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Newman on emotion and cognition in the Grammar of Assent

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2023

Emma Emrich Open the ORCID record for Emma Emrich [Opens in a new window]
Emma Emrich*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Fordham University, New York, USA
*
Email: eemrich@fordham.edu
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Abstract

This article considers the role of emotion in John Henry Newman's Grammar of Assent by distinguishing five different ways (or ‘models’) in which the emotions play a positive epistemic role in relation to cognition. The most important of these, the Cognitive-Emotion Model, offers a new account of Newman's crucial idea of real assent, one that stresses the primary role of the emotions in real assent rather than imagination. This model helps to explain the nature of real assent by highlighting Newman's portrayal of an emotional way of knowing an object that is personal or individual, incommunicable, vivid, and motive. In this study of the relations between emotion and cognition I hope to highlight unexplored aspects of the nature of real assent and the importance of the role of emotion in it and hope to show how Newman's epistemology offers a rich framework for exploring the positive epistemic contributions of the emotions.

Keywords

John Henry Newmanepistemologyemotioncognitionreal assentreligious beliefs
Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , First View , pp. 1 - 17
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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