Longitudes: A Collection of Essays, Ideas and Writing in Progress

On James and Husserl:

In philosophical terms, the term phenomenology has had several interpretations, each of which has involved a study of the relationship between phenomena and consciousness via different methodologies and perspectives. Kant introduced the phenomenal view of experience, positing that the world cannot be understood in any way other than how we experience it––any understanding of world is necessarily phenomenal because all knowledge begins with experience which forms the fundamental intuitions of the mind. Hegel’s phenomenology continues and attempts to complete the work of Kant. Abandoning the hierarchichal notion of inner and outer experience, observer and object, Hegel views experience itself as being in the world as a phenomena of the Mind or Geist; for Hegel, it makes no sense to draw the distinction of things in themselves because in order for the phenomenon of experience to occur there can be no separation between the mind and the world; it is all ‘Spirit.’ As Merleau-Ponty points out, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Freud can all be seen, in one way or another, as early disciples of phenomenology. He writes:

[Phenomenology] is a transcendental philosophy that suspends affirmations of the natural attitude in order to understand them, but it is also a philosophy for which the world is always “already there”, before reflection, like an inalienable presence… it is the attempt at a direct description of our experience such as it is, and without regard to its psychological genesis, or to the causal explications that the savant, the historian, or the sociologist can furnish of it… it is in our selves that we will find the unity of phenomenology and its true sense.

Thus we can see a strong connection between phenomenology and existentialism; there is indeed a strong subjective position in phenomenology even as it strives to understand experience in terms which transcend psychological causes.

Edmund Husserl, the Moravian mathematician and logician, developed phenomenology into a highly influential discipline which began as a critical study of the psychological aspects of mathematical and logical truths. Husserl criticised logicians of his time for not focusing on the relations between subjective processes that lay at the root of pure logic; and offered a series of three strata on which logical thought could be understood. From a practical level of syntax and grammar, through a level of judgement which created laws to prevent contradiction and formal laws of possible truths, Husserl arrives at a ‘meta’ or ‘transcendental’ logic which frees the logician to work in the realm of universal logic wherein, theoretically at least, the psychological problems of formal categories (logic and mathematics) could be surpassed and all possible valid deductions could be potentially attained.

Extending his study to experience itself, Husserl’s Phenomenological method strives to understand the essential structures of experience by placing an emphasis on subjectivity and the examination of consciousness through the phenomena that appear to it. Husserl seeks out the structures that make experience possible by examining the relationship between the acts of our consciousness and the objects our consciousness, ultimately questioning how these acts and objects are made possible. Like Descartes, Husserl looks for a kind of certainty with regards to understanding consciousness; and, he does not believe that this certainty can be found solely in our immediate experience of the world. But where Descartes had to doubt the truth of all empirical observations until he could prove them solely on the basis of his subjectivity, Husserl views subjective consciousness as intentional with regards to the things of the world––it is always conscious of or about something. Thus, for Husserl, the things of our conscious experience begin with the things of the world––the Cartesian scepticism with regards to the world exterior to the self goes to far.

However, Husserl does want to attempt to examine the objects of experience as separate from any preconceived judgement of reality––he wants to discover them as conscious phenomena, not simply as entities existing in the world. He creates a distinction between phenomenology and ontology: we can see an object before us and understand it to be existing in reality; but we can also imagine the same object, dream of it or possibly hallucinate it. Simply taking an ontological account of how an object immediately appears to us does not describe the complete phenomenology of the possible ways in which we might experience an object in our minds. Using a technique he calls epoché, he ‘brackets’ reality out of experience; this allows him to go beyond the simple and immediate perception of objects and examine the essence of experience as a phenomena. Husserl came to understand experience as relying on a set of basic intuitions which are centred in what he calls the ‘transcendental ego.’ For Husserl, the transcendental ego and the intuitions make the various types of conscious experience possible and are fundamentally responsible for perception, mathematical truth, logic, and all the ways in which we engage meaningfully with the world.

Thus, the reality of the material world––and the objects that constitute it–– is not rejected by Husserl, but rather it is bracketed out in order to enable the clear identification of the structures of perception. The notion that conscious perception of phenomena is driven by properties that we see as emanating from objects themselves is rejected and replaced with the idea that perception is constituted by our intentionality directed towards objects. From the phenomenological standpoint, the object of perception is not understood simply as an external entity, nor is it seen as offering indications about what it is. It is a set aspects and attributes that imply one another under the overall idea or essence of a particular object. Thus we can see, dream, hallucinate and imagine an object, and each one of these functions is an experience of the attributes which constitute our general idea of that object. Later in his career Husserl uses this position to launch a critique of western science, challenging what he views as its dogmatic empirical and naturalistic orientation. He goes as far as to say that mental/spiritual functions exist in their own reality independent of any physical basis and that any science that cannot take this into account is not complete. While his conception of the transcendental ego and pure experience, as well as his discourse on intuitions, places Husserl in the tradition of German idealism epitomised by Hegel and Kant; and although his ‘bracketing’ of reality is clearly a development of Cartesian thought, there is also an element in Husserl’s phenomenology which resonates with work of the American psychologist and philosopher William James.

James recognises, as Husserl did, that the common notion of scientific empiricism was problematic; and while he is, in a sense, in line with the romantic critique of science, James does not wish to promote an antiscientific agenda; rather, he wants to ensure that science is realistic about its claims. James noticed that there was a very strong tendency for science to reduce the natural world into some thing artificial; and that there was a troubling connection between the kinds of claims science makes about a phenomenon and the way in which it is examined. James’ radical empiricism can be understood as concerning itself with an examination of the basis of knowledge, the nature of experience, and how the idea of ‘truth’ is to be properly understood in terms of verification, vindication, and belief. For James, experience cannot be laid out into a hierarchy and it is certainly under no obligation to justify itself to science and philosophy. But, while James takes the position that experience must be examined on its own terms, he rejects the idea that it can be properly understood when it is separated, bracketed, or otherwise removed from the visceral environment that spawns it.

Associationalist thought in its various guises––most famously in Aristotle and the classic empiricism of Locke, Hume, J.S. Mill––tends to take the position that understanding comes about by the continual association of unrelated and independent elemental entities. For James, the objects of the world are only known to the mind as phenomena, as experiences evolving in relation to each other with wilful and meaningful purpose. Thus he views the associationalist position as being mistaken when it claims that the fundamental feelings and observations of the world which construe understanding, the ego, and indeed consciousness itself are unaware of each other. James insists that for consciousness to occur at all there must be what calls a ‘supernumerary intelligence’, a wilful intelligent being, to bind these feelings and perceptions together. For James, the mind is a process of experience which creates the means by which anything can be understood to be existing at all––a non-subjective explanation involving association of constantly conjoined entities, analogies of ‘blank pages’ or ‘vessels’ being filled will not do. James’ “stream of consciousness” describes the ego as the subjective point of awareness that joins experience, permitting the ideas, emotions and feelings that went before to stand in conscious relation to those that are being experienced now and those that we might expect to experience in the future. For James, this explains the continuity of consciousness that is lacking in the associationalist model, but which is clearly a fundamental aspect of experience.

James’ radical empiricism seems to allow for subjectivity in a way that is consistent with experience; and, like Husserl, James understands consciousness as requiring selectivity and intentionality on the part of the individual. But where the exact nature of Husserl’s view on intentionality and its meaning for the human organism is the subject of ongoing debate, James is clear and, above all, pragmatic. The individual becomes conscious of phenomena which are of “highest interest” for him or her to pick out from the immense wash of background stimuli. These highest interests become the intentional focus of subjective consciousness; they give meaning to the objects of experience whose attributes move in relation to each other and traverse the realms of experience––from simple observation, to dreams and hallucinations. Thus the individual or the ego is the result, and in a sense the creator or perpetuator of, a conscious process in which selectivity and intentionality are of fundamental importance to survival. Survival depends on consciousness, not only in a practical sense of identifying and interpreting phenomena, but also in the abstract conditions of its own meaning and necessity: consciousness creates the conditions by which survival ceases to be an hypothesis and becomes an imperative.

For James, experience shows that consciousness, intentionality, and the will are fundamental; and he claims that when scientific theories exclude such fundamental elements they receive only the results that are representative of the narrow methods of inquiry that they employ, creating a warped or incomplete understanding of the subject of investigation. For example, it may well be that part of the way in which we understand the relations between phenomena does indeed have something to do with association, and that experiments involving the association of phenomena and consciousness could tell us something about the nature of the mind. James would claim, however, that this is not necessarily a complete picture of what is going on, and that in fact, most of our experiences do not work in this way at all. The practical, functionalist psychology put in place by James rejects the classic view of consciousness as a Cartesian substance. Rather, it is understood as a process of mental operations which manage a network of systems by way of the will, attention, and selection. It serves a practical purpose in terms of survial by allowing for the formation of coherent experiential interpretations of the world. James’ ideomotor theory of the will describes the functionality of the volitional element of consciousness: initally a collection of reflex responses to the phenomena of experience, basic behaivour becomes more and more adaptive until volition––which informs selectivity and later intentionality––is brought to bear on these initial reflexes; the will expresses itself on behalf of its highest interests; it is not separated from the body, but rather becomes the volitional version of bodily reflexes. Thus intentionality can be understood as a conscious, wilful engagement with the world that develops out of increasingly selective primordial responses to environmental stimuli which are in the higest interests of the organism.

Clearly, the criteria applied in process of choosing the objects of experience we pick out, or otherwise become aware of against the backdrop of the world at large, are central to the phenomenology of Husserl; but, for James, a fundamental part of the selective response to experience is based in reflex and instinct. The practical judgements we make about the objects of experience must necessarily reflect––in essence at least––the process of instinct/intentionality and the conscious stream of experienced phenomena. James’ view is pragmatic; it is not a logical or philosophical exercise; it is functional; ideas about ‘bracketing’ do not apply. In Jamesian terms, we accept as true those ways of understanding experiences that resonate with our highest interests. And this resonance sounds from our most mundane, primitive and banal needs and desires to our loftiest and most sublime aspirations; it rumbles ominously in our deepest fears and sings triumphantly of our greatest achievements. It traverses the empirical, the social, and the transcendental and forms the foundation for belief, insight, and the way in which we come to understand our experience of the world.

Husserl and James seem to part where phenomenology offers a formal representation of experience and psychology offers a material description of it. While the thought of James and Husserl share the basic same purpose––to reveal the purity of experience such as it is given––they interpret experience in very different ways. In its search for the essence, phenomenology treats experience as being, above all, intentional; experience is always subject to the formal structure of intentionality. James’ Radical empiricism employs a continuous conception of experience that is causal of psychological states like intentionality and belief; and this plays a crucial practical role in directing our selectivity and integrating our bodies and minds with the world in a way that quite literally keeps our highest interests in mind.

JOHN SEARLE “THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ILLUSION”

Freedom, Belief, and Emotions: Phenomenology and the Mind

Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground attacks the enlightenment’s claim that freedom and happiness are synonymous by showing that in reality these two concepts stand in opposition to one another. Happiness, Dostoevsky claims, is the absence of freedom. He introduces us to the underground man, a mean and spiteful individual who, in a relentless quest to maintain and exert the integrity of his personal freedom, systematically destroys every chance he has for happiness by irrevocably alienating his peers and brutally shunning his only chance for love; he suffers from a disease of the liver but refuses to see a doctor, proclaiming “let it get worse!” Dostoevsky takes on the enlightenment myth which claims that rationality and freedom can be structured as an equation for human happiness and the creation of an ideal society: “2+2=4, as if that is what is most important to us.” If it is our personal liberty that we cherish above all; and if the freedom of the will is to be understood as our most precious and humanising characteristic; do we not render ourselves, in some sense, inhuman when we blindly adhere to a role as part of the grand plan for the ideal society?

Dostoevsky makes it eerily clear that by going along with the enlightenment schema that which is “our most advantageous advantage” is, in fact, paradoxically left out of the equation only to be replaced by an subverted concept of freedom that is all but meaningless. If the enlightenment’s myth of liberty twists the notion of freedom––consciously or otherwise––into something resembling its antithesis in order to create social contentment, the underground man responds to this subversion with a resounding “No!” For him freedom is the very foundation of being human––to sacrifice it in order to acquiesce to society is impossible: true individuality, wretched and miserable though may be, is the highest good.

Although he is tempted from time to time to resolve himself socially, ultimately the underground man is would rather face the depravity of a life of spite than submerge himself in what he considers to be disingenuous social conventions and artificial hierarchies. And, of course, from the perspective of the underground man, there is no depravity; his position is only understood as perverse from the point of view of the enlightened rationalists who value social cohesion over the richness of true individuality. Thus, Dostoevsky presents the emotion of spite, not simply as an emotional disorder, but as a philosophical principle which allows the underground man to exercise freedom even in the face of his own personal interests. Indeed, even the expected course of action his physical ailment would seem to demand presents a challenge to the freedom of the will and is therefore rejected by the underground man in an affirmation of his existence.

In the final analysis, the underground man is rendered impotent, incapable of any kind of coherent active engagement with the world. Making choices which can be made manifest in action involves making predictions and judgements which are value laden, often involving moving or changing one’s self––physically as well as psychologically––in relation to the Other; the underground man finds that he cannot realise the simplest decision because in doing so he would have to relinquish his freedom by recognising the Other or the group. This terrifies and disgusts him above all else. Additionally, we should consider that understanding, choosing and acting are highly emotionally charged activities which involve some sort of compromise, acquiescence or coming to terms with the position of an Other, or some situation which is beyond the immediate control of the self. The emotions associated with such circumstances are pushed aside by the underground man with disgust; he regards them with horror and allows himself only spite. When he must give in to his emotions, as in the waning moments of the story when he his finally confronted with the possibility of love and happiness––and not only his own, but also that of the young prostitute whom his decision will profoundly affect––he crumbles, collapsing in tears. In the end, the underground man refuses everything except his own will; ironically rejecting his only real chance to make his existence felt by another, he chooses to remain in the misery, and wretched safety of spite.

Dostoevsky’s critique of the Western european concepts of freedom and happiness echoes throughout his work. And, when we consider the way in which he extends this critique of happinesss and freedom to the Roman Catholic Church in the Grand Inquisitor, we begin to understand that, for Dostoevsky, freedom, happiness and self affirmation rest in the realm of a personal and spiritual understanding of God and Creation. Like Augustine, Pascal, and Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky asserts that true individuality has a profound spiritual element which trancends the ‘herd’ mentality and distractions of daily existence. But, as we have seen, Dostoevsky’s underground man also offers us a subtil critique of the relationship between emotion and reason, and it is this relationship that the remainder of this essay will deal with.
As the underground man makes so painfully clear, the concept that emotions are in the mind, that they are can be negated rationally, or that they can be made to take on predictable or instumental roles is a questionable claim. But, on the other hand can we really understand our selves as being completly controlled by our emotions like Goethe’s Werther? <<<>>>

The Cartesian conception of the mind leads us to the conclusion that we are closest and most aware of our own experience and that we know this experience beyond doubt. But this position has itself been cast into doubt by, among others, Freud and Hiedegger. If Descartes asserts that emotiions are in the mind and only in the mind, then Hiedegger wants to offer a unified picture of being. As much as Cartesian dualism seems an innate part of the Western mind, we must consider that for Aristotle the distinction between mind and body would not have been understood in the Cartesian sense. Aristotle discusses the soul, but the soul is not seen as being necssiarily distinct from the creature itself––it describes form and esence. Indeed, even for Augustine, whose inward retreat into Christianity and rejection of the desires of the body can certainly be seen as a precursor to Descartes, this mind/body distinction is not clearly defined. This is not to say, however, that Aristotle and Augustine did not beleive in the emotions; they both spend a great deal of time discussing emotions, but there is never the sense that these emotions are simply and only products of the mind, rather they appear more like experiences of the world which we are obliged to form understandings of as modalities of being. Hiedegger, in a sense, wants to return to this understanding of experience as an immediate unity of being in the world.

Cartesian dualism refuses this position, claiming that the contents of our minds are all we can know immediately and that our knowledge of bodies, the world, and other people can only be understood as being mediated by our senses; the external world can only be understood as an inference, and this leads to skepticism about whether or not we can know anything for certain exterior to our minds. But Freud stikes what seems like a fatal blow to the claim that we can even be sure of the contents of our own minds. Like Copernicus and Darwin, who respectively shattered mankind’s assumptions about his elite place in the cosmos and nature, Freud’s claims remove humanity from its special position in conciousness and sheds doubt on the assumption that we are the masters of our own minds. Because emotions are necissarily fragmented by feeling, understanding and, ultimately, by the experssive form they take, Freud also questions the assumption that our understanding of the meaning of our emotions is consistent. Indeed, cultural and social variable could play and enormous role here as well. Considering this perspective it is very difficuclt to understand emotion as simply an internal mental state whose nature and meaning is secure.

Well before Freud emerged on the european intellectual scene, philosophers had aready begun to rebel against the Cartesian position. Kant refuted Descartes by introducing the phenomenal view of understanding experience, positing that the world cannot be understood in any way other than how we experience it––the world is phenomenal, an experience, and it cannot be proprly considered as a thing in itself. Hegel’s phenoemenology continues and attemps to complete the work of Kant. Abandoning the hierarchichal notion of inner and outer experience, Hegel views experience itself as being in the world as phenomena. For Hegel, it makes no sense to draw the distinction of things in themselves because in order for the phenomenon experience to occur there can be no separation between the mind and the world. Husserl developed phenomenology into a discipline which attempts to describe our experience as it is; but beacause experience is necissarily of the world it is always intentional with regards to the world. Interestingy, however, Husserl was working to reestablish a version of Cartesianism,

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Existentialist phenomenology, as put forward by Sartre, critiques and extends the Husserlian method by taking the position that a phenomenological examination of consciousness must take the world into account in terms of action, not simply passive intention. Emotions are our own actions are ways in which we , what abou the body, Emotions are acts which allow us to escape from the world<<<spite or resent ment as a kind of escape, and act of esacpe, oppsed to james its not the physiology that gives rise to the behiviour, but it is the recoginton of the situation . Like Heidegger, Sartre, leans towards the view that consciousness and the world are, in fact, a unified phenomenon and, as a result, there is no separating them; that even in attempting to ‘bracket’ conscious phenomena out of common notions of reality we cannot neglect the innate unity of what we have separated. However, EP in also continues the tradition of the Cartesian dichotomy between the consciousness and the world, creating what often seems to be an infuriating paradox––on one hand Sartre embraces Heidegger’s Dasein; on the other he extends the Cartesian distinction between Mind and World. Despite the virtuosic and often confusing double talk Sartre employs to deal with this apparent contradiction, Sartre is always clear about the ultimate point of his thought which rests firmly in his concepts freedom and responsibility. For Sartre consciousness is freedom and responsibility is the idea that we are the sole authors of our actions––we must accept the consequences of our actions; there are no excuses.

Like Husserl, Sartre’s concept of consciousness requires intentionality–-it is always about the things and concerns of the world. But, for EP this is not a Husserlian realm like the transcendental ego, rather it is pure activity: an active, dynamic awareness of the things of the world. Thus EP views the phenomenon of emotion as imposing itself on the world, transforming it according to a subjective scheme. By postulating consciousness as nothingness Sartre manages to separate it from the realm of worldly causality. In order to protect his conception of freedom, it is crucial to For Sartre see consciousness as independent from the causal relations of the word, as distinct from the deterministic laws of physics. Echoing Ant, Sartre takes the position that, as we see ourselves as something distinct from the causal categories we impose on matter, we are obliged to make the distinction between the objective or scientific view and the perspective of active, subjective, first person engagement. Therefore, from the point of view of Existentialist phenomenology, consciousness itself can be in no way considered as an object of consciousness––hence the break with Husserl––and, more importantly, it cannot be understood as being caused. Thus consciousness is freedom itself.
Sartre’s conception of freedom allows him to introduce the concept that all action is chosen, and that the choices we make are often pre-reflective. Sartre removes causality from motivation and emotion, and––perhaps in an attempt to find a middle ground between physical determinism and the freedom of consciousness––describes them as “the terms by which” we make the choices that we do. An obvious argument emerges at this point: if motivation and emotion set the terms by which by which we make conscious choices, does that not imply––at least indirectly––causality? Sartre responds that emotions are not causes of behaviour but rather they are “spontaneous out pourings of consciousness in which one takes the world in a certain way.” For Sartre, emotions are a way of structuring consciousness, <> tbc

Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground attacks the enlightenment’s claim that freedom and happiness are synonymous by showing that in reality these two concepts stand in opposition to one another. Happiness, Dostoevsky seems to say, is the absence of freedom. He introduces us to the underground man, a mean and spiteful individual who, in a relentless quest to maintain and exert the integrity of his personal freedom, systematically destroys every chance he has for happiness by irrevocably alienating his peers and brutally shunning his only chance for love; he suffers from a disease of the liver but refuses to see a doctor, proclaiming “let it get worse!” Dostoevsky takes on the enlightenment myth which claims that rationality and freedom can be structured as an equation for human happiness and the creation of an ideal society: “2+2=4″ the underground man mutters, “as if that is what is most important to us.” Dostoevsky poses the following dilemma: if it is our personal liberty that we cherish above all; and, if the freedom of the will is to be understood as our most precious and humanising characteristic, do we not render ourselves, in some sense, inhuman when we blindly adhere to a role as part of the grand plan for the ideal society?

Dostoevsky makes it eerily clear that by going along with the enlightenment schema that which is “our most advantageous advantage” is, in fact, paradoxically left out of the equation, only to be replaced by an subverted concept of freedom that is all but meaningless. If the enlightenment’s myth of liberty twists the notion of freedom––consciously or otherwise––into something resembling its antithesis in order to create social contentment, the underground man responds to this subversion with a resounding “No!” For him freedom is the very foundation of being human, to sacrifice it in order to acquiesce to society is impossible; true individuality, wretched and miserable though may be, is the highest good.

Although he is tempted from time to time to resolve himself socially, the underground man would rather face the depravity of a life of spite than submerge himself in what he considers to be disingenuous social conventions and artificial hierarchies. But of course, from the perspective of the underground man, there is no depravity––his position is only understood as perverse from the point of view of the enlightened rationalists who value social cohesion over the richness of true individuality. Thus, Dostoevsky presents the emotion of spite, not simply as an emotional disorder, but as a philosophical principle which allows the underground man to exercise freedom even in the face of his own personal interests. Indeed, even the expected course of action his physical ailment would seem to demand presents a challenge to the freedom of the will and is therefore rejected by the underground man in an affirmation of his existence.

In the final analysis, the underground man is rendered impotent, incapable of any kind of coherent active engagement with the world. Making choices manifest in action involves making predictions and judgements which are value laden, often involving moving or changing one’s self––physically as well as psychologically––in relation to the Other; the underground man finds that he cannot realise the simplest decision because in doing so he would have to relinquish his freedom by recognising the Other or the group. This terrifies and disgusts him above all else. Understanding, choosing and acting are highly emotionally charged activities which involve some sort of compromise, acquiescence or coming to terms with the position of an Other, or situations which are beyond the immediate control of the self. The emotions associated with such circumstances are pushed aside by the underground man with disgust; he regards them with horror and allows himself only spite. But when spite cannot protect him; when he must face his emotions in the waning moments of the story when he his finally confronted with the possibility of love and happiness––not only his own, but also that of the young prostitute whom his decision will profoundly affect––he collapses in tears. In the end, the underground man refuses everything except his own will; ironically rejecting his only real chance to make his existence meaningful to another, he chooses to remain in the misery, and wretched safety of spite.

Dostoevsky’s critique of the Western european concepts of freedom and happiness echoes throughout his work. And, when we consider the way in which he extends this critique of happiness and freedom to the Roman Catholic Church in the Grand Inquisitor, we begin to understand that, for Dostoevsky, freedom, happiness and self affirmation rest in the realm of a personal and spiritual understanding of God and Creation. Like Augustine, Pascal, and Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky asserts that true individuality has a profound spiritual element which transcends the ‘herd’ mentality of popular religion, rational rhetoric and the material distractions of daily existence.

Dostoevsky’s underground man also offers us a subtle critique of the relationship between emotion and reason. As the underground man makes so painfully clear, the concept that emotions can be negated rationally, or that they can be made to take on predictable or instrumental roles is a questionable claim. But, on the other hand, can we really understand our selves as being completely controlled by our emotions like Goethe’s Werther? Both young Werther and the Underground man live at the limits of their subjective existence. But where the Underground man is capable of retreating from the unyielding social and physical world that surrounds him into his disgusting metaphysical burrow of spite and resentment, Werther’s only escape is death.

Werther’s suicide, however,cannot be properly understood as a simple evasion. While the Underground man asserts his existence by lacerating himself from the world through rational denial, eventually coming to rest in spite; Werther can only exist at the extremities of feeling. For Werther, the world itself transforms according to his emotions. When he is happy he sees only beauty; even the hard life of the peasants in the village seem charming to him. But when he is sad the world becomes cold and indifferent. Although joy and sorrow are his only proper domains, Wether’s narcissism transcends all. His infantile longings, coupled with his need rationalise his reality around his extreme emotive states dooms his chances of contentment in the working world of bourgeois society; and the possibility of a reasonable friendship with Lotte is rendered impossible. Dostoevsky and Goethe offer insight into the profound contribution of emotion to subjective experience. Psychologically speaking, emotion seems to both protect us from the world and allow us physical engagement with it; emotions allow us to form understandings of the world which permit us to act according to some rational schema. However, as the pathological cases of the Underground man and Werther make clear, the relationship between emotion and reason can be a dangerous one when it creates an understanding of the world in which the individual cannot properly integrate himself physically or socially. How then are we to understand this relation ship between reason, emotion and the mind? Are emotions simply products of the mind, or are they integrated responses to the world? Are emotions in some sense chosen, or are they biologically determined? Are emotions purely subjective experiences or do they adhere to some set of social, biological or psychological determiners?