An Evaluation of How Emotion Affects Reason as a Way of Knowing - Essay Example

In the views of some philosophers, emotion and reason are categorized as opposite forces. Other philosophers have established an existing relationship between emotions and reasoning, placing them on a similar continuum. This paper will analyse the ways in which emotions have influenced reason positively, hence yielding positive results. Moreover, the paper will analyse the ways in which emotions can deter the power of reason. An emotions result from an evident reaction exhibited by human beings when faced with different situations.

A range of emotions does exist, such as love, joy, anger and many others. There are times when emotions affect reason in constructive ways and hence result to a source of knowledge. One of the emotions that can affect reason positively is empathy. This emotion prompts an individual to visualize the feelings of others and not just the feelings of the self. Therefore, empathy influences reason and introduces certain aspects that serve as sources of knowledge. For example, empathy can help an individual perceive a signpost, a direction, an alarm bell or even present a warning.

In this way, empathy promotes the use of reason in gaining new knowledge (Lanteri, Chelini & Rizzello, 2008). Emotions also have the potential of affecting our reason and developing new systems of judgments. For example, all human experiences have been described as affective and have a level of emotional context. This typically means that all the senses of an individual involve a measure of reasoning and have the potential to evoke a certain emotion at the end. This view is supported by the fact that all human experiences exhibit emotional reaction.

Therefore, the emotions emerging from a certain experience may help the individual to determine whether to undertake the action or not, for example, jumping down a cliff is an experience that evokes immense fear. The fear evoked by that experience has