“The passions all justify themselves and seem reasonable & proportioned to their subjects, as long as we continue to feel them” - Nicolas Malebranche
DIALECTICS OF EMOTIONS
The dialectic system considers an emotion as a sign that indicates that as a result of a changed situation there is a choice to be made or reconsidered between two opposite feelings.
An emotion is a passionate debate. There is no such intense feeling when opposite feelings question each other and we are brought to heartbreaking and heartrending choices. ‘Imagine’, says Jankélévitch in Le paradox de la morale: ‘two lovers who are not able to live neither together nor separately, neither the one with the other, nor the one without the other, and they reject each other attracting each other’. Dialectics certainly helps to discern and to define. It was first thought by Plato who said ‘all true knowing is simultaneously knowing the opposites’. Also Spinoza was confirmative about something once its opposite was defined and thus formed a perfect negation of the first. In a dialectic approach of emotion, pride & shame or fear & hope are opposite feelings and it's their conflict that is called an emotion.
In the dialectic system 65 pairs of opposite feelings are ordered in 18 categories of emotional causes. Any pair (positive and negative) indicates whether one acts more (>) or less (<) appropriated, or whether one's action is merited (M) or undeserved (I). In the dialectic system is revealed that the emotional vocabulary tends to express judgements and motivations. Most of our feelings define personal limits dealing with social rules, and measure what is proper to do in a socially determined situation. The meaning of what is “proper” (1. what belongs to someone, 2. what is socially acceptable, agreeable or fitting within a situation and for the persons involved) is most important for our feeling bodies and significant for emotional communication or virtuous acting. Feelings are both rule-enforcing as rule-extracting and often decide about inclusion or exclusion of people or their actions.
The question of property of feelings is introduced in The theory of moral sentiments (1759) by Adam Smith, who is better known as the author of The Wealth of the Nations and founding father of economics as a science. There is maybe an economic function of feelings in social systems, measuring one’s merit and demerit for the group and in reverse order. Human beings in their moral societies tend to judge one's action, considering the good or bad feeling that one evokes, to be more or less proportioned in respect to the acceptable norm. It is most important that one’s balance is calibrated! Representing our emotions by pairs of opposite feelings makes us continuously measure our proper middle or position in the midst of others (see Thomas Aquinas). All minima and maxima look to equalize or to harmonize. All social feeling is about concord, dissonance and disproportion, says Smith. What else then could be the purpose of sharing feelings and emotions than to aim harmony, after exclusion and inclusion and beyond judgement? Social education and regulation wouldn’t be possible without a set of signals that communicate whether one should adjust his behaviour in the interest of the group, whether one is to honour or to blame: that is exactly what emotions bring about.
Spinoza (Ethica, 1677) was the first to define a list of (sixteen) pairs of opposite feelings and to link them to specific emotional causes either relational or temporal. In the dialectic system more pairs are added into more categories, and put into a frame which represents the normative theory by Adam Smith. While most categories of emotional causes deal with personal positions in social relationships (9 categories), a second part is time-bounded (6 categories) and evaluates if expectations have been realised, either provisional or definitely. A third part (3 categories) relates feelings to pure cognitive actions: imagination, complicity and decision-making. For all of these fine distinctions of appraisal in a given situation, our language indeed has proper words, and thus names as many feelings with, in general, proper utterances in the intonation of the voice, the expression of the face and the behaviour of the body.
The limited number of the basic emotions (both Descartes as Darwin design 6, but different ones), as used in science nowadays, is not sufficiently to design dynamic patterns among feelings. However, the list of fine distinctions that languages make is elaborate, and should be used in the scientific conception and cataloguising of feelings. Since users can identify with affective entries and since the significant relationships among the affective entries are so many, the dialectic emotion system is sufficiently dynamic to realise affective computing. Any of the 144 affective entries in the dialectic system can be looked up by answering 3 to 5 multiple choice questions. Once set a purpose of use, an artefact agent can motivate autonomously a proper emotional position, whether he is a mediator between, or a competitor with human agents.
Since causes and conditions for feelings are most diverse and personally as culturally determined, relying on emotional and common vocabulary is a necessary standard. The aim of such a linguistic model however is not literary but should recuperate lost meanings, and make a dynamic use of feelings and emotions possible in all kind of applications.
| + | - | |||
| PERSONA | < | glorified | > | humiliated |
| > | proud | < | ashamed | |
| interior | M | smug | M | penitent |
| I | flattered | I | offensive | |
| . | ||||
| < | boastful | > | ridiculous | |
| > | laudable | < | reprehensible | |
| exterior | M | beloved | M | hateful |
| I | jealous | I | detestable | |
| . | ||||
| < | provocative | > | shy | |
| > | moved | < | bothered | |
| participatio | M | worthy | M | shocked |
| I | timid | I | brutal | |
| . | ||||
| IMITATIO | < | modest | > | ambitious |
| superior | > | condescending | < | pitying |
| M | commiserating | M | gloating | |
| I | compassionate | I | envious | |
| . | ||||
| < | gentle | > | arrogant | |
| inferior | > | charming | < | intimidated |
| M | devoted | M | mocking | |
| I | compliant | I | heady | |
| . | ||||
| < | disposed | > | contrary | |
| equal | > | benevolent | < | malevolent |
| M | generous | M | indignant | |
| I | grateful | I | ungrateful | |
| . | ||||
| CONCORDIA | < | mild | > | severe |
| superior | > | tolerant | < | insufferable |
| M | charitable | M | rivalrous | |
| I | merciful | I | cruel | |
| . | ||||
| < | brave | > | bad | |
| inferior | > | scrupulous | < | negligent |
| M | kind-hearted | M | furious | |
| I | reconciling | I | quarrelsome | |
| . | ||||
| < | obedient | > | rebellious | |
| equal | > | allied | < | pugnacious |
| M | fair | M | vengeful | |
| I | loyal | I | treacherous | |
| . | ||||
| TEMPUS | < | hopeful | > | afraid |
| expected | > | confident | < | distrustful |
| uncompleted | M | faithful | M | unfaithul |
| I | desirous | I | missing | |
| . | ||||
| < | courageous | > | chicken | |
| unexpected | > | careful | < | rash |
| uncompleted | M | audacious | M | cowardly |
| I | undaunted | I | fearful | |
| . | ||||
| < | relieving | > | disappointed | |
| unexpected | > | enchanting | < | disillusioned |
| completed | M | gratified | M | regretful |
| I | lucky | I | damned | |
| . | ||||
| < | satisfied | > | frustrated | |
| expected | > | full | < | fed up |
| completed | M | contented | M | displeased |
| I | happy | I | bitter | |
| . | ||||
| < | serene | > | anxious | |
| confirmed | > | promising | < | disconcerted |
| uncompleted | M | perseverant | M | resigned |
| I | comforted | I | bewildered | |
| . | ||||
| < | nostalgic | > | rancorous | |
| confirmed | > | triumphant | < | beaten |
| completed | M | secure | M | desperate |
| I | consoled | I | sorry | |
| . | ||||
| COGNITIO | < | astonished | > | contemptuous |
| > | wonderful | < | incredulous | |
| imagination | M | reverend | M | horrible |
| I | disdainful | I | obsequious | |
| . | ||||
| < | captivating | > | bored | |
| > | worried | < | neglected | |
| complicity | M | interested | M | indifferent |
| I | concerned | I | careless | |
| . | ||||
| < | risky | > | hesitant | |
| > | exacting | < | capricious | |
| decision | M | resolute | M | doubtful |
| I | convinced | I | surprised |