Emotions Embodied Revisited

CFS Lecture by Jesse Prinz, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

The lecture is open to all and all are welcome.

Abstract

Until recently, the central debate in emotion theory concerned the divide between embodied theories of emotions and cognitive theories that reject embodiment. As evidence for embodiment has accumulated, this division has become less polarized, with many researchers recognizing that an adequate theory of emotions should integrate bodily responses of some kind, with something akin to cognition.  Against that background, a number of alternatives have emerged. These include the embodied appraisal theory, theories emphasizing affordances, various enactivist approaches, and Sartre's phenomenological theory-which has under-appreciated embodied dimensions.  These and other options are critically assessed, and a theory is presented that builds on each of them. According to the proposal defended here, emotions are embodied imperatives.  On this approach, emotions are not representations of "core relational themes", as has long been suggested, but rather impart a sense of to-be-doneness