A STUDY OF EMOTIONS IN THE CONSTITUTION OF LANGUAGE AND MIND: THE SECOND PERSON

Abstract

Abstract: The present paper is about the attributions of mental states, indispens¬able for our interactions with other people. It will draw a comparison between the attributions of propositional attitudes and emotional attributions. The mind is what it seens to be to us, so that the study about our cognitive mechanisms reveals the ontological aspects of the mind. The proposicional mind is formed in conjunction with language. Therefore, when we attribute mental states to other people, we are cappable of relating to each other by means of complex and articulated language. However, at the basis of these attributtions, are the second person interactions, face-to-face, in which the emotions of one of the parts involved are directly changed by the emotional expression of the other part. The relevance of the mechanisms of attribution of mental states throught the comportamental interpretation will be adressed. Furthermore, it will be argued that, without the second person interactions, the language and the subjectivity characteristicaly humans cannott be constituted.

Keywords: Emotions. Second Person. Language. Subjectivity.