Throughout the daily occurrences of life, one is always encountered by the dilemma of having to make decisions; decisions which in effect substantiate the knowledge we have come to know and accept. Typically, these decisions are easily made and done so with little conscience effort, such as the flushing of the toilet, turning lights on and off, and so forth. Similarly, many instances of life beckon a more elaborate train of thought, and it is through such instances that many are inclined to conclude that emotions only serve as obstructing these critical decisions, and essentially hinder. What this paper plans to investigate is the role in which emotions play in our coming of knowledge, and to what extent we can respectively justify that emotions simply thwart our efforts in the acquiring of true knowledge. .
To properly quantify such a statement, we must firstly establish and define emotions and their origins. Problems arise, however, especially due to the vast variety of emotions and their definitions, and similarly the extreme amount of subjectivity that entail such definitions. It is because of this inability to fully identify emotions that problems of knowledge arise. We must consider that if our knowledge can find many of its roots from the way we perceive things and the outcome of our actions, the inability to fully define emotions, which presumably play a role in either of the mentioned events, allow us to acknowledge that there is no distinct way of calculating the way in which we come about such knowledge. For purpose of investigation, emotions will be defined as mental states that arise spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and are often accompanied by physiological changes. Simply speaking, if we cannot classify these physiological changes and mental states, we can never surely state that emotions are completely futile when acquiring knowledge, whether that knowledge be true or false.