As most of my philosophy classes go, today was spent racking my brain for questions and answers and new thoughts to try to answer something I don't think I (even now) have come to define clearly for myself: an emotion.

To give some context, we have been reading Lucius Annaeus Seneca, an ancient Roman Stoic who makes a strong case as to why we should not let emotions "in." In doing so, he inadvertently gives definitions that I have come to contend with.

In his essay What Is An Emotion? Seneca deals with anger. He claims anger, and emotions overall, are "set in motion by an impression received of a wrong." When we perceive something wrong to have happened in the world (someone stole something, or hurt someone, etc), we experience an inclination towards an emotion.

However, his line of thinking is that the agitating feeling we get while reacting to an event is involuntary (shivering in cold weather, feeling nervous before a speech, etc) and, however, that it is not an emotion. For in his eyes, the agitation demands (after receiving the impression of a wrong) "to lust for retribution, to put together the two propositions that the damage ought not to have been done and that punishment ought to be inflicted" (keep in mind he's talking about anger), and from this he concludes that this elaborated desire "is not the work of a mere involuntary impulse... What we have here is a complex with several constituents--realization, indignation, condemnation, retribution."

In short, our agitations desire us to act out and become the emotions--and as actions are voluntary (and if this is the only way emotions come into being), therefore, so are emotions.

Seneca clarifies that this demand is what an emotion--like anger-- is when it is seen in the world, for before we choose to 'let anger in' and act on its behalf, it is merely a "bodily" or "mental" "agitation." The agitations desire "are not affections, but the preliminaries, the prelude to affections." "None of these...mental impulses deserves to be called an 'emotion.'" His reasoning for such a claim is that "involuntary movements can be neither overcome nor avoided."

Such a reasoning is motivated (I think) by the desire to have a philosophy to believe in that states all emotion can come under control (furthermore, I think this desire is driven both by an innate fear of emotions and the belief that they are irreconcilably irrational--the first of which I think is cowardly, the second, well, reasonable--for why else would one want to desire to be in complete control of them if not out of not desiring their capacity or utility?).

For if our impulses and most immediate reactions--things not in our control, simply--are not emotions, and emotions instead belong to things we choose to let ourselves experience (because they are unbreakably linked to the actions we take), then emotions are under our control--as an action is. From there, one (with an admiration for Stoicism) can choose to believe in this paradigm and feel comfortable knowing that the definitions they've set up for themselves satisfy their desires for emotional control.

Emotions for Seneca occur, therefore, when we choose to act them out. For in his eyes emotions are voluntarily experienced states, just as actions are voluntarily taken courses of movement. However, what we feel before we act on angry motives (to him) is "involuntary, as preparation, as it were, for emotion," something ineliminable by decision.

His reason for this can be seen more clearly if we harken back to what the constituents of his complex are: realization, indignation, condemnation, retribution. Seneca makes it clear that it is "possible to act for retribution and punishment unknown to the mind," and as the desire and impulse for retribution and punishment is the conclusion of what he calls "agitations," yet the agitations are involuntarily and the retribution and punishment are (as they are "known to the mind"), voluntary actions means voluntary embodiment of the emotion demanding them.

Therefore, emotions are voluntary.

The disagreement I have with such thinking is specifically that I do think the "agitation" we experience while reacting to the world is an emotion. I concede to a vein of his thought but not the heart, that once an event occurs, we experience involuntary reactions, and that we are proposed with voluntary courses of (re)action as well.

However, I think that these can be both in the same name, in the same emotion. For my involuntary response to something can be anger (though he would call it "agitation"), and my voluntary response could also be anger (though he would solely call it anger). I think that we have our innate, involuntary response systems set up that don't provide us with a minimized, prerequisite versions of emotional states, I think that those things themselves are emotions. Additionally, the actions we take embody an emotion.

The reason I give for this is because we owe emotions to our instinctual animalistic brain functions, which reacts to the world, but we experience an involuntary vetting of the world--and in addition to this, we have the cognitive capacity to decide how we feel about how we've vetted the world.

Take an experiment conducted by Joseph Campos called "The Visual Cliff." Campos was testing the ways in which parents communicate with their children through facial expressions--which isn't of significant importance for us (now). However, how he set up the experiment proves (somewhat) my view of an emotion's definition.

Campos placed a plexiglass screen over a flat checkered surface, but the plexiglass extended over the surface which was cut off. A few feet under the plexiglass and next to the checkered surface was another flat surface, which one could tell was feet below but could walk a few feet over due to the plexiglass reaching across and protecting them. (If you just would like to watch the video, I've attached it).

The experiment consisted in seeing if babies would trust either an approving or disapproving look given by their parent, and to see if they would, therefore, crawl over the plexiglass if their parent appeared to approve (even if--by the baby's judgement--they would fall, as they--I guess--can't tell the plexiglass is there).

What the experiment showed (that is relevant to our topic) is that as the babies were reluctant to crawl over the plexiglass with either expression on the parent's faces, (and needed an approving look to even try) they experienced the emotional response to the situation as they interpreted it. They didn't rationally decide to experience fear after seeing the lower surface and think "this is a falling off place," they experienced fear in realizing and knowing "this is a falling off place."

My point is that the emotion is inherent to the realization, yet I also agree with Seneca that the/a (as, if we realize we're afraid, we can still choose to be bold and act in a differing emotion, as some babies crawled over the glass) emotion is also seen in it's embodiment. The reason we differ, therefore, is because I am willing to believe emotions can be involuntarily experienced. (Distinctions don't seem to profound when we've revealed our differences to be a mere disagreement about words). But nonetheless, words need concrete definitions.

So, which definition of emotion is correct? Are emotions in our control (therefore only seen in our action--which is what we control, as Seneca puts it), or are they both out of our control and in it (therefore seen in our action--as we can still choose to act a certain emotional way, and in our "agitations"--things we can't choose to have conjured up within us, as I'd say), (and is there a brave soul who proclaims emotions are out of our control completely? Are there any determinists in the room?).