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EMOTIONS FIRST. Feeling reason: the role of emotions in reasoning

Objective

‘Emotions First’: Neuroscientists have recently discovered the primacy of feelings and emotions over reasoning, in our mental life. On the basis of these results, cognitive scientists are developing a semantics of conceptual classification, grounded on feelings and emotions towards the world. My work for the Marie Curie aims to show that the ancient Greek philosophers developed theories of action, where the battle between our desires and feelings towards the world grounded the pattern of rationality that emerged from this battle. On my reading of ancient philosophy – primarily Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics – the process of reasoning arises from a calculus of feelings and emotions (culminating in love), which aim towards the organism’s good. Socrates held that every human has an innate desire for his or her own good; the human organism struggles to find the good, guided by the desires of the soul. Plato and Aristotle saw the human soul as a locus of desires and motivations, whose contest constitutes deliberation for the good. For both philosophers, the soul’s competing motivations and feelings towards the world result in pleasure, if the competition outcome is successful, and in pain, if not. The successful competition is reasoning, the unsuccessful, miscalculation. I aim to investigate the hypothesis that ‘the emotional quest for the good of the organism is constitutive of rationality’ in an international research-hotbed of ‘emotions in reasoning’, at the Philosophy Centre of Edinburgh University, where philosophy meets cognitive science on ‘emotive lateral thinking’ and on the ‘extended knowledge hypothesis’. The training I can receive at this Center will empower me to present in the best theoretical framework the ancients’ intuition that the calculus of feelings can shed light into the origins of rationality. This is my ambition for the Marie Curie Fellowship.

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2014

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Coordinator

THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 183 454,80
Address
OLD COLLEGE, SOUTH BRIDGE
EH8 9YL Edinburgh
United Kingdom

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Region
Scotland Eastern Scotland Edinburgh
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 183 454,80
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