This work deals with the discussion about the characterization of the emotions that maintain the so called "cognitive current" and "perceptive current". These have been canonically conceived as incompatible ways of accounting for the same phenomenon: the basic emotions. In this paper I intend to examine the disagreement between these opposing approaches, seeking to clarify the scope of this disagreement, and to elucidate the key concepts on this discussion. The article reviews the structure that is detailed below. Each of the (...) positions in question is presented first. To this end, both philosophy and psychology have been considered: R. Solomon and R. Lazarus (cognitive perspective) and W. James and R. Zajonc (perceptive perspective). In this section (The approaches in dispute) I will try to offer a conceptual reconstruction of each of the positions, establishing the fundamental theses of each of them, to be examined in depth in the next section (Cognition and perception) in order to show that the disagreement itself and the difficulties that emerge from it, to provide an adequate characterization of the phenomenon, that can be overcome or at least, must be reconceptualized. In this sense, I will offer two ways in which this reconceptualization can be given: in a dissolute sense, by showing that the discrepancy between the two perspectives are based on false dichotomies, turning the discussion into a terminological disagreement. Second, I will outline a mode of resolution in the proper sense along with consideration. (The meaning of "emotion": are there unconscious emotions?). (shrink)

During the last decades an intense debate has developed around the characterization of emotions, in which two approaches were presented as incompatible with each other: the somatic and the cognitive perspective of emotions. In this paper I propose to evaluate whether these are in fact irreconcilable positions, starting from the systematization of the theses that have identified each of these perspectives. Having disarticulated some points of divergence, I finally consider in what sense the debate remains irreducible.

In this work my aim to show that it is possible to address emotions by paying special attention to the sources of conflict between cogni-tivists and non-cognitivists but by questioning the framework within which they have been erected. The path I propose aims to establish a new way of approaching the antagonism between somatic and cognitive approaches to emotions, which has had so much influence on the investigation of emo-tions, in light of one of the greatest problems that the somatic (...) approach faces: the problem of varia-bility. I will show how certain concepts acquire new meaning in the post-cognitivist framework and allow new (and better) answers to old problems regarding emotional phenomena. (shrink)

This paper takes as its focus William James' (1884, 1890) and Anthony Kenny's (1963) proposals and strives to show that their point of view is better understood when interpreted as proposals for investigations with different objectives and placed at different angles of complex research revolving around emotions. As James and Kenny are conceived, furthermore, as paradigmatic authors of, respectively, the none–cognitive and cognitive perspectives, this approach to the interpretation of their positions will create new access routes for a dialogue between (...) the traditions and will establish new grounds for a reconciliation between these conceptions in a more ample framework. (shrink)