Le spectre de l’affect inversé et l’espace des émotions

Abstract

Sensory impressions, like emotions and feelings, are qualia if anything is. A spectre haunts the philosopher of perceptual qualia, the possibility of the inverted spectrum. Might I seem to see something red where you seem to see something green, although I behave just the way you do, although we are both looking at something that is green, in optimal circumstances? An analogous possibility arises in the case of emotions. Might I feel intense pleasure where you feel intense pain, intense erotic jealousy where you just feel a pleasant frisson, although I behave just as you do? One response to the possibility of colour reversal or transposition, due to Hayek and Harrison, is to point to the fact that sensory impressions are not mere atoms, they exhibit a certain order, an order which would not survive inversion. Thus, the suggestion goes, inversions of the sorts described would not preserve the fact that some sensory impressions, such as orange, are binary impressions or the fact that blue is darker than yellow. The author proposes to explore a similar strategy with respect to the possibility of inverted emotions. This involves, in the first place, providing some account of the order exhibited by emotions. As we shall see, the analogies and connexions between visual and affective qualia turn out to be important to such an enterprise.