Emotion experience reflects some of the outcomes of the mostly nonconscious processes that compose emotions. In my view, the major processes are appraisal, affect, action readiness, and autonomic arousal. The phenomenology of emotion experience varies according to mode of consciousness (nonreflective or reflective consciousness), and to direction and mode of attention. As a result, emotion experience may be either ineffable or articulate with respect to any or all of the underlying processes. In addition, emotion experience reflects the degree to which (...) the emotion processes control perception, thought, action and bodily arousal. (shrink)

In this book, I make use of an idea from economics to suggest how noble human tendencies might not only have survived the ruthless pressures of the material world, but actually have been nurtured by them.

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

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.

In this urbane and witty book, Ronald de Sousa disputes the widespread notion that reason and emotion are natural antagonists.

Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different "consciousnesses." Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example a form of reasoning about a function of "consciousness" based on (...) the phenomenon of blindsight. Some information about stimuli in the blind field is represented in the brains of blindsight patients, as shown by their correct "guesses," but they cannot harness this information in the service of action, and this is said to show that a function of phenomenal consciousness is somehow to enable information represented in the brain to guide action. But stimuli in the blind field are BOTH access-unconscious and phenomenally unconscious. The fallacy is: an obvious function of the machinery of access-consciousness is illicitly transferred to phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

In this study on deduction, the authors argue that people reason by imagining the relevant state of affairs, ie building an internal model of it, formulating a tentative conclusion based on this model and then searching for alternative models.

This is a work of ancient rhetoric which philosophically illustrates in practice and illuminates in principle Plato's version of Socrates' dialectical method. The most recent work on the rhetoric of the Apology is largely in German, and the most valuable work on the philosophical underpinning and implications is largely in English. This edition aims not merely to present and combine the results but to develop them further on both fronts. The editor is sceptical of the historical accuracy of Plato's version (...) of Socrates defence, and offers on the whole an account of the Apology as a work of Plato's own. (shrink)

Routledge is now re-issuing this prestigious series of 204 volumes originally published between 1910 and 1965. The titles include works by key figures such asC.G. Jung, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Otto Rank, James Hillman, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney and Susan Isaacs. Each volume is available on its own, as part of a themed mini-set, or as part of a specially-priced 204-volume set. A brochure listing each title in the "International Library of Psychology" series is available upon request.

The "Cartesian Meditations" translation is based primarily on the printed text, edited by Professor S. Strasser and published in the first volume of Husserliana ...

Two putative functions of emotion experience ? its roles in intentional action and in social understanding ? were investigated using a group of individuals (repressors) known to have impaired anxiety experience. Repressors, low-anxious, high-anxious, and defensive high-anxious individuals were asked to give a public presentation, and then given the opportunity to avoid the presentation. Repressors were the group most likely to avoid giving the presentation, but were the least likely to give an emotional explanation for their avoidance. By contrast, they (...) were not less likely than other groups to provide negative emotional explanations of another person?s behaviour in a film clip. We concluded that: (1) repressors are impaired in self- but not in other-explanation using emotion, implying that ?simulation? is not the method used by repressors to ground their folk psychology, (2) the intentional avoidance shown by repressors is indicative of some intact first-order phenomenal anxiety experience but that they lack second-order awareness of this anxiety experience. (shrink)

Having, in previous papers, distinguished at least three forms of consciousness , I now further examine their differences. This examination has some surprising results. Having argued that neither C1 nor C2 is a phenomenological state?and so different from CN?I now show that CN itself is best thought of as a subclass of a larger state . CS is the set of image?representation states. CN is that set of CS states that we are also C2 about. I argue that CN states (...) should be considered a subset of CS states because they share with other CS states imagistic representational powers as opposed to the sentential ones of C1 and C2. And I argue that there are good reasons to consider any state which utilises imagistic representation as a sensation. I then show that the notion of an unconscious sensation makes sense if we think of it as a CS state that is not C2. More radically, I conclude that either it makes sense to say that there are unfelt sensations or there are felt sensations we are not conscious about. While there are good reasons for saying one or the other of these surprising things, I argue that the second, more radical sounding, alternative is actually better motivated?and not quite so surprising as it sounds. (shrink)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 Excerpt:...earth. r' = radius of moon, or other body. P = moon's horizontal parallax = earth's angular semidiameter as seen from the moon. f = moon's angular semidiameter. Now = P (in circular measure), r'-r = r (in circular measure);.'. r: r':: P: P', or (radius of earth): (radios of (...) moon):: (moon's parallax): (moon's semidiameter). Examples. 1. Taking the moon's horizontal parallax as 57', and its angular diameter as 32', find its radius in miles, assuming the earth's radius to be 4000 miles. Here moon's semidiameter = 16';.-. 4000::: 57': 16';.-. r = 400 16 = 1123 miles. 2. The sun's horizontal parallax being 8"8, and his angular diameter 32V find his diameter in miles. ' Am. 872,727 miles. 3. The synodic period of Venus being 584 days, find the angle gained in each minute of time on the earth round the sun as centre. Am. l"-54 per minute. 4. Find the angular velocity with which Venus crosses the sun's disc, assuming the distances of Venus and the earth from the sun are as 7 to 10, as given by Bode's Law. Since (fig. 50) S V: VA:: 7: 3. But Srhas a relative angular velocity round the sun of l"-54 per minute (see Example 3); therefore, the relative angular velocity of A V round A is greater than this in the ratio of 7: 3, which gives an approximate result of 3"-6 per minute, the true rate being about 4" per minute. Annual ParaUax. 95. We have already seen that no displacement of the observer due to a change of position on the earth's surface could apparently affect the direction of a fixed star. However, as the earth in its annual motion describes an orbit of about 92 million miles radius round the sun, the different positions in space from which an observer views the fixed stars from time to time throughout the year must be separated... (shrink)

The first book on consciousness that offers sufficient breadth and depth to serve as a stand-alone text for courses on consciousness. Also ideally organized as a supplement for instructors who discuss topics of consciousness in other courses. Journey into the fascinating world of human consciousness with this comprehensive survey that covers topics of consciousness from both a natural science and cognitive psychology viewpoint. Based on the belief that consciousness is a natural phenomenon and product of the brain's functioning, Dr. Farthing's (...) captivating book emphasizes systematic research and theoretical interpretations and also discusses clinical applications and pertinent conceptual and philosophical issues. (shrink)

How should we understand the emotional rationality? This first part will explore two models of cognition and analogy strategies, test their intuition about the emotional desire. I distinguish between subjective and objective desire, then presents with a feeling from the "paradigm of drama" export semantics, here our emotional repertoire is acquired all the learned, and our emotions in the form of an object is fixed. It is pretty well in line with the general principles of rationality, especially the lowest reasonable (...) principles. Turned to the second part of this side of reasonable. I will inquire how emotional beliefs, desires, and behaviors contribute to the rationality. I will present a very general biological hypothesis: emotions by controlling highlights the characteristics of perception and reasoning, so that we remove the difficulties due in particular to lead to paralysis; they are being simulated by a simplified perception of information, thus limiting our practice and cognitive choice. How are we to understand emotional or axiological rationality? I pursue analogies with both the cognitive and the strategic models, testing them against intuitions about emotional desires. We distinguish two different classes of desires, the subjective and the objective, and propose that emotions have a semantics that derives from "paradigmatic scenarios", in terms of which our emotional repertoire is learned and the formal objects of our emotions fixed. This fits in well with emerging facts about how our emotional capacities develop, and it can also be squared with the general principles of rationality, particularly minimal rationality. In the second part, I return to the perspective of rationality. I ask how emotions contribute to the rationality of beliefs, desires, and behavior. I proffer a very general biological hypothesis: Emotions spare us the paralysis potentially induced by a particular predicament by controlling the salience of features of perception and reasoning; they temporarily mimic the informational encapsulation of perception and so circumscribe our practical and cognitive options. (shrink)

This book presents an accessible and groundbreaking new look at the evolution of consciousness. It traces its origins back to early man's primordial emotions - those elicited from basic needs such as hunger and thirst.

According to the Communicative Theory of Emotions, we experience emotions when events occur that are important for our goals and plans. A method of choice for studying these matters is the emotion diary. Emotions configure our cognitive systems and our relationships. Many of our emotions concern our relationships, and empathy is central to our experience of them. We do not always recognize our emotions or the emotions of others, but literary fiction can help improve our skills of recognition and understanding.

It is argued that one answer to the question of the rationality of emotion hinges on the different roles in action selection played by emotions when one is aware of them versus when one is not aware of them . When unaware of one’s emotions, they are: not able to enter into one’s deliberations about what to do, and more likely to be automatically acted out. This is a problem for rationality because emotional action urges are often “false positives”. In (...) contrast, awareness of emotions crucially allows emotional responses to be inhibited: such inhibition is necessary for truly rational action selection. Furthermore, awareness enables Reflective Revision—the modification of one’s theories and action plans as a result of awareness of inconsistencies between theories and data, and action plans and goals. (shrink)