There is a claim that some people are "thinkers" and others are "feelers," that some people are logical and others rely on their emotions. I want to contest that claim here.
First, a note on what I will not be claiming: I will not claim that we are all alike in how we think and feel. Clearly, some people are more comfortable going with their gut and others are more comfortable when they have an argument in propositional form. What I am contesting is the idea feeling and thinking are separable, that the two do not blend together, are not, at root, one.
Second, I want to establish the terms at stake here. Thinking, in the sense used here, is propositional, logical, and linear. Feeling, in the sense used here, is emotive, passionate, and might not be able to be articulated in a manner commensurable with thought in the sense used here. Both are ways of making sense of reality and determining what to do. Both result in a practical conclusion: the phi-ing which the process directs one to.
My claim, then, is, first, that there is a logic to emotion and a passion to thought, second, that these intertwine in such a way that it is not easy to pull them apart, and third, that attempting to separate the two weakens both.
That there is a logic to emotions can be seen from the fact that we expect to be able to give reasons for our emotions. There are right and wrong--rational and irrational--ways of feeling about things. In general, emotions are reactions to how we take things to be, and they motivate us to respond in particular ways. Thus, emotions can go wrong in one of two ways: they can be wrong because things are not actually as we take them to be, or they can be wrong because they motivate actions which do not fit with how things actually are. In the ordinary case, these two ways of going wrong go together. They can come apart when we are wrong about situations but, by a fluke, our emotions still motivate us properly, or when we are right about the situation but have not developed our emotions to motivate us well. I will return to this latter case below.
The passion to thought is a little less obvious, perhaps particularly in our age. Thought involves the analysis of a situation and thus enables us to clarify how things actually are, and thus how we ought to feel about them. Thought occurs in language which expresses not only propositions but also passion. Even the cold logical language of a textbook expresses a careful concern with precision. Those of us with a strong bent towards using such modes of thought are often quite passionate about precision and clarity.
Emotion and thought are united in language. Words carry with them emotional connotations as well as forming propositions. Emotions are often expressed linguistically, and our linguistic abilities enable us to specify and form more particular kinds of emotion. Thoughts are expressed passionately, and the propositional form of thought ensures that every proposition is intertwined with emotion. It is striking the way that some thinkers' lives mirror their ideas.
There have been studies showing how much our thought is motivated by our values, and this is often considered a problem for our rationality, but I want to argue that it is, in fact, conducive and necessary to our rationality. Our values and emotions, when they are working well, orient us toward how things are, toward what it is important to think about. Freedom is more heavily theorized when it is under threat, when freedom is seized as a value by people who understand it differently or when it is denied as a value by some and held to by others. Getting clear on what we are passionate about is generally how thought starts. Post-hoc rationalization may exist because it is generally the best way to get things right, because our reasons for acting are only available after the fact and are most likely to be in alignment with our values. It may also enable us to form a unity because it forces us to express reasons on which we will be expected to continue to act, forces us to clarify what our values are and how they influence our actions.
It has also been suggested that too much thought inhibits feeling. I want to argue that thought is necessary for certain kinds of feeling and especially for feeling correctly. Emotion gains determinate content and nuance in its expression in language. One can be indeterminately angry, but this becomes experienced differently when one considers one's situation and articulates what one is angry about and why. This, then, guides the actions which the anger motivates in a more profitable manner, and enables us to judge our emotions as rational or irrational. Being clear about our values enables us to understand our emotions better, and enables the emotions to motivate more fitting actions. Thought also develops emotions generally, enabling us to express emotions in new ways, and thus honing the expressions of various emotions to fit better with how things are in a general way. We can learn to express anger without throwing temper tantrums, and this is done, in part, through thinking through how the world works and how to express anger well given how the world works.
This brings me to a final comment on this unity. Neither thought nor feeling is developed in isolation from society. Many emotions are communal emotions, like shame and indignation. Thought relies on language, which is a social phenomenon. I would argue that thought also occurs in inherently social and embodied ways, such that the way I learn not to throw temper tantrums need not be by articulating and reasoning solely with propositions, but may occur via dialogue with others, by experimentation, and by developing my values by participating in a social life which relies on both feeling and thought and the linguistic meshing of the two, as well as the social development of both.
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