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Full Idea
We try to manipulate our emotions all the time, but all we are doing is arranging the outside world so it triggers certain emotions - we cannot control our reactions directly.
Gist of Idea
The only way we can control our emotions is by manipulating the outside world that influences them
Source
Rita Carter (Mapping the Mind [1998], p.155)
Book Ref
Carter,Rita: 'Mapping the Mind' [Phoenix 2000], p.155
A Reaction
This seems to me to throw a very illuminating light on a huge amount of human behaviour, such as going to the cinema or listening to music. The romantic movement encouraged direct internal manipulation. Compare sex fantasies with viewing pornography.
| 23997 | Plato saw emotions and appetites as wild horses, in need of taming [Plato, by Goldie] |
| 1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
| 5160 | There is a mean of feelings, as in our responses to the good or bad fortune of others [Aristotle] |
| 23913 | Nearly all the good and bad states of character are concerned with feelings [Aristotle] |
| 7832 | Stoics want to suppress emotions, but Spinoza overcomes them with higher emotions [Spinoza, by Stewart,M] |
| 4863 | An emotion comes more under our control in proportion to how well it is known to us [Spinoza] |
| 24009 | Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things [Williams,B] |
| 4909 | The only way we can control our emotions is by manipulating the outside world that influences them [Carter,R] |
| 23975 | Learning an evaluative property like 'dangerous' is also learning an emotion [Goldie] |
| 23983 | We call emotions 'passions' because they are not as controlled as we would like [Goldie] |
| 23999 | Emotional control is hard, but we are responsible for our emotions over long time periods [Goldie] |
| 23994 | Emotions are not easily changed, as new knowledge makes little difference, and akrasia is possible [Goldie] |
| 23998 | Emotional control is less concerned with emotional incidents, and more with emotional tendencies [Goldie] |