Davies, Ch 6: Expression and Emotional Responses
(See study quesdtions at end)

 

1.       Davies on the important of expression of emotion in art

          a.       “A major source of its value”

          b.       “Both the expression of emotion in art and the arousal of affective responses in its audience are crucial at every point to what invests art with human significance and worth”

 

2.       NATURE OF EMOTIONS

3.       Emotions function to focus our attention on what is important and guide our thoughts and actions

4.       Davies main idea is that emotions are a varied lot and we can’t give one account for all emotions (Neill says the same thing)

          a.       Some are cognitive (involve beliefs, desires) (e.g. emotional responses to tragedy)

          b.       Some are more instinctive, gut level reactions (e.g., emotional responses to purely instrumental music and abstract art)

          c.       Emotions can involve

                    i.        Physiological responses (heart rate rises)

                    ii.       Intentional objects (directed at things–not true for all emotions e.g., sadness in response to instrumental music; nor true for moods)

                    iii.      Behaviors (sad people weep, scared people run)

5.       Identifying emotions in others and in art

          a.       See question 6.8: In what way can it be easier and in what way harder to learn what a fictional character feels than to learn what another person feels?

          b.       Other people’s emotions can be identified by

                    i.        Behavior, facial expressions (some emotions have characteristic facial expressions), what they tells us.

          c.       Emotions in art can be identified by

                    i.        Same mechanism as use to identify other people’s emotions

                    ii.       And more:

                              (1)     title, narrator tells us what character is feeling

                              (2)     lighting and music (film noir, soaring melody testifies to hero’s love)

6.       For art, in addition to emotions of character need to consider emotions/attitudes of work itself

          a.       Can be different: Protagonist might be patriotic and courageous while work expresses rage at way such passions lead to war.

          b.       To whom to attribute work’s attitude/emotion?

                    i.        Author

                              (1)     But sometimes work not autobiographical in this way

                              (2)     A novel might embrace sexism, yet be written by a feminist who rejects it

                    ii.       Narrator (story teller)

                              (1)     But narrator can be presented as biased

                    iii.      Fictional author or narrator who stands outside work?

          c.       Work’s descriptions and representations can be expressive in own right w/o positing a real (or fictional) person who has that emotion

          d.       This is like the way in which instrumental music, abstract art, and nature can be expressive, even if there is no person who is thought to have the emotion.

                    i.        Angry music, angry sea, angry abstract painting?

                              (1)     Angry flowers

                                         (a)     https://recoverythroughart.com/images/art/angry_flowers.jpg

                              (2)     Angry clouds

                                         (a)     https://noblesseoblige.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/angry-clouds.jpg

                              (3)     Angry painting

                                         (a)     https://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/346227295_8ed3046631.jpg

                              (4)     angry abstract art

                                         (a)     https://www.creativereleases.com/angry.jpg

 

7.       EMOTIONS/EXPRESSIVENESS OF MUSIC

8.       Musical expressiveness objective or subjective?

          a.       The claim it is subjective amounts to the view that people can property attribute different expressive properties to music without there being any disagreement

                    i.        True for you music sad and true for me that it is happy

                    ii.       Examples of sad music

                              (1)     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew7c03EUHUA

          b.       Davies argues that

                    i.        If one discounts opinions of uninformed listeners (e.g., who don’t know genre)

                    ii.       And rejects the idea the music is fine grained in its expressiveness and claims it expresses emotions in more general and broad categories

                              (1)     Sad versus happy, rather than sad vs gloomy vs morose (fine grained)

                              (2)     If one person hears music as sad, another says expresses grief, do not really disagree

                              (3)     If one says it is sad and another happy, at least one is wrong.

                    iii.      Then there is lots of agreement

                    iv.      This agreement best accounted for by believing that people are recognizing objective properties/powers in music

                    v.       Music emotional responses like color perception, depends on both

                              (1)     Objective powers of object, and

                              (2)     Shared emotional/perceptual capacities of person

9.       Expression of emotion in purely instrumental music and abstract art

          a.       Music sometimes regarded as the most expressive of the arts

                    i.        Can be happy or sad, calm or angry

          b.        How possible given no words or pictures?

                    i.        Music/art can’t feel emotions and not clear that anyone’s emotions are being expressed

                              (1)     Not like tears express a person’s sadness

                              (2)     Can’t just assume that the artist’s emotions are being expressed by the music

                    ii.       No objects or behaviors in them likely to elicit emotions (like sad face, or crying)

 

10.     ACCOUNTS FOR HOW MUSIC CAN EXPRESS EMOTIONS

11.     Associative account: Music becomes expressive by being regularly associated with things that clearly are emotional (words/events in people’s lives)

          a.       E.g., Snare drums and fifes and trumpets associated with war, or music listened to during period when dog died eventually expresses sadness

          b.       Problem: Music it is not emotionally neutral and then picks up emotions of things associated with. Rather it brings is emotion to those events it is associated with; People choose music because it (already) fits with the mood trying to evoke

12.     Expression theory: Music expresses composer’s emotions

          a.       Sad music expresses the composer’s sadness

          b.       What makes music expressive is that it presents an emotion the composer felt

          c.       When we hear the music we recognize the composer’s sadness much like we would if we saw her burst into tears

          d.       Question 6.7

          e.       Problems:

                    i.        Music takes months to complete, composer’s emotions greatly varied over that period

                    ii.       Music not like tears of composer, but more like a sad face she carved to express her sadness; face is still sad even if carver is happy.

                    iii.      So music has its own expressiveness apart from composes feelings

13.     Emotivism/arousal theory: Music is sad because it makes listeners sad

          a.       Problems:

                    i.        Sometimes cheerful music fails to cheer someone up, but it is still cheerful

                    ii.       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ARlAUhfHY

                    iii.      Person can recognize and appreciate sadness of music and still not be moved to sadness and/or appreciate composers skill in making music sad

                    iv.      Gets things backwards; Usual idea is that it is because the music is sad (already) that it makes people sad, not the other way (it is sad in virtue of making people sad)

14.     Hypothetical persona: Music is sad because listeners imagine that the music tracks episodes in life of an imagined person

          a.       E.g., imagine the music is about a person’s reluctance to follow a path society has set down for her

          b.       Problem: Competent listeners will deny they are playing this imaginary game

 

15.     Expressiveness is in the music w/o it being any person’s emotions

          a.       The sound itself has an expressive character without regard to anyone’s feelings

                    i.        Listener’s sad response echoes a sadness presented in music sound

                    ii.       Not saying music is literally sad (or joyful)

          b.       We describe other things with emotional terms that can’t feel emotions

                    i.        Sad willows, happy facemasks, basset hounds has sad looking face (implies nothing about mood of dog)

          c.       How does this work? Perhaps based on resemblance

16.     Resemblance theory:

          a.       Perhaps resemblance between the thing and the behavior/characteristics of people with that emotion

          b.       Stooped willow tree, like stooped sad person

          c.       Happy people move fast and energetically like happy music

          d.       Sad people move slowly as if weighed down by care, similarly sad music moves slowly

 

17.     Why people respond emotionally to music’s expressiveness if music is not the intentional object of their response

          a.       Why people feel sad on hearing sad music if not sad about the music.

          b.       Music causes the response but the response is not aimed at the music

18.     Davies thinks emotional responses to music are a non-cognitive type of emotional response

          a.       We don’t have belief that someone or thing is sad, but we don’t need them because emotional responses need not include beliefs (they may be non-cognitive) nor need they have intentional objects

                    i.        Reject idea cognitive theory of emotions applies to all emotions

19.     We get emotions from music by contagion or osmosis

                    i.        E.g., To get sad from music, we don’t need to believe that someone died or suffered some other misfortune

          b.       We unthinkingly catch the expressive mood

          c.       Although the emotion in response to instrumental music is not about anything, if does require close attention to the music and its expressiveness

20.     An implication: Someone who does not react to sad music by being sad (or feeling pity) is not callous as would be someone who is unmoved by another person’s sadness

          a.       Question 6.6

 

21.     DAVIES ON EMOTIONAL RESPONSES TO FICTION

          a.       How possible given that the beliefs required for ordinary emotions are not present (object does not exist)

22.     Appeal to idea that emotions can be non-cognitive (as with music) won’t work here

          a.       Responses to fiction must be cognitively sophisticated

                    i.        While true that not all emotions are cognitively complex or involve conscious judgment

                    ii.       When imaginatively enter world of fiction must know which beliefs to suspend and which to entertain, must have understanding and insight

23.     Radford’s view: Emotional responses to fiction are irrational

          a.       Fits with lots of other irrational human behavior

                    i.        E.g., Phobias (irrational fear of heights or darkness), golfers talking to the ball and moving body to affect its trajectory

24.     Problems Davies identifies in this view

          a.       Having the right emotional responses to fiction indicate sensitive appreciation and understanding of the story (and not that one is irrational)

                    i.        Pity Anna Karenina is to recognize her circumstances

          b.       Fiction’s value includes that it gives us new insights & understanding by stimulating our emotions and getting us involved in world of fiction

                    i.        Not just irrational behavior

 

25.     Carroll’s idea that imagining or thinking about an event is enough to provoke an emotional reaction

          a.       Emotions are cognitive and directed at objects, but thoughts entertained w/o believing is enough

 

26.     Are emotions directed at fiction are less strong and persistent?

          a.       Davies: “More tears are spilled in movies and operas than in front of TV documentaries of real world events”

 

27.     DAVIES ON RESPONSE TO TRAGEDIES

28.     The problem: Why seek out and return and get pleasure from art that is saddening /harrowing

          a.       How enjoy negative experiences some art produces?

 

29.     One response: Deny experiences are unpleasant

          a.       Hume: Elegance of story transforms the supposedly negative element into a positive

                    i.        Grief turned into something pleasant

          b.       Gaut: The unenjoyable part of these emotions (sadness) are the consequences and behavioral responses of the emotion, not the emotion itself

                    i.        When we can savor the emotion alone we find it not unpleasant at all

                    ii.       Kind of fun to be sad when nothing bad happened

          c.       We are masochists and take pleasure in own suffering

                    i.        Davies thinks masochism is pathological and rare

30.     Problem with denying experiences unpleasant: Davies argues that sometimes responses are undeniably unpleasant

          a.       Unredeemed murders, rapes, mutilations, tortures and mayhem in works like American Psycho are unpleasant to experience

 

31.     Second response: Perhaps tragedies have positive values (well crafted story with subtle plot) that outweighs and compensates for negative dimension

          a.       Problem: But then we should seek the stories that have these positive features w/o the negative ones

32.     Negative aspects of tragedies integral part of large whole that is good

                    i.        Like Theodicy: evil necessary part of best possible world

          b.       Aristotle argues the good we get is catharsis (purging of feelings)

          c.       Feagan: Negative response allows us to emotionally respond in morally virtuous ways that allows us to feel good about ourselves

                    i.        Pity the suffering of others; respond with sensitivity and compassion

33.     Davies: Can’t get gain w/o pain

          a.       Davies argues that negative parts of art are part of a whole that has great aesthetic value and we can’t appreciate this value fully if we ignore or skip over the unpleasant parts.

          b.       Can’t get art’s richest rewards if shun works that elicit unenjoyable feelings or always close our eyes or skip the nasty bits

 

34.     Davies thinks art is like life in this regard

          a.       Best can only come if we are willing to suffer and risk and not just go for the easy pleasure

          b.       Person who pursues only pleasure and shuns everything that might be uncomfortable will have a shallow and unfulfilled life

          c.       Deepest satisfactions in life come not from clinging to small pleasures of the easy path but “From mustering the grace and courage to face the challenges and difficulties that come to anyone who commits to occupations, associations, and values that foster love, dignity, respect and realization of human potential”

          d.       Arts rewards come no more easily or cheaply

 

35.     Teaches us to reject assumption that pleasure alone is why we are interested in art

          a.       Art is deep source of satisfaction that comes from overcoming difficulties and challenges and achieving understanding

          b.       This is not pleasure (like sensuous delight like we get from cold beer on hot day)

          c.       Silly to think satisfactions of art is pleasure alone and so we should be prepared to face what is unpleasant to get art’s full payoff


Davies, Ch 6: Expression and Emotional Responses Study Questions

 

1.         Using examples, explain how emotions are varied lot (according to Davies).

2.         Give an example where the emotions/attitudes of a work of art differ from the emotions/attitudes of its protagonist (the main character).

3.         *Does Davies think musical expressiveness is objective or subjective? Explain these terms. How does his view on this related to the issue of whether or not music is fine grained in its expressiveness? If one person hears music as sad, another says it expresses grief, do they disagree (according to Davies)?

4.         *Explain and contrast the following accounts of how it is that abstract music (w/o words) can be expressive: Associative account, expression theory, emotivism/arousal theory, expressiveness is in the music itself without it being any person’s emotions. What are some problems with each of these theories?

5.         Must a composer of music feel the emotion the music expresses while she composes the music?

6.         Is it because a piece of music is sad, that it makes people sad, or is it sad because it makes people sad? What is the difference? What is Davies view on this?

7.         Explain how the idea of resemblance might help explain how music can express emotions.

8.         What does it mean to say that emotional responses to music are non-cognitive? Wht does it mean to say we get emotions from music by contagion or osmosis, and why is this a non-cognitive account of how music moves us?

9.         *In terms of being cognitive or not (that is, do they involve beliefs or not), does Davies believe the emotional responses to music and emotional responses to fiction are similar? Why or why not? What are his views about the cognitivity of emotional responses to fiction and to music?

10.       What is Davies criticism of the idea that emotional responses to fiction are irrational?

11.       Explain why Davies (and others) think the appreciation of tragedy needs explanation?

12.       *What is one explanation of why we seek out tragedies that Davies rejects? (Hint: It has to do with whether or not the experience of tragedies is unpleasant). Why does he reject it?

13.       *What is Davies response to this “paradox” of tragedy? In other words, what is his account of why it is worthwhile to appreciate tragedy even thought the experience is often saddening, harrowing, or unpleasant?

14.       In what way does Davies think appreciating difficult art (e.g., tragedy) is like life?

15.       Does Davies think it is pleasure alone that explains our interest in art? Explain why or why not.