An Evaluation of How Emotion Affects Reason as a Way of Knowing Essay

An Evaluation of How Emotion Affects Reason as a Way of Knowing - Essay Example In the views of some philosophers, emotion and reason are categorized as opposite forces. Other philosophers have established an existing relationship between emotions and reasoning, placing them on a similar continuum. This paper will analyse the ways in which emotions have influenced reason positively, hence yielding positive results. Moreover, the paper will analyse the ways in which emotions can deter the power of reason. An emotions result from an evident reaction exhibited by human beings when faced with different situations. A range of emotions does exist, such as love, joy, anger and many others. There are times when emotions affect reason in constructive ways and hence result to a source of knowledge. One of the emotions that can affect reason positively is empathy. This emotion prompts an individual to visualize the feelings of others and not just the feelings of the self. Therefore, empathy influences reason and introduces certain aspects that serve as sources of knowledge. For example, empathy can help an individual perceive a signpost, a direction, an alarm bell or even present a warning. In this way, empathy promotes the use of reason in gaining new knowledge (Lanteri, Chelini & Rizzello, 2008). Emotions also have the potential of affecting our reason and developing new systems of judgments. For example, all human experiences have been described as affective and have a level of emotional context. This typically means that all the senses of an individual involve a measure of reasoning and have the potential to evoke a certain emotion at the end. This view is supported by the fact that all human experiences exhibit emotional reaction. Therefore, the emotions emerging from a certain experience may help the individual to determine whether to undertake the action or not, for example, jumping down a cliff is an experience that evokes immense fear. The fear evoked by that experience has

How We Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

How We Change - Essay Example We have made this world a global village where it is more than just easy to move from one place to other in a matter of hours and communicate with each other in a blink. But, to gain something, we had to lose something and that something we lost to achieve this marvelous world of today is care for each other. Although we have every means of communication and stay connected, we have lost the will and time to say hello to our loved one. Peter Lovenheim in the article ‘wont you be my neighbor’ and William Deresiewicz in article ‘faux friendships’ most beautifully and with complete facts, describe these losses to mankind throughout its evolution and progression. Lovenheim describes our society of today in a way that it makes us all stop for a moment and think that ‘what and where we did something so wrong that we are at a stage of total societal collapse today. Although we have progressed and evolved a lot to provide us with all the facilities and necessities of life, we have no time to be with each other. We have the means as said by Lovenheim like internet, faster travelling routes and cheaper travelling expenses. We st ill find it so hard to meet each other in person and form a strong societal bonding. William Deresiewicz also explains the loss of mankind by stating that we, the men of 21st century are suffering from ‘facebook syndrome’. He states that because of so much advancement in technology, we are now dependent on it to communicate with each other. The author states by giving the example of friendships that we have forgotten to interact with each other on a more personal level. Friendships of today are limited to facebook and twitter etc. and it is the screen of our computers and smart phones that we are friends with rather than being friends with a real person. Both these articles show how the human species has changed over time. We have no time to be with each other and