Conspiracy of the “Intellectuals
I claim that most twentieth century intellectuals engaged, most probably unwittingly, in a cabal to accentuate reason and to denigrate emotion for the purpose of accentuating human “god-like characteristics and denigrating human “animal like characteristics.
Damasio informs me that “Philosophy¦has not trusted emotion and has largely relegated it to the dismissible realms of animal and flesh. For a time, science fared better, but then it, too, missed its opportunity.
Darwin, William James, and Freud gave emotion a privileged place in the nineteenth and very early twentieth century scientific arena. Yet twentieth century neuroscience and first generation cognitive science has, until recently, allowed “Darwin’s work on the emotions vanished from site, James’s proposal was attacked unfairly and dismissed summarily, and Freud’s influence went elsewhere. Throughout most of the twentieth century, emotion was not trusted in the laboratory.
What is emotion and can it be dismissed?
Emotion guides the life of an organism. Emotion is the automatic unconscious initiation of biological forces that are designed to perform a complicated pattern of chemical and neural regulatory responses that will aid the organism to survive.
The denigration of emotion has seriously affected the life of the human organism.
The first function of emotion is to initiate a primary response such as anger, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, or disgust; a secondary response such as embarrassment, jealousy, guilt, or pride; background responses such as malaise, calm, or tension. These emotional responses, to which we have given various labels, are demonstrated in all living creatures to a degree dependent upon the creature’s particular characteristic.
The human species, unlike most if not all non human animals, has evolved with a characteristic we label the ego, which allows the human species to create a delay of immediate emotional response permitting some time for contemplation before response.
What dangers do you think has resulted to human survival as a result of this cabal?
Quotes from “The Feeling of what Happens by Antonio Damasio
Conspiracy of the “Intellectuals
Conspiracy of the “Intellectuals
What dangers do you think has resulted to human survival as a result of this cabal?
Actually establish that such a cabal existed first, and maybe we'll have something to talk about. For one, you can't unwittingly take part in a cabal. A cabal is defined as "a group of persons secretly united in a plot " No unity, no cabal.
You could try suggesting conversely that the general course of science and intellectualism in the 20th century has been one of reason over emotion, and be much closer to a true statement.
However, I see nothing whatsoever wrong with that tendency. The purpose of science in general is to attempt to prove objectively and without bias the truth or untruth of a hypothesis through experimentation and observation, then interpreting the observations. I don't see any need whatsoever for jealously, fear, pride, happiness, disgust or any other emotive response.
Emotion is important, but to suggest that because science is objective and non-emotional, that intellectualism is -denigrating- emotion, or that such a process is having or has had a negative effect on the species as a whole seems entirely unwarranted and perhaps even a little ridiculous given your premises leading to that conclusion.
Actually establish that such a cabal existed first, and maybe we'll have something to talk about. For one, you can't unwittingly take part in a cabal. A cabal is defined as "a group of persons secretly united in a plot " No unity, no cabal.
You could try suggesting conversely that the general course of science and intellectualism in the 20th century has been one of reason over emotion, and be much closer to a true statement.
However, I see nothing whatsoever wrong with that tendency. The purpose of science in general is to attempt to prove objectively and without bias the truth or untruth of a hypothesis through experimentation and observation, then interpreting the observations. I don't see any need whatsoever for jealously, fear, pride, happiness, disgust or any other emotive response.
Emotion is important, but to suggest that because science is objective and non-emotional, that intellectualism is -denigrating- emotion, or that such a process is having or has had a negative effect on the species as a whole seems entirely unwarranted and perhaps even a little ridiculous given your premises leading to that conclusion.