A proper view of man requires a thorough understanding of not only reason, but also emotion--and of the relation between the two. Philosophers who teach that emotions bypass the mind, claiming that emotions are either "the voice of God or of your glands" doom their followers to the endless inner war of the mind-body dichotomy. Individuals who fail to grasp the intellectual roots of their own emotions face the alternative of whim-worship or repression––i.e., self-defeat or self-denial. Either option is suicide. By defining the actual cause of emotions, integrated with her discoveries in psycho-epistemology, Ayn Rand has liberated man, providing the knowledge every individual needs to resolve inner conflicts and achieve a harmonious "division of labor" between his reason and his emotions.
In these two lectures, Dr. Binswanger presents and "chews" the Objectivist answers to the two basic questions: what are emotions and how should one treat them?
Topics covered include:
emotions and awareness
emotions and value-judgments
the biological function of emotions
the role of the subconscious in emotional responses
emotions distinguished from other affective states
principles of classifying the emotions
emotions and cognition
emotions and objectivity
intellectual techniques of analyzing one’s emotional responses