Psychology
The chapter argues that the so-called “emotions,” such as anger or fear, are feelings that have been joined by cognition, and suggests that the materialist constitution gives us the power to change ourselves without there being any need to assume the emergence of new properties.
Abstract
This chapter focuses on three main questions. In the first place, how are soul, mind, and body related to each other? Second, how does the union of body and soul produce cognition? Third, how does the union of body and soul produce a person? The chapter shows first that the soul is a corporeal entity, whose functions, including the mind, depend on the type of body in which it is enclosed. What differentiates humans from other animals is that a part of the chest unites with a part of the soul in such a way as to produce the power of reason. The next section considers what is unique about Epicurean cognition. Here the chapter highlights the importance of epibolê (“attention”), the act of selecting objects of perception or thought from the huge number of atomic configurations that are continually bombarding the senses or mind. Epicurean “attention” offers an explanation of intentionality. The last part of the chapter brings in the feelings, pathê, in order to round out the notion of a person. The chapter argues that the so-called “emotions,” such as anger or fear, are feelings that have been joined by cognition. Last, I suggest that our materialist constitution gives us the power to change ourselves without there being any need to assume the emergence of new properties.