Cognitive and Heideggarian Approaches to the Study of Emotions/Moods

Sludds, Kevin (2008). Cognitive and Heideggarian Approaches to the Study of Emotions/Moods. MPhil thesis The Open University.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.0000f1e0

Abstract

In this study of emotions/moods I tackle the analysis of both analytic and Continental traditions of philosophy to this area. I set out by critically examining the influential hybrid cognitive theory (in particular William Lyons’s causal-evaluative theory), describing its merits but also elucidating a number of fundamental defects that exist in this account. I defend Martin Heidegger’s description of emotion/mood in Being and Time as pre-cognitive and pre-moral from those who attempt to attribute a cognitive dimension to it.

This thesis highlights the significance of connections or bonds in our affective lives at the ontic as well as ontological levels, by examining three specific emotions; grief, guilt and objectless fear. One of its principal achievements is the demonstration that there is much to be gained from both the analytic and Continental traditions of philosophy to emotion/mood analysis and, in particular, to how our understanding of guilt and objectless fear may be deepened when Being and Time is interpreted and read in the manner I describe.