A lógica da sensação, emoção e

sentimento
Espinosa, Deleuze, Damásio
 Afecção Sensação
Afeto Emoção
Ideia Afecção Sentimento
The cuisine stimulates some basic senses, like the flavor and the odor, besides the
aesthetic summons visual and sonorous. It then functions as the gateway for us to
think about feelings and emotions that are activated in us, on the various
occasions when we experience flavors and aromas.
Culinary metaphors such as "sweet life," "bitter longing," ”tasteless person,"
"seasoning in relationship," "I can not digest this person," but also "devour a
book," "savor a poem," etc. , indicate a way that we have to adjectivate our field of
relations based on sensations that we have from the food, this mysterious universe
of flavors and aromas. The emotions and feelings that derive from it serve as a
metaphorical process so that we can express many of our affective relationships.
It is, in fact, a semiotic resource, since we go beyond the field of language and
refer our interlocutor to the field of sensation signs. We are confident that our
interpretation of the meaning of sweet, bitter, bland, etc. will find echo in the
minds that follow us.
Let's start our investigative journey, seeking to distinguish
sensation, emotions and feelings. Of course, such notions often
receive near or even similar meanings, promoting a certain
confusion between them. The proposal for an initial distinction
of the meanings of these terms is necessary in our research for a
simple reason: it is necessary to name the body and distinguish,
to some extent, from the mind. But this distinction will be
neither substantial, in the sense of a distinct reality for body and
mind, nor will it be simply nominal, in the hypothesis of an
indifference between body and mind. The way forward, being of
Spinozal motivation, understands body and mind as two
attributes of one and the same substance. Let us move on to the
distinctions in question.
By sensation we mean a zone of indistinction between man and animal in us. Deleuze, in his
book on Francis Bacon (the artist), tells us about a zone of indiscernibility between man and
animal. The sensation would be a level of oscillation between these zones. One can think, for
example, that aromas and flavors refer us to these zones of indiscernibility, evoking the
animal in us, being the singularity of each one that will define whether to remain more in the
human or to deepen in the animal. Deleuze states that the man / animal zone is deeper than
any sentimental identification.
It is a fact that our lives touch animals especially when we eat and smell. When we observe
someone eating brutally, avidly, using their hands, with their mouths open in chewing, our
imitation of feelings is as if blocked, stagnant: a nuisance is born in us, a discomfort and, at
the same time, a judgment of value, a repulsion and sentence: it is an animal. But the
strange discomfort is not eliminated by the verdict, it remains latent, because it evokes in us
our own animal, puts us in touch with this shadowy area of ourselves. Culture does not
eliminate the animal in us, it only transforms it. So does the artificial odor, through
deodorants, soaps, shampoo, perfumes, toothpaste, creams etc. We only meet again with
our scent when the sweat emerges in the practice of sport or in the sex. The smell of our
own body, which makes us come in contact with this stranger in us, the one forgotten by the
culture. The sensation, in these cases, is linked to the evocation of this animal in us.
In Deleuze's analysis of Bacon's paintings, one of the elements that draws most attention to
what interests us here is his reading of the dimension of the cry and the smile. In Bacon, both
would be dissociated from the representation of something. The field of pure sensation
related to animality emerges in the cries and smiles. This status of representation is
fundamental in analysis. When a cry is observed in a picture, there is an imperceptible process
of searching for the narrative, that is, for the representation that justifies the cry. What are you
shouting about? Or, in the face of what this cry emerges, what is its reason? This narrative
must account for the expression of an emotion, which binds here exactly to the cause of the
cry. To justify the cry as emotion, one must know its cause, that which provoked it. Without
this apparent cause, at least made explicit, one has simply the sensation, the cry as the
expression of a pure sensation. This is what Bacon proposes when he isolates the scream in
the picture, having a curtain in front of the pope who cries, thus preventing us from
articulating a narrative, since there is nothing between the pope and the curtain that may be
the cause of the cry. It is the cry in itself, pure form of expression of the body. There is
therefore in Bacon an effort to isolate the sensation.
Deleuze understands that sensation acts immediately on the nervous system.
Moreover, it assumes as hypothesis that sensation implies a level change,
being that which passes from one order to another, from one domain to
another. We would thus always have different orders of one and the same
sensation. "Paint the scream more than horror. Scream before the invisible.
As horror is neutralized, it is multiplied because it is completed from the cry,
not the other way round. " There is then a sense of violence. The emotion
that would translate this sensation would be horror, for example, which in
turn is interpreted by the feelings of anguish and fear. The feeling would be
the interpretation of emotion, emerging according to the individuality of each
individual, its history and power. Violence is then understood here in
Deleuze's reading of Bacon, as the violence of sensation, a direct action on
the nervous system. Deleuze says that in Bacon "there are no feelings but only
affections, that is, sensations and instincts".
Emotion and Feeling - Damasio

Behaviors of pleasure and pain, drives and motivations, and emotions

Desire: to be aware of the appetite. Consumption or frustration of

Damásio understands that there are fundamental, primary and social

Primary emotions: fear, anger, disgust, surprise, sadness and happiness. In that case these
emotions would be valid for both men and animals. The circumstances they cause and the
behaviors that define them are consistent across diverse cultures and species.

Social emotions: sympathy, compassion, embarrassment, shame, guilt, pride, jealousy, envy,
gratitude, admiration, astonishment, indignation and contempt. Damasio draws attention to
regulatory reactions. Components of primary emotions are an integral part of various
combinations of social emotions. Contempt uses facial expressions of disgust, primary
emotion that has evolved from the automatic and beneficial rejection of potentially toxic
foods. Association between contempt and moral indignation. Angry or disgusted about
social situations. Damásio points to a principle of embedding and incorporation: background
emotion => primary emotions => social emotions.
Feelings

For Damasio, feeling is defined as the mental representation of the body functioning in a
certain way. Content of feeling: representation (idea, perception, thought) of a particular state
of the body.
Sadness: reduced production of mental images, excessive attention to these few images.
Joy: images change quickly, attention reduced.
Here it follows Espinosa, on the capture of an idea in the sadness and the multiplicity in the joy.
Feelings of emotions have as their essence thoughts about the surprised body in the act of
reacting to certain objects and situations.
But we prefer to understand feeling as an interpretation of emotion. This brings us closer to
Peirce and the semiotics or semiosis of affections.
Damásio seeks a division of feelings similar to emotions: feelings of background, primary and
social.

Feelings are as mental as any other perception, but the immediate objects that serve as
content are part of the living organism from which feelings emerge.
Flavors

The text of Chantal Jacquet makes some distinctions, among them the first more
evident: bad smell and perfume. In the idea of bad smell we find ascetic morality, with
contempt for odors and disgust for the body. There is a refusal of the nose to the exact
extent that there is a refusal of sex. A correlation is made between the sexual instinct
and the odors between animals. That is, we live in a situation where the repression of
odors is, in essence, a repression of sexuality.
On the other hand, the preoccupation with the body odors indicates will of dominion
and of total power on the noncontrollable emanations. There is a kind of latent fear of
uncontrollability, or rather, of the inability to control body odors. Therefore a form of
insecurity about oneself, and also towards the other, that feels the odors of our body
without we can delimit this form of contact. Dress and makeup seek to control how
others see us, the idea we want them to have of us. The perfume would do the same
job for the smell, but with the disadvantage of not having the same safety over its
effects. This is because, from our point of view, the smell of the other mobilizes in us
that feeling of being invaded, violated, in a kind of sensitive overflow of the body of the
other. And since we can not control this invasion, we also know that our odor is
exerting this power on the other.
It is necessary to think here, once again, in the distinction sensation, emotion and
feeling. The sensation of a strong odor causes us a bad feeling, which in turn is
interpreted by the body as an emotion of disgust, repulsion, and so on. The resulting
feelings would then depend on the person in question. If it is a loved one, a relative, a
stranger, a singular set of feelings must emerge; depending on the location, the situation,
this can also change. That is, the sentimental interpretation of this emotion of repulsion
will be linked to other factors, and will be conducted in a different way according to this
respective situation.
Now the dimension of the perfume. In this case Jacquet shows us a form of response to
ascetic morality: hygiene, cleanliness, repressing odors. Hygiene is related to a morality
that holds the category of the dirty. Hygiene indicates self-control. Dirt indicates moral
sickness. Perfume is related to the concept of the ideal body, liberated from the miasms
and contingency of the flesh. It promotes an atmosphere of essence purified from the
body. There is also an ambiguity in perfume: the mark of love or hatred of the body. The
shameful body becomes a glorious body. This glorious body would be a perfect control, a
certainty of self. Such would be the function of deodorants, and the appeal of
advertising, for example.
From the point of view of sociology, the perfume would be more than an art of opinion
to please others. It becomes a principle of distinction and affirmation of its social
superiority. It indicates belonging to an aristocratic class. It also has relation to the
question of self-control: only those who master themselves can dominate others. In
this case, mastery of the flesh, of the animal in us. The perfume then becomes the
mark of the nobility: social and moral.
There is yet another dispute at stake around perfume: frankness versus lying. It is the
whole domain of dispute between those who accuse the perfume of being an element
of lies, illusion, deception, disguise of desires. It means attraction, seduction and,
therefore, vestige of immorality. The natural odor is related to cleanliness, but without
the artifice of the perfume. It means purity, openness, cleansing of soul, self-control.
Here an introduction to Spinoza: categories of dirt and stench, softness and good odor are
social constructs, habits. Dirty and clean, fetid and perfumed are fictional ideals that
express only part of the essence of things, but above all the way in which they affect
us. Espinosa understands these denominations as affections of the imagination. Ethics I,
appendix.
Now another approach: perfume as power purifier. The force of the essences as concentrates of
the body, of the virtues. It serves purification and protection. Very found in the Orient and the
Middle Ages. Idea of protection both interior, internal corruption, and miasmas of the outside
air.
Beyond these questions about ascetic morality and purification, we have the so-called figures of
expression of love and hate, related to odors.
Racism, homophobia, sexism are linked to hateful figures by the rejection of the stinking one.
Women are pursued with accusations of stench. Latin: putere: stink, smell bad. Putidus: fetid,
smelly.
There are also the social stigmas
1- Social classes: lord versus proletarian, worker. Risk of infection by the working classes. Faint of
the workers.
2 - the other, the alien, the enemy. Smells bad. Xenophobia, odor: principle of discrimination
and exclusion.
Love: to be loved: erotic power. The odor is the body before the body. Question of desire that
connects with smell directly and primarily. The objects of love that keeps the smell, the longing
of the beloved by the smell of an object. The beauty and the ugliness: the perfume that
embellishes. But this beauty translates better as charm, seduction, witchcraft, magic. Therefore
it is passion as a deviation. A kind of compliment of seduction, of trickery.