Emotion

I too, like Sartre, agree that emotions can be controlled. Although, before they can be controlled the specific individual must first take ownership of his/her actions. Only after this can one really start to see some kind of control over their own emotions. First we need to look at why or how emotions are released, if we speak literally, then, it is a chemical reaction in the mind and that RELEASE can not be controlled, we do not possess that sixth sense that would allow us to consciously release a certain chemical in our brain when we want to; but what IS controlled is our perspective, or perhaps, how we CHOOSE to see the world. How we see the world is OUR choice. Many will argue that how we see the world is the end result of a human experience and that we have no control over what we get out of each experience. My argument, assuming we have no control over the result of our experiences, states that even if we have no control over the end result of each experience, this is irrelevant in respect to emotion, it is only relevant if we were arguing if we could choose which perspectives we could or could not gain at any given time. So, to put this all together, human experiences, even if not controlled, lead to perspectives or views on the world, these views can be changed at any given time when reflected upon; so if different emotions are released based on how we view the world and if how we view the world is in our control then we can control our emotions by controlling how we view the world.

When one looks at an object does one first feel emotion and then conclude that this is a certain object, or does one first consciously acknowledge the object, and then based on what view one has on the object, a emotion is released.

Lets take a look at Thad's example, when he puts the essay assignment on the board, we didn't all look at it and feel something, we had to first understand what the sentence meant, and then subconsciously, based on our current views or standing in the class, we then felt a certain emotion.