https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110664850-009 Venanzio Raspa Meinong on Emotional Truth Abstract: Truth is a semantic notion. However, it can involve our whole being, including our emotional part. This article explores the somewhat puzzling notion of emotional truth from a Meinongian perspective. According to Meinong, knowl- edge is justified true judgment, but a kind of justification belongs to emotions, too. A value is objective when its valuation does not rest on false premises (judg- ments) as in the case of superstition. In a similar way, an emotion which is triggered by a judgment is justified if the related judgment is justified as well. Emotional truth is the kind of truth which gives rise to a justified knowledge- feeling, where a knowledge-feeling is that feeling by which we feel the value of a truth, that is, of a justified judgment which in turn justifies the emotion con- nected to it. 1 Why is it Important to Talk about Emotional Truth? Truth is a semantic notion. However, I will try to understand it not only from a semantic point of view, but also as something that involves our whole being, both our intellectual and emotional faculties. Finally, it should become clear that the concept of emotional truth has a political import. This notion has recently been investigated by Ronald de Sousa, who pub- lished in 2011 a book precisely entitled Emotional Truth. In this book, he presents in full extent an idea which he has developed in previous articles; in vain, however, one will search in these works for a reference to Meinong. Yet, there are some general analogies between Meinong’s and de Sousa’s thought, including the following theses: emotions allow us to know values and are constitutive of the latter; values are both objective and relative; or emotions can be appropriate or inappropriate in relation to a given object. 1 This last point has also been sug- gested by Kevin Mulligan, according to whom emotions can be said to justify axiologyical beliefs; 2 on the other side, emotions themselves are justified by || 1 Cf. de Sousa 2011, p. 20 ff., 33ff., 103. 2 Cf. Mulligan 1998. || Venanzio Raspa, Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo venanzio.raspa@uniurb.it Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 27.01.20 09:59