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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (22284)	5/26/1998 1:03:00 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Terrence - You are raising a complex philosophical issue, one which has been debated over the centuries. So why not debate it a little more? Your original assertion was that "values" are antecedent to "feelings." As you recall, I challenged that, asking: "Infants, for example, have feelings. Do they have values?" Your response: In a sense, yes,because they are formulating their feelings from observation of the reality about them. It is actually the purest form of value as there are no preconceptions or faulty assumptions made before the assimilation of data. From this the feelings emerge. First of all, let's not confuse the words "value" and "values." The latter is not the plural of the former, but a very different concept. I don't have my philosophical dictionary handy (a friend evidently swiped it), but here's a rough idea of what I see as the difference: "value" is an abstract concept, often used to describe what used to be called The Supreme Good; the word "values" describes a complex system of interrelated ethical, moral, and cultural assumptions and principles. Secondly, when you say that "it is the purest form of value," what does "it" refer to? "Observation of the reality around them"? If so, in what sense is "observation of reality" (or "experience") a value in itself? Or, what is more likely, do you mean that "observation of reality" ("experience") creates value, or rather, values? Anyway, as I understand your argument, you seem to be taking an ultra-Lockeian position. The child's brain is a tabula rasa, and his knowledge of the world is formed exclusively by sense perceptions of the "objective" outside world. You out-Locke Locke in suggesting that even the child's heart is a "tabula rasa," that even his feelings are entirely learned, by reasoning from the data of sensory experience. Historically, the antithesis of this view is the Platonic view, which holds that we are all born with certain "innate ideas" (knowledge and values that emanate from the Supreme Good - Value). The point of the Socratic dialogues is to get the student to "recall" those innate ideas. In other words, knowledge, values, and even emotions all predate experience of the real (or unreal, in the Platonic view) world. Most people today would probably argue a position somewhere in between: that is, that our personalities and emotions are shaped both by our inborn temperaments, and by our experience. The degree to which one or the other is dominant is what the whole nature vs. nurture debate is about. But I'll bet that few people who have observed infants up close would agree that they have no emotions ("feelings") to begin with, that their emotions subsequently "emerge" from "values" that in turn have resulted from experience. On the contrary; it is their emotional capacity that makes them capable of learning from experience, and for absorbing or developing "values." Indeed, children born without the capacity for emotion -- autistic children -- tend to have the greatest difficulty in acquiring values or anything else from experience. Good night! It's long past bedtime. jbe