It has been argued recently that some basic emotions should be considered natural kinds. This is different from the question whether as a class emotions form a natural kind; that is, whether emotion is a natural kind. The consensus on that issue appears to be negative. I argue that this pessimism is unwarranted and that there are in fact good reasons for entertaining the hypothesis that emotion is a natural kind. I interpret this to mean that there exists a distinct (...) natural class of organisms whose behavior and development are governed by emotion. These are emoters. Two arguments for the natural kind status of emotion are considered. Both converge on the existence of emotion as a distinct natural domain governed by its own laws and regularities. There are then some reasons for being optimistic about the prospects for consilience in emotion theory. 1 The mantra 2 Griffiths on emotions as natural kinds 3 Panksepp on emotions as natural kinds 4 Emotion as a neurobiological kind 5 Emotion as a psychological kind 6 Response to the mantra 7 Unification or fragmentation? 8 Concluding remarks. (shrink)

La thérapie rationnelle des émotions est basée sur l’hypothèse qu’un trouble de la pensée conduit à des troubles du sentiment qui eux-mêmes conduisent à des troubles de comportement. Du point de vue thérapeutique, la stratégie consiste à corriger les sentiments et le comportement en modifiant le trouble de raisonnement. Cette forme très en vogue de psychothérapie des troubles émotionnels fournit une illustration intéressante des relations nomologiques intriquées qui peuvent exister entre les patrons relativement fixes d’états émotionnels, d’états comportementaux et d’états (...) sensoriels physiologiques. En tant que telle, elle fournit une source d’évidences plausible en faveur de l’hypothèse que les émotions sont une forme spécialisée de système nomologique ou une « espèce ». Le succès de la théorie rationnelle des émotions jette le doute sur le mantra philosophique actuel qui refuse aux émotions le statut d’espèce naturelle, car elle suggère précisément l’inverse, c’est-à-dire que les émotions sont bel et bien une forme d’« espèce naturelle ». Cet appui n’a pas été pris en considération dans le débat en cours au sujet du statut d’espèce naturelle de l’émotion. Il est particulièrement intéressant de noter la façon dont il nous force à repenser la notion d’espèce naturelle telle qu’elle est employée dans les débats philosophiques sur la question. D’autres formulations qui correspondent mieux aux pratiques des sciences concernées pourraient être nécessaires. -/- [English abstrast] Rational Emotive Therapy is based on the hypothesis that disordered thinking leads to disordered feeling, which then leads to disordered behavior. Therapeutically, the strategy it is to correct disordered feeling and behavior by changing the disordered thinking. This immensely popular form of psychotherapy for emotional disorders provides an interesting illustration of the intricate law-like relationships that can exist between relatively fixed patterns of emotional, behavioral, and physiological sensory states. As such, it provides a plausible source of evidence for the hypothesis that emotions form a specialized law-like system or ‘kind’. Evidence of the success of Rational Emotive Therapy casts doubt on the contemporary philosophical mantra that emotions do not form a natural kind. It suggests precisely the opposite, namely, that emotions do form a ‘natural kind’ of some sort. This evidence has not been considered in the ongoing debate over the natural kind status of emotion. Especially interesting is how it forces us to rethink the way in which the notion of a natural kind is usually deployed in philosophical debates in this area. Alternative formulations more in line with the practices of the relevant sciences may be needed. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions regarding the status of emotion as a scientific domain usually get framed in terms of the question whether emotion is a natural kind. That approach to the issues is wrongheaded for two reasons. First, it has led to an intractable philosophical impasse that ultimately misconstrues the character of the relevant debate in emotion science. Second, and most important, it entirely ignores valence, a central feature of emotion experience, and probably the most promising criterion for demarcating emotion from cognition (...) and other related domains. An alternate philosophical hypothesis for addressing the issues is pro- posed. It is that emotion is a naturally occurring valenced phenomenon that is.. (shrink)

In _What Emotions Really Are: The problem of psychological categories_ I argued that it is unlikely that all the psychological states and processes that fall under the vernacular category of emotion are sufficiently similar to one another to allow a unified scientific psychology of the emotions. In this paper I restate what I mean by ?natural kind? and my argument for supposing that emotion is not a natural kind in this specific sense. In the following sections I discuss the two (...) most promising proposals to reunify the emotion category: the revival of the Jamesian theory of emotion associated with the writings of Antonio Damasio and a philosophical approach to the content of emotional representations that draws on ?multi-level appraisal theory? in psychology. (shrink)

A growing interest in affect holds much promise for anthropology by providing a new frame to examine and articulate subjective and intersubjective states, which are key parts of human consciousness and behavior. Affect has its roots in the social, an observation that did not go unnoticed by Durkheim and since then has been kept in view by those social scientists interested in the emotions, feelings, and subjectivity. However, the challenge for ethnographers has always been to articulate in words and conceptualize (...) theoretically what is only felt and sensed. What we are calling “evocative ethnography” is an ethnography that meets this challenge to make room for, and hold onto, feelings and affect in its description and explanation. The papers in this special issue accomplish that, as well as provide some anthropological insights into affect theory. (shrink)