Cezary Mordka

Cezary Mordka, professor of philosophy at the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University. His research focuses on epistemology and anthropology. He is  author of books: Od boga historii do  historycznego Boga  [From God’s History to Historical God] (1997), Świadomość, świat i spostrzeżenie [Consciousness, World and Perception], (2009), Protagonista. Założenia wstępne [Protagonist. Introduction], (2016),  and many articles.

Issue: 5:3 (The nineteenth issue)

This paper attempts to coin a stipulative definition of “emotions” to determine
their functions. In this sense, “emotion” is a complex phenomenon consisting
of an accurate (reliable) determination of the state of affairs in relation to the
state of the subject and specific “points of adaptation”. Apart from the
cognitive aspect, this phenomenon also includes behavior, physiological
changes and expressions (facial expression, voice, posture), feelings, and
“execution” of emotions in the nervous system. Emotions fulfill informative,
calibrating, identifying, existential, and motivating functions. Emotions capture
the world as either positive or negative, important or unimportant, and are used
to determine and assign weightings (to set up a kind of hierarchy). They
emerge automatically (involuntarily), are difficult (or hardly possible) to
control and are (to some extent) influenced by culture.