What a difference depth makes

Authors

  • Dina Mendonça Universidade de Lisboa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7213/1980-5934.31.054.DS01

Keywords:

Emotional depth, narrative structure, profound, emotional perspective, rationality

Abstract

The article explores how a new dimension of emotion – depth – is crucially important for a better understanding of emotion and its connection to rationality. It begins by identifying that depth is trapped in a circularity in which deep emotions are important because they refer to deep and important aspects of people’s lives. Following Danto’s discussion of deep interpretation (1981), it suggests that it is the contrast between deep and superficial that grants emotional perspective and the ability to identify levels of emotional depth. After arguing that the emotional perspective is grasped by the narrative structure of emotion, it raises several objections that provide the ground to establish a difference between deep and profound. Then the paper concludes that the meaning of emotional depth is only fully understood in the ongoing contrast with the superficial described before, and states how further research on depth of emotion may provide the key to understanding the ambivalent status of emotions regarding their link to rationality.

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Author Biography

Dina Mendonça, Universidade de Lisboa

Doutor em Filosofia pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, UFSC;

Professor do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia Mestrado e Doutorado da PUCPR;

Professor do Departamento de Filosofia da FAE Centro Universitário.

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Published

2019-12-09

How to Cite

Mendonça, D. (2019). What a difference depth makes. Revista De Filosofia Aurora, 31(54). https://doi.org/10.7213/1980-5934.31.054.DS01