Though they occur, they can be suppressed, with attention held on the
object of recognition or thought. It can often be important to do this,
when one wishes to solve problems of either recognition or theory. Typic-
ally it does not help to foreground in one’sawarenessone’sownemotions
when one is factoring polynomials or trying to distinguish a broken head
gasket from a leaking radiator.
When, however, the emotions of consciousness and the emotions of
thought are not immediately discharged in bodily activity and are sup-
pressed, not acknowledged, then we can lose our emotional sense of why
we are doing what we are doing. Conceptually structured activity and the
labor associated with it can become dead to us. We are bored, or horrified, or
even entrancingly absorbed in what we are doing, yet we fail to be aware of
this fact about ourselves.
There are, then, a number of things that can happen. Emotions of con-
sciousness and thought might bebetrayed,described,aroused,orexpressed.
Betraying an emotion is a matter of “exhibiting symptoms” of it–for
example,“turning pale and stammering”when afraid.^58 Though the fear is
expressed in one natural sense of the wordexpression, it is more natural to say
that it is exhibited, displayed, or evidenced involuntarily in bodily activity.
One may not oneself become conscious of the particular object and quality of
one’s fear, but may remain wholly caught up in it, in such a way that others
can“read it off”one’s behavior causally.
Describing an emotion is a matter for psychologists or oneself in taking
an external attitude to what one feels as a kind of thing.“To describe a
thing is to call it a thing of such and such a kind: to bring it under a
conception, to classify it”^59 – for example, to say,“Iamangry.”While
description may have its uses, both in psychological science and in self-
observation and self-control, it is not the same thing as turning one’s
attention to a particular emotion and its quality, wedded to a cognitive
experience on an occasion. To say“Iambored,” for example, is quite
different from saying
I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?(^58) Ibid., pp. 121, 122. (^59) Ibid., p. 122.
94 An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art