In response to the 'nature-nurture' question. I believe that our emotions are both innate and learnt through experience. We'll take an example, a new born baby. When babies are first delivered from their mother's womb, they will usually be crying because they are uncomfortable (sadness). From the fact that they were just delivered from their mother's womb, there were no nurturing in the process. This suggests that some emotion such as sadness is innate(rationalism).
New born babies cry when they are hungry or uncomfortable. My brother showed happiness, sadness and joy in his first few years. He cried when he was hungry or uncomfortable. As he grew up, I notice that he began to show other emotions such as anger and fear and learned how to use those emotions that he showed from his early age. Now, he does not cry when he is hungry or when he feels uncomfort. With nurturing from the day he was born, he was able to learn how to use emotions. This suggests that emotions are also learnt through experience(empiricism).
Immanuel Kant once said, "Intuitions without concepts are blind, concepts without intuitions are empty".This basically means that you cannot grasp the truth without using both experience and intuition. How this quote can help support my view is that without nurture, you would not be able to learn how to use your innate abilities; and without innate abilities, experience itself alone would be nothing.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
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2 comments:
I strongly agree with you on about how emotions are both innate and learnt through experience. I also really liked how you used Immanuel Kant's quote reinforcing that we cannot learn without innate abilities, and that experience alone without innate abilities would also be useless. A great conclusion!
I agree with your statement that emotions are both innate and learnt through experience. As i mentioned in my post, we are born with the basic (innate) emotions and it is our experiences which allow us to feel more variety of emotions.
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