This paper provides an assessment of the bodily-attitudinal theory of emotions, according to which emotions are felt bodily attitudes of action readiness. After providing a reconstruction of the view and clarifying its central commitments two objections are considered (absence of bodily phenomenology and what kind of bodily awareness). An alternative object side interpretation of felt action readiness is then provided, which undermines the motivation for the bodily-attitudinal theory and creates problems for its claims concerning the content of emotional experience. The conclusion is that while the bodily-attitudinal theory marks out a distinctive proposal concerning the question of what emotions are, there remain significant issues which need addressing if it is to be a plausible competitor to existing theories of emotion.
The question of
This paper critically assesses a substantive development of the attitudinal theory, which I call the bodily-attitudinal theory of emotion, as expressed in the claim that emotions, as evaluative attitudes, are
Let me briefly say something about the motivation for focusing on the Attitudinal view so thoroughly. First, Attitudinalism has emerged as the main contemporary competitor to Perceptualism and Judgementalism, and so a thorough critical evaluation of it is central to a proper understanding of (a) the direction of travel in emotion theory over the last decade, (b) the standing of the current theories on offer, and (c) potential avenues for further research. Connected to this, Attitudinalism (as noted above) bucks the trend of various stripes of Evaluativism insofar as it does not place values at the level of content. More specifically, the idea that emotions are distinctive
The discussion proceeds as follows. After offering a reconstruction of the view (Sect.
The overall claim of this paper is that while the bodily-attitudinal theory is a distinctive proposal concerning the question of what emotions are, there remain significant issues which need addressing. Defenders of the view should, therefore, meet the challenges set out here if they wish to preserve the theory.
To better understand the attitudinal theory, we can make some clarifications concerning psychological attitudes. The attitudes in question are intentional attitudes, such that they are
The attitudinal theory holds that emotions get their intentional content from the psychological states on which they are based—their cognitive bases—and so inherit their (non)propositional content. So, for the sake of simplicity, and bypassing questions concerning the (propositional or not) structure of the relevant basing contents, we can talk of the relevant emotional attitudes as
Building on the above, it helps to make explicit a distinction—central to the attitudinal theory—between
Emotions are often included in lists of intentional attitudes in discussions of intentionality.
This paper does not question the applicability of the attitude-content distinction to emotions; it is, however, relevant to the discussion that follows. Let me now outline further distinctions between types of intentional attitudes.
First, we can distinguish between occurrent and dispositional attitudes. An example of the latter is Fred’s
Second, consider that there are intentional attitudes with a phenomenology, and so for which there is
Based on these distinctions, we can provide a clarification of the attitudes posited by the attitudinal theory. The evaluative intentional attitudes, which emotions putatively are, are claimed to be occurrent experiences, with a distinctive phenomenological profile (or at least this is the paradigm case). However, the theory further specifies these evaluative attitudes as
To understand the development of the attitudinal theory in terms of felt bodily attitudes of action-readiness, it is helpful to consider two related theories of emotion.
First, let’s look at somatic feeling theories of the kind formulated initially by William James. Such theories specify occurrent emotions in terms of interoceptive awareness of bodily changes, as conscious awareness of internal physiological changes which happen as a result of excitation.
The bodily-attitudinal theory accepts the following central claim of the somatic feeling theory Bodily Phenomenology claim: The phenomenology of emotional experience is (principally) bodily.
Given the above, we get the following claim Holistic Phenomenology claim: The phenomenology of emotional experience is (principally) a holistic bodily phenomenology.
So, for the bodily-attitudinal theory, the experiential dimension of the evaluative attitudes (which emotions are) is specified in terms of a holistic bodily phenomenology. It bears noting that a qualified somatic feeling theory could accept the Holistic Phenomenology claim if the idea is that in emotional experience the body is given as
To see how, consider what the bodily-attitudinal theory rejects about somatic feeling theories Interoceptive Intentionality claim: the fundamental kind of intentionality in emotional experience is interoceptive (i.e. as directed towards the body).
To clarify this, consider Perceptualist theories of emotion (hereafter Perceptualism). Broadly, Perceptualism claims that occurrent emotions either are or involve perceptual (or perception-like) experiences of evaluative properties, as typically instantiated in the subject’s environment, or as exemplified by particular objects in that environment.
The bodily-attitudinal theory rejects essential claims of Perceptualism; principally (1) that evaluative properties figure at the level of content, and (2) the contingency of any bodily phenomenology. Exteroceptive Intentionality claim: the fundamental kind of intentionality in emotional experience is exteroceptive (i.e. as directed towards ‘the world’). Phenomenal Intentionality claim: there is a felt ‘aboutness’ to emotional experience which (partly) accounts for
Now that we have outlined three central claims – Holistic Phenomenology, Exteroceptive Intentionality, and Phenomenal Intentionality – consider how the bodily-attitudinal theory combines then: Combined claim: There is a felt aboutness to emotional experience, which (partly) accounts for Bodily Intentionality claim: the felt ‘aboutness’ of emotional experience, which (partly) captures
First, it bears re-emphasizing that the bodily intentionality in question is
Remember, the claim is that the bodily phenomenology of emotional experience is a synthetic gestalt which integrates bodily information from a wide variety of sources. The relevant bodily changes (or at least a significant portion of them) combine at the personal level into a holistic action-ready bodily phenomenology which is said to be global and outward-looking. As such, the relevant bodily attitudes are of a holistic action-ready sort. Further to this, and connecting with the evaluative dimension, these felt bodily attitudes of action-readiness contribute essentially to the world being presented to the subject in various (evaluatively significant) ways because of their holistic action-ready character.
Consider fear directed towards an approaching dog. Fear of the dog is an experience of the dog as dangerous because it consists in feeling the body’s readiness to act to diminish the dog’s likely impact, such that one’s body is ready to ‘contribute to the neutralization of what provokes the fear’.
So, bodily phenomenology of the relevant holistic action-ready sort—as an outward-looking form of bodily consciousness—is central to precisifying the supposed felt bodily intentionality of emotional experience, in which the world is presented as significant (i.e. evaluatively relevant). As Deonna and Teroni put it ‘the idea that emotions are felt bodily stances we take towards aspects of the environment is amenable to the idea that they are evaluative attitudes’.
In sum, we putatively get bodily feelings into emotional experience in the right way by specifying the relevant exteroceptively directed evaluative attitudes, which emotions putatively are, in terms of holistic felt bodily attitudes of action readiness. As such the holistic bodily gestalt—which captures both emotional phenomenology and its felt aboutness—has significance beyond the body; this holistic bodily gestalt puts us into direct contact with matters of (seeming) significance ‘in the world’.
Even granting, for the sake of argument, that felt bodily attitudes of action readiness constitute the exteroceptive (phenomenal) intentionality of some emotional experiences, arguably they cannot do so in all cases. This is because certain ‘cool’ or ‘calm’ emotional experiences, such as admiration, reverence, and regret, can arguably occur without any attendant bodily phenomenology.
Consider the following case. Out walking in the Alps, Gill feels moved when confronted with a particularly stunning vista. We might think it plausible that someone can experience such an emotion without any action-ready bodily phenomenology. Consider the following modification. Say Fred has been severely physically paralyzed from the neck down, such that he is incapable of experiencing interoceptive-proprioceptive action-ready bodily phenomenology. Nonetheless, Fred is taken to see the stunning vista. It is plausible that Fred could be emotionally moved by the grandeur of the natural scene even though
The upshot is that if bodily phenomenology is not essential to some emotional experiences, this undermines the claim that holistic bodily feelings of action readiness constitute the intentionality of emotions since the relevant bodily phenomenology is not present in those cases. Such ‘cool’ or ‘calm’ emotions may have
One way of responding to this objection is to claim that the relevant ‘cool’ or ‘calm’ emotions are higher cognitive emotions and that the bodily-attitudinal theory does not apply to these, but to a more limited class (e.g. fear, disgust, happiness, sadness). One could also claim that the relevant non-bodily cases are evaluative judgements, which may have essential links to emotions but are not equivalent to them, and possess different phenomenological profiles. Another route would be to insist on dispositional readings of the relevant class of emotion reports, such that there is no occurrent mental state with a putative non-bodily emotional phenomenology.
However, regardless of the plausibility of such moves, they restrict the scope of the view in an unappealing way. The better response would be to argue that, despite claims to the contrary, there are no ‘cool’ or ‘calm’ emotions, where that is taken to mean the complete absence of the relevant bodily phenomenology. One way to explain intuitions about their possibility would be to claim that thought experiments like the above are parasitic on cases where the bodily phenomenology is less intense. Given the psychological reality of the latter cases, we are tempted to imagine that there could be cases in which there is a
Nonetheless, the view might push the claim that, on closer inspection, we find that it is mistaken to think there is a complete absence of the relevant bodily phenomenology in such cases. Consider the following re-description of our example. Perhaps the subject who is paralyzed from the neck down is still in some sense motivated to move, or be moved, seeking the adjustment of their bodily orientation to see the Alps better. Further to this, the subject can still move their eyes and facial muscles. Moreover, given we are taking a holistic approach to bodily phenomenology, they may also experience increased heart rate and changes in breathing. So, if we account for the role of the full range of bodily feelings, then despite the subject’s inability to move, the above experiential components may suffice for an experience of action-ready bodily phenomenology; indeed, once we take such components into account, it looks more difficult to subtract the body altogether.
In response, we may first draw attention to the fact that any motivation which our subject may have
More importantly, though, the central problem with the above line is that the bodily-phenomenology it highlights arguably falls short of capturing an instance of the specific, type-identifying action-ready bodily phenomenology that is said by the theory to characterize admiration. Remember, admiration is said to be an experience of the relevant object as
Let me expand on this point. We might question how our paralyzed subject can genuinely feel ready-for
Note, the critic of the bodily-attitudinal theory can accept that if the re-description of the example is correct—there is
Generalizing from the above analysis, we can say the following: The objection we have been considering moves from pointing to putative cases in which there is a complete absence of bodily phenomenology to the absence of the
As a final point, a more concessive response from the bodily-attitudinal theory is as follows. What might be appealed to is a broader category of action-ready attentional phenomena, some of which may less saliently involve the body (e.g. directing one’s mental attention to a specific object). As such, it would be action-tendencies per se that constitute the outwardly directed phenomenology of emotion, where the former is realized bodily or mentally. Indeed, Deonna and Teroni explicitly mention this as a way of expanding on the theory.
On the bodily-attitudinal theory, awareness of the body is implicated in the emotional experience insofar as it characterizes what Deonna and Teroni call the
First, note that certain statements of the view might give the impression that the relevant kind of awareness is
Deonna and Teroni rule out both readings. On the bodily-attitudinal theory, emotional experiences are non-reflective states with only one form of first-order intentional directedness, namely
Before pressing this objection, we should note an important distinction between two claims, which the distinction between experiential and non-experiential attitudes (Sect.
Contrastingly, the appeal to an attendant attitudinal phenomenology is a stronger claim. On this view to claim that the relevant attitude is experiential, or more perspicuously to claim that it
To further see their motivation for positing attendant attitudinal phenomenology in emotional experience, it is helpful to consider the so-called transparency of experience and the way in which emotional experience is
Given the above, we can rule out the following idea. While the relevant bodily feelings, as felt attitudes of action readiness, can be understood as vehicles of exteroceptive content, at the experiential level they are not phenomenologically manifest in any sense, but rather are reflected in the kinds of properties the objects of emotional experience show up as having (e.g. action-ready properties, see Sect.
So, what is needed is a clarification of the kind of bodily awareness implicated by the bodily-attitudinal theory in its talk of
First, note that the relevant bodily awareness might be modelled after background phenomenological awareness of the body. For example, consider the kind of awareness one has of the pressure of objects on one’s body, say the pressure of a chair arm digging into one’s side when writing at a desk. When one first sits down and shuffles around to get comfortable, one may have an explicit phenomenal awareness of the bodily sensations of pressure. Though when one ‘settles in’ such sensations typically fade into the phenomenological background—they are no longer explicitly noticed or attended to.
However, this kind of background phenomenological awareness of the body is
Somewhat bracketing the above worry though, a defender of this approach might say the following in response. In cases in which there is no need to inhibit the emotional response, that is where it is possible to let the action-tendencies ‘follow their course’, then the attendant attitudinal phenomenology could be thought of as being in the background on the model suggested. Contrastingly, in cases in which we cannot let the emotion follow its course (e.g. I have to restrain myself from physically attacking the individual who makes an offensive comment), or when the emotion is sufficiently ‘overpowering’ (e.g. being ‘struck down’ by some terrible news and collapsing), the bodily phenomenology would be in the forefront.
This is an important distinction between different types of cases, although it does lead to a
As a final comment on background awareness, let me also note that, regardless of issues about the phenomenology or distinctions between types of cases (which are of course difficult to adjudicate), it is contentious whether background awareness is non-intentional. Consider the case of absorbed writing. While focusing on the laptop screen and keyboard, as the focal point or ‘theme’ of one’s visual experience, the table, surrounding books, and scattered papers, all form part of the background, as ‘filling out’ the visual scene (as the ground in the figure-ground relation). They are,
Before moving on, let me highlight a point concerning the preceding discussion. I do not take myself to have
Alternatively, one might suggest that the required kind of awareness is so-called ‘pre-reflective’ bodily awareness, as something that is neither background phenomenal buzz, nor something of which we have ‘object’ awareness. To substantiate this latter claim, the bodily-attitudinal theory could appeal to the phenomenological notion of the ‘lived body’. Giovanna Colombetti clarifies this with the following example: As I am typing these words, my awareness is mainly focused on the characters that appear on the screen, and on their meaning. Yet at the same time we can say that I am pre-reflectively aware of my fingers as that part of my body through which the typing occurs, and in general of my body as that through which various experiences are made possible. Every perceptual experience is thus in part also an experience of my body. (Colombetti
We can bracket whether this is credible as a claim about the kinds of awareness implicated in paradigmatic sense-perceptual experience.
The central problem with this proposal as applied to the bodily-attitudinal theory is that it arguably falls prey to some of the same objections considered above concerning the idea of background phenomenal awareness. Remember, the so-called attendant attitudinal phenomenology is supposed to be of an action-ready holistic bodily kind which possesses a kind of
To highlight the disanalogy consider the example provided by Colombetti. When, in visual experience, attention is consumed by the relevant object, as in absorbed typing, it is plausible that I don’t notice any tactile phenomenology. Perhaps with a switch of attention or breakdown in absorption I can become aware of my fingers as that part of my body through which the typing occurs (e.g. if the words stop appearing on the screen, I may focus attention on my pressing of the keys). However, it is odd to think that any such tactile phenomenology, before some attention switch, exhibits ‘felt aboutness’, as involving ‘awareness of one’s fingers adopting a specific stance towards an object’, and so as analogous to what Deonna and Teroni say in the emotion case. So even if the notion of the pre-reflective ‘lived body’ makes sense,
As a final point on this issue, a defender of the bodily-attitudinal theory might argue that the putative analogy with touch and tactile phenomenology is (for the reasons given) inapt. Alternatively, we can focus on awareness of bodily action towards the environment. In such cases, so the response goes, we have examples of non-emotional felt bodily stances that it makes sense to describe in terms of their targets, for example, the consciousness of one’s body when one attempts to jump over an obstacle. However, it is unclear whether this kind of bodily phenomenology is well-suited to enlist in making a case for the bodily-attitudinal theory. One problem is that of distinguishing specifically emotional phenomenology from other cases of bodily-action toward the environment. Consider the following case: The way one’s body feels in attempting to jump over a fence, to get to something I am interested in on the other side, may be phenomenologically indistinguishable from, for example, the kind of ‘approach and exploration’ phenomenology putatively characteristic of certain forms of admiration or emotional curiosity. Further to this what is it about the action-ready bodily phenomenology in the emotion case that makes it apt to present that which is
Based on the above discussion, until we have a more detailed characterization of the kind of bodily awareness implicated by the bodily-attitudinal theory—as cashing out the supposed attendant attitudinal phenomenology—then arguably this aspect of the view is problematic. One position in the philosophy of mind which might be sceptical that the view can make good on precisifying the relevant bodily awareness would be ‘Pure Intentionalism’. According to that view, the phenomenal character of an experience is exhausted by its intentional content.
Importantly, in the course of defending their view, Deonna and Teroni explicitly reject ‘Pure Intentionalism’ as true of emotions.
However, it bears noting that ‘Impure Intentionalism’, in general, has a view of intentionality where the relevant structure is still that of a (phenomenologically manifest)
We can now surmise. This section has raised two objections to the bodily-attitudinal theory. Defenders of the view need to say more about these issues and recognize that the kind of felt bodily intentionality their view posits requires further clarification. However, let me be clear on the import of the discussion. It should be noted that the ‘absence of bodily phenomenology’ objection was grounded in one detailed example, namely admiration, which it is difficult to account for on most theories of emotion (although perhaps the reader might consider whether similar considerations extend to
Let me start this section by clarifying the phenomenology of action-readiness, as manifest in emotional experience, by reference to the following passage from Nico Frijda: Action readiness transforms a neutral world into one with places of danger and openings towards safety, in fear, with targets for kissing and their being accessible for it, in enamoration, with roads stretching out endlessly before one, in fatigue, misery, and despair, with insistent calls for entry or participation or consumption, in enjoyment (Frijda
However, the bodily-attitudinal interpretation of action-readiness is not the only way to go. A plausible, and arguably preferable, alternative is presented below by developing further comments from Frijda. The respects in which this alternative is preferable is that it better reflects the relevant phenomenology, as discussed in this section, and can deal more neatly with theoretical issues concerning differences in content—the topic of the final section.
Action-readiness is paradigmatically
This points in the direction of an Action readiness is reflected in the objects’ and places demand characters of ‘to be removed’, ‘to be distanced from’, or ‘to be united with’. The demand characters differ subtly from the affordances and hodological properties. The latter reflect appraisal of what one
However, importantly demand character is not to be understood in terms of those objects having everyday affordance or instrumental value properties, as representing generic, and modally open action-possibilities (i.e. ‘could or could not’). Demand character is not equivalent to the way objects are presented in what Jean-Paul Sartre and the Gestalt psychologists call ‘hodological space’. We can understand the latter as an external space or environment—what Max Scheler calls a ‘milieu’—where the subject has an experiential encounter with everyday objects as instruments or obstacles, which present
So, what is demand character? We can precisify it as the way the particular object, as presented in emotional experience, makes specific
Based on the above, we might say the following concerning an object-based interpretation of action-readiness. The phenomenology of felt action-readiness does not include any attendant bodily-attitudinal phenomenology. Instead, the phenomenology of felt action readiness amounts to experiencing particular objects as having the relevant demand characters, as ‘
Further to the above, in cases where there is a
Importantly, a defender of this object-side interpretation of action-readiness may agree that to account for the experience of any given emotion appeal must be made to a reactive or responsive dimension, as constitutive of the emotion (rather than merely an effect). To undergo an emotion is in some critical sense to be
Building on this discussion is the following suggestion by Frijda concerning the bodily aspect of action readiness: When attentional focus moves from the world to oneself, experience changes accordingly. The objects now are aspects of my body, my states or my person…in self-focus, action readiness becomes articulate as felt urge—urge with a particular aim, such as for self-protection, or to broaden and build the scope of one’s interactions. Felt anger turns from seeing a bastardly offender into felt urge to strike him, to harm him and remove him from his field of action. (Frijda
In sum, the question we have been trying to answer is as follows: is the felt action-readiness of emotional experience more faithfully described in terms of the object making a call on the subject to act (as a demand to act in a given way), or as the subject taking a bodily stance or attitude towards the object (as being prepared to act in a given way). This section has presented reasons to take the former view seriously, as a plausible, and phenomenologically preferable, alternative to the latter. In light of this, the bodily-attitudinal theory needs to do more to defend its interpretation of felt action-readiness
This section considers a final concern connected to action readiness, which is tied into theoretical issues concerning attitudes and contents, and shows how it creates problems for the bodily-attitudinal theory.
In the passage quoted from Frijda at the beginning of 3.1, he talks of the way action readiness transforms a ‘neutral world’. I now examine this modification claim. First, talk of a ‘neutral world’ in this context pertains to our experience of the world (or objects within it) being presented in a non-emotional way, or by way of non-emotional mental states. In this context, it still makes sense to think of the relevant particular objects as having hodological properties, as everyday instrumental value properties. Now consider the purported ‘transformation’: Frijda claims in world-directed joy our experience ‘shifts’ such that previously the particular object (in this case putatively ‘the world’, but it could be a more common-garden variety particular object), as given in hodological space, was experienced as merely
Now, if this account of the relevant differences in content concerning a putative ‘transformation of a neutral world’ in joy—by way of felt action-readiness—is plausible then this creates a problem for the bodily-attitudinal theory. A central aspect of the theory is the claim that emotional experiences get their intentional content from their cognitive bases. Remember, emotions are claimed to be evaluative attitudes towards contents provided by other psychological states—they inherit the content they have from their cognitive bases. Moreover, this is supposed to be a benefit of the view since it preserves the idea—reflected in ordinary language about intentional experience and emotion—that (1) different emotion-types can be (note, not necessarily are) different attitudes towards the
The bodily-attitudinal theory has to frame felt action readiness exclusively on the ‘subject side’—in terms of supposed attendant bodily-attitudinal phenomenology—because if felt action readiness, as demand character, was allowed as a specific way the particular objects of emotional experience are presented, and so as an aspect of the content of emotional experience, then it is implausible that the
Concerning the latter cases, consider the following as a
Against this, is it more plausible to insist that both emotions have the same content, but just focus on their object and its properties (Bill) in a different way, where this is cashed out exclusively in terms of different action-ready bodily attitudes with different attendant attitudinal phenomenologies (i.e. a different bodily way)? It is at least as plausible to claim that even in this case, the different emotions present the same object as having different demand characters. Note it will not suffice to reply that the content is the same simply
One alternative response in such cases might be as follows: the phenomenology of any given emotion blends in such a way that makes for a unified whole, on the basis of which it is simply not possible to distinguish the phenomenology of attitude and that of content. Yet, such a response is arguably too concessive since it arguably necessitates giving up on talk of
In sum, given the
Deonna and Teroni do respond to the objection that the attitude-content distinction does not apply to emotions.
What the above discussion points to is the related, but different issue, of whether it is plausible to insist that different emotions, and emotions and non-emotional states, directed toward the same particular object, could share the same content
Of course, the bodily-attitudinal theory may reject the object-side interpretation of felt action readiness, and related ideas of ‘transformation’ and different demand character as pointing to a necessary difference in content. However, in doing so, the view needs to explain what is problematic about this interpretation; one cannot do this by claiming that we also need to build in action readiness on the subject-side. Given the above, the bodily-attitudinal theory cannot, by its strictures, tolerate any necessary variability on the object-side since this will undermine the
This paper has critically assessed the bodily-attitudinal theory of emotion, according to which emotions are felt bodily attitudes of action-readiness. After reconstructing the view, two detailed objections were considered. Finally, an alternative interpretation of felt action-readiness was provided. This also served as a positive proposal concerning how to theorize the phenomenology of action-readiness in emotional experience, which arguably better respects the relevant phenomenology and can deal more neatly with theoretical issues concerning differences in content. So, while the bodily-attitudinal theory of emotion is a distinctive and philosophically substantial proposal concerning the question of what emotions are, which should be taken seriously, there remain problems and issues which need addressing. Defenders of the view should meet the challenges set out here if they wish to preserve the theory.
This work was supported by British Academy 180024.
See Deonna and Teroni
Aside from Deonna and Teroni, approximations of this view are held by Claparède
See Smith
See Lyons
See Searle
See Deonna and Teroni
See Pitt
See James
See Deonna and Teroni
Lambie and Marcel
See Tappolet
See Deonna and Teroni
The Exteroceptive Intentionality claim glosses over a complication concerning the intentionality of
For a defence of phenomenal intentionality see Horgan and Tienson
See Deonna and Teroni
NB: this is the model of intentionality adopted by intentionalists about bodily sensations (see Crane
Deonna and Teroni
Deonna and Teroni
For discussions of action readiness in the psychological literature, see Arnold
See Deonna and Teroni
There is the further claim that the
Deonna and Teroni
This ‘specificity objection’ is a central objection to the Jamesian theory (see Deonna and Teroni
Deonna and Teroni
Colombetti (
See Lambie
Cobos et al.
This also raises individuation problems: type-identification of those (non-bodily) emotions in the terms of the bodily-attitudinal theory would not be a live option (see Lindquist et al.
A further issue interesting issue is whether if the individual in our example was once
Deonna and Teroni
Ibid: 308.
See Deonna and Teroni
Claparède
See Deonna and Teroni
Ibid: 308. On the transparency of perceptual experience see Harman
Deonna and Teroni
Ibid: 308.
This might be closer to what Slaby (
See also Zahavi
In separate work I detail considerations in favour of the view that ‘pre-reflective’ non-intentional awareness, in general, cannot be made sense of.
Note, this is a familiar demarcation problem: on what basis do we distinguish some class of experiences (in this case emotions) from ones that seem non-superficially similar to them. I don’t mean to suggest that only the bodily-attitudinal theory has to solve such problems (any theory of emotion has to).
See Tye
See Dretske
Deonna and Teroni
See Crane
Deonna and Teroni
Ibid: 87. See also Claparède
Frijda
Ibid: 203–204.
See Deonna (
See Sartre
Frijda
See Lambie and Marcel
See Poellner
Note, in the logical space of theories of aspects of emotion, they are nonetheless still relatively close to one another.
It should also be noted that in certain passages Frijda (
Given this explication, Frijda’s ‘transformation of the world’ is not principally evaluative, in the sense of relating to the presentation in emotional experience of the relevant thick evaluative properties (cf. Goldie
See Deonna and Teroni
Deonna and Teroni
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