ABSTRACT
I PROPOSE in this paper to confine myself to getting clearer about what is involved in the task of educating the emotions. I do not propose to address myself to further questions about the relevance of empirical work done by psychologists to implementing this task. This would, as a matter of fact, be a very difficult undertaking for two reasons. In the first place, most of the changes in emotion studied experimentally by psychologists could not conceivably be described as 'education'. Whatever else we understand by 'education', 1 at least we think of it as involving a family of experiences through which knowledge and understanding develop. Injecting adrenalin into the body, administering drugs, stimulation by electrodes and various methods of conditioning, do not of themselves bring about knowledge and understanding. They may, of course, provide conditions which facilitate cognitive development. In this respect, like altering the temperature of a room or smiling at children, they may function as aids to education; but they are not themselves processes of education. A psychologist might concede this point about 'education' but conclude from it that the task of educating the emotions must therefore be an impossible one; for 'emotion' might convey to him only some general state of activation or arousal which had no necessary connexion with knowledge, understanding or belief. In this sphere of behaviour, therefore, it would follow for him that people could be stimulated or conditioned but not educated.
