Abstract

LEON, DIEGO A. MAY CONSCIENCE BE EXPLAINED WITHOUT EMOTION?: A BIOLOGICAL-AFFECTIVE APPROACH TO CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE. rev.latinoam.psicol. [online]. 2006, vol.38, n.2, pp.361-381. ISSN 0120-0534.

The purpose of the current paper is to revindicate the role of emotions in the explanatory model of the conscious experience. The discussion begins with the problem that brought the omission of emotional process in the explanation of psychological functions and mental states. The following step is the delimitation of the concept of conscious experience and related terms. My interest is centered around the 'hard problem' of David Chalmers, which refers to how and why we have the subjective experiences that we experience daily and continually. Then I define what I understand for emotional processes and the ways in which one can make a connection between emotion and consciousness from a biological-evolutionist perspective. Among the possible connections, I take the ideas of Robert Zajonc, Antonio Damasio, Douglas Watt and Carolin Saarni. Finally, I highlight that a true approach to consciousness should include the emotional processes as a funda-mental explanation and underlying any conscious experience, since there is no experience that does not have a emotional content, and the affective assessment is previous and primitive to all subjective experience. I discuss some implications for a consciousness science and the possibilities and impossibilities to the cognitive future perspectives

Keywords : emotion; consciousness; subjective experience; hard problem; conscious activity.

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