Rowson, Rebecca;
(2019)
Perceiving Expressed Emotions.
Masters thesis (M.Phil.Stud), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
It seems natural to think that we often have genuinely perceptual knowledge that other people are in particular mental states. Sometimes I walk into a room and can immediately tell by looking at my friend that they are sad. This thesis argues that we can know that another is sad by perceiving their sadness – in particular, by perceiving an expression of their sadness. The aim is to defend this argument by overcoming two obstacles. One obstacle is to do with whether we can gain genuinely perceptual knowledge on this basis, and the second obstacle is whether what we gain can really have the status of perceptual knowledge. To meet the first obstacle, I introduce a condition that we perceive intrinsic parts of emotions. This is met by conceiving of expressions as proper parts of emotions, as opposed to mere external effects. To meet the second obstacle, I introduce a condition that the expression we perceive needs to guarantee the presence of emotion. Drawing on the phenomenological tradition, an attractive way of understanding parts as non-independent moments allows us to meet this central condition for knowledge.
| Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | M.Phil.Stud |
| Title: | Perceiving Expressed Emotions |
| Event: | UCL (University College London) |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2019. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10071540 |
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