1. Introduction. Emotions are everywhere, or so it seems. Antonio Damasio talks about the importance of emotion for reason. Martha Nussbaum talks about the importance of reason for emotion. Yet, there are reasons to think that emotions are the most private, the most inner of our experiences. A pain or a colour can be pointed to; if we are asked where is it hurting, we can say ‘there.’ However, it is much harder to answer the question ‘where are you angry?’ The location of the anger might vary from moment to moment and person to person. Emotions are far more dynamic: roses might always be red, but I am not always blue. Indeed, one can define outer space as the space of all locations that can be pointed to — itself a privileging of the sensorial, especially the senses of vision and touch. Yet, space might not only be sensory space, the space of objects. Emotions, like thoughts and our eyes and fingers, are pointers; and they cannot point to themselves. We can define the distinction between inner and outer space as the distinction between the pointer and the pointed. While the geometry of the pointed is directly available to us, the geometry of the pointers is also a genuine spatial geometry, which is why I think that emotions are always somewhere and that the spatiality of emotions is a useful window into the relation between inner and outer space.
A Room of One’s Own: The Where of Emotions
A Room of One’s Own: The Where of Emotions
A Room of One’s Own: The Where of Emotions
1. Introduction. Emotions are everywhere, or so it seems. Antonio Damasio talks about the importance of emotion for reason. Martha Nussbaum talks about the importance of reason for emotion. Yet, there are reasons to think that emotions are the most private, the most inner of our experiences. A pain or a colour can be pointed to; if we are asked where is it hurting, we can say ‘there.’ However, it is much harder to answer the question ‘where are you angry?’ The location of the anger might vary from moment to moment and person to person. Emotions are far more dynamic: roses might always be red, but I am not always blue. Indeed, one can define outer space as the space of all locations that can be pointed to — itself a privileging of the sensorial, especially the senses of vision and touch. Yet, space might not only be sensory space, the space of objects. Emotions, like thoughts and our eyes and fingers, are pointers; and they cannot point to themselves. We can define the distinction between inner and outer space as the distinction between the pointer and the pointed. While the geometry of the pointed is directly available to us, the geometry of the pointers is also a genuine spatial geometry, which is why I think that emotions are always somewhere and that the spatiality of emotions is a useful window into the relation between inner and outer space.