The Impersonal Subjectivity of Aesthetic Emotion

Boruah, Bijoy H.

doi:10.5040/9781474219006.ch-006

Cited by 6 publications

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“…(2) The above emotional-world view can also help explain the main differences between our empathy toward real and film objects. Although we can agree with Neill that “empathizing with a fictional character is not […] radically different from empathizing with an actual person” (Neill, 2006, p. 257; see also Boruah, 1988, p. 126), our emotional attachment to film objects is affected by unique factors. If we accept, as it seems, that the objects to which we are usually more strongly attached happen also to be real objects, we should expect that a film that alters primarily our emotional attachments to real objects would have a greater impact on us than a film that only alters our emotional attachments to fictional objects.…”

Section: Intentionality: Yes Our Fear Is About the Sharkmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…Matravers (1998; 1997, p. 83) has also questioned the need of a belief. Boruah (1988, p. 125) has defended that a belief is necessary, but not an “existential belief”: “it is the interaction between an evaluative belief and the imagination that suffices to generate an emotional response to a fictional character or event.” Similarly, Neill (1993, p. 2) thinks that only “beliefs about what is fictionally the case” might be required. Carroll (1997, p. 209; see also 1990, pp.…”

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confidence: 99%

“… 9 The need of some form of evaluation does not mean that we must be aware of it (Robinson [e.g., 2005, p.145] talks of “pre-cognitive affective appraisals”) or that it must be the result of making a proper judgment ( contra Brock, 2007, p. 227). It could be rather a “judgment” in Boruah's (1988, p. 18) sense of “view[ing] the object in a certain light.” Roberts (2003, pp. 75, 84–87, 89–92) also believes the evaluation constitutive of emotions might be unconscious.…”

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confidence: 99%

“… 14 For the defender of the make-believe view “the withdrawal of the categorical attitude” is what “inhibits the issue of the disposition” (Boruah, 1988, p. 70).…”

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confidence: 99%

“… 26 Boruah (1988, p. 106) refers to these as “emotions without action,” and talks about their “suspended nature” (p. 107) which leaves us in “state of stirred inactivity ” (p. 107) and “render[s] our previously felt desire inoperative” (p. 88).…”

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confidence: 99%

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What is Distinctive of Film Emotions?

Franco

2023

Emotion Review

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Film emotions are genuine emotions whose formation and development is affected by conflictive factors. Whereas their arousal, similar to that of real-life emotions, is disproportionately strengthened by the cinematographic medium, their subsequent course is both weakened and interrupted. Their objects, which I view as members of our personal emotional world (not in terms of their supposed fictionality, as often assumed), are also proper intentional objects of emotions: our fear is about the shark on the screen, our pity about the main character. This view allows also for an explanation of two of film emotions’ neglected features: (a) the viewer's emotional attachment and empathy toward film objects and (b) the long-lasting emotional impact films can have on viewers.

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Section: Intentionality: Yes Our Fear Is About the Sharkmentioning

confidence: 62%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 14 For the defender of the make-believe view “the withdrawal of the categorical attitude” is what “inhibits the issue of the disposition” (Boruah, 1988, p. 70).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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What is Distinctive of Film Emotions?

Franco

2023

Emotion Review

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Emotion Concepts for Virtue Theory: From Aesthetic to Epistemic and Moral

Widdison

2024

Palgrave Studies in Comparative East-West Philosophy

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Emotion as Indian Philosophy of Value

Frazier

2024

Global Dialogues in the Philosophy of Religion

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As Jeremy Bentham noted, philosophies that do not anchor goodness in God often take the emotions of pleasure and pain as the basis of ethics. What else do people ultimately want or fear, for themselves or others? The binary idea of positive and negative emotion underpins utilitarianism and many notions of virtue and sin. Yet India, with its longstanding history of yogic introspection, has developed a more complex theory of emotions. The theory of ‘rasas’, or sustained complex moods, says that the simple passions are of many types. Furthermore they are malleable—and able to be developed into higher-order forms. In particular, they may be scaled out according to wider or narrower concerns, or altered in qualitative character according to greater and lesser degrees of egoism. This, according to rasa theory, can be done through techniques of (i) combining affects, (ii) generalizing their focus, and (iii) intensifying emotional self-reflexivity, all of which open up the phenomenological possibilities of emotion beyond Bentham’s simple positive and negative passions. A broad palette of emotion can be curated through practices of self-cultivation; this in turn alters the ethical itself. Impersonal arc-emotions for instance—what Chakrabarti calls ‘Ownerless Emotions’—may focus on the overall coherence of a situation, rather than one’s personal appetites. Or a ‘bliss’ is possible that escapes all acquisitive character. Thus in Hinduism one may seek ‘higher’ emotions that transcend egoistic impulses, and achieve other states of subjectively intrinsic value—thereby challenging the standard ethics based on desire and aversion.

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The Impersonal Subjectivity of Aesthetic Emotion

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

What is Distinctive of Film Emotions?

What is Distinctive of Film Emotions?

Emotion Concepts for Virtue Theory: From Aesthetic to Epistemic and Moral

Emotion as Indian Philosophy of Value

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