THE INTENTIONAL STRUCTURES OF EMOTIONS

Abstract
The intentionality of emotions (and attitudes) is more than simple reference to an object. Objects themselves are not only individual, particular and definite, but also multiple, general, vague as in angst ('something untoward') and global in happiness, bliss or ultimate despair ('most things', 'all things'). They can have specific references to the past, present or future; be related, in the same experience, as proximate (usually focal), intermediate and ultimate (usually tacit), in networks of connections in which the ultimate object is valued and the proximate and any intermediate ones are evaluated in relation to it; and be self- or other-centred.

Keywords
Attitudes, emotions, evaluation, intentional dimensions, intentional relations, intentionality, objects, objects and causes, 'objectless' emotions, other-centred emotions, types of object, self-centred emotions, valuation.

A decisive moment in modern philosophy occurred when Brentano revived but altered the Scholastic notion of intentionality.1 Thereby mental states and acts ceased to be self-contained events related only by temporal contiguity and causal connections which each other and with bodily events, as in empiricist philosophy and associationist psychology, and were once more recognised as self-transcending and directed towards 'objects', though those 'objects' could be purely immanent. Even today, Brentano's achievement has not been fully recognised within analytic philosophy so that at times the intentional nature of emotions has still to be demonstrated. Moreover, within phenomenology itself the intentional structures of emotions have yet to be fully articulated. The following account may well not be complete, but at least it shows that emotions have varying and complex intentional structures.
   Before I turn to that I would like to comment briefly on the relation between emotions and attitudes, and on the difference between the objects and 'causes' of emotional experiences.
  Emotions are felt, so much so that they have been identified with mere 'feelings', indeed with bodily sensations. Yet there are purely mental feelings, or at least distinctively mental components in feelings, as can be seen by reflection upon emotional experiences which are clearly strongly felt yet in which bodily sensations are no stronger than ones which in total are less strongly felt. Feeling deeply moved by drama or music is often like this. In contrast 'attitude' focuses upon the mental 'stance', and its physical expression, taken towards its object. 'Taken' is also significant for attitudes appear to be actively enacted whereas emotions have always been associated with passivity, with the impact of people, things and events upon us. At most this is only a matter of degree, for, mere bodily sensations apart, we are never wholly passive but receptive and active in receiving.2 I therefore suggest that 'emotion' and 'attitude' overlap, and that what applies to the intentional structures of emotions applies also to those of attitudes, if there are really any instances of attitudes which lack all feeling and so are not also emotional experiences.
  As for the objects and causes of emotional experiences, far from being identical, they are never the same. I receive a letter telling me of some happy or sad event. The object of my happiness or sadness is the event mentioned in the letter. But the cause of my response is certainly not the event itself nor even the letter. For I have not witnessed the decision of thr examiners to pass or fail me. And if I were illiterate or ignorant of the language in which the letter is composed, it would have no effect upon me except, perhaps, puzzlement and frustration at being unable to read it. No, it is my reading of the letter and my understanding or misunderstanding of it, that together constitute the cause. Similarly, if I were deaf and blind, the presence of a fierce dog would not make me afraid of it. Only as I am aware of it can I respond to it. In every case it is our encounters with the objects and our recognition or miscognition of them, either direct as with the dog or indirect as with the contents of the letter, that are the causes of our emotional responses to them. Even this will turn out to be a simplification in many cases, as will be shown below.
  Both emotions and attitudes are directed to 'objects'. But this term 'object' seems often to suggest: (a) that emotions and attitudes are always directed to individual entities, whether real, illusory or imagined; (b) that there is always one such 'object' in each emotional experience; and (c) that the 'object' is the sole content of the emotion. But all such assumptions are mistaken, because emotions and attitudes have much more complex intentional structures, and 'objects' are not confined to individual entities but are that to which the emotion is directed whatever that may be. This, of course, can be generalised to all mental acts and states, and can be shown in the case of allegedly 'objectless' emotions, which have hitherto been taken to disprove the thesis of the intentionality of all mental states and acts. Reflection upon them also reveals that there is more to the intentional structure of emotions than their 'objects'.
1. Allegedly objectless emotions and their intentional structures.
Some emotions have no individual objects and hence they have often been taken to be objectless and thus counter-examples to the intentionality of all mental states and acts. For example, angst is a persistent anxiety or worry without any identified particular object. Yet that does not render it objectless.
In the first place, it is a form of anxiety or worry, and hence of fear in a general sense. It is therefore directed towards the future, either to something that will or may happen or to something that may have happened but which we do not yet know to be happening or to have happened. I am worried beforehand that I shall fail an examination; worried during it that I am failing it; and worried after it but before I receive the results, that I have failed it. Hence the object has a temporal dimension.
Also angst, as a form of anxiety or worry and so of fear, it has a valuative dimension. For these are 'negative' emotions directed to objects that, in some way or other, and to some lesser or greater degree, are regarded as bad or untoward. In fear, in the specific sense, the object is regarded as bad in a greater degree than in worry or being apprehensive. In contrast in hope, also directed towards the future or to a yet unknown present or past event, the event is regarded as in some way good and likewise to a lesser or greater degree. In the above example 'hope' can be substituted for 'fear' and 'pass' for 'fail' without any other changes.
  In short, the 'formal' object, in Scholastic terminology, in worry, anxiety and other forms of fear is a future event, or a present or past one which is not yet known to be occurring or to have occurred, and which is regarded as untoward or bad. It is this 'formal' object which makes it the type of emotion that it is, such as fear and not hope. Likewise the 'material' object is the individual event which makes it the particular emotion it is, what I am worried or anxious about, or what I fear, such as my failing the exam in the above example.3
  What is different in angst is that there is a 'formal' object, a 'something', that may happen, be happening or have happened, and is in someway untoward or bad, and a 'material' object which is apprehended as no more than an otherwise undefined 'something'. A vague and indefinite object is still an object, something thought about or perceived. This, then, is the structure of all supposedly 'objectless' emotions and no refutation at all of the thesis of intentionality.4
  Moreover, emotional responses to vague objects, far from being an anomaly, have a special role in cognition. For contrary to a common assumption,5 we can grasp the value aspect of something before we apprehend just what the object is. Indeed, it is often precisely that which alerts us to its existence, usually when we feel that something is wrong. I go to my desk or workbench and feel that something is wrong, missing or changed and then look more closely to discover just what it is. I read a passage and feel that something is wrong with it, perhaps a statement of fact, an invalid inference, a point of grammar or a misspelt word, and so I reread it to discern the actual mistake. We take the normal, in both senses of the word, for granted and expect it, otherwise we could get nothing done, and it is the abnormal and unexpected that catches our attention, often in and through its felt abnormality and not via its 'factual' attributes.
  Yet again, this examination of allegedly objectless emotions has opened two lines of investigation which start from the Scholastic distinctions of 'formal' and 'material' objects but go beyond them: (a) the general sorts of objects of objects to which emotions can be directed; and (b) the intentional relations we can have with them. As regards (a), we have now distinguished more or less definite objects and indefinite ones, and as regards (b) the temporal and valuative dimensions of objects. I propose next to follow up (a), yet in doing so we shall also reveal further examples of (b).
2. Further types of object
(i) Particular and general objects
So far we have distinguished identified objects from unidentified 'somethings' seen in a certain temporal and valuative light but otherwise remaining indefinite. There are also individual objects as distinct from generic ones. As well as being afraid of Butch, the fierce dog next door, I can be afraid of fierce dogs generally, that is, of any fierce dog that I encounter. This is not simply a matter of a Rylean 'disposition' and its 'episodes', like the brittleness of piece of cast iron and the occasions on which it is broken, a merely physical analogy. For someone afraid of fierce dogs will try not to experience such 'episodes' and thus to avoid encountering fierce dogs. Such a person will not simply be afraid of Butch, Sheba, and the like when he meets them, but will think of and be afraid of fierce dogs in general without reference to any individual one. Likewise a 'xenophobe' dislikes (rather than fears) strangers as such, simply because they are strangers, and may have in fact few encounters with any. Equally, it is possible to have a 'disposition' to fear Butch in particular, and not just as an example of 'fierce dog', and also to fear Butch just once, having afterwards learned that he is always securely tied up and so no real threat. 'Dispositions' and their 'episodes' are not the same as, respectively, general and particular objects.
(ii) Individual, multiple and global objects.
'The object of an emotion' can also mislead us into assuming that emotions always have one and only one individual object. But as well as being afraid of Butch I can also be afraid of the two rottweilers that are now running loose around the park, and as well as liking Mr Jones next door I can like all the Joneses, that is each one as and for himself or herself, and not just as a member of the family, nor as just a liking for Mr Jones, a liking for Mrs Jones, another for Jack Jones and a special one for Jill Jones, but for all of them together.
  Moreover, as well as being happy at passing the examination I can be happy with the way everything, or everything important or most things in my life are going. Indeed, it is characteristic of happiness that it has those global or almost global objects. For my happiness at my success in the examination would immediately give way to sorrow if the next letter were to tell me that a close friend had died. It is 'fool's happiness' to be happy when ignorant of a disaster that has happened or will happened, and Sophocles bade us never to call anyone happy until his death. Other global emotions are Romantic Weltschmerz, Portuguese saudades (a general nostalgia), the deadly sin of acedia — not 'sloth' but utter despair, either 'I cannot be saved' or 'There is no salvation' — and, on the positive side, bliss, the conviction that 'All will be well and all manner of thing will be well'.
(iii) Proximate, intermediate and ultimate objects
This is an important set of logically linked and simultaneous objects of which the second and last are taken for granted and so often overlooked. Consider my fear of a fierce dog. My attention is focused on the dog. But why? Because it is likely to attack, hurt and injure me. Hence it is not the dog simpliciter that is the object of my emotion but the-dog-as-likely-to-injure-me. The 'object' is the focus in a situation which connects it in one way or another with the subject. So what I really fear is being hurt and injured, and I fear the dog only as likely to do that. If I believe it is securely tied up or confined, then I shall not fear it, though I may be nervous about going close to it. Therefore, while the dog is the focal and proximate object of my fear, the tacit and ultimate object is the likelihood of hurt and harm to me that it presents. The same applies to irrational emotions, those in which the subjects knows, or should know, that the focal object does not have the qualities or powers for good or ill with which it is tacitly credited, as in arachnaphobia, rational only in the case of spiders recognised as tarantulas, or hope engendered by horoscopes. (I dislike touching all animals lacking hair, fur or feathers, and so never touch them and therefore never learn that there may be nothing to dislike.)
  Here as elsewhere we must not relapse into the error of assuming that 'the object' in each case is one and particular: I may be afraid of an imminent war (itself a vast complex of 'objects') because of the death, injury and destruction it will bring to many persons, places and things.
  Furthermore between proximate and ultimate objects, there can intervene intermediate objects. In the example of the exam result, though the focal object is the letter with the result and then the statement of the result when I read it, they would be intermediate objects, along with working for and taking the exam, if the ultimate object were my advancement in my profession to be achieved with the aid of the qualification to be gained by passing the examination. Moreover, advancement in my profession, though welcome for its own sake, would also be welcome for the additional income that would it bring, and that, in turn, for what I can do with it. In this, and similar examples, the focal object changes as the relevant events occur: working for the exam, taking it, awaiting the result, passing on to the next step if successful or, if not, reconsidering my ambitions and plans. It also reveals how complex and wide the 'situation' or 'context' may be which links the object or objects of an emotional experience with its subject. Here it is my profession, ambitions, plans, the qualifications necessary or useful for that profession and the exams to be passed to gain them, all of which are explicitly or tacitly present in my mind as I anxiously take the exam and await the results.
  Indeed, no object is a bare one, discrete, isolated and sufficient by itself even when it is not a member of a chain of focal, intermediate and ultimate objects. For this example and the previous one also reveal that the valuational dimension is twofold, and to these temporal, valuational and another dimension we now turn.
3. The dimensions of time, valuation and evaluation, and self- and other-centreness.
(i) Time
Some emotions have particular temporal dimensions. For example, hope and the forms of fear are essentially directed towards the future, either, as we have seen, directly to likely future events or to hearing news of past or present events. Conversely, regret, rue, feeling guilty and remorse are essentially related to the past, to what one has done or not done. Even when I regret that I cannot now, or will not be able to do, something, the real object of my regret (if 'regret' is used in its primary sense and not in an extended sense as a synonym for 'wishing to be otherwise' without reference to one's own actions and omissions) is the situation in which I have placed myself, such as making a prior commitment to which I am bound and which prevents me from doing the ostensible object. In this sort of example, it is the fact that I have made an incompatible commitment which is the object of my regret. So here we have a complex temporal structure: I regret A at t1, having made a promise at t1-x to do B at t1+y, which prevents me from doing C also at t1+y or somewhat earlier or later, as when I cannot meet a friend off a train arriving at 11.30 because I have promised to attend a business meeting due to finish at 11 but much too far away for me to get to the station in time. Furthermore, these temporal relations can be reversed along with the ultimate object of my regret: I now regret having promised on Monday to meet my friend at 11.30 on Wednesday because I forgot or should have foreseen that I would have to go to the business meeting from 9 to 11 also on Wednesday morning.
 Regret, rue, feeling guilty and remorse are specific forms of sorrow, sorrow at what oneself has done or failed to do. Nostalgia also is directed to the past, specifically what has been lost, but sorrow and sadness have no particular temporal reference. The same applies to positive emotions such as joy, delight and gladness, although happiness implies some expectation about the future as does joy in the special sense.6 All such emotions can be directed to what is past, present or future. That does not mean that they have no temporal dimension but only that it depends upon the particular focal object in each case.
  The global emotions of ultimate despair, happiness (by implication), and joy or bliss refer, not just to most or all things, but also to most or all times. Either everything is worthless, life has no meaning and there is no hope of fulfilment, or finally 'all will be well', so that even the horrors of the past, present or immediate future will in some way eventually both cease and, when remembered, cease to hurt and thus nothing will mar the total joy of the present and assured future.
(ii) Valuation and evaluation
In the example of fear of the fierce dog, the dog is the focal object my attention but I what I really fear is the pain and injury it may inflict upon me. But if I were confident that I could beat off the dog without harm to myself, I would not fear it. Or, if I were immune to pain and indifferent to injury, then again I would have no reason to fear the dog. This we can generalise: a focal but proximate object, or set of objects, and likewise any intermediate object, is evaluated in relation to the ultimate object, or set objects, as in one way or another helpful or harmful to it, and the ultimate object is valued. Consequently, when there is only a focal object, and not proximate, intermediate and ultimate ones, then it is simply valued: a shepherd of old may have welcomed a red sunset because it was a sign of a fine night and, in turn, that he would not get wet, but I enjoy it simply for its shapes and colours.
  All the same, that which is simply valued and not evaluated in relation to something else, is so valued in an intentional context. I value the sunset because I approach it as an aesthetic object, and so I attend to its interplay of shapes and colours for their own sakes, as distinct from the practical approach of the erstwhile shepherd or the combined scientific and practical approach of a modern meteorologist. Its latent or 'virtual' value is actualised by my aesthetic attention. Of course such valuation is not simple within itself, for I may recognise it as a particularly fine sunset or a rather uninteresting one. Here the evaluation is still one of kind and degree, but only in relation to my interest in its qualities for their own sake and not in relation to something beyond and other than itself and them. Even more so when persons are simply valued. We like and admire them for their qualities, characters and achievements, but love them simply for the unique person that each of us is.
  It is the dimension of valuation, and of evaluation with reference to it, that gives emotion its name, as that which moves us, either towards or away from its objects.7 At this point it is necessary briefly to note the relations between emotions and desires, namely, that they generate and arise from each other, and that desires can also be felt. For example, having general desire not to suffer pain and injury causes me to feel one of the forms of fear when I perceive a physical threat. Conversely, my fear of a threat makes me desire, and so look for, a means of defending myself against it or of escaping it, unless it is so great that my mind is overwhelmed and I am paralysed. Now it is important not to interpret this language in physical terms, as did empiricist philosophy and associationist psychology, and is still manifest in some analytic philosophy. As Collingwood said, to 'cause' a person to do something is to give him a 'motive' to do it, and by that Collingwood meant to give a reason and not to generate an inner and quasi-physical causal event.8 The relations among our thoughts, emotions, desires, intentions, etc., and with our actions, are primarily of a logical nature, of reasons and implications, good or bad, valid or invalid, correctly or incorrectly apprehended and understood. Hence they belong to the intentional structures of our emotions or are in some way logically connected with them. And so there is usually no simple emotional response to any object. But what we feel and then express, intend and do, will depend upon how we perceive or misperceive and interpret or misinterpret the objects of our emotions, our character and temperament, our particular beliefs about objects of that sort and about how we can and should respond to them, our beliefs about the particular situation we are in, and our general beliefs about life and the world and how we should conduct ourselves. True, in a quasi-physical manner I can be made to 'start' or 'jump' in fright when I hear a sudden noise behind me, or instantly take notice and look around when I hear my name. But we can train ourselves not to react in such a manner, as police horses are trained not to take fright at shouts, bangs, waving banners and angry crowds, and anger-management courses are available for those who need to control their aggressive impulses.
  How central to human life are the intentional structures of emotion, and especially the dimension or valuation and evaluation, can be seen from examples of their absence. George Santayana imagined and Max Scheler reported a person without emotion, who therefore could not conduct his or her own life but had to be told what to do by others and act according to a routine because nothing had any value or meaning.9 The Hindu 'renounced one', especially in the Advaita ('Non-Dualist') tradition, aimed at a complete detachment from the world and finally himself via the elimination of emotion and desire, and the Hellenistic sages, to avoid disappointment and distress, similarly sought to reduce their emotional attachments.10 Now these facts can be interpreted in two very different ways: (a) as by empiricism generally and Hume in particular, with its hedonistic utilitarianism or emotivism, to imply that 'the passions', i.e., emotions and desires, are non-rational internal events in relations of quasi-physical causation alone, and that 'reason' is merely calculation about how to satisfy and implement them, and would be impotent without them; and (b) that, in direct contrast, emotion reveals genuine values to us and therefore initiates, guides, sustains and terminates the search for knowledge and appropriate action in its light. What we do not care about, we shall not bother ourselves to know, and so cannot act responsibly with regard to it.11
(iii) Self-centred and other-centred emotions
It has been a common mistake to assume that emotions and desires are either primarily or totally directed to oneself. If I am afraid, I am afraid that I shall suffer in some way; if I am happy it is because things are going well with me; if I am proud, I am proud of my achievements, qualities or connections. Yet the only emotions that are essentially directed towards oneself are regret (in the proper sense), feeling guilty, rue and remorse, for they are forms of sorrow at what we ourselves have done or not done. If I feel guilty about what someone else has done or not done, then I believe that, in some way or another, I am at least partly responsible for his doing it. All others can be centred upon someone or something other than oneself: a mother afraid that her child will be run over or a passer-by who also sees the child run into the path of an oncoming bus; a soldier proud of his regiment; someone saddened by news of a disaster abroad; an elderly person who has lived though difficult times but who hopes that life will be better for the next generation. In all these examples it is someone or something other oneself that is valued and with reference to whom or which other things are evaluated.
  The same applies to emotions centred upon objects that are 'disvalued', though here it is self-centred ones that tend to be neglected. In Schadenfreude we experience malicious glee at the misfortunes of others, those others being greatly disliked by us. In envy and ressentiment we hate others for having what we lack and wish to deprive them of what they have. Yet there are also self-hatred, self-loathing, self-disgust and self-contempt, and in regret, feeling guilty, rue and remorse we blame ourselves. We can also be afraid of ourselves, of what we might do if we lose control of ourselves, of lashing out in a burst of anger or of speaking out of turn. On the positive side, self-love is all too often identified with selfishness, as by Kant,12 whereas for much of the time we love ourselves too little and pursue what is bad for us and not our true good.

 Doubtless there is more to be revealed about the intentional structures of emotions and attitudes, but at least the above shows that reference to an object is the necessary beginning of the correct account of their intentionality but needs much refinement, elaboration and development.

Notes
1. F. Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, trans. A. C. Rancurello, D.B. Terrell and Linda L. McAlister, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973.
2. R.T. Allen, 'The passivity of emotion', The Modern Schoolman, LXVIII, May 1991, pp. 321-30.
3. A. Kenny, Action, Emotion and Will, London, Routledge, 1963.
4. The only mental acts or states that are not intentional are those 'moods' that simply come upon us, such as the irritability that is the result of getting out of the wrong side of the bed in the morning, the hilarity or self-pity that comes from over-indulgence in alcohol, and the truculence supposed to be the permanent state of teenagers. But we can be in such moods only as we perform other and intentional acts, such as to snap and bark at the misdoings of the rest of the family or think that everything is against us. They are parasitic colourings of our thoughts and responses.
5. E.g. Aquinas, ST Ia IIae, 27, 2, but with some qualifications; Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, p. 267.
6. Cf Nietzsche: 'All joy wills eternity', Thus Spoke Zarathrustra: LIX, 'The second dance-song',  §3.
7. To this I have found but one exception, that of surprise at the mere existence or occurrence of something. For example, without feeling any form of liking, approval, dislike or disapproval, I am surprised when a colleague who has always worn plain dark suits, white shirts and sober ties, turns up on 'dress-down Friday' looking quite comfortable and cheerful in a colourful batik shirt and Bermuda shorts.
8. Essay on Metaphysics, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1940, Revised ed., 1998, p. 285.
9. Santayana, The Sense of Beauty (New York, Collier Books, 1961), p. 25; Scheler, 'On the meaning of suffering', in (ed.) M. Frings, Max Scheler: Centennial Essays (The Hague, M. Nijhoff, 1974) pp. 156-7.
10. E.g. Epictetus: 'What harm is it, just when you are kissing your little child, to say, "Tomorrow you will die" or to your friend similarly, "Tomorrow one of us will go away, and we shall not see one another any more"?', Discourses, III 24: quoted A.A. Long, Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 238).
11. See R.T. Allen: 'Passivity and the rationality of emotion'; 'Governance by emotion', Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 22, No. 2. May 1991, pp. 15-29; 'The cognitive functions of emotion', Appraisal, Vol. 3. No. 1, March 2000, pp. 38-47; and references in these articles to Scheler, Stefan Strasser, Michael Polanyi, John Macmurray and others.
12. Reverence for the Categorical Imperative 'demolishes my self-love' (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. H. Paton as The Moral Law, London, Hutchinson, 1948, p. 67n; p. 16n in the 2nd German ed.) instead of redirecting and purifying it. It is also entailed by morality as 'altruism', that the only good I can do is that to and for others, and so any attention to my own must be 'selfishness'. But, equally, my attention to your good must be a pandering to your selfishness. Cf. John Macmurray, Freedom in the Modern World, London, Faber, 1932, pp. 192-5, and 'Self-realization' in John Macmurray: Selected Philosophical Papers, ed. E. McIntosh, Exeter, Imprint Academic, 2004.