The Role of Meta-representation in the Meta-cognition of Emotion

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Emotions undoubtedly play an important role in cognition. There is, however, remarkably little consensus within philosophy and psychology about their exact constitution and role within our cognitive architecture. The focus of this thesis is on the cognitive processes by which we attribute affective states (e.g. emotions and moods) to ourselves: for example, how do we recognise, categorise, and evaluate our own happiness or anger when they occur? In addressing this question, this research will develop and defend a new theory of how we monitor and control our own emotions, based on an updated view of 'meta-representation'. This thesis will centre on self-directed meta-representations (representations of our own mental representations) and metacognition of emotion, that is, the monitoring and controlling of one's own emotional thoughts, experiences, and cognitions. However, before deciding how we recognise ouremotions, I must clearly explain what an instance of an emotion might be; how they differ from other affective states, like moods and pains, whether there are discrete categories of emotion, and whether emotion is a form of perception or a form of evaluative judgement, or perhaps some combination of the two. It will investigate these issues with a particular focus on the functional role emotions play within our cognitive architecture.A primary aim of this project is to challenge the claim that, in order to grasp an emotion, our cognitive system must somehow recognise that what is presented is a representation of the emotion. In other words, it is not enough for the cognitive system to grasp 'I am happy about the scholarship'; it must also somehow recognise 'this is a representation of my happiness about the scholarship'. While this position may initially seem a baroque one, there are in fact very persuasive arguments provided for it by the philosopher Peter Carruthers (2011). This thesis will reconsider the concept of 'meta-representation' in light of recent psychological and philosophical research, and consequently, will produce a new theory of 'meta-cognition' of emotion.