I'm going to be jumping around between the two readings for this blog post, but first I'll start with Walker's when he talks about the inseparable emotions of the body. He says that Aristotle's emotions of the soul are "anger, gentleness, fear, pity, courage, joy, and loving and hating." He says anger, along with all these other emotions, "belong to the body and are inseparable from it." Reason being because whenever you feel them you have "bodily effects." I'm not really sure why it means they are inseparable from the body just because you have bodily effects from them. Don't you have bodily effects from every emotion? Being anxious produces sweatiness, rosy cheeks, clammy palms. Maybe he is just circling only those emotions at this time, but I figured you can and can't be separable from any emotion because when an emotion arises it's not like you are going to be calm for every one of them. Calm is basically an emotion in itself.
As I further read, he talks about anger and how with the feeling of wanting to get revenge on someone making you angry, blood boils around your heart. This is definitely true, but, like I said, how can you not have an effect coupled with any emotional feeling? It wouldn't be an emotion if you didn't react in some way. I guess what I'm curious about is what am I supposed to get out of this, or is this even important at all?
Moving away from this on to something I liked about this piece was his translation of what happens when you are persuaded. "Kenneth Burke once pointed out that persuasion is cognate with faith. To say that someone is persuaded is to say that he/she believes/trusts the assurances presented to him or her." He says that "a person who is truly in a state of no-effect will not be persuaded." What struck me as odd in this part was that he added the emotion of anger in to something that brings out effect, but if you are angry with the person who is speaking you will shut yourself off with no chance of being persuaded. Do you all think this is true or what he was trying to say?
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ReplyDeleteI believe that what they're driving at (in the parts you address with your first two paragraphs) is that all emotions have a corresponding affect . It's just that Aristotle didn't put together as comprehensive of a list as you might find, say, here: http://changingminds.org/explanations/emotions/basic%20emotions.htm. I think they want to emphasize the fact that emotions have material states (bodily Affects) that are necessary for the emotion to occur.
ReplyDeleteIn reference to your last paragraph, I found that part interesting too. From an ethos perspective, you very likely would "shut yourself off" if you were angry with the speaker, but from a pathos perspective, the anger (hopefully directed at someone other than the speaker) would be a critical part of the persuasion, the motivating force that moves you to action (even if that action is only to believe the assurances of the speaker). So, it seems, that anger can be a double-edged sword: you sometimes need it, seemingly, to prompt your audience to act, but you must be careful that it doesn't end up aimed at you.
I agree with Walker that emotions "belong to the body and are inseparable from it." I think that where it gets confusing is when the effects are subtle, or positive. Ryle (1949) once said that "competence requires no comment," meaning that when all is well, we rarely stop to notice. However, when our hearts are racing and our palms are sweating, our attention is drawn to those aspects. Regardless, I believe that whether it is especially salient or not, it can be considered a body state. Even "calm" is a body state, and one that results, as you said, from a particular emotion.
ReplyDeleteThere's a very interesting aspect to anger in that it can be used just as well as the other emotions (although really, it is "bad" rhetoric). Anger does not so much cause someone to shut themselves off so much as to simply not want to do what the speaker is trying to get them to do. If you're capable of depicting something as not in your own best interest (and being convincing enough about it) you can get someone with anger targeted towards you to do what you like. It is a backwards way of persuasion, but persuasion nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteKim makes a good point in saying that bodily effects are less distinguishable when they are positive and subtle. The reason for this is that their effects may be less external then negative emotions. A good distinction between recognizing these two is the difference in bodily effects when watching a romantic comedy and horror film. With the first, you may feel the emotions, such as happiness, more strongly than the bodily reaction. But you will still have effects; you may not notice your heart racing when the couple finally gets together. But when you watch a horror film, the effects are more pronounced because the audio and visuals used in the movie are there to make you physically feel that fear. You will see yourself shaking and sweating which will reinforce that emotion. So I think that Aristotle is right in saying that emotions belong to the body and are inseparable from it. It just might not be easy to automatically detect what the effects are.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what the others said about anger not necessarily being an emotion that will shut you off from persuasion. A person angry at someone/something else is going to be persuaded in a much different way than a person angry at the person speaking to them; in the latter case, I would say the speaker would have to mollify the audience's anger before moving forward.
ReplyDeleteWith all that, I think the point about "a person who is truly in a state of no-effect will not be persuaded" is completely spot-on. After all, if you don't care about some issue, you're not going to care what anybody has to say about it.
I do agree that the emotions are felt, and I also agree with you that all emotions are felt physically in some way. The physical effect for some but not others doesn't work for me. I think that initially, a person may feel anger, but when the immediate physical effect wears off, or the person learns additional information, or considers it rationally (which Aristotle is really big on), they can become more open to persuasion. Aristotle tied the strength of emotion to proximity. Perhaps, in the case of anger, time, or a cooling off period is what is needed before things can be worked out.
ReplyDeleteI think Walker is saying that emotions are fundamentally tied to bodily affect. The list of emotions he provides is by no means comprehensive, as Gordon has pointed out. But I think Walker and Aristotle would agree with you in thinking that all emotions are linked to and dependent upon bodily states (bodily affect).
ReplyDeleteRegarding anger: Anger when used right can be incredibly powerful. If a speaker gets you angry at the state of affairs, you are likely to do something about it (eg. if I make you angry that your sandwich is missing, you are more likely to do something about it). I like what Sean said too about backwards persuasion. I was in this sales seminar about a year ago where a speaker insulted us in order to deliberately make us hate him. It turns out that this was strategic and purposeful to get us to want to disprove him by improving our sales, which was his intent all along.