Emotions Feelings Emotions, Thoughts, Or Neither? Essay

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Are Emotions Feelings, Thoughts, or Neither? Emotions are part of the experience of every person. However, emotions seem to be more complex than they are thought to be. This is by the virtue that people respond to emotions in a different ways. The understanding of emotions and their causes has raised various philosophical positions arguments. Some would look at emotion as feelings, thoughts or at times none of the above. The focus of this piece of writing is to look at the extent, if any, that our emotional responses can be understood as rational. The relationship between feelings and thoughts/ration is one subject that has preoccupied the minds of humanity for a long period. The past views on the existence and functioning of emotions can greatly contrast with the modern understanding. The stoics of the past said that emotion essentially involves the process of making judgments that potentially may cause harm or benefit to a person. In the earlier times, it was held that there was a close connection between ‘emotions’ and ‘judgment’, where’ judgment’ was the term used to refer to the rationality that drives a person to take on a certain emotional direction. In this context, it was held that emotion was largely as a consequence of some form of conscious or unconscious rationality (Bourgeois-Gironde 54). Other philosophers came out to argue against the belief that the intention of harm or benefit constitutes to emotion. For instance Clark (2010) explains that the mere

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