological Psychology, 32(1), 25–40.
Luhmann, N. (1982). Liebe als Passion. Zur Codierung von Intimität. Suhrkamp.
Mach, E. (1922). Die Analyse der Empfindungen und das Verhältnis des Physischen zum Psychischen. Verlag von Gustav Fischer.
Mach, E. (1906). Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth.
Maimon, S. (1792). Salomon Maimon’s [sic] Lebensgeschichte. Von ihm selbst geschrieben. In zwei Theilen. In K. P. Moritz (ed.). Friedrich Vieweg.
Maimon, S. (2001). An autobiography. University of Illinois Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1966). Die Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung. De Gruyter.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1963). The structure of behavior. Beacon Press.
Millikan, R. (2004). Varieties of meaning. The 2002 Jean Nicod lectures. Cambridge University Press.
Nanay, B. (2011). Do we see apples as edible? Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 92(3), 305–322.
Nietzsche, F. (2001). The gay science. In B. Williams (ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things. Basic Books.
O’Connor, C. (2016). The evolution of guilt: A model-based approach. Philosophy of Science, 83(5), 897–908.
Plessner, H. (2003). Ausdruck und menschliche Natur. Gesammelte Schriften VII. Suhrkamp.
Poljanšek, T. (2011).“Just ´cause you feel it doesn´t mean it´s there”. Ein angemessenes Angemessenheitskriterium für Emotionen und Werteigenschaften (Vol. XXII). Deutscher Kongress für Philosophie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.https://doi.org/10.5282/ubm/epub.12587
Poljanšek, T. (2015). Sinn und Erwartung. Über den Unterschied von Sinngegenständlichkeit und Referenzialität. Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 69(4), 502–524.
Poljanšek, T. (2020). A philosophical framework of shared worlds and cultural significance for social simulation. In H. Verhagen et al. (eds.). Advances in social simulation. looking in the mirror (pp. 371–377). Springer Proceedings in Complexity.
Poljanšek, T. (2022). Realität und Wirklichkeit. Zur Ontologie menschlicher Welten. Transcript.
Poljanšek, T. & Störzinger, T. (2020). Of waiters, robots, and friends. Functional social interaction vs. close interhuman relationships. In M. Nørskov et al (eds.). Culturally sustainable social robotics (pp. 68–77). IOS Press.
Prinz, J. (2004). Gut reactions. Oxford University Press.
Roberts, R. C. (2003). Emotions. An essay in aid of moral psychology. Cambridge University Press.
Ross, D., & Dumouchel, P. (2004). Emotions as strategic signals. Rationality and Society, 16(3), 251–286.
Roth, G. (1997). Das Gehirn und seine Wirklichkeit. Kognitive Neurobiologie und ihre philosophischen Konsequenzen. Suhrkamp.
Sartre, J.-P. (1956). Being and nothingness. Philosophical Library.
Schütz, A. (1972). Gesammelte Aufsätze II. Studien zur soziologischen Theorie. In A. Brodersen (ed.). Den Haag Martinus Nijhoff.
Searle, J. (1995). The construction of social reality. The Free Press.
Searle, J. (2010). Making the social world. Oxford University Press.
Searle, J. (1994). The rediscovery of the mind. The MIT Press.
Sellars, W. (1963). Science, perception, and reality. Ridgeview.
Sellars, W (1981). Foundations for a Metaphysics of Pure Process: The Carus Lectures of Wilfrid Sellars. Monist, 64, 3–90.
Seibt, J. (2017). Towards an ontology of simulated social interaction: Varieties of the “As If” for robots and humans. In R. Hakli & J. Seibt (eds.), Sociality and normativity for robots: Philosophical inquiries into human-robot interactions (pp. 11–41). Springer.
Slaby, J., Paskaleva, A., & Stephan, A. (2013). Enactive emotion and impaired agency in depression. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 20(7–8), 33–55.
Smith, J. (2014). Are emotions embodied evaluative attitudes? Critical review of Julien A. Deonna and Fabrice Teroni’s the emotions: A philosophical introduction. Disputatio, VI, 93–106.
Teroni, F. (2007). Emotions and formal objects. Dialectica, 61(3), 395–415.
Uexküll, J., & Kriszat, G. (1934). Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen. Springer.
Uexküll, J. (1928). Theoretische Biologie. Springer.
Van Kleef, G. A., Van Doorn, E. A., Heerdink, M. W., & Koning, L. F. (2011). Emotion is for influence. European Review of Social Psychology, 22(1), 114–163.
Van Kleef, G. A. (2016). The interpersonal dynamic of emotion. Cambridge University Press.
Žižek, S. (2007). How to read Lacan. Norton.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Poljanšek, T. (2023). Pre-ceiving the Imminent. In: Misselhorn, C., Poljanšek, T., Störzinger, T., Klein, M. (eds) Emotional Machines. Technikzukünfte, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft / Futures of Technology, Science and Society. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37641-3_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37641-3_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden
Print ISBN: 978-3-658-37640-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-658-37641-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)