William James- emotions

5 Commentsby   |  11.01.13  |  Second Blog Post

Williams James reversing the traditional belief that emotion results from the perception of an event, should be placed under the fall category. As humans we go through different emotions a thousand times a day. Whether it be happy, sad, angry, depressed, or frightened we cannot stop ourselves from feeling some type of way. As James said the emotions we feel depends on what we do. Besides the beat example, when some people are in a relationship and they are cheating on their significant other, they just might be as happy as they are with the person they are cheating on their spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend, but once they get caught they are sad, angry, maybe depressed. The emotions we feel depend on what we do. We necessarily do not act the way we feel. I think that if we did a lot of things out of emotion everything would be different. Especially if others actually expressed their anger to the max. We are tricled in ways to make ourselves feel the opposite of how we actually feel, even if we are happy, somehow we end up being sad with the snap of a finger. Our emotions can either make us or break us, we can either learn for our mistakes or just let it kills us, but in the end our emotions will have some type of effect on our lives.

Comment

5 Comments

  1. Savannah Wesley
    8:33 am, 11.04.13

    This is interesting, however I believe I would place this more readily under creation. God created what we do and our reactions to them. Emotions are a God given talent that we as humans were given especially.

  2. Caroline Nikolaus
    10:35 am, 11.04.13

    It is interesting to think about how people would truly act if they were acting because of emotions alone, that would be quite scary. What about thoughts? Do our thoughts influence our emotions, or is it because of our emotions that we begin to think things? Your post reminds me of Freud’s id, ego and superego. Those barriers and safe guards we put in our mind to control our actions are like the superego and ego subduing the id.

  3. D.J. Acevedo
    8:02 pm, 11.04.13

    I think James was more pointing to the idea that we have the choice to act how we want to feel. That we influence our emotional response and not the other way around. I agree with you, if we did a lot of things based on our emotion, things would be a lot different, for starters The Notebook would have ended a little sooner. Our emotions do affect our lives, but I would ask you: do you think it’s more of a level playing field than we give our emotions and ourselves credit for?

  4. Taylor Chitty
    10:38 pm, 11.04.13

    I feel that this fits more under creation. I believe that emotions can be developed from external circumstances however i also feel that humans have the capacity to control their actions leading me to feel this can go under creation do to the ability to overcome emotions.

  5. Kami Earle
    11:49 pm, 11.04.13

    I think it’s kind of crazy to consider where we’d be today if we were constantly ruled solely by our emotions. And I also believe that if we controlled our every action just by our emotions, we could potentially have another ‘fall.’ Obviously not like the one before, but still momentously damaging, nonetheless.

Add a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.