Jesse Prinz argues that recent work in philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology supports two radical hypotheses about the nature of morality: moral values are based on emotional responses, and these emotional responses are inculcated by culture, not hard-wired through natural selection. In the first half of the book, Jesse Prinz defends the hypothesis that morality has an emotional foundation. Evidence from brain imaging, social psychology, and psychopathology suggest that, when we judge something to be right or wrong, we are merely expressing (...) our emotions. Prinz argues that these emotions do not track objective features of reality; rather, the rightness and wrongness of an act consists in the fact that people are disposed to have certain emotions towards it. In the second half of the book, he turns to a defense of moral relativism. Moral facts depend on emotional responses, and emotional responses vary from culture to culture. Prinz surveys the anthropological record to establish moral variation, and he draws on cultural history to show how attitudes toward practices such as cannibalism and marriage change over time. He also criticizes evidence from animal behavior and child development that has been taken to support the claim that moral attitudes are hard-wired by natural selection. Prinz concludes that there is no single true morality, but he also argues that some moral values are better than others; moral progress is possible. Throughout the book, Prinz relates his views to contemporary and historical work in philosophical ethics. His views echo themes in the writings of David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche, but Prinz supports, extends, and revises these classic theories using the resources of cutting-edge cognitive science. The Emotional Construction of Morals will stimulate and challenge anyone who is curious about the nature and origin of moral values. (shrink)

Emotions are the focus of intense debate both in contemporary philosophy and psychology, and increasingly also in the history of ideas. Simo Knuuttila presents a comprehensive survey of philosophical theories of emotion from Plato to Renaissance times, combining rigorous philosophical analysis with careful historical reconstruction. The first part of the book covers the conceptions of Plato and Aristotle and later ancient views from Stoicism to Neoplatonism and, in addition, their reception and transformation by early Christian thinkers from Clement and (...) Origen to Augustine and Cassian. Knuuttila then proceeds to a discussion of ancient themes in medieval thought, and of new medieval conceptions, codified in the so-called faculty psychology from Avicenna to Aquinas, in thirteenth century taxonomies, and in the voluntarist approach of Duns Scotus, William Ockham, and their followers. Philosophers, classicists, historians of philosophy, historians of psychology, and anyone interested in emotion will find much to stimulate them in this fascinating book. (shrink)

What are 'emotions'? This book offers a balanced survey of facts and theory.

I discuss a large number of emotions that are relevant to performance at epistemic tasks. My central concern is the possibility that it is not the emotions that are most relevant to success of these tasks but associated virtues. I present cases in which it does seem to be the emotions rather than the virtues that are doing the work. I end of the paper by mentioning the connections between desirable and undesirable epistemic emotions.

ABSTRACT Some epistemologists hold that all rational norms are fundamentally concerned with the agent’s states or attitudes at an individual time [Hedden 2015, 2016; Moss 2015]; others argue that all rational norms are fundamentally concerned with processes [Podgorski 2017]. This distinction is not drawn in discussions of emotional rationality. As a result, a widely held assumption in the literature on emotional rationality has gone unexamined. I employ Abelard Podgorski’s argument from rational delay to argue that many emotional norms are fundamentally (...) concerned with emotional processes. I also claim that the main response available to the synchronist about belief is not available to the synchronist about emotions and, therefore, fundamental process norms are more plausible than epistemologists tend to believe. (shrink)

Emotion in Interaction offers a collection of original studies that explore emotion in naturally occurring spoken interaction.

When researchers think about the interaction between language and emotion, they typically focus on descriptive emotion words. This review demonstrates that emotion can interact with language at many levels of structure, from the sound patterns of a language to its lexicon and grammar, and beyond to how it appears in conversation and discourse. Findings are considered from diverse subfields across the language sciences, including cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and conversation analysis. Taken together, it is clear that emotional expression is (...) finely tuned to language-specific structures. Future emotion research can better exploit cross-linguistic variation to unravel possible universal principles operating between language and emotion. (shrink)

Wrongdoing and the Moral Emotions provides an account of how we might effectively address wrongdoing given challenges to the legitimacy of anger and retribution that arise from ethical considerations and from concerns about free will. The issue is introduced in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 asks how we might conceive of blame without retribution, and proposes an account of blame as moral protest, whose function is to secure forward-looking goals such as the moral reform of the wrongdoer and reconciliation in (...) relationships. Chapter 3 considers whether it's possible to justify effectively dealing those who pose dangerous threats if they do not deserve to be harmed, and contends that wrongfully posing a threat is the core condition for the legitimacy of defensive harming. Chapter 4 provides an account of how to treat criminals without a retributive justification for punishment, and argues for an account in which the right of self-defense provides justification for measures such as preventative detention. Chapter 5 considers how we might forgive if wrongdoers don't basically deserve the pain of being resented, which forgiveness would then renounce, and proposes that forgiveness be conceived instead as renunciation of the stance of moral protest. Chapter 6 considers how personal relationships might function without retributive anger having a role in responding to wrongdoing, and contends that the stance of moral protest, supplemented with non-retributive emotions, is sufficient. Chapter 7 surveys the options for theistic and atheistic attitudes regarding the fate of humanity in a deterministic universe, and defends an impartial hope for humanity. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the question of whether there exists an essential relation between emotions and wellbeing. We distinguish three ways in which emotions and wellbeing might be essentially related: constitutive, causal, and epistemic. We argue that, while there is some room for holding that emotions are constitutive ingredients of an individual’s wellbeing, all the attempts to characterise the causal and epistemic relations in an essentialist way are vulnerable to some important objections. We conclude that the (...) causal and epistemic relation between emotions and wellbeing is much less strong than is commonly thought. (shrink)

This article discusses the importance of metaemotions (emotions about emotions), showing their undeniable existence and how they are a critical and essential part of emotion life. The article begins by placing reflexivity of emotions within the general reflexivity of human beings. Then, the article presents the literature on metaemotion, showing some of the problems that surround them, which ultimately will lead to ask if the concept of metaemotion is really necessary. The second part of the article argues (...) for the usefulness of the concept, pointing out its role in establishing distinctions among emotional states as well as further clarifying the nature of emotion, and concludes on pointing out some of the directions for future research on metaemotions. (shrink)

The overreliance on verbal models and theories in psychology has been criticized for hindering the development of reliable research programs (Harris, 1976; Yarkoni, 2020). We demonstrate how the conceptual space framework can be used to formalize verbal theories and improve their precision and testability. In the framework, scientific concepts are represented by means of geometric objects. As a case study, we present a formalization of an existing three-dimensional theory of emotion which was developed with a spatial metaphor in mind. Wundt (...) posits that the range of human emotion can be represented along three axes of basic emotions (pleasure/displeasure, excitement/inhibition, tension/relaxation), just as color vision can be represented using three basic colors. We use dimensions to represent basic emotions, points to represent emotional states, and regions to represent broader emotional concepts. We then compare our formalization to an existing structuralist formalization of Wundt’s theory. Further, we discuss the empirical predictions that our formalization generates, such as comparisons of similarity and intensity. We conclude by demonstrating how the tools developed in the conceptual space framework can be used to formulate a theory of emotion based on empirical observation. (shrink)

After discussing de Sousa's view of emotion in akrasia, I suggest that emotions be viewed as nonconceptual perceptions of value (see Tappolet 2000). It follows that they can render intelligible actions which are contrary to one's better judgment. An emotion can make one's action intelligible even when that action is opposed by one's all-things-considered judgment. Moreover, an akratic action prompted by an emotion may be more rational than following one's better judgement, for it may be the judgement and not (...) the perception which is in error. By contrast, "cool" akrasia is genuinely puzzling; it is not clear whether it exists. (shrink)

This unique collection of articles on emotion by Wittgensteinian philosophers provides a fresh perspective on the questions framing the current philosophical and scientific debates about emotions and offers significant insights into the role of emotions for understanding interpersonal relations and the relation between emotion and ethics.

In recent years, scholars have come to understand emotions as dynamic and socially constructed—the product of interdependent cultural, relational, situational, and biological influences. While researchers have called for a multilevel theory of emotion construction, any progress toward such a theory must overcome the fragmentation of relevant research across various disciplines and theoretical frameworks. We present affect control theory as a launching point for cross-disciplinary collaboration because of its empirically grounded conceptualization of social mechanisms operating at the interaction, relationship, and (...) cultural levels, and its specification of processes linking social and individual aspects of emotion. After introducing the theory, we illustrate its correspondence with major theories of emotion construction framed at each of four analytical levels: cultural, interactional, individual, and neural. (shrink)

Jesse Prinz (2004) argues that emotional feelings (“state emotions”) can by themselves perceptually represent significant organism-environment relations. I object to this view mainly on the grounds that (1) it does not rule out the at least equally plausible view that emotional feelings are non-representational sensory registrations rather than perceptions, as Tyler Burge (2010) draws the distinction, and (2) perception of a relation requires perception of at least one of the relation’s relata, but an emotional feeling by itself perceives neither (...) the subject’s environment, nor in many cases the relevant subject itself. I then explore two ways in which emotional feelings as non-perceptual sensory registrations might still contribute to significant relation representation when associated with representations of the subject and/or its environment. After briefly discussing some difficulties presented by a multimodal, sensory-perceptual view of such representation, I argue in favor of a “cognitive recognition theory” that holds that significant relation instances are represented during emotion occurrences via applications of emotion-type concepts to "incoming" emotional feelings and their associated mental states. (shrink)

This volume explores emotion in medieval and early modern thought, and opens a contemporary debate on the way emotions figure in our cognitive lives.

Les émotions ont un rôle important dans nos interactions sociales. Sans émotions, nous avons du mal à faire des choix. Quand notre environnement déçoit nos attentes de manière répétée, nos émotions nous signalent qu'il serait rationnel de changer nos attentes, c'est-à-dire de procéder à des révisions. Le partage des émotions, qui est la clé de notre sentiment d'appartenance à une communauté, nous amène à révéler nos valeurs, parce qu'il permet de résister face à un monde décevant. Si même une fois (...) révisées nos croyances, nos émotions se maintiennent, elles manifestent alors des attentes bien enracinées, qui sont nos valeurs réelles. Pour étudier les valeurs collectives, il faut donc étudier les émotions, la manière dont elles incitent à des révisions, et comment leur partage collectif renforce nos résistances. La rationalité morale s'appuie sur les émotions. Celles-ci sont sensibles aux détails des situations, et cette rationalité dépend des contextes, si bien qu'elle propose des arguments qui restent révisables quand le contexte change. Ne résistent à toute révision que nos sentiments d'injustice. L'originalité de ce livre est donc d'étudier les émotions et les valeurs, individuelles et collectives, dans la dynamique de leurs changements, de leurs révisions et de leurs résistances, et d'utiliser ce lien entre émotions et révisions pour mieux définir la spécificité d'une rationalité morale. (shrink)

When "Aristotle on Emotion" was first published it showed how discussion within Plato's Academy led to a better understanding of emotional response, and how that understanding influenced Aristotle's work in rhetoric, poetics, politics and ethics. The subject has been much discussed since then: there are numerous articles, anthologies and large portions of books on emotion and related topics. In a new epilogue to this second edition, W.W. Fortenbaugh takes account of points raised by other scholars and clarifies some of his (...) earlier thoughts, focusing on the central issue: how Aristotle conceived of emotional response. Among other matters, he considers laughter, emotion in relation to belief and appearance, the effect of emotion on judgement, and the involvement of pain and pleasure in emotional response. (shrink)

In this article we develop a taxonomy of emotional injustice: what occurs when the treatment of emotions is unjust, or emotions are used to treat people unjustly. After providing an overview of previous work on this topic and drawing inspiration from the more developed area of epistemic injustice, we propose working definitions of ‘emotion’, ‘injustice’, and ‘emotional injustice’. We describe seven classes of emotional injustice: Emotion Misinterpretation, Discounting, Extraction, Policing, Exploitation, Inequality, and Weaponizing. We say why it is (...) useful to distinguish these and also to subsume them under a single concept. Our aims are both theoretical and practical: to provide a unified account of emotional injustice, while recognizing the diversity of this phenomenon; to facilitate further research on this topic; to recognize the political importance of emotions; and to outline some of the ways in which emotional injustice can be combated. (shrink)

This chapter describes a perspective on emotion, according to which emotions are: 1. Designed to function in a social context: an emotion is often an act of relationship reconfiguration brought about by delivering a social signal; 2. Forms of skillful engagement with the world which need not be mediated by conceptual thought; 3. Scaffolded by the environment, both synchronically in the unfolding of a particular emotional performance and diachronically, in the acquisition of an emotional repertoire; 4. Dynamically coupled to (...) an environment which both influences and is influenced by the unfolding of the emotion We draw heavily on ‘transactional’ accounts of emotion proposed by some contemporary psychologists. Although these authors do not, to our knowledge, conceive their work as a contribution to the ‘situationist’ literature that is the focus of this volume, we contend that their proposals constitute a fairly exact, affective parallel to situationist ideas about cognition. The primary aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that a situated approach to emotion already exists and is backed by a substantial experimental literature. (shrink)

This contribution provides a brief commentary to Bakker’s and Lelkes’s plea to emotion researchers to engage more thoroughly with research on affective polarisation. I begin by summarising some of the main arguments and suggestions developed by Bakker and Lelkes and then make a number of suggestions that focus on how accounting for discrete emotions can make a particularly valuable contribution to affective polarisation research. The first suggestion pertains to the intentionality of emotions, and specifically of political emotions (...) in intergroup contexts. The second suggestion emphasises that emotions convey meaning about social relations that is considerably richer than the information contained in affect alone. The third proposition highlights that relations characterised by discrete emotions also reveal information about the cultural value and appropriateness of these relations. Finally, I discuss how discrete emotions specifically contribute to processes of community building and social exclusion. (shrink)

Was love invented by European poets in the Middle Ages or is it part of human nature? Will winning the lottery really make you happy? Is it possible to build robots that have feelings? These are just some of the intriguing questions explored in this guide to the latest thinking about the emotions. Drawing on a wide range of scientific research, from anthropology and psychology to neuroscience and artificial intelligence, Emotion: The Science of Sentiment takes the reader on a (...) fascinating journey into the human heart. (shrink)

This chapter argues that emotion recognition is a skill. A skill perspective on emotion recognition draws attention to underappreciated features of this cornerstone of social cognition. Skills have a number of characteristic features. For example, they are improvable, practical, and flexible. Emotion recognition has these features as well. Leading theories of emotion recognition often draw inadequate attention to these features. The chapter advances a theory of emotion recognition that is better suited to this purpose. It proposes that emotion recognition involves (...) scripts. Emotion scripts describe how people are likely to behave in different emotional contexts. Scripts can be improved with the addition of richer social knowledge, they are practical in that they describe and guide social interaction, and they are flexible because they must accommodate the fact that emotions have different behavioral impact depending on the agents involved and the circumstances at play. Learning to recognize emotions through scripts qualifies as a skill. (shrink)

What kind of mental phenomenon is romantic love? Many philosophers, psychologists, and ordinary folk treat it as an emotion. This chapter argues the category of emotion is inadequate to account for romantic love. It examines major emotion theories in philosophy and psychology and shows that they fail to illustrate that romantic love is an emotion. It considers the categories of basic emotions and emotion complexes, and demonstrates they too come short in accounting for romantic love. It assesses the roles (...) of culture and evolution in shaping the romantic love phenomenon and evaluates the ways in which the norms of rationality that are applied to standard emotions fail to apply to love. It considers the category of sentiments and argue that despite coming close, it does not adequately capture the nature of romantic love. Finally, the chapter makes a case for love being best characterized as a syndrome. (shrink)

In our response, we clarify important theoretical differences between basic emotion and psychological construction approaches. We evaluate the empirical status of the basic emotion approach, addressing whether it requires brain localization, whether localization can be observed with better analytic tools, and whether evidence for basic emotions exists in other types of measures. We then revisit the issue of whether the key hypotheses of psychological construction are supported by our meta-analytic findings. We close by elaborating on commentator suggestions for future (...) research. (shrink)

Among children and adolescents, emotion understanding relates to academic achievement and higher well-being. This study investigates the role of general and emotion-specific language skills in children’s and adolescents’ emotion understanding, building on previous research highlighting the significance of domain-specific language skills in conceptual development. We employ a novel inventory (CEVVT) to assess emotion-specific vocabulary. The study involved 10–11-year-old children (N = 29) and 16–17-year-old adolescents (N = 28), examining their emotion recognition and knowledge of emotion regulation strategies. Results highlight the (...) ongoing development of emotion-specific vocabulary across these age groups. Emotion recognition correlated with general vocabulary in the younger group. In the older age group, emotion recognition was related to emotion-specific vocabulary size, but this effect only became apparent when controlling for the depth of emotion-specific vocabulary. Against expectation, there were no significant contributions of general or emotion-specific vocabulary to knowledge of emotion regulation strategies in either age group. These findings enhance our comprehension of the nuanced interplay between language and emotion across developmental stages. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that we can understand how original intentionality (i.e., a genuine mental life) fits into a natural and scientific understanding of the world through an understanding of the import of the intentionality of emotions to our knowledge of the world in which we live. To do so, I first argue that emotions demonstrate our original intentionality (i.e., a genuine mental life). I then explain how the intentionality of emotions is necessary for us to (...) have knowledge of the world in virtue of our emotional responses. I conclude with a brief discussion of how the neuroscience of emotion can help to provide an explanation of how we can know in virtue of our emotional experiences—how epistemology can be naturalized via emotions. (shrink)

Linguistic anthropologists have studied emotion in societies around the world for several decades. This article defines the discipline, introduces its general relevance to emotion theory, then presents five of the most important contributions linguistic anthropology has made to the study of emotion.

The paper is structured as follows. §1 lays out the worry that the FA analysis fosters a revisionary understanding of emotional values. §2 introduces the distinction between enablers and favourers and how it is pressed into service by Toni to reply to this worry. While I agree that the reply is attractive, since casting emotions in the role of enablers chimes well with how we pre-theoretically understand the relations between emotions and values, I observe that doing so requires (...) that we tackle two connected issues. First, how do emotions function as value enablers? Second, is the resulting picture compatible with the FA analysis? The rest of the discussion is structured around these issues. §3 looks at the role of emotions within the FA analysis so as to specify the kind of enabling role they can play. On this backdrop, I explore in §4 a contrast between how belief relates to truth and how emotions relate to values, a contrast which helps uncover what we are after. A first reaction to this contrast, according to which emotions are value enablers by allowing us to access values, which differ from truth, is examined in §5. I argue that this idea cannot do justice to the key insight of the FA analysis. §6 defends an alternative idea, according to which emotions are enablers in virtue of their attitudinal shapes. (shrink)

This chapter examines two premises of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) - that emotions are caused by beliefs and that those beliefs are represented in the mind as words or images. Being a philosophical examination, the chapter also seeks to demonstrate that these two premises essentially are philosophical premises. The chapter begins with a brief methodological suggestion of how to properly evaluate the theory of CBT. From there it works it way from examining the therapeutic practice of capturing the mental representations (...) that supposedly elicit emotional reactions to examining the assumption that emotions are caused by beliefs. The chapter ends by briefly pointing to some consequences of what has been said to the practice of CBT. (shrink)

Monographic issue on the Philosophy of Emotions. Contents: Resentment, Empathy and Indignation; Jacqueline Taylor / Compassion without Cognitivism; Charlie Kurth / “I Don’t Want Your Compassion!”. The Importance of Empathy for Morality; Manuel Camassa / Making sense of emotional contagion; Carme Isern-Mas, Antoni Gomila / On Pride; Lorenzo Greco / Envy and its objects; Alessandra Fussi / Admiration, moral knowledge and transformative experiences; Maria Silvia Vaccarezza / Fear as Related to Courage: An Aristotelian-Thomistic Redefinition of Cognitive Emotions; Claudia (...) Navarini, Ettore De Monte / On Courage. The Sense Of θυμός; Tiziana Migliore / Shades of Schadenfreude. A phenomenological account of pleasure at another’s misfortune; Danilo Manca / Concern and the Structure of Action; Alexander A. Jeuk / On Sexual Lust as an Emotion; Larry A. Herzberg / Emotions and Literature in Musil; Zeynep Talay Turner. (shrink)

The emotions are at the centre of our lives and, for better or worse, imbue them with much of their significance. The philosophical problems stirred up by the existence of the emotions, over which many great philosophers of the past have laboured, revolve around attempts to understand what this significance amounts to. Are emotions feelings, thoughts, or experiences? If they are experiences, what are they experiences of? Are emotions rational? In what sense do emotions give (...) meaning to what surrounds us? -/- The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction introduces and explores these questions in a clear and accessible way. The authors discuss the following key topics: -/- the diversity and unity of the emotions the relations between emotion, belief and desire the nature of values the relations between emotions and perceptions emotions viewed as evaluative attitudes the link between emotions and evaluative knowledge the nature of moods, sentiments, and character traits. -/- Including chapter summaries and guides to further reading, The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction is an ideal starting point for any philosopher or student studying the emotions. It will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as psychology and the social sciences. (shrink)

Current discussions of hermeneutical injustice, I argue, poorly characterise the cognitive state of victims by failing to account for the communicative success that victims have when they describe their experience to other similarly situated persons. I argue that victims, especially when they suffer moral wrongs that are yet unnamed, are able (1) to grasp certain salient aspects of the wrong they experience and (2) to cultivate the ability to identify instances of the wrong in virtue of moral emotions. By (...) moral emotions I mean emotions like indignation that reflect an agent’s ethical commitments and bear on her ethical assessments. Further, I argue that victims can impart their partial understanding of the wrong they suffer to others who are not similarly situated by eliciting moral emotions such as pity that are tied to broad notions of justice and fairness. (shrink)

Purpose. The purpose is to prove the synchronicity of anthropogenesis, noogenesis and sociogenesis based on emotions, which are their self-organizational principles, as well as to reveal the synergistic essence of these processes. Theoretical basis. The study is based on the self-organizational paradigm, the theory of autopoiesis, labour theory, pananthropological concept, as well as on the concept of synergy of biological and mental phenomena. Originality. The concept of synchronicity of anthropogenesis, noogenesis and sociogenesis based on the emotions is substantiated. (...) The concept of self-organizational emergence of emotions on the basis of hormones is developed. It is established that anthropogenesis is a process of anthropologisation of life based on biochemical reactions in the form of hormones and emotions, which are a synergy of genetic information, biochemical processes, instincts, and physiological phenomena. It was outlined that noogenesis has an emotional dimension, because emotions are the basis for self-organization of rationality, which begins at the level of emotional consciousness. The author shows the specifics of sociogenesis, which self-organizes based on social emotions, which in their turn "distinguish" a man from the sphere of natural existence based on the ability to control emotions. Conclusions. Emotions arise self-organizationally on the basis of hormones. They are self-organizational factors of anthropogenesis, noogenesis and sociogenesis based on the synergistic effect that arises through the combination of emotions and hormones at the biochemical level. The basic principle of anthropology is emotions that synchronize anthropogenesis, noogenesis and sociogenesis, which manifests themselves on the physical, mental, and spiritual levels. At the bodily level, emotions are expressed as biochemical and hormonal reactions. At the spiritual level emotions create the basis for the development of the mind, which originates as emotional consciousness. Emotions self-organize the process of anthropologisation of life, which is possible based on the synergy of human genome, biochemical, physiological phenomena and instincts. The concepts of synchronicity of anthropogenesis, noogenesis and sociogenesis and self-organizational emergence of emotions based on hormones initiate a promising direction of further research of the role of emotions in the processes of self-organization of social phenomena. (shrink)

This article describes James’s distaste for taxonomic classification of emotion and argues that he would not have been pleased by current scholarship which still focuses on the definition and classification of discrete emotions, distracting scholars from more fundamental underlying processes. I argue that as in James’s time, current taxonomies are still arbitrary and still constrain the kinds of questions psychologists ask.

The chapter shows how the recognition of reflexivity of emotions is crucial for understanding the role of emotions in reasoning because it highlights the regulatory role of emotion in emotional experience. The chapter begins by showing that to attain a conception of rationality that incorporates feelings, emotions, and sentiments as parts of the reasoning processes requires capturing the emotional landscape in all its complexity, and that integrating the role of meta-emotions is a contribution in that direction. (...) Then introducing the notion of meta-emotions and showing how emotional reflexivity modifies the nature of our emotional world, it is shown how emotions also have a regulatory mechanism that can either be maladaptive or at the center of emotional health. In addition, because meta-emotions provide a test for the more general assumptions of theories of emotions, the chapter ends by showing how adopting a Situated Approach to Emotions is well-suited for explaining the refinement and complexity of emotion regulation. The final reflection of the chapter explains why adopting such theoretical frame of work makes it possible to use the term situation in a technical manner, which then reveals that emotions sometimes are described as causes while other times as reasons in connection to their regulative mechanisms. (shrink)

Can the mind heal the body? The Buddhist tradition says yes--and now many Western scientists are beginning to agree. Healing Emotions is the record of an extraordinary series of encounters between the Dalai Lama and prominent Western psychologists, physicians, and meditation teachers that sheds new light on the mind-body connection. Topics include: compassion as medicine; the nature of consciousness; self-esteem; and the meeting points of mind, body, and spirit. This edition contains a new foreword by the editor.

ACTION, EMOTION AND WILL "This a clear and persuasive book which contains as many sharp points as a thorn bush and an array of arguments that as neat and ...

Our emotions can be revealing. They can not only reflect our character traits and our judgments, but they can also tell us things about ourselves that we do not fully realize or may not want to admit. In this chapter, I am particularly interested in how we relate to what I will call alienated emotions: emotional experiences that are unusual, surprising, or even disturbing. What, if anything, do our alienated emotions tell us about who we are? I (...) argue here that alienated emotions lead to important questions about the ethics of self-interpretation. (shrink)

Pre-theoretically, it seems obvious that there are deep and multifarious relations between memory and emotions. On the one hand, a large chunk of our affective lives concerns the good and bad events that happened to us and that we preserve in memory. This is one amongst the many ways in which memory is relevant to the nature and causation of emotions. What does recent research teach us about these relations? § 1 surveys some key issues in this regard. (...) On the other hand, which events we happen to preserve in memory very much depends on how we affectively reacted to them when they took place. Emotions are relevant to the nature and causation of memory in this and many other ways. Key issues regarding these relations are surveyed in § 2. (shrink)

The paper presents findings on primary teachers’ and other school actors’ constructions of the teacher and parental role. Specifically, it focuses on strategies for maintaining borders between the personal (parent) and professional (teacher) roles in school environments in Slovakia. We approached the concepts of role and identity from the perspective of social constructivism and symbolic interactionism. Thirty-one interviews and focus groups with school actors were analysed using critical discourse analysis. In the next step, discourses on managing the dual role were (...) analysed using thematic analysis. Results show participants described regulating or restricting verbal, emotional and behavioural expression, and engaged in favouritism avoidance as strategies for separating out the roles. All point to the need to eliminate favouritism as a key meaning in the construction of the teacher role through impartialness and parental role as favourably inclined to create inter-role conflict. We stress the importance of exploring teacher and parental roles in various circumstances in order to obtain a complex picture of negotiating these roles in everyday life. (shrink)