In general, I prefer to think of mental phenomena as representational, but I do not see that this prevents me from integrating the epistemic strategy of direct perception. Furthermore, I characterize basic emotions as realized in one individual (individualism but not internalism). At the same time, I remain neutral as to whether joint emotions (e.g. joint enthusiasm about a goal achieved by one’s team) have to be analysed as extended emotions. Furthermore, I think that basic emotions are not hidden mental phenomena but can be directly perceived e.g. on the basis of face-based recognition of emotions. Thus, I think that some mental phenomena can be registered non-inferentially. But of course, direct perception of some mental phenomena is only one of at least four epistemic strategies that we can use, depending on the context.
To sketch my theory of direct perception I will focus on basic emotions like anger, fear, happiness, sadness, etc. (for a classification of emotions see Zinck & Newen 2008). My metaphysical view of emotional episodes is that they are integrated patterns of characteristic features (Welpinghus & Newen 2012; Newen et al. 2015). Let me use the example of fear as illustrated in Newen et al. (2015): an emotional episode of fear towards an aggressive dog is constituted by the integration of the following characteristic features: (1) a typical physiological arousal that is a consequence of bodily changes due to changes in the autonomic nervous system, including increased heart rate and flat breathing; (2) a typical behavior or behavioral disposition, including flight or freezing behavior; (3) a typical facial expression, gesture, or body posture, etc.; (4) a typical phenomenal experience of fear; (5) a typical (explicit) cognitive evaluation of the dog in front of me (e.g., “This is an aggressive pit bull”). Furthermore, every emotional episode has (6) an intentional object, i.e. the dog in front of me. Features 1–5 are integrated into an (often implicit) appraisal of the intentional object as dangerous. The emotional episode is constituted by the integration of all the characteristic features mentioned so far, including the appraisal. This view allows that in another implementation some features would be missing. For example, the explicit cognitive evaluation of the dog as an aggressive pit bull is not necessary to be in fear towards the dog in front of me. Or the facial expression may be inhibited, due to intense training to attain a poker face, yet I may still be in fear. As long as a minimum of features is realized, we still have an episode of fear. The two main features that are necessary in all emotional episodes are a registration of minimal physiological arousal and an intentional object. The integration of both is needed to have an emotional episode (Barlassina & Newen 2013). But other features may be lacking while still remaining characteristic of most episodes of the relevant type of emotion. One might wonder why I do not include neural correlates. Since I argue from a position of antecedent naturalism, neural correlates are not an extra component in addition to the characteristic features already mentioned above. We might mention neural correlates as an informative aspect for the individuation of certain features of emotion, but we do not have to, since they concern the same features that have already been mentioned, with information accessed in a different manner.
If one accepts the ontology of emotions as individuated by an integrated pattern of characteristic features, it follows that the expression of an emotion by face, body posture, and gestures is a constitutive part of the emotional episode (and not a causal consequence). Thus, I do not hold internalism about mental phenomena. Given this theory of the individuation of emotions, I also argue for the thesis that one way of recognizing emotions is by perceiving the relevant pattern (Newen et al. 2015). A recognition of the other person’s fear can be attained by directly perceiving the pattern of fear. How can we account for this, while at the same time accepting that the feeling of fear is a private subjective experience in so far as a person still may have the feeling even if she is able to keep a poker face? Perceiving fear is comparable to perceiving a house. Both are processes of pattern recognition on the basis of a minimal package of characteristic features: I can recognize a drawing as one of a house, even if one or two of the characteristic features of a house are missing. How is this possible? Perceiving an object is not a purely passive process, like taking a photograph; it is a constructive process.[1] One important aspect of the constructive process is the enrichment of selected core sensory information. And one way of realizing this enrichment is by the activation of a rich memorized mental image that best suits the core sensory information. If we have learned the relevant pattern of what a house looks like from the outside, and memorized a respective mental image, then seeing a child’s drawing initiates an interaction of bottom-up and top-down processes. These include the activation of this stored mental image, such that it enriches the core sensory information to form a perceptual experience of seeing a drawing of a house even if the front door is missing in the drawing.
The same process of pattern recognition takes place in the case of recognizing an emotion like fear. The relevant pattern of fear is formed either on the basis of having personally experienced a situation of fear or on the basis of having observed others in such situations. One thereby acquires a memorized pattern of fear with typical features. If one now observes a person with a typical facial expression in a situation where she is being attacked by a dog, one can see the fear of the person. The perception of fear is realized by seeing the freezing behaviour, the facial expression, and the intentional object (i.e. the aggressive dog), because these features activate as part of the process of perceptual processing the whole pattern of fear. Thus, I can perceive fear in the face of the person being attacked by the dog. The theory of perception is one according to which perceptual processing allows for a systematic enrichment of information and for influencing of perceptual processes by memorized images or background knowledge. These top-down influences are discussed under the label cognitive penetration. So I am committed to the view of perception as cognitively penetrated as it is defended in detail in Vetter & Newen (2014). But this does not involve any claims concerning the metaphysical commitments ascribed to me by Quadt in her commentary. Recognition of emotions is analysed in a framework that explicitly allows for mental representations but specifies them in a way that nevertheless allows for direct perception as one form of access to the recognition of emotions. As has been spelled out in detail elsewhere (see Newen et al. 2015), in principle I allow for three types of recognizing of emotions: two types of direct perception are distinguished in terms of top-down processes of shaping perception involving background images or beliefs; and one is characterized by theory-based inferences. Thus, I distinguish “(1) (a basic form of) perceiving an emotion in the (near) absence of any top-down processes, and (2) perceiving an emotion in a way that significantly involves some top-down processes (a strongly concept-modified form of perception). Both types of perceiving emotions can be distinguished from (3) inference-based evaluation of an emotion pattern. The latter presupposes a stable evaluation of an emotion as being F, which then may be modified or reevaluated by reflecting on the information” (Newen et al. 2015, p. 197). To sum up: Direct perception can be based on a metaphysical framework that regards emotions as integrated patterns of characteristic features and this allows me to combine it with presupposing mental representations of emotions (as memorized rich patterns), on the one hand, as well as with a non-inferential recognition of some emotional episodes on the other. The pattern theory of emotion is furthermore able to account for internalistic features of emotions like the feeling of fear, but also for individualistic yet expressive features like behavior and expression in face, gesture, and body posture. This metaphysics of emotions is coherent and is compatible with several epistemic strategies for recognizing them, e.g. direct perception as well as theory-based inferential understanding.
Let me make a further clarificatory remark about my reply to the coherence worry: I illustrated my metaphysics taking emotional episodes as a core example. This does not imply that I analyze all mental phenomena in this way. Although I think that some mental phenomena can also be individuated as integrated patterns of characteristic features like self-awareness/self-consciousness (see Gallagher 2013) or object perception, I remain neutral on the question of how far this analysis can be generalized and about the possibility that some mental phenomena need a different metaphysics as basis. For this reply it is sufficient to have shown what a concrete paradigmatic example of a coherent metaphysics for emotional episodes looks like, in order to prevent the danger of running into an incoherent metaphysics as a unavoidable consequence of the multiplicity view concerning epistemic strategies of understanding others.[2]