Emotion As A Natural Kind: Griffiths' Intriguing Perspective

In his work, *What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories*, Paul Griffiths argues that the psychological states and processes that fall under the category of emotion are not similar enough to one another to allow a unified scientific psychology of emotions. In other words, emotion is not a natural kind. This claim is further explored in his paper, *Is Emotion a Natural Kind?*, where Griffiths discusses the two most promising proposals to reunify the emotion category.

The vernacular category of 'emotion' does not allow a unified scientific psychology of emotions

Philosopher Paul Griffiths argues that the term 'emotion' should be eliminated from our psychological vocabulary. In his view, the psychological states and processes that fall under the 'vernacular category' of emotion are not similar enough to each other to allow a unified scientific psychology of emotions.

Griffiths' argument is based on the concept of 'natural kinds'. Natural kinds refer to categories that pick out genuine scientifically interesting divisions in nature, worthy of investigation. They are determined by the causal structure of the world, rather than by a priori stipulation.

Griffiths claims that the term 'emotion' encompasses psychological states that are too diverse to be unified under one scientific category. He suggests that there are at least two, and perhaps three, distinct types of emotions:

• Affect programs: These include surprise, fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and joy. They are relatively modular and have identifiable neural bases and psycho-evolutionary origins.
• Higher cognitive emotions: These are more influenced by cultural and cognitive factors.
• Socially constructed emotions: These are essentially pretenses or disclaimed actions, where individuals take emotions as passions but are actually systematically self-deceived.

Griffiths' argument has implications for the philosophy of mind and the scientific study of emotions. It challenges the notion that emotions form a natural kind and suggests that a more nuanced understanding of emotions is needed to develop a unified scientific psychology of emotions.

Emotion is not a natural kind in the specific sense

In his paper, "Is Emotion a Natural Kind?", Paul Griffiths argues that emotion is not a natural kind in a specific sense. Griffiths defines a natural kind as a group of entities that share a large set of scientifically relevant properties and are supported by a common causal homeostatic mechanism. He asserts that for a group of entities to be considered a natural kind, there must be a significant number of properties within the cluster that defines the kind.

Griffiths contends that the psychological states and processes that fall under the category of emotion are not sufficiently similar to one another to allow for a unified scientific psychology of emotions. In other words, emotions do not form a natural kind because they do not share enough common properties or mechanisms to be grouped together scientifically. This is due to the vagueness and indeterminacy of the term 'emotion', which encompasses a broad range of psychological states and processes that may have different evolutionary origins, adaptive functions, biological bases, and roles in human psychology.

Griffiths further criticizes the "propositional attitude" or "cognitive view" of emotions, arguing that it suffers from the inherent vagueness of the notion of cognition. He suggests that cognition should be broadly characterized as the assimilation of information relevant to thought, feeling, or action, rather than being linked to recall ability.

Griffiths proposes that emotions can be classified into three distinct classes: the first class comprises emotions that do form a natural kind, such as surprise, fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and joy; the second class, called "higher cognitive emotions," are more influenced by cultural and cognitive factors; and the third class includes emotions that are essentially pretenses or disclaimed actions, such as running amok or behaving angrily to secure unconscious goals.

Overall, Griffiths's argument suggests that the term 'emotion' is too broad and heterogeneous to be considered a natural kind in the specific sense defined by his criteria.

Emotion is a heterogeneous construction from genetic and environmental inputs

Emotion is a complex and multifaceted construct that is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. On the genetic side, studies have identified several genes that play a role in emotion processing, including the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), serotonin transporter (SLC6A4), neuropeptide Y (NPY), glucocorticoid receptor-regulating co-chaperone of stress proteins (FKBP5), and pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide receptor (ADCYAP1R1) genes. These genes have been shown to influence a range of emotional processes, such as the intensity and valence assigned to objects and situations, as well as the individual's response to stress. On the environmental side, factors such as early life stress, parental behaviour, and social contexts have been found to impact emotion regulation. For example, positive parental behaviours can promote children's emotion regulation, while maternal harshness can have a detrimental impact. Additionally, emotion regulation has been linked to working memory, with genetic factors contributing to the covariation between the two. Overall, the interplay between genetic and environmental influences shapes the development of emotion regulation in individuals.

The two most promising proposals to reunify the emotion category

• The revival of the Jamesian theory of emotion, associated with the writings of Antonio Damasio.
• A philosophical approach to the content of emotional representations that draws on 'multi-level appraisal theory' in psychology.

The first proposal, the Jamesian theory of emotion, suggests that emotions are simply a class of feelings, differentiated by their experienced quality from other sensory experiences. This theory was first introduced by William James, who argued that scientific psychology should treat feelings as "eternal and sacred psychic entities". James proposed that there are four basic emotions: fear, grief, love, and rage, based on bodily involvement.

The second proposal, the multi-level appraisal theory, suggests that emotions are constructed from more elemental biological and psychological ingredients. This theory identifies two hypothesized ingredients: "core affect" and "conceptual knowledge". Core affect is characterised by hedonic valence and physiological arousal, while conceptual knowledge refers to the semantic meaning of emotion labels.

The indeterminacy of natural kinds

Natural kinds are groupings of things that arise from their features that exist in nature (not in our minds). They are usually held to be exclusive: if you are a member of one kind, you are not a member of any others.

The problem of indeterminacy arises when one observes the eventual circularity of virtually every possible definition. It is easy to find loops of definition in any dictionary, because this seems to be the only way that certain concepts, and generally very important ones such as that of existence, can be defined in the English language. A definition is a collection of other words, and in any finite dictionary if one continues to follow the trail of words in search of the precise meaning of any given term, one will inevitably encounter this linguistic indeterminacy.

Indeterminacy in Philosophy

Philosophers and scientists generally try to eliminate indeterminate terms from their arguments, since any indeterminate thing is unquantifiable and untestable. Similarly, any hypothesis which consists of a statement of the properties of something unquantifiable or indefinable cannot be falsified and thus cannot be said to be supported by evidence that does not falsify it. This is related to Popper's discussions of falsifiability in his works on the scientific method. The quantifiability of data collected during an experiment is central to the scientific method, since reliable conclusions can only be drawn from replicable experiments, and since in order to establish observer agreement scientists must be able to quantify experimental evidence.

Indeterminacy in Discourse Analysis

Steve Hoenisch asserts in his article Interpretation and Indeterminacy in Discourse Analysis that " [T]he exact meaning of a speaker's utterance in a contextualized exchange is often indeterminate. Within the context of the analysis of the teacher-pupil exchange, I will argue for the superiority of interactional linguistics over speech act theory because it reduces the indeterminacy and yields a more principled interpretation[...]".

Indeterminacy in New Physical Theories

Science generally attempts to eliminate vague definitions, causally inert entities, and indeterminate properties, via further observation, experimentation, characterization, and explanation. Occam's razor tends to eliminate causally inert entities from functioning models of quantifiable phenomena, but some quantitative models, such as quantum mechanics, actually imply certain indeterminacies, such as the relative indeterminacy of quantum particles' positions to the precision with which their momenta can be measured (and vice versa). (See Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle.)

Indeterminacy in Emotions and Concepts

There is hot debate over the kind status of faculties as diverse as consciousness, seeing, concepts, emotions, constancy and the senses. In this paper, I take emotions and concepts as my main focus, and argue that questions over the kind status of these faculties are complicated by the undeservedly overlooked fact that natural kinds are indeterminate in certain ways. I will show that indeterminacy issues have led to an impasse in the debates over emotions and concepts. I first consider and reject one way of resolving this impasse. I then suggest a different method, which places more emphasis on a close analysis of predictive and explanatory practices in psychology. I argue that when we apply this method, a new position emerges: that it is indeterminate whether concepts or emotions are natural kinds. They are neither determinately natural kinds, nor determinately not natural kinds.

Frequently asked questions