The article brought up many interesting point about emotions that I have not learned about. I found the conflicting arguments about emotion and reason most interesting. Today most people tend to believe that emotion is almost opposite to reason but in fact at one point they were argued to go together. I understand that there is a tendency to view emotion as a reaction versus a thought out process but the arguments of monism stating that mind and body (emotion and reason) are the same is an interesting way to approach emotion. Ultimately, I agree with emotion being a reaction, especially with the speed at which synapsis are stimulated in the brain, but still an interesting way to approach emotion and the medieval studies.
ENGL 461 | Feeling Medieval
Prof. Myra Seaman | Spring 2015
To go along with your approach of emotion being a reaction, I thought it was particularly interesting what Aristotle believed that “fear is a painful or troubled feeling caused by the impression of an imminent evil that causes destruction or pain.” In a lot of ways this makes complete sense and I can see truth in this. I have ridden horses my whole life and I have had several friends express to me their fear of trying not because they are afraid of the horse themselves but afraid of falling off. This would support Aristotle’s idea that the emotion of fear is the “impression of an imminent evil” or in other words a reaction. I also found it interesting that Aristotle considers “that feelings devoid of any connection with reality…have a lesser force than feelings which are related in some way with the real world.” I completely think this so true. Unless something directly effects someone, their emotional reaction is much less. Take for example the military. If you have a relative overseas in the military, you’re going to have a greater emotional reaction to support for our soldiers than those who have no military connection. Anyways I definitely thought some of the ideas of the philosophers in this article had very interesting and useful ways of addressing emotion.