Come affinare le armi della seduzione: emozioni e vigilanza epistemica / How to Sharpen the Seduction Weapons: Emotions and Epistemic Vigilance

  • Francesca Ervas
  • Maria Grazia Rossi
  • Elisabetta Gola
Keywords: seduction, epistemic vigilance, argumentation, communication, rationality

Abstract

Seduction is often seen as a deceptive strategic game, which hampers deliberation. However, in case of seduction, emotions play a central role in modulating communicated contents. In this sense, seduction is not a form of deception, but an impulse to know. How to provide a cognitive account of seduction able to distinguish it from deception? Within philosophical Western tradition, emotions have a negative role in deliberation as they are automatic, unconscious and obliged. In contrast with this tradition, Mascaro and Sperber have recently argued that the capacity for epistemic vigilance enables people to filter misinformation, based not only on epistemic but also on affective knowledge. Some of the cognitive mechanisms presupposed by epistemic vigilance are targeted at the source of information, others at its content. Within the framework of the argumentative theory of reasoning, we propose a cognitive account of seduction able to distinguish it from deception, by focusing on the affective component of epistemic vigilance. We argue that in seduction emotions, far from being totally automatic, unconscious and obliged, contribute to the appreciation of both the source and content of information. Diversely from deception, seduction presupposes a positive role of emotions which induces a creative style of argumentation.

References

BIRCH, Susan A., VAUTHIER, Sophie A., & BLOOM, Paul (2008), «Three- and four-year-olds spontaneously use others’ past performance to guide their learning», in Cognition, n. 107, pp. 1118-1134.

BRETHERTON, Inge, & BEEGHLY, Marjorie (1982), «Talking about internal states: The acquisition of an implicit theory of mind», in Developmental Psychology, n. 18, pp. 906-921.

CALL, Josef, & TOMASELLO, Michael (1999), «A nonverbal false belief task: the performance of children and great apes», in Child Development, n. 70, pp. 381-395.

CLÉMENT, Fabrice, KOENIG, Melissa, & HARRIS, Paul (2004), «The ontogeny of trust» in Mind & Language, n. 19, pp. 360-379.

COUILLARD, Nicole L., & WOODWARD, Amanda L. (1999), «Children’s comprehension of deceptive points», in British Journal of Developmental Psychology, n. 17, pp. 515-521.

DAMASIO, Antonio (1994), Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain, GP Putnam’Sons, New York.

DARWIN, Charles R. (1872), The expression of the emotions in man and animals, John Murray, London.

DEGRESE, Claude, & AMORY, Patrick (1988), Le grand jeu de la seduction, Robert Laffont Edition, Paris.

DE MARTINO, Benedetto Kumaran, DHARSHAN, Seymour, Ben, & DOLAN Raymond J. (2006), «Frames, biases, and rational decision-making in the human brain», in Science, vol. 313, pp. 684-687.

DESTENO, David, PETTY, Richard E., RUCKER, Derek D., WEGENER, Duane T., & BRAVERMAN, Julia (2004), «Discrete emotions and persuasion: The role of emotion-induced expectancies», in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 86, n. 1, pp. 43-56.

DE SOUSA, Ronald, (1987), The rationality of emotion, Mass./London, MIT Press, Cambridge.

EKMAN, Paul (1992), «An argument for basic emotions», in Cognition & emotion, vol. 6, n. 3-4, pp. 169-200.

ERVAS, Francesca (2012), «Sperimentare la pragmatica filosofica. Una ridefinizione delle competenze comunicative nel linguaggio figurato», in Reti, Saperi, Linguaggi, vol. 4, n. 1, pp. 28-33.

ERVAS, Francesca, GOLA, Elisabetta, & ROSSI, Maria G. (2014), Ragionare con il corpo. Il ruolo delle metafore e delle emozioni nel ragionamento, in CRUCIANI, Marco, & REGA, Angelo (2014), (a cura di) Proceedings of Annual meeting of Aisc-Codisco “Corpi, strumenti e cognizione”, in NeaScience, pp. 141-143, http://issuu.com/neascience/docs/atti_aisc_2014/.

ERVAS, Francesca, GOLA, Elisabetta, & ROSSI, Maria G. (2015), «Metaphors and emotions as framing strategies in argumentation», in CEUR-WS, vol. 1419, pp. 645-650.

ERVAS, Francesca, GOLA, Elisabetta, & ROSSI, Maria G. (2016), «Argomenti metaforici: come integrare persuasione e argomentazione», in Rivista italiana di filosofia del linguaggio (in corso).

ESKRITT, Michelle, WHALEN, Juanita, & LEE, Kang (2008), «Preschoolers can recognize violations of the Gricean maxims», in British Journal of Developmental Psychology, n. 26, pp. 435-443.

EVANS, Dylan (2002), Emotion: The science of sentiment, USA, Oxford University Press.

FABRIS, Giampaolo (1992), La pubblicità, Franco Angeli, Milano.

FRANCHI, Maura (2008), Raccontare il consumo. Strumenti per l'analisi, Franco Angeli, Milano.

FRIJDA, Nico H. (1986), The emotions, London, Cambridge University Press.

GIGERENZER, Gerd, & SELTEN, Reinhard (2002), Bounded rationality: The adaptive toolbox, London, MIT Press.

GOLDIE, Peter (2004), Emotion, feeling, and knowledge of the world, in SOLOMON, Robert C. (2004) (a cura di), Thinking about feeling: Contemporary philosophers on emotions, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 91-104.

GRIFFITHS, Paul E. (1997), What emotions really are: The problem of psychological categories, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

JASWAL, Vikram K., & NEELY, Leslie A. (2006), «Adults don’t always know best preschoolers use past reliability over age when learning new words», in Psychological Science, vol. 17, n. 9, pp. 757-758.

HEYMAN, Gail D., & GELMAN, Susan A. (1999), «The use of trait labels in making psychological inferences», in Child development, vol. 70, n. 3, pp. 604-619.

HEYMAN, Gail D., & GELMAN, Susan A. (2000), «Preschool children's use of trait labels to make inductive inferences», in Journal of experimental child psychology, vol. 77, n. 1, pp. 1-19.

TVERSKY, Amos, & KAHNEMAN, Daniel (1981), «The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice», in Science, vol. 211, n. 4481, pp. 453-458.

KOENIG, Melissa, & HARRIS, Paul L. (2007), «The basis of epistemic trust: reliable testimony or reliable sources?», in Episteme, n. 4, pp. 264-284.

KUHLMEIER, Valerie, WYNN, Karen, & BLOOM, Paul (2003), «Attribution of dispositional states by 12-month-olds», in Psychological Science, n. 14, pp. 402-408.

LAMPINEN, James M., & SMITH, Vichi L. (1995), «The incredible (and sometimes incredulous) child witness: child eyewitnesses’ sensitivity to source credibility cues», in Journal of Applied Psychology, n. 80, pp. 621-627.

MACAGNO, Fabrizio (2014), «Manipulating emotions: value-based reasoning and emotive language» in Argumentation and Advocacy, vol. 51, n. 2, pp. 103-123.

MACAGNO, Fabrizio, & WALTON, Douglas (2014), Emotive language in argumentation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

MARTIN, Clancy, & STRUDLER, Alan (2012), «Much ado about truth: On seduction, deception, and self-deception», in Humana Mente, n. 20, pp. 245-264.

MASCARO, Olivier, & SPERBER, Dan (2009), «The moral, epistemic, and mindreading components of children’s vigilance towards deception», in Cognition, n. 112, pp. 367-380.

MERCIER, Hugo, & SPERBER, Dan (2009), Intuitive and reflective inferences, in EVANS, Jonathan, & FRANKISH, Keith (2009) (a cura di), In Two Minds, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 149-170.

MERCIER, Hugo, & SPERBER, Dan (2011), «Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory», in Behavioral and brain sciences, n. 34, pp. 57-74.

NUSSBAUM, Martha C. (2003), Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

OATLEY, Keith (1992), Best laid schemes: The psychology of the emotions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

ORIGGI, Gloria (2008), «Trust, authority and epistemic responsibility», in Theoria, n. 23, pp. 35-44.

PARRET, Herman (1994), Pretending to communicate, Berlin, de Gruyter.

PERNER, Joseph (1991), Understanding the representational mind, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

PIERSON, Marie-Louise (1991), La imagen personal, Ediciones Deusto, Bilbao.

PLUTCHIK, Robert (1994), The psychology and biology of emotion, HarperCollins College Publishers, New York.

POLAK, Alan, & HARRIS, Paul L. (1999), «Deception by young children following noncompliance», in Developmental Psychology, n. 35, pp. 561-568.

PREMACK, David, & PREMACK, James (1997), «Infants attribute value to the goal directed actions of self-propelled objects», in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, n. 9, pp. 848-856.

ROSSI, Maria G. (2013), Il giudizio del sentimento: emozioni, giudizi morali, natura umana, Editori Riuniti University Press, Roma.

ROSSI, Maria G. (2014), «Emozioni e deliberazione razionale», in Sistemi Intelligenti, vol. 1, pp. 161-170.

SABBAGH, Mark A., & BALDWIN, Dare A. (2001), «Learning words from knowledgeable versus ignorant speakers: links between preschoolers’ theory of mind and semantic development», in Child Development, n. 72, pp. 1054-1070.

SCOFIELD, Jason, & BEHREND, Douglas A. (2008), «Words from reliable and unreliable speakers», in Cognitive Development, n. 23, pp. 278-290.

SIMON, Herbert A. (1958), «Rationality and administrative decision making», in Models of man, n. 196, pp. 196-198.

SINCLAIR, John (1987), Images incorporated: Advertising as industry and ideology, Croom Helm, New York.

SOLOMON, Robert C. (1976), The passions: Emotions and the meaning of life, Garden City, Hackett Publishing.

SPERBER, Dan, CLEMENT, Fabrice, HEINTZ, Christophe, MASCARO, Olivier, MERCIER, Hugo, ORIGGI, Gloria, & WILSON, Deirdre (2010), «Epistemic vigilance», in Mind & Language, n. 25, pp. 359-393.

STEVENSON, Charles L. (1937), «The emotive meaning of ethical terms», in Mind, n. 46, n. 181, pp. 14-31.

STEVENSON, Charles L. (1938), «Persuasive definitions», in Mind, n. 47, pp. 331-350.

STEVENSON, Charles L. (1944), Ethics and language, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.

SULLIVAN, Kate, WINNER, Ellen, & HOPFIELD, Natalie (1995), «How children tell a lie from a joke: The role of second-order mental state attributions», in British Journal of Developmental Psychology, n. 13, pp. 191-204.

VOLLI, Ugo (1994), Il libro della comunicazione, Il Saggiatore, Milano.

VOLLI, Ugo (2007), Il nuovo libro della comunicazione. Che cosa significa comunicare: idee, tecnologie, strumenti, modelli, Il Saggiatore, Milano.

WILSON, Deirdre (2009), «Irony and metarepresentation», in UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, n. 21, pp. 183-226.

WINNER, Ellen, & LEEKAM, Sue (1991), «Distinguishing irony from deception: Understanding the speaker’s second-order intention», in British Journal of Developmental Psychology, n. 9, pp. 257-270.

How to Cite
Ervas, F., Rossi, M. G. and Gola, E. (1) “Come affinare le armi della seduzione: emozioni e vigilanza epistemica / How to Sharpen the Seduction Weapons: Emotions and Epistemic Vigilance”, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, 00. Available at: http://www.rifl.unical.it/index.php/rifl/article/view/368 (Accessed: 28March2024).