Instinct, Emotion, Knowledge The Centrality of the Emotional Experience between Ontogeny and Phylogeny

Abstract

Is it possible to train the mind to tolerate the frequent impact, more or less daily, with those stressful events that make it alert and concentrated, taking it away from the muffled climate in which it prefers to take refuge? Above all, is it possible to do it, avoiding squeezing it and dispersing its energies and without affecting its need to recharge and regenerate? Obviously, the answer to this question calls into question the responsibilities of the educating environment. In the "far" 1971, a Hungarian philosopher of Jewish origin, Arthur Koestler, came to the thesis of a "schizophisiology incorporated in our species". At the base of that thesis was the conviction, supported by the neuroanatomical knowledge of the period, that the neocortex and the limbic system were physiologically non-communicating and therefore prevented the emotional experience from evolving in syntony and in synchrony with the cognitive one. Emotions play a prominent role in the process of phylogenetic evolution, which is probably due to their ability to put into play most subtle and refined species' reasons than the one allowed by instinct and tools for the defense of the species, which do not limit themselves to protecting the species as such, while disregarding the fate of individuals. Brain plasticity and freedom are mutually implied conditions within a path of growth and formation that makes self-regulation possible. It is necessary that the educating environment becomes "plastic" in the sense of supporting the brain in a journey of exploration that prevents it from closing within too narrow and precociously traced boundaries.