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Kolnai’s Idea of Emotional Presentation THOMAS NORGAARD INTRODUCTION What I would like to gain from the brief study I am about to present is insight into Kolnai’s idea of emotional presentation. The expression “emotional presentation” comes from Alexius Meinong, whose work Über Emotionale Präsentation was published in 1917. However, I shall bracket possible questions about the relation between Meinong and Kolnai, and concentrate my effort on understanding the latter. My interest in Kolnai is part of a broader interest in cognitivist axiology and ethics, and my particular interest in the idea of an emotional presentation derives from a hope, so far encouraged, that it may be of help in a cognitivist study of compassion . In what follows I do not intend to contribute to the elucidation of any particular mental state, however—neither those in which Kolnai took an interest nor the one that triggered my own interest in emotional presentation . What I present here is meant to be a preparatory study. Before embarking on elucidations of the particular emotional presentations that interest us, it is worth while investigating the philosophical advantages of the general idea. So, in the present context, when I make use of examples, Kolnai’s or my own, they are offered as mere illustrations and the reader is invited to substitute others more apt or plausible according to personal preference. What matters to me here is a general sense of direction. THE CENTRAL PASSAGE As far as I know, there is only one brief passage in the work of Kolnai, less than a page long, in which he offers a general characterisation of the idea of emotional presentation. Here I quote from what I shall refer to as “the central passage” . Emotional presentations are: Acts or attitudes or conative states of consciousness which, on the one hand, are clearly governed by an intentional object, and, on the other hand, express something like a passion aroused in the self, an impact exercised upon it down to its somatic sounding-board; in other words intention (Gegenständlichkeit) as linked essentially, though not in a uniform or unequivocal or causally necessary fashion, to condition (Zuständ- EXPLORING THE WORLD OF HUMAN PRACTICE lichkeit). This close linkage is emphasised in both phrasings: “emotive response” and, more profoundly perhaps, “emotional presentation” . …Our range of interest here is marked off, on the one side, against a more or less purely judgement-like and…intellectual apprehension; and, on the other side, against such almost pure condition-types as joy, depression or excitement. …In still other words, our interest fastens on the intimate and, as it were, indissoluble juncture-point between objects as intentionally present, and the possible correlative motions of the soul as somehow significantly involving states of the body.1 (SMA 582) A more detailed understanding of Kolnai’s idea must be worked for. It requires some disentangling from his particular analyses, and this is what I shall begin to do. Such disentangling is humble, some would say unexciting , work, but I have found it rewarding and for that reason I go on to present my findings. At certain points in the exegesis I go beyond what there is strict textual evidence for in Kolnai. When this is most obvious, I have made it explicit. GEGENSTÄNDLICHKEIT In the central passage Kolnai refers to states of consciousness which are “closely governed by an intentional object” . I shall begin with an attempt to unfold the contents hidden in that phrase. The “intentional object” of an emotional presentation is that object towards which a mind is “directed” in that particular presentation. So, for instance, in fear, my mind is directed towards a dangerous or terrible object, and in hatred towards a hateful or odious object (SMA 587). “Intentional object” must be understood in contrast with “real object” . Ideally, these are identical, but they need not be. There is room for error here. For instance, if I fear a burglar, then that burglar is the intentional object of my fear. The real object of my fear could be a burglar, but it could also be a shadow that I took to be a burglar, or perhaps just a phantom of my imagination (cf. SMA 585, 592). Henceforward, when I refer to “objects” I mean “intentional objects” .2 When writing about the proper intentional object of some emotional presentation, Kolnai tends to offer a twofold analysis: firstly, he concerns himself with the basic kind of object that essentially figures in the emotional presentation...

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