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Epistemic Feelings Ronald de Sousa University of Toronto [ Penultimate draft of an chapter forthcoming in in Epistemology and Emotions

Somewhere along the course of evolution, and at some time in any one of us on the way from zygote to adult, some forms of detection became beliefs, and some tropisms turned into deliberate desires. Two transitions are involved: from functional responses to intentional ones, and from non-conscious processes to conscious ones that presuppose language and are powered by neocortical resources. Unconscious and functional mental processes remain, and constitute an “intuitive” system that collaborates uneasily with the conscious intentionality of the “analytic” system. Emotions bridge these divides: in particular, specific feelings affect inference, cognition and metacognition. In what follows, after a brief reminder of the crucial role of emotions to rational thought and action in general, I first look at how fear affects belief. I then narrow my focus to some intrinsically epistemic feelings. These include specialized variants of fear and greed; and feelings of doubt, certainty, knowing and familiarity. I shall also describe some surprising recent finding about the influence of oxytocin on trust, and about the direct influence of social conformity on perception and belief.