Abstract
This paper claims that we have direct and complete perceptual access to other people’s emotions in their bodily and behavioural expression. The claim is understood, not by analogy with the perception of three-dimensional objects or physical processes, but as a form of Gestalt perception. In addition, talk of direct perceptual access to others’ emotions is shown not to entail a behaviourist view of mind; and talk of complete perceptual access is shown to include both the phenomenological character and the dispositional nature of emotions.
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Some related contemporary discussions in social cognition will not be considered here. One concerns an issue in cognitive architecture—namely, whether or not the sub-personal processes underpinning social cognition involve extra-perceptual components (see e.g. Gallagher 2008a; Zahavi and Gallagher 2008; Gallagher 2015, on the perceptual side of the debate, and Herschbach 2008; Spaulding 2010; Lavelle 2012; Bohl and Gangopadhyay 2014; Carruthers 2015; Bohl 2015, amongst others, on the non-perceptual side). Another concerns a developmental issue—namely, whether the perceptual skills involved in primary and secondary inter-subjectivity in early infancy are replaced by mindreading skills in adulthood, or whether the former are still the basic form of social cognition in adult life (see e.g. Gallagher 2008b; Zahavi 2011; Gallagher and Zahavi 2012, on one side of the debate, and Herschbach 2008; Spaulding 2010 on the other).
Following Scheler, Stein and others, only emotions will be discussed here. For although the arguments of this paper can arguably be extended to other mental states, such a task will not be undertaken here. The reason is that, depending on the mental states under consideration, for the extension to work special difficulties not covered in this paper would need to be addressed. For example, in the case of beliefs: do they have typical expressions, and if so what are they? In the case of intentions: how does a non-relational conception of the expression of intentions in behaviour relate to a causal account of intentional action? And in the case of sensations: can their expression be articulated in terms of expressive episodes plus in-between periods, as in the case of emotions?
According to a different objection, the direct perceptual model cannot account for our access to “complex emotions, such as guilt and shame, [which] are not associated reliably with any particular behaviors” (Spaulding 2017, p. 151). But if people express such emotions, which they do, the argument of the paper provides a rebuttal of this objection, too.
Alternatively, one perceptually takes in a totality of bodily and behavioural features in their proper context. Proper, because not just any context will do. Thus, the teary eyes of hay-fever occur in a context, i.e. the suspension of certain particles in the surrounding air, but this is not the right kind of context for the tears to be emotionally expressive, unlike that in which tears of joy or sorrow happen at an award-giving party or a funeral service, respectively. From here onwards, this qualification must be read as given in all references to context in the perception of emotions.
The examples used in the last three paragraphs are easily found on sites across the Internet. Visual evidence for the point about the duck-rabbit made in this paragraph can be obtained from Swoyer (2003).
Similarly, behaviour expresses people’s intentions, which can be thought of in relational or in non-relational terms. This covers acting out of anger, as well as from a desire for revenge. So, emotions figure among people’s motives for action. But as stated earlier, a defence of the non-relational conception of the expression of intention is outside the scope of this paper.
For detailed elaboration, see Putnam (1965).
To forestall confusion, note that the fact that the notion of a criterion is doing metaphysical work does not prevent it from also doing epistemic work. For the metaphysical conditions for the presence of one particular emotion rather than others in cases of suppressed expression are available for recognition, even if they are overlooked on particular occasions. Importantly though, this qualification does not carry a commitment to implicit verificationism; i.e. a commitment to the idea that providing the conditions of identity for the presence of particular emotions in cases of suppressed expression requires applying them correctly on all, or on a paradigmatic subset of, occasions.
It does not follow that fragility, or for that matter emotions, are not functional-dispositional properties; only that a new understanding of functional properties is required. See Sect. 5 below for a proposal that matches the non-relational conception of expression defended here.
The fact that no suitable observers are actually available is neither here nor there. The existence of bodily and behavioural differences is sufficient to ground the notion of a suitable observer—namely, one that would notice the existence of such differences.
An alleged problem with the argument is that it proves too much—namely, that there would be no criterion for the presence of any mental state, not just emotions, if they are conceived in relational terms. Now, this assumes that all mental states have typical expressions, something which has not been discussed here (see footnote 2). But if they did, and therefore a version of the argument from suppressed expression applied to all mental states, the result would be a unified view of mentality. To be sure, it would be a different view of mentality, but it is unclear that this alone provides any reason to object to the argument of this section.
For reasons that parallel some mentioned earlier in Sect. 3, a less crude characterization of the functional role of emotions as triads of circumstances, combinations of other mental states and expressive features will not help the defender of the relational conception of expression, either. Briefly, on the one hand, a functionalist account of the difference between genuine and fake emotions in terms of the causal relations between emotions and other mental states assumes the existence of a criterion for the existence of genuine as opposed to fake emotions. On the other hand, a view of genuine emotions as the likelihood to cause other mental states allows for the possible failure of the relation, which gives rise to the challenge under discussion all over again.
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Acknowledgements
Parts of this paper were presented at a conference held at the University of Murcia late in 2019; the audience is acknowledged for their helpful feedback. In addition, the final version has benefitted from comments made by referees, as well as from valuable input by Noreen Mabin.
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García Rodríguez, Á. How emotions are perceived. Synthese 199, 9433–9461 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03209-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03209-1