Journal of Philosophy of Emotion Podcast · Journal of Philosophy of Emotion

JPE Book Symposium: Knowing Emotions

·1 hr 28 min·5 clips

Fertak asks how emotions can be embodied like afterimages yet still disclose truth about the world.

The Journal of Philosophy of Emotion presents a book symposium on Rikke A. Fertak's *Knowing Emotions*. The opening frames the episode as a sequence of comments and replies around the book's central claim that emotions can be truth-revealing and cognitively significant. The structure is formal but easy to follow. Ronald D'Souza's contribution asks how emotional knowledge and an emotional a priori might be understood, and it tests Fertak's claims against nearby distinctions about cognition and justification. Dave Bisecker shifts the discussion toward emotional cognitivism without representationalism, keeping the focus on what kind of content emotions can plausibly carry. Francisco Gallegos then widens the frame. His intervention asks what emotions are for and moves the debate from effective epistemology toward effective ethics. Fertak's own reply returns to the relation between emotions, intentionality, and worldly conditions. The question is not merely whether emotions are felt, but how they purport to be about something and how that something can be judged correct or incorrect, appropriate or inappropriate. The pace stays deliberate. Fertak argues that human emotions should not be treated as irrational disturbances, because they may be integrated into a broader account of cognition. One recurring thread is the claim that emotional reactions can have their own cognitive or conceptual content. Another is the idea that an appraisal can be both affective and epistemically relevant without collapsing into simple perception or bare sensation. The symposium also returns to the limits of perspective. Fertak suggests that a finite being cannot attain a view from everywhere, yet can broaden itself by seeing and feeling another side of the truth. That thought is linked to friendship and love. The closing thanks to the critics brings the exchange to an orderly end. The whole episode is best understood as a careful argument about how emotions, reason, and practical identity fit together.

As heard by us

A compact symposium that uses emotion as a test case for knowledge, cognition, and normativity.

Rikke A. Fertak's symposium on Knowing Emotions treats emotion as a possible source of truth-bearing cognition, and that claim is worth testing. The critics do that well.

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Why you'd press play

If you want emotions treated as a serious form of knowledge, start here.

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