What are emotions
Emotion is excitement in consciousness. It is arousal devoid of thoughts. A pure emotion is mentally blind (irrational).
Emotion vs. Feeling
The words emotions and feelings are used interchangeably in colloquial language, as if emotion means a strong feeling. However, clarity requires a distinction to be made between both: emotion is pure (biological) arousal or excitement, and a feeling is a mix of emotion and thought where the emotion preponderates. Emotion is the essence of feelings, and feelings are mentalised emotions.
Emotion = (biological) arousal, excitement, energy.
Emotionality = excitability, impulsivity, lack of rationality (irrationality).
Two Kinds of Emotions
There are only two kinds of emotional excitement: positive and negative. They can occur at varying intensity levels.
Positive = pleasant, attractive
There are only two kinds of emotional excitement: positive and negative. They can occur at varying intensity levels.
Negative = unpleasant, repulsive, painful
Negative emotions are experienced as unpleasant or painful. We feel repelled from things we don’t want to have or experience. These are our dislikes.
Desire
Desire is the fundamental motivation for human thought, word and action. It's a sense of longing or craving for something. Desire is a positive emotion that accompanies a thought about something. This kind of emotional excitement activates our behaviour, making us want a certain thing. Pure desire is not rational, but emotional in nature. It doesn’t result from intellectual reasoning, but originates from direct experience of bodily pleasures and bodily needs.
Desire = Longing, craving for sth./so, a motive for behaviour based on positive emotions ("I want...").
Feelings
An emotion rarely occurs in its pure form as arousal (energy, excitement). It is mostly intermingled with thoughts of some kind which creates the experience of a feeling. Feelings are emotions intertwined with thoughts, a mix in which the emotion preponderates. Because emotions are mentally blind excitements, feelings are by nature diffuse and vague. The thoughts in them mostly refer to mundane aspects of the daily life and aren’t too complex.
Feelings are the result of emotions in varying intensities and thoughts that we have about ourselves and the environment. As everything else in life they are subject to biological and psychological evolution.
Emotions and feelings developed from animals. They are mammalian elaborations of general arousal patterns that can already be found in reptiles. Chemical signals in the nerve cells reinforce or weaken the brain's activity, and human emotions are an enhancement of this evolutionary process.
In ancient Greece Aristotle asserted that emotions were an essential part of virtue. He called them passions that correspond to appetites or capacities. In modern times there've been several theories that contributed to our current understanding of emotions.
The most important ones are the James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, Schachter-Singer and Cognitive Appraisal theories.
Urges arise first before the feelings emerge.
Feelings foster the development of mentality (thoughts).
Feeling = Emotion + Thought
In feelings the emotional aspect preponderates at the cost of mental thoughts.
Origin of Emotions
An emotion as biological arousal can express itself in a combination with thoughts, which is called a feeling, or in a combination with bodily functions, which is called an urge. In the context of the evolution emotions first emerge as urges in primitive animals, and only later develop into mammalian and human feelings.