Pleasure is a property of an experience which affects the self, a feeling-tone of pleasantness that may reside in any kind of experience, the quality of which it shares: in sensory experience („pleasure“), in some consciousness of a welcome situation, in which case sense-data are primarily mediators („joy„), and in some consciousness of expression, where sensory perception is expressive of some universal quality of emotion (most conspicuous in „aesthetic enjoyment“). Important subtypes of joy are: Joy from sentiment (which either contains the self or not); joy of desire, i. e., of anticipation or attainment; dynamical and vital pleasure-joys; joyful mood; and happiness. Joy of achievement lies between dynamical and self-containing joy. In sensory pleasure the object is an extrinsic means to pleasant experience; in dynamical pleasure-joy, as the sustaining end of the activity, it is likewise a means; in aesthetic enjoyment the object is an intrinsic medium of experience; and in the cognitive-emotional joy derived from a sentiment, the object is the end and chief absorption. Concordant feeling-tones seem to be able to „blend,“ but opposite feeling-tones are not likely to coexist, unless one is founded upon the other. Pleasantness occurs in two dimensions, that of actual and that of imaginary or empathetical feeling.
Karl Duncker ⬩ On Pleasure, Emotion, and Striving
added January 21, 2023 ⬩ random excerpt