Journal
SYNTHESE
Volume 198, Issue 4, Pages 3519-3546Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-019-02294-7
Keywords
Affective; Representation; Consciousness; Attitude; Perception
Categories
Funding
- British Academy
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This paper argues that affective experiences involve a type of personal-level affective representation that is non-transparent and non-sensory, representing the object of the experience as minimally good or bad, and having the power to motivate relevant attitudes.
Many philosophers have understood the representational dimension of affective states along the model of perceptual experiences. This paper argues affective experiences involve a kind of personal level affective representation disanalogous from the representational character of perceptual experiences. The positive thesis is that affective representation is a non-transparent, non-sensory form of evaluative representation, whereby a felt valenced attitude represents the object of the experience as minimally good or bad, and one experiences that evaluative standing as having the power to causally motivate the relevant attitude. I show how this view can make sense of distinctive features of affective experiences, such as their valence and connection to value in a way which moves beyond current evaluativist views of affect.
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