The Intentional Structure of Emotions

Abstract

This paper approaches the intentional structure of the emotions by considering three claims about that structure. The paper departs from the Brentanian and Husserlian ‘priority of presentation claim’ (PPC). The PPC comprises two theses: (1) intentional feelings and emotions are founded on presenting acts and (2) intentional feelings and emotions are directed specifically to the value-attributes of the presented objects. The paper then considers two challenges to this claim: the equiprimordial claim (EC) and the priority of feeling claim (PFC). The EC asserts that the presentational and affective dimensions of intentional feelings and emotions are equiprimordial. I respond to this challenge to the PPC by revising it, claiming instead that the founding relations exist between the presentational and affective senses (rather than the acts) in an experience whose presenting and affective aspects are equiprimordial. The PFC grants priority to the affective, a grant which presupposes the independence of the affective from the presentational. I argue that the PFC is mistaken, and that the revision of the PPC can handle the examples on which the PFC is based.