Knowledge and Emotion Essay Example

Knowledge and Emotion Essay There can be no knowledge without emotion Until we have felt the force of the knowledge it is not ours (adapted from Arnold Bennett). Discuss this vision of the relationship between knowledge and emotion. TTS-PUB 16 January 2009 word count: 1, 596 Knowledge and emotion have always had deeply rooted connections between each other in my perspective. When one attaches emotions to a knowledge claim, one believes in this claim more strongly, once the fundamentals of knowledge claims are understood. To understand the relation between knowledge and emotion is to further ones own understanding of the importance of both knowledge and emotion n our lives. In attempts to further explain myself, I feel It most suitable to start somewhere In the middle, and work simultaneously backwards and forwards until the ends of the loops connect In a more sensible fashion. To backtrack, It Is necessary to look at what exactly knowledge Is In order to understand Its relation to emotions. Knowledge, as a Platonic definition, is justified true belief, and quite simply summarizes the three qualities that a claim must have in order for it to be knowledge. First, a claim must be Justified, meaning either one of two things. The first way a claim can be Justified is y physically testing it, meaning that one must try it, and it must happen in the same manner more than once. The second way of Justifying a claim is by mere understanding, and recognizing that it makes sense in our world, based on similar proven claims. 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Emotion is essentially a mental attitude which is a response to a feeling, meaning it is a physical reaction. Emotion is thus a key component in faith, and ties in closely with the concept of belief in knowledge. Now, to begin moving forwards, it is necessary to find the link between the two. Upon first reading, the Idea of knowledge and emotion being closely linked seems ere straight-forward. Both emotion and knowledge have no purpose in our world without communication, for If we could not communicate, our species would not be able to survive. Communication, or our social Intelligence, Is broken Into two fields, which Include Interpersonal and Interpersonal Intelligence. Interpersonal intelligence is our ability to understand others, what motivates others, and how they work In a sense, Ana now to work cooperatively Walt I Nils Knowledge Is naively dependent upon emotions, as non-verbal communication (the dominant form of communication), relies on reading other people, and understanding how their body engage and subtle cues account to what they truly mean. We then rely upon our interpersonal intelligence, which involves the ability to monitor ones own and others emotions, discriminate amongst them, and use this information to guide ones own thinking (Mayer and Salvoes 1993). From this explanation, it can be observed that between these two fields of social knowledge, emotion and emotional intelligence is the key to understanding. Personal experiences affect my perception, thus leading to my feelings and my emotional responses to them. Experience is the foundation of knowledge, as to have justified true belief, one must realize that there is nothing that seems more true to oneself than things we have experienced. Our emotions create such strong connections in our minds that tie us to events, and by doing so, our reality, and the things we perceive as knowledge are that much stronger and more meaningful when our emotions are involved. From these experiences do we gain the greatest knowledge of the world, as it has been said many times that the most important things we can ever learn in life are those which we cannot be taught. My perception of my own experiences leads me to find different emotions. The strength of my emotions often is the key to memory of such events surrounding these emotions, and as such, I remember moments in my life that are more strongly attached to emotions. For example, my day today passed entirely in a blur, with nothing particularly interesting to say for it, but I can vividly recall the events of last Friday, as I can recall my anxieties preceding my French oral examination, and the exhilaration and relief of having completed it afterwards, and that I went out to Struck after to celebrate. The events of my day are much easier to remember because of the strong emotional attachments to them, and facts of knowledge, being as simple as l had my French oral on Friday can be recalled from memory much faster than whatever it was I did with myself today, despite the difference in time separating these events. It is important to remember that everyone has certain experiences which are at the very least similar to one anothers. It is nearly impossible for two people to experience the same event or emotion in the exact same way, yet both parties undeniably experienced it. This fact unites us and allows us to communicate to one another to gain experience with intimate things such as social situations and legislations. When trying to explain these events someone else, the limits of my language are indeed the limits of my world. Or, to be more specific, the limits of my language are the limits of my world to others. If I cannot use language to explain my world to others, than it must not exist, if it cannot be proven to them. We all accept that everyone else has their own worlds, filled with sadness, Joy, angst, heartache, and the like, but it is something we do not question. We recognize our own worlds, and thus assume that others must live through the same experiences, without challenge, let alone proof. Our interpersonal intelligence is projected to become interpersonal, as this type of connection is necessary to relate to one another at least basically to sustain our species. Emotion is our stimulus to act, and we have built our moral systems Dates upon It I nuns, monotone Is Inane a major component AT our lives. Essentially, all knowledge that is not objective, such as our individual perceptions and thoughts based on the abstract of our immediate world, are based in some way on emotion. Love is an excellent example of how personal attachment in regards to knowledge is the knowledge which we believe most strongly to be true. Arguably, everyone in their lifetime has felt love at least in the Platonic form, and can acknowledge that love does exist. It is a feeling between people which links us and allows us to submerge into our interpersonal relations. It has nothing tangible to show for itself, and for nearly six billion people to say that love is real, despite physical evidence, strongly shows the level of belief that is necessary to knowledge claims. Moving away from relationships between people, the same can be said about love of material objects. I personally know several people who could boast for hours about every minor detail f whats under the hood of their car. Their emotional attachment to their vehicle is what allows them to care more, in a sense, as they feel more compelled to know more about something they value so highly. It is understandable to assume that knowledge and emotion are unrelated, as knowledge is based upon facts that you recognize and understand, whereas emotions are very ambiguous in how personal they are, and how we can never fully understand them. However, one cannot simply remove emotion from our lives, nor from the knowledge that our lives are built upon. Emotion plays such an integral role n what we classify as knowledge, we would lose vast amounts of knowledge itself. Emotions can lead to knowledge that nothing else can, as emotions are so very different from anything else in our world. Humans are unique when compared to animals, as we are the only species capable of feeling such a wide variety of emotions. To further explain the entwining relationship between emotion and knowledge, I feel it necessary to provide a quote from C. S. Lewis in attempts to further explain myself. In A Grief Observed, Lewis concludes that nothing will shake a man or at any rate a an like me out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely rational beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover himself (C. S. Lewis 2001). This quote eloquently describes how one has to experience deep emotions in order to discover truth, both internal and external. Without these emotions, man will never understand truth, nor himself. To connect the last ends of this loop Im continually growing more affectionate of, I can conclude by again saying that emotion and knowledge must always remain hand- in-hand. Emotions are to us what seem most real in this life, as our senses are stimulated to give us perception.