The representational structure of feelings

Abstract

The word “feeling” denotes a reactive, subjective experience with a distinctive embodied phenomenal quality. Several types of feelings are usually distinguished, such as bodily, agentive, affective, and metacognitive feelings. The hypothesis developed in this article is that all feelings are represented in a specialized, non-conceptual “expressive” mode, whose function is evaluative and action-guiding. Feelings, it is claimed, are conceptually impenetrable. Against a two-factor theory of feelings, it is argued, in the cases of affective and metacognitive feelings, that background beliefs can circumvent feelings in gaining the control of action, but cannot fully suppress them or their motivational potential.