Dialogues On Disability: Shelley Tremain Interviews Jesse Prinz

 

Hello, I’m Shelley Tremain and I’d like to welcome you to the eleventh installment of Dialogues on Disability, the series of interviews that I am conducting with disabled philosophers and post here on the third Wednesday of each month. The series is designed to provide a public venue for discussion with disabled philosophers about a range of topics, including their philosophical work on disability; the place of philosophy of disability vis-à-vis the discipline and profession; their experiences of institutional discrimination and personal prejudice in philosophy, in particular, and in academia, more generally; resistance to ableism; accessibility; and anti-oppressive pedagogy.

My guest today is Jesse Prinz. Jesse teaches at the City University of New York, Graduate Center, where he is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Committee on Interdisciplinary Science Studies. His research interests include emotions, moral psychology, social identity, classification, and aesthetics and emphasize the historical, social, and cultural factors that influence how we act and think. Jesse’s favorite recreational activities revolve around art, including watching films, going to galleries, writing an art blog, and studying art history.

 

Welcome to Dialogues on Disability, Jesse! Let’s begin this interview with your remarkably interesting background and personal history. Your paternal grandfather had a Ph.D. in philosophy and he and other members of your family have played a significant role in the achievement of civil rights for black people in the U.S. Please describe your family’s history and activities, as well as how this history and involvement have shaped your philosophical and political interests.

Thanks, Shelley, and thanks for this outstanding series. I’ve learned so much from your past interviews and feel honored and lucky to join the conversation.

Both of my parents’ families were refugees. My mother’s parents grew up in villages in Poland near the Russian border, but fled from poverty and pogroms. My mother’s grandparents, their siblings, and all of her other relatives who stayed behind in Poland were killed by Hitler’s executioners. My father’s parents lived in Berlin. My paternal grandfather—a leading rabbi in Germany—was repeatedly arrested because he issued warnings to Jewish Germans about the dangers that Hitler and the Nazis posed.

Eventually, my grandfather Prinz was expelled from Germany because of this activism. He and my grandmother immigrated to the U.S., where he later joined the American Civil Rights Movement. He worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. and was one of the organizers of and speakers at the historic March on Washington. My father, too, became involved in civil rights work, including the Community Action Movement in Newark, New York, which sought to empower ghettoized Americans by returning ownership and control of local businesses to members of the community. My mother was involved in the New York art scene, which, at the time, was working for broader inclusiveness in the art world. Women, for example, were still largely invisible in fine art. Both of my parents were, and remain, feminists.

Because I grew up in the midst of this family environment, and in New York, I took certain things for granted. For instance, I was not familiar with anyone who was on the right politically—or, at least, not to my knowledge; so, I internalized both the message that social justice requires constant vigilance and effort and the awareness that we are far from achieving it. When I finally left New York, spending some twenty years living elsewhere, I came to realize that my political orientation was not shared, which deepened my understanding of the way that values can be shaped by one’s environment. This kind of destabilization is important, I think. Moral confidence is dangerous. It is important to see that one’s own values—like the values of one’s political opponents—are constructed.

I also came to appreciate more deeply the way that ostensibly progressive cities like New York perpetuate various forms of injustice and oppression. One of the most obvious forms of structural inequality is the urban ghetto, referred to in the popular press with the damaging euphemism “inner city.” Major American cities, such as New York, remain segregated to an alarming degree. Segregation has profoundly negative effects: unequal housing, inequalities in schooling, in safety, and in cultural resources, unequal job opportunities, inequalities in health care, and an unequal distribution of social services, as well as isolation from social networks that allow for upward mobility. Ghettos exacerbate an “us-and-them” mentality, allowing abuses against certain sectors of the population to take place in a way that is invisible to the people who live in enclaves of privilege.

New York, like many other American cities, is undergoing rapid gentrification. The New York City in which I grew up—a city where artists and immigrants could afford to live and where many neighborhoods had a broad spectrum of residents, spanning wide income gaps, and reflecting multiple backgrounds—is gone. The city officials have “cleaned up” multiple neighborhoods, selling to developers, and permitting unchecked rent increases. Every month, more residents with lower incomes get forced out of neighborhoods. Homelessness is rising dramatically.

When I left New York, I lived in various other cities: Chicago, Washington D.C., St. Louis, Los Angeles, with brief stints in London and Paris. Many of these cities have the same problems. Urban centers remain divided. Prejudice is not just a state of mind; it is a state of place. Prejudice is built into the very physical structure of cities, with the inequalities therein inscribed into bodies: life expectancy, infant mortality rates, and general health are affected. Philosophers have started to think a great deal about implicit biases, that is, the forms of bigotry that persist in the beliefs of people who explicitly embrace equality; however, we must also think about structures. Cities are a microcosm of global issues. Differential outcomes vary far more dramatically as a function of place when we consider regional and national differences.

After city-hopping for some years, I ended up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Living in Chapel Hill was a rewarding experience in every way. One especially valuable outcome of my time in Chapel Hill is that I felt like an alien when I arrived there. I’d never lived in the American South or in a college town. Chapel Hill itself is very cosmopolitan; but, I still felt like the proverbial Other there—a displaced New Yorker, encountering people whose backgrounds differed dramatically from the lives of people whom I’d met elsewhere. These differences included some of the obvious things, such as different attitudes towards guns and God. However, there were also different attitudes towards community: many collective efforts, people dropped by just to say “hello,” and so on. Furthermore, there were different principles of social division: gaps in income, for example, were not as pronounced as they are elsewhere. Feeling like an Other helped me to realize that my political outlook must include self-critique. Many left-leaning urbanites have been isolated from political diversity, so they come to see their own values as manifestly true. Because I have lived in many different places, it has become clear to me that I, like everyone else, am a product of place.

These life lessons inform my philosophical work. My work is less overtly political than the work of some of the other philosophers who have contributed to this forum. I am a political philosopher only in the sense that everything is political. I am political between the lines, so to speak. I think that in this relatively limited way my political views are a guiding force for me. Almost everything that I do involves the idea that experience can transform human minds.  We are, by nature, unnatural. I am wary of biophilia—that is, of uncritical efforts to explain human universals and differences by appeal to fixed biological traits.

Experience shapes all of our beliefs, values, thinking styles, behavioral dispositions, ways of seeing, and ways of feeling. We share much as a species; however, our extraordinary malleability distinguishes us from each other and from other animals. No aspect of human activity remains untouched by enculturation and experience. The way that we sit, stand, walk, breath, the volume at which we speak, speech itself, the way that we dress and live, the foods that we crave, the arts that we love, and the structure of our relationships are learned scripts to some degree. It boggles the mind to think about that. Philosophers who emphasize biological contributors are neglecting our most important trait. Although finding biological universals is valuable, it is like studying bedrock instead of buildings.

 

You specialize in aesthetics and philosophy of art. You are also art trained. How do your art education and your family history influence your writing and teaching in aesthetics and philosophy of art?

In the oldest extant photo of me, I’m an infant strapped to my father’s back in an art museum. With a father who loves art and an artist mother, it was nearly inevitable that art would be important to me. By grammar school, I wanted to be an artist. I went to a public high school for the arts and, for the longest time, hoped to find a career in the arts. My older brother, who is immensely talented, had followed a similar path, pursuing music. He also produced a lot of visual art. He continues to work with video, robotics, and other media. Art seemed like my destiny.

But, of course, there is no such thing as destiny. For a variety of reasons, I left fine art behind as a professional vocation. I did some work in design and illustration after high school; but, I didn’t find the work rewarding, nor did I have the stomach and talent for a career as a gallery artist. By then, I had discovered the next best thing: philosophy. 

I was reading a lot of Nietzsche in high school, and, by good fortune, my mother had a philosopher as a neighbor, Sandy Kwinter, who had studied with Foucault. Sandy was one of the core forces behind Zone Books, the publisher that introduced many French authors to English-speaking audiences. Sandy turned me on to Deleuze, for example, which was a mind-blowing experience for a teenager. I’ve largely left Deleuze behind, despite his enduring popularity; however, Foucault remains a central figure for me.

Having passion for both art and philosophy made it inevitable that I would ultimately turn to aesthetics. Although aesthetics has been a serious interest from the start of my career, I’ve only recently transitioned from dabbling in the area to making it a major focus of research. My interest in aesthetics is clearly a consequence of my background. To this day, many of the people closest to me in life are artists.

I have tremendous respect for people who take time to make art and who, in a world that is hostile to artists, choose making art as a professional path. I think art attracts people who have difficulty fitting in to conventional life, which means that many of these people are interesting and inspiring.

Art training and marginalization also makes artists good observers. Many artists are economically challenged. They struggle and hustle to survive; yet, they manage to find energy to do their work. Since most artists do not have permanent employment and the cost of personal health insurance in the U.S. is prohibitive, I’m sure that very few artists in the U.S. have adequate health insurance. Some artists come from affluent backgrounds. Other artists find people who will help support them. Nevertheless, many artists really struggle. Even many artists who become well-known names to art-world insiders are living lives with great economic insecurity. Financial success comes to only a tiny handful. Many of the artists who choose this hard path do so because they can’t imagine doing anything else or can’t tolerate or manage more practical career paths. Such characteristics place these artists outside of prevailing standards of what it is to lead a useful, responsible, and valuable life. Unlike many people who fall outside of mainstream expectations, however, these artists are not silent. They make things; and, often what they make reflects what they have seen around them. Even art that is abstract or escapist reflects time and place. I think philosophers have a lot to learn from art and artists.

 

In your work, you give pride of place to the role that culture and social construction play in our cognition. This emphasis on plasticity and historicity in cognition sets you apart from most other philosophers who work in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. How would you describe your work in this area, Jesse?

Thank you for this question. One of the things that I admire about your work is its emphasis on historicity and construction in conceptions of disability. I think that this orientation, which was so central to Foucault, gets far too little air-time in philosophy, especially in the analytic tradition. Almost all of my work concerns plasticity. My first book challenged the innateness of concepts. My second book argues that all emotions are culturally informed. My third book defends the Nietzschean view that morality is a product of history. My fourth book, Beyond Human Nature, was devoted to challenging biological explanations of behavior, including biological theories of racial differences in I.Q.; gender differences in aptitude for science; and medical models of mental illness. I am currently writing what I regard as a trilogy on social construction: a book about art, in which I argue that it is a cultural invention; a book about the construction of identity; and a book in which I argue that everything is socially constructed. So, yes, I think it’s fair to say that I’m obsessed with this topic.

Within philosophy of mind and cognitive science, there is a great deal of attention on, and emphasis paid to, the basic mechanisms of mentality. This orientation tends to promote a biological view, at least implicitly. I am guilty of this emphasis in my own early work on consciousness—the one place in my work where I have given little attention to plasticity. Of course, we can find exceptions. For example, there is wonderful work in cultural psychology and excellent work done from within science that challenges biological fixity.

History gets less attention. Nietzsche and Foucault helped promote a genealogical approach; however, there have been few contemporary practitioners of it. Your work stands out in this regard. I was also excited to see Anthony Appiah’s book, The Honor Code, which approaches moral values through historical change. Appiah’s narrative is a bit more vindicating than I tend to like—I am wary of progress narratives—nevertheless, it is a terrific read. I think that we need more work like this.

My forthcoming book on social identity includes a chapter in which I look genealogically and critically at three core concepts in Western morals: democracy, freedom, and human rights. The thesis of the book is that values are extremely important to personal identity and I approach values historically. In the spirit of self-critique, I suggest that some of the most deeply held convictions in contemporary Western society are problematic when viewed through the lens of history. I look, for example, at: the role of capitalism in the rise of constitutional democracy; the relationship between prevailing models of freedom and mass incarceration; and the use of human rights rhetoric in the reign of terror and the Napoleonic wars.

This kind of work is hard for philosophers because it requires a great deal of research into historical events, which training in philosophy usually does not include. Philosophers need more dialogue with historians. The structure of the modern university and its departmental divisions can be barriers to good work. I am, and will always be, a novice when it comes to history; but I think it’s important to make the effort. I’ve spent my career trying to bring psychology into philosophy, and, if we can do that, there is no reason why we can’t also use history as a source in our work.

 

You are both personally and professionally interested in emotions and mental illness. What are the connections between your interest in emotions and mental illness and your work on social construction?

Depression is a central part of my life. I am, and most of the people close to me are, depressive. I am lucky to be a functional depressive, though I do feel the weight of that trait on a regular basis, along with other psychological maladies, such as stress, insomnia, and so on. Many of the people in my life have been diagnosed with some sort of mental illness. Most of them have been in some sort of treatment. Psychiatry is somewhat of a fixture in my life.

Some of the most familiar psychiatric categories involve the emotions: depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, mania, panic, phobias, paranoia, paraphilias, and psychopathy, among many others. On many accounts, emotions are also associated with well-being: a good life is equated with a happy life. Emotions get classified as normal and pathological; desirable and damaging; acceptable and inappropriate. People whose emotions do not align with social expectations face many obstacles. They have a difficult time living up to social expectations; they experience a great deal of stigmatization. We live in a world where most people can’t simply put their responsibilities on hold. People who do not regulate their emotions in the prescribed ways are regarded as unpleasant, as unreliable, and so forth. If your emotions don’t behave, you will be treated as both blameworthy and infantile.

I’m on the mild end of the depression spectrum and have been extraordinarily fortunate in my life; however, I do expend a great deal of energy wrestling with the challenges of emotional deviation. These challenges have fuelled my scholarly interest in the emotions. They have in addition led me to think about how emotions are experienced and are embodied, as well as to wonder where the norms that govern our emotions originate. When considering so-called “healthy” emotions, it’s easy to think of them as biologically based, as ahistorical, and as universal. It’s often supposed that we share our emotions with other creatures; that is, our emotions are said to be part of our animal nature, or even part of our reptilian brain.

With pathology, this perspective is harder to motivate. Diagnostic categories change over time and vary cross-culturally. Even when the same category is identified in two cultural settings, there can be dramatic differences in symptoms, incidence, prevalence, coping strategies, and recovery rates. These discrepancies suggest that social forces influence emotional disorders. Social factors also play an important role in decisions about which emotional profiles get classified as pathological and what should be done about them.

It is important to meditate on this variation and the role that social factors play in the case of pathological emotions because we live in a time when the medical model dominates. Pseudo-scientific terms, such as “chemical imbalance,” have entered into ordinary vocabulary. One in ten people in the U.S. is prescribed a psychotropic drug. Nearly a quarter of all middle-aged women take anti-depressants. These drugs have had very positive effects for many of these women. For others, the experience has been disappointing, with serious side effects. Clinical trials are often unimpressive and funded by pharmaceutical companies, leaving individuals—a.k.a. “patients”—without the knowledge that they need to make informed decisions. There is no doubt that drugs can impact mental states—mind is matter—but the medical model, which attributes symptoms to poorly understood brain mechanisms, deprives “patients” of agency by preventing the exploration of external causes for the symptoms.

The ascendancy and dominance of the medical model has resulted in huge research expenditures on genetic causes with comparatively little investigation of sociogenic factors. The absurdity of this emphasis is manifest when you consider the fact that incidences of emotional and psychological deviance are so demographically variable. For example, the fact that women are much more prone to depression than men are suggests that the impact of life experience is far greater than genes. Studies of genetic predispositions give extremely inflated figures, since they tend to keep social factors relatively uniform and stable. When one looks across cultures or demographic groups, one finds enormous variance.

The hegemony of biological explanation is even greater when it comes to so-called healthy emotions. I think that the case of disordered emotions has much to teach us, because once we recognize the impact of social forces with respect to disordered emotions, it becomes possible for us to think that all emotions are influenced in this way. I think fear, anger, disgust—even hunger, thirst, and sexual desires—are socially conditioned. We may have brain circuits that have homologues in other creatures, but we are also far more susceptible to social learning than other creatures are. As a result, our biological machinery is co-opted from the start.

In short, the causes, effects, and embodiment of every one of our emotions and drives are culturally conditioned. Thus, we find different anxieties across cultures and different elicitors of moral repugnance.  We also find different triggers of rage and rage gets embodied in different ways.  At the individual level, such conditioning can mark the difference between someone who silently broods when provoked and someone who lashes out violently. Emotional training of this kind also reflects power relations. One strategy of oppression is to condition the oppressed to experience emotions that are not conducive to liberation.  For example, many women are conditioned to be meek and fragile, to sulk when angry, and to turn their anger inward on themselves, rather than to use outrage as an instrument of change. Often moments of liberation occur when members of an oppressed group take the reins of their emotions.

 

Jesse, you recently began to write about art and mental illness. Please describe this writing and the motivation for it.

I’ve had a long-standing interest in mental illness and art and their intersection. Anyone tuned into the art world will have noticed that there is a widespread view that mental illness is somehow related to creativity. The trope of the mad genius is deeply entrenched in Western cultural history, with major movements in Western art—such as romanticism, expressionism and surrealism, to name only a few—taking inspiration from madness. One manifestation of this cultural fascination is the idea of the “outsider artist.” This term, coined forty-five years ago, refers to artists who operate outside of the influence of the mainstream art world. However, not just any outsider will do. A painter living in a distant land or an isolated town won’t qualify for the designation of “outsider artist.” Outsiders are also supposed to be psychologically abnormal in some way. So, the concept is the ultimate expression of the idea that creativity is related to mental disorder. 

I have been fascinated by the construct of the outsider artist for some time now. Some of my favorite artists from recent decades are classified as “outsiders;” so, I have periodically discussed outsider artists in my work. However, my first systematic attempt to think about this phenomenon was motivated by your gracious invitation to contribute an article to the special issue of Journal of Social Philosophy that you’re guest editing.

The outsider construct has bothered me for a long time. I think that this construct serves to isolate and exploit people already marginalized by virtue of their disabilities. The construct also imposes an implausible dichotomy: it ignores the fact that many “insider” artists have psychological difficulties and conceals the fact that most “outsider” artists have extensive exposure to mainstream art through cultural osmosis or training. Furthermore, I’ve been struck by the historicity of the construct. Conceptions of madness have changed over time—the term madness is itself a conceptual relic—and views about the relationship between madness and art have changed over time. These historical shifts are inextricable from evolving cultural beliefs about the nature of creativity and changing aesthetic standards. The histories of art and of madness are, in this way, inextricably intertwined. Outsider art is a place where the margins of society and the pinnacle of high culture—the invisible and the visible—come into contact. By studying this relationship, we can learn a great deal about contemporary Western culture and prevailing regimes of knowledge. 

Currently, there is a trend for affluent people to placate guilt about their privilege by expressing support for disadvantaged groups. The growing adoration for outsider art may be a symptom of this. The market is skyrocketing, in part, because museum-goers and art-buyers—who tend to be wealthy, educated, and liberal—find the work of people who are poor and mentally ill both charming and uplifting. Buying this work allows these affluent people to feel as if they have paid tribute to people who are less fortunate. With insider artists, commercial success brings economic benefits and an entry ticket into a world of high-status power-brokers. Insider artists who sell their work become part of the cultural elite. With outsider artists, this sort of inclusion rarely happens. Market values require that outsiders remain isolated from high culture. These artists can be observed; but, they can’t observe. This state of affairs brings to mind Foucault’s idea that power can manifest through surveillance.

 

Which authors do you recommend on the various topics that you have discussed in this interview? Whose artworks should be considered on these topics?

The most comprehensive historical survey of the relationship between art and mental illness is John MacGregor’s The Discovery of the Art of the Insane. A concise, older discussion of this relationship appears in Sander Gilman’s fascinating Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race, and Madness. Judith Scott, a magnificent sculptor, and Henry Darger, who made hundreds of gender-bending drawings to illustrate his voluminous epic novel, are among my favorite artists who are classified as “outsiders.” I also love Charles Dellschau, who drew air ships, and Josef Hofer, who paints nudes. Dellschau and Hofer, too, get classified as outsider artists. There have been many others. Some extraordinary artists who experienced mental illness failed to obtain outsider status because they had extensive contact with the art world. One of my current favorite artists who never obtained outsider status is Unica Zürn, who was also a gifted writer.

On the philosophy of mental illness more broadly, many authors have informed my thinking. I’d like to mention Jennifer Radden who was writing about psychiatry before it was fashionable in analytic circles. I also follow the work of Hanna Pickard. Some recent work by Kathryn Tabb has caught my attention too.

Biophilia has been challenged from many directions. I’m especially inspired by authors who attack biological determinism in scientifically savvy ways. A great example is Rebecca Jordan-Young’s critique of the science of gender differences in Brain Storm. Victoria Pitts-Taylor is also doing magnificent work. Victoria has a book called The Brain’s Body forthcoming, which I can’t wait to read.

I spend quite a lot of time reading on historical themes: Robin Blackburn on slavery; Francis Haskell on canons in art; and Jack Goody on marriage, to name a few. A list of this kind could go on indefinitely; however, that would take time away from reading.

 

Jesse, thank you for offering these recommendations and for taking the time to do this fascinating interview. Your comments about the plasticity and historicity of our concepts and classifications are very exciting and your insights into outsider art are both provocative and illuminating.

Readers/listeners are invited to use the Comments section below to respond to Jesse Prinz’s remarks, ask questions, and so on. Comments will be moderated. As always, although signed comments are encouraged and preferred, anonymous comments may be permitted.

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Please join me here again on Wednesday, March 16^th at 8 a.m. EST for the twelfth installment of the Dialogues on Disability series and, indeed, on every third Wednesday of the months ahead. I have a fabulous line-up of interviews planned. If you would like to nominate someone to be interviewed (self-nominations are welcomed), please feel free to write me at s.tremain@yahoo.ca. I prioritize diversity with respect to disability, class, race, gender, institutional status, nationality, culture, age, and sexuality in my selection of interviewees and my scheduling of interviews.

Comments

[Komarine]

No particular thoughts or questions just now, but wanted to express my appreciation for yet another excellent interview - thanks, Shelley and Jesse!

[Shelley Tremain]

Thanks for your continued love and support for the Dialogues on Disability series, Komarine!

[Zara]

Thank you, Shelley and Jesse, for another thought-provoking contribution to this interview series.

Jesse, you talk at length about the relationship between art and mental illness, and the relationship between emotion and oppression. Obviously philosophy provides one important context and set of tools for your engagement. I wonder: how would you describe the relationship between philosophy and mental illness, and the relationship between philosophy and oppression?

Has discussion of your own - and, perhaps, your family's - experiences of depression and mental illness been either viable or desirable as you've pursued a career in academic philosophy?

I also want pick up on your point about the surge in attention to issues of implicit bias demanding a corresponding increase in attending to structures of oppression. I think this is spot on, but again, I wonder: to what extent do you think the structures and biases of professional academic philosophy conducive to including and supporting philosophers with mental or other illness?

Just to clarify: I mention your family because, while family members of disabled people talking about disability are quite well-represented in some areas of philosophy, I know from personal experience that sometimes non-disclosure can sometimes not just be about our own experiences with chronic physical or mental ill health, but of what's going on in the familial backdrop in which we play a greater or less part in terms of support, care, and condition management, even though such facts might be just as impactful on our own ability to negotiate professional demands and, indeed, to manage our own disabilities. In one sense, it's probably right that we're not all airing our family's clinical laundry in professional circles, but in another sense, I wonder how far this undermines the ability of some to remain in the game, so to speak. Would love to hear (both!) your thoughts on this.

[Shelley Tremain]

Zara,

thanks for your terrific comment and questions. Jesse is in Berlin this week giving a set of lectures and running a conference; so, there may be some delays in his responses. I may address your comments and questions, but will let Jesse address them first.

Despite Jesse's schedule, readers/listeners of this interview are encouraged to post their comments and impressions about the interview, ask Jesse questions that he will address, and so on.

[Melinda Hall]

Thank you so much for this interview, Jesse and Shelley. I added several books to my Amazon cart, including the Appiah, Jesse's most recent book, and Brain Storm!

There are a few things I particularly love about how Jesse described his background, work, and interests. One is: "Moral confidence is dangerous. It is important to see that one’s own values—like the values of one’s political opponents—are constructed." This thought so closely tracks one of Foucault's later interviews, in which he articulated refusal (of the received view), curiosity, and innovation as the three pillars of his moral thought. I always pull these ideas forward when I am challenged on Foucault's normative relevance. I think refusal allows us to engage questions of social construction in a really rich way.

Second, I love this point about our built environment: "Philosophers have started to think a great deal about implicit biases, that is, the forms of bigotry that persist in the beliefs of people who explicitly embrace equality; however, we must also think about structures." Jesse, how can we talk about structures in new ways to better understand the bigotry in our environment?

One other question...I noticed, Jesse, that you said: "There is no doubt that drugs can impact mental states—mind is matter..." When I find myself making parallel claims about disability, I see my interlocutors' eyes gleam, because they think that they've got me, and I've conceded that the social model is illegitimate! A broad question, but have you had similar experiences?

[Bryce]

Excellent interview! As always, Jesse, I've learned a lot from this discussion. But one thing really stuck out to me. If I understand the view that you are advancing, you seem to be making two parallel claims about the nature and expression of emotion:

1) emotions are psychologically and socially constructed, deeply embodied, and situationally variable; and,

2) patterns of social uptake and feedback shape both the structure and content of our emotions in an ongoing way.

In different ways, these claims are pretty prevalent in emotion research; but they are not widely accepted together. And I think that you're right that it's the illicit focus on *functional* emotions (sic) that makes it easy to assume that robust psychological constructivism is implausible, and to assume that emotional expressions serve as honest signals of internal states. Both of these assumptions conflict radically with my own experience of the world as well.

Few people are likely to know that I spent many years (from about 2000-2013) experiencing ongoing and unmanageable forms of anxiety, depression, and strangely de-worlded experiences of fear and loneliness. I sometimes responded by internalizing those feelings; I sometimes responded by externalizing them reactively. I regret both of those things, and I tried to address those affective responses using a variety of different therapeutic interventions—all of them failed. The reason was simple, it was a matter of embodiment (though the precise mechanisms remain somewhat mysterious): my body was constantly in an agitated state because the food I was eating was tracked as a toxin; the resulting forms of heightened affect were then integrated into my ongoing thought and behavior, in ways that led me to construct emotional states that were out of step with the world that I inhabited. When I learned that I had celiac, and started to manage it, it was as though a fog was clearing, my mental life opened onto a world that afforded opportunity and not just threats, onto a space that allowed for joy and not just depression, anxiety, and animosity. (As I mentioned in my interview here last year, I still experience forms of emotional dysfunction when I ingest any gluten whatsoever, but now it yields blips and not pervasive problems; what I didn’t say then is that I still experience a persistent form of depression, but it’s relatively mild, and doesn’t compromise functioning too badly). I also learned to suppress the public expression of many affective responses, not out of some Machiavellian attempt at manipulation, but out of a drive for self-preservation. I still work to suppress the persisting experience of 'mild' depression that governs much of my experience of the world. And the reason for this is simple as well: I doubt that the people I interact with want to think about me as someone who experiences such things; and I worry about how such thoughts will affect their impressions of me. Again, I have no doubt that the drive to modulate my expression of emotion shifts the way I construe my affective states, shapes their content, and adjusts their role in my ongoing behavior.

So I think that you're right that thinking about dysfunctional emotions can open up more plausible views of the nature and content of our mental states. But I also think that social and institutional factors make it difficult to speak publicly about such things, and that means that it's going to be harder to get to the point where philosophers and cognitive scientists see their illicit assumptions. That's why I think that Shelley's series here is so important!

[Shelley Tremain]

I want to give an update on this discussion to everyone who is following it in some fashion. Jesse is still overseas and has had an overwhelming, morning-until-night, schedule in the past week: 11 presentations and more to give before the end of this week. He will likely catch up with us next week.

In the meantime, I encourage readers/listeners of Jesse's interview to continue the conversation about it!

[Jesse Prinz]

Forgive my slow response, everyone. I had a relentless schedule the last two weeks which prevented me from responding sooner. The first thing I really have to do is express my gratitude to everyone: to Shelley for this outstanding and important series, and everyone who wrote in. In addition to all these thoughtful comments, I had a full inbox, and I want to publicly express gratitude to those who wrote privately as well. The responses have raised issues that deserve lengthy discussion. My replies will inevitably be inadequate, but, in the spirit of the series, I think this is an ongoing conversation, and I know I will be reflecting on things that people have brought up for a long time.

Let me begin with Zara. I do think professional philosophy, like most fields, does far too little to address the reality of realities of mental illness. In addition to the stigmatization, there are few safeguards in place for people who, for some period of time, find it hard to manage their usual responsibilities. Easy affordable access to counseling, assistance with academic duties, extensions for deadlines, and other basic needs are not readily available. Those who need help depend on the generosity of others. Senior faculty are in a position of privilege but students and junior faculty, who are already short on resources, have to worry that a bout of depression, or some other ailment, could have serious implications for a careers. When you are trying to just get through a day, it's not exactly convenient to have to think about the possibility that a late submission or absentee could impact you professionally. There are also challenges having to do with privacy and stigma. Disclosing a reason for coming up short can often change people's impressions of you. All of us know people in the profession who wrestle with this constantly, but little is done to address it institutionally. I don't think this is just implicit bias. There is explicit bias as well, which is one reason why structural remedies are important. But structure isn't enough. Open discussion like this can also help. Zara, you also raise the important point that the costs of coping are not limited to the one who has the diagnosis. I know for myself that dealing with my own issues can place burdens on others, and I know that caring for others can be a consuming activity. Few allowances are made for those who experience mental illnesses and fewer still for those who play caregiving roles. Consciousness raising about this is important, so, Zara, your remarks really deserve to be repeated widely. I don't have much wisdom on what can be done, unfortunately, but talking about the issue is a positive step. Maybe we can all think about how to raise the issues that Zara brings up among our co-workers and conversation partners. And Shelley's tireless work with this series and other efforts are also really helping to raise awareness.

Melinda, so much there to think about. I love the tie in to Foucault and the issue of normative relevance. There was so much pressure in the French intellectual left to pick a party affiliation or political ideology. Thus, we find Sartre associated with Stalin, Foucault with Mao, and so on. Foucault certainly realized that his philosophical work problematized that adoption of any fixed party platform, and he also rejected progress narrative, and saw no possibility of a world without regimes of power. This gives the impression of a normative deadend, but, with you Melinda, I think it actually is a normative position. I have spent a lot of time thinking about what normativity would look like in a constructivist framework, and I hope I can dedicate meaningful time to that question in the future. One thing that I've really come to appreciate in the value of locality. Foucault expresses concerns about hegemonic power, and I think he's right. If we foster moral plurality, it gives people the opportunity to negotiate power relations and move more fluidly between moral world. Figuring out how to articulate a kind of radically decentralized normatively is a challenge: there are issues about implementation, about concern for members of other moral communities, and about the ontological and ideological presupposition of the claim that we should work to expand the available range of moral choices. Is this a capitalist consumer model of morality in disguise? I don't think so, but there is need for caution.

Melinda, your second question about structures is also really hard. Structure means so many things and is so pervasive. Structure is also almost inherently biased. A chair is made for some kinds of bodies, and not others, an institution is located in its neighborhood and not others, a diagnostic manual makes one division of human types and not others. But, given this, I guess we need to be looking for ways to alter structures so that prevailing systems of exclusion shift and allow other voices in. Accessibility is a big part of that, and it has be taken on in a variety of different ways. Suppose we ask, why are the people who visit art museums so demographically similar, and would could be done to change that? Or why are philosophy students so similar? As soon as these questions are raised, solutions start to suggest themselves (who shows in museums and how did they get anointed? who gets included on syllabi? how are philosophy events advertised and to whom? how do standards for career advancement, like publishing in elite academic journals, exacerbate uniformity in the profession?). We have the power to change what we teach, what we think about, whom we talk to, and how we share ideas.

Melinda, your final observation about the anti-materialist leanings of some constructionists certainly rings familiar. I think the anxiety usually isn't metaphysical. Rather, it's a worry that material modes of inquiry invite reductive explanations that privileges certain kinds of mechanisms and certain modes of inquiry. Mind and matter sounds like an invitation to make brain science and genetics the primary tools for understanding human life. This is an inference we need to guard against. Materiality does not entail fixity, the priority of local causes, or the sanctity of biological sciences. I think history has far more to teach about human behavior than genetics ever will. Of course, Hobbes and Lenin would agree, and they were materialists. So when we complain about biophilia, we should also deny that fans of such reductionist approaches have a right to the body. Bodies are the moving forces in history: they are broken and scarred, they labor and revolt, the are made into docile cogs in production engines, they love and hate and hunger and mate. So when eyes gleam, one remedy is to remember that "eyes gleaming" is a physical force in the world, that reflects institutionally shaped attitudes and serves to sting (or starve by threat of unemployment) those of us who don't conform. To detach social forces from matter is as bad as detached matter from social forces.

Bryce, I have learned so much from you over the years, and I learn from everything you write. This is no exception. It is also another courageous contribution to the series. In sharing your experiences, you help others see that they are not alone. There is certainly much I relate to here. If it weren't for social pressure, I'd probably be screaming or shrieking or weeping every time I left the house. I let out a (quiet) primal scream while lecturing yesterday. It takes a lot of energy to contain these things. And you're right, Bryce, that the lived experience of such emotions has a lot to teach emotion researchers, and emotion research can increase its relevance and value by paying close attention. I hadn't noticed the subtle divisions between various "social" approaches to emotions. The friends of signaling theory don't tend to view themselves as constructionists. I just had the pleasure of writing a paper with the philosopher, Dan Shargel, defending an enactive approach to emotions, according to which emotions create meanings by embodying actions that temporarily change social relationships. Meditating on your comments here would have added to that paper. It brings to mind the work of a contemporary Finnish artist who does things like standing in an elevator for hours without getting off. When we don't do what people expect us to do with our bodies it makes them very unforgettable. This artists violates norms by doing nothing. One also violates norms by having unwanted emotional reactions, and then people get uncomfortable: they worry, they pity, they lose trust, they blame you, they blame themselves, the avoid you, they suffocate you with concern, they react with their own emotions, and so on. Emotional misalignment is incredibly disruptive. Such cases underscore the embodied nature of our emotions, but also the social nature. The phenomenology of suppressing a socially unwelcome expression of feeling is a confirmation that construction is taking place. Sometimes it is tiresome to be so choreographed. I'm glad those years are behind you, Bryce, and inspired by your strength in pulling through and helping others.

Much more to say, but these are the first words, not the last. Thanks again to all, and one more word of thanks to those who read but did not comment. I think I can speak for everyone on this board in saying we are grateful for your time and attention.

[Jesse Prinz]

One small postscript: the Finnish artist whom I mentioned in response to Bryce is named Pilvi Takala.

[Shelley Tremain]

Jesse, thank you very much for your wonderful responses to Zara, Melinda, and Bryce, as well as your kind words of appreciation for the Dialogues on Disability series.

In both your interview and your responses above, you emphasize the historicity and plasticity ("social construction") of emotions. I'd like to know if this constructivism also applies to emotion per se. Do you think (the idea of) emotion itself and its embodiment are historical artifacts? Does emotion have a history? That is, can we do a genealogy of emotion, as well as genealogies of discrete emotions?

Another question: Do you think that emotions can be intergenerational? I'm thinking in particular of (1) the descendants of victims and survivors of the Holocaust, many of whom have reported the experience of the effects of trauma due to what their parents, or grandparents witnessed and endured; and (2) the descendants of First Nations survivors and victims of residential schools in North America, many of whose lives (setting aside the other social factors that negatively impact upon them) have been shattered because of the treatment to which their parents and grandparents were subjected and its effects upon them; and (3) the descendants of the "stolen generations" in Australia, many of whose lives have also been seriously affected by what their ancestors endured, again, setting aside the other detrimental social factors that they confront.

Please respond to these queries in whatever fashion you wish and at your own convenience.

[Jesse Prinz]

Shelley, thanks for the extremely interesting questions. I haven't thought much about either topic, but both deserve serious attention. Let my offer my first passing thoughts, and I'd love to hear others weigh in as well.

I'm inclined to say that "emotion" itself is a construction. This point is woefully neglected in the literature on social construction of emotions. Some commentators note that there are languages with no word for emotion. Likewise, it has been noticed that the word 'emotion' has changed its meaning in English. It once referred to strong feelings, with 'passion' used as a genetic that includes mild feelings. These terms have switched roles. 'Passion' comes from the Latin 'passio,' which implies suffering, and both derive from the Greek, 'pathos.' When we read Greek authors on pathos, their observations look familiar at first, but there are also points at which confidence about an equation with our concepts of emotions can be called into question. We find Aristotle calling anger an example of pathos, but he also includes friendliness in this category, which most people now would not regard as an emotion. So caution is needed. All the more so when we leave the Western context. In addition, our concept of emotion inherits theoretical baggage, like the contrast between emotion and reason or the association between emotion and animality. Emotions are also associated with femininity, and this has been used as an instrument of oppression. It played a role in the anti-suffrage movement, but continues now in pernicious ways (PMS is one example). In moral philosophy, we get the view that emotionally based decisions are irrational, and, implicitly, animal, savage, feminine, and so on. So we need to be on guard about how "emotion" gets constructed.

The issue of intergenerational emotions is fascinating, and important. I certainly know members of Holocaust survivor families who are deeply affected by the experiences of older generations. Descendants of perpetrators too deal with this. And, of course, we have white guilt in the Americas, not to mention inculcated anxiety and hate. The First Nations case is a disturbing one when it comes to perpetrators, since there is very little inherited guilt in my experience. The American genocides killed tens of millions, numerous cultures were wiped out of existence, and two continents were stolen. But there are hardly any memorials, hardly any awareness, no hope of reparations, and so on. U.S. students don't learn about the Indian Wars in school, or the massacres. Canadians are told they were innocent. It's shocking to remember the Americas were densely populated before conquest and now few of us know or interact with (full blooded) indigenous people. But we don't cultivate intergenerational guilt about this, and the intergeneration anger experienced by descendants of those who were killed is hidden from view. In Australia, these issues are more openly discussed, but the degree of exclusion is more dramatic than I've seen anywhere. The colonial descendants seem to have inherited attitudes that preserve extreme division. Another example would be intergeneration hatred between religious groups. I think Islamophobia is the defining issue of our time, geopolitically. And it is really an inheritance of the bygone conflicts between, for example, Christians and Ottomans. We are raised knowing whom to fear and whom to hate. Understanding intergeneration emotions is essential for understanding enduring conflicts and divisions. We police boundaries between groups with emotions, and these are often passed down. When we learn social categories, we also learn how to feel about them.

Thanks again, Shelley, for the comments, the interview, and the series.

Jesse

[Shelley Tremain]

Jesse, thanks for your terrific responses to my questions. As always, your responses were broad and thoughtful.

I want to recommend a fabulous book to you and to everyone following these comments. You may have read it already, Jesse, or at least know of it: _Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life_ by Margaret Price (University of Michigan Press, 2011).

You can read about it here: http://www.press.umich.edu/1612837/mad_at_school

Every academic who experiences depression, has experienced trauma, experiences emotional deviation, and so on, should read/listen to this book; so should everyone who wants to learn about the forms of ableism and discrimination with which academics disabled in these ways must contend.

[Damion Kareem Scott]

Dear Professor Prinz,

I would like to thank you for a stimulating, inspirational, and extremely edifying interview and answer session. I wish that I had more time to engage you with some questions but perhaps we can speak some time in person as we orbit in some similar ellipses.

[Jesse Prinz]

Dear Damion Scott,

Thanks for the kind words. I'd love to meet and talk. We have many interests and friends in common, and I have learned a lot from your words on this forum and elsewhere. Let's get together soon.

Best wishes,
Jesse

[Jesse Prinz]

Dear Shelley,

Thanks for the book recommendation. I ordered a copy!

Best,
Jesse

[V. Alan White]

Somehow I missed this interview on the first go-around. Thanks so much for this Shelley and Jesse (if I may). Philosophy is done by flesh-and-blood individuals from every part of the broad spectrum of humanity--this is a moving reminder reminder of that, keenly felt by this reader. My best wishes to you both.

[Shelley Tremain]

Hi Alan,

thanks so much for sharing your lovely thoughts. I'm very glad that you were moved by my interview with Jesse.
Shelley