I plan to write my honours thesis on this subject and I am looking for recommended authors and/or a discussion on its viability. I appreciate any input you guys may have on this, thanks.

Ideally, I want to try to describe emotion as mode of cognitive operation which could possibly make sense of the world in a similar way to how our rationality does. This type of processing would be pre-linguistic in nature (as reason is) and it would also be pre-conceptual (in a similar way to how logic is).

This is to say that emotions aren't merely feelings like sad or happy (those are simply the downstream by-products of awareness of our emotional processing), but rather that emotional processing in the mind is an actual system of information composition, deconstruction and restructuring that can cohere with and use imagination, just like reason does.

In this view cognitive emotional processing is a way of understanding the world, one which humans have trained themselves out of utilising to its fullest extent by virtue of how we were raised through childhood and the style education we received. I believe it is a tool for understanding the world (like reason) that has been placed in a box with only a few airholes here and there used primarily for when we want to impart personal "significance" to things.

I want to try and prove inductively that if we were hypothetically trained to use emotions as a way of making sense of the world, new kinds of epistemological truths could be uncovered and perhaps even a new systems of logic or in the very least, new postulates or non-logical axioms

This isn't to say that emotional modes of thought would necessarily be at odds with many existing axioms or principles of logic, but it may very well be the case. The scrutiny this would place on emotional modes of thought can be answered with respect to postmodernist and post-structuralist views on truth as well as AN Whiteheads process philosophy.

Finally, you might ask, how can meaning be non-conceptual? This is quite abstract and hard to confer. An example I would give is that when you look at a sunset, it is beautiful because of an emotional connection to visual imagery. This is distinctly proven with people with anhedonia and depression who have emotional processing issues, and would lack the ability to feel emotional connection to the sensations of a sunset to a large extent and would unlikely find it beautiful.
But where does that leave non-conceptual meaning? The sunset is beautiful prior to the concept of what a sunset it. It is beautiful and amazing in a way that babies are astounded by objects before they conceive of what they are. Surely though, a layering of concepts mapped to the sensation of a sunset may increase the emotional connection to the visual imagery to make it more beautiful/meaningful, but often it does not with other experiences, often it detracts completely. We see this in psychedelic states where peoples conceptual filters of the world are decreased and a more empathic sense of connection and understanding of the world is existent.

So guys, am I completely off my nut here? Is this just a batshit crazy thesis idea? :lol: Its ok if it is, just need to revise it a little.