Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion (Philosophy of Mind) [Hardcover]

Jesse J. Prinz (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195151453 | ISBN-13: 978-0195151459 | Publication Date: August 12, 2004

Gut Reactions is an interdisciplinary defense of the claim that emotions are perceptions of changes in the body. This thesis, pioneered by William James and resuscitated by Antonio Damasio, has been widely criticized for failing to acknowledge that emotions are meaningful insofar as they represent concerns, not respiratory function and blood pressure. Fear represents danger, sadness represents loss. To explain this fact, many researchers conclude that emotions must involve judgments regarding one's relationship to the environment. Prinz offers a new unified account of the emotions that reconciles these two theories. He argues that emotions are embodied appraisals--they are perceptions of the body, but, through the body, they also allow us to literally perceive danger, loss, and other matters of concern.

The basic idea behind embodied appraisal theory is captured in the familiar notion of a "gut reaction," which has been overlooked by much emotion research. Using recent work in semantics, Prinz show how emotions can be meaningful without incorporating judgments or other cognitive states. Criticizing those who think that some emotions are social constructions, while others can be explained by evolutionary psychology, Prinz argues that all emotions are the same kind of phenomena, involving both nature and nurture.

Prinz also distinguishes emotions from other affective states, such as motivations and moods, and offers a theory of emotional valence (what makes some emotions good and others bad). Ultimately, his theory of emotion consciousness is inspired by recent research on the neural correlates of conscious vision. Drawing a parallel between emotion consciousness and visual consciousness, Prinz shows that emotion is a form of perception in the fullest sense. Where vision reveals the identity of objects in a given situation, emotion reveals how that situation bears on our well-being.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Excellent... Prinz's book is utterly compelling and a valuable read for any student or researcher of the emotions, philosophy of mind and perception."--Metapsychology Online Book Reviews

"Jesse Prinz's wide-ranging knowledge of the cognitive sciences makes this book a watershed contribution to the field of emotion research. His embodied appraisal theory, which attempts to mediate between recent neurobiological approaches and the cognitive theories that have dominated philosophical thinking, is a major step forward in the debate. Because Prinz builds his case on a richly detailed account of empirical research, I recommend this as the book to read on the renaissance of emotion in the last two decades, in neuroscience and psychology as well as philosophy."--Robert M. Gordon, University of Missouri, St. Louis

"In this philosophically deep and scientifically erudite work, Jesse Prinz provides the first systematic philosophical account of the emotions grounded in 'affective neuroscience.' This rapidly developing science has had a major influence on recent philosophy of mind and moral psychology. Through his searching analysis of its conceptual underpinnings Prinz throws light on many of the central issues in the philosophy of mind. Essential reading for philosophers of mind and for emotion researchers in all disciplines."--Paul Griffiths, University of Pittsburgh

"Jesse Prinz's Gut Reactions is an exciting book. I couldn't put it down, but I fought with it every inch of the way. I found myself forced to look at the emotions through a "brain's eye view" instead of by way of my usual humanist perspective. Thirty years ago, a younger generation employed excessive but effective polemics against the Jamesian paradigm. Prinz energetically returns the favor, but now it is we cognitivists and social constructionists who are on the defensive."--Robert C. Solomon, The University of Texas at Austin

About the Author

Jesse Prinz is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Furnishing the Mind, in which he defends the view that all concepts have their basis in perception, and two forthcoming titles. In The Emotional Basis of Morals, he argues that moral concepts essentially involve emotions, and, in eyond Human Nature, he argues that culture and experience shape human thought.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195151453
• ISBN-13: 978-0195151459
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,777,796 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Ground Breaking Re-Evaluation of Emotion and Percpetion, March 11, 2006

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Dr. Richard G. Petty (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion (Philosophy of Mind) (Hardcover)

This is an interesting and challenging book.

Challenging, not in the sense of being difficult, but in terms of its presentation of an array of ideas that are not as well known as they should be.

A central concept is that emotions are not simply generated in the brain, but are instead our perceptions of changes in the body. This idea has long history stretching back to the Ancient Greeks, the Ancient Taoist writers and some Hindu philosophers. In more recent times the fundamental thesis can be traced back the Harvard psychologist and philosopher William James, who is often - and with good reason - called the father of modern psychology. In recent years Antonio Damasio from the University of Iowa has not just resurrected the idea, but expanded and developed it.

Yet there is obviously more to an emotion of fear than an increase in heart rate. Therefore some researchers have proposed that emotions are a form of environmental perception, while other have suggested that though an emotion might start with a physical perception, that perception is leavened by constant judgments concerning our relationship with our environment.

Jesse Prinz from the University of North Carolina takes the theory an important step further. He argues that emotion is a form of perception that tells us something about our well being. When we feel an emotion, it is first of all derived from the body. Yet we all have the experience of emotions being meaningful. In the Prinz scheme of "embodied appraisals," emotions are body derived, meaningful, but they do not require either judgment nor cognition. They just are. He also goes to some lengths to distinguish between emotions and other affective states, like moods and motivations.

This is an attractive model, that takes account of our personal experiences, as well as clinical observations, and the ways in which some people respond better to body therapies than to talk therapies.

The theory will doubtless need to be revised as more information is gathered about the mind/brain/body connection. But this is a book which will be of great interest to anyone interested in these connections, or for anyone who works with or experiences emotional issues.

It requires some background in basic neuroscience and psychology, but it is a book that will repay a little effort many times over.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Rehabilitation of William James; only this time with reason..., October 19, 2008

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A Philosophy and Ethics Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion (Philosophy of Mind) (Paperback)

Prinz's book is another, though particularly sophisticated, attempt to rehabilitate William James' theory of emotion in philosophy. It draws upon Prinz's wide-ranging and thorough knowledge of recent work done in cognitive neuroscience and marries this with his avowed commitment to empiricist principles.
Basically, the trick Prinz plays is as follows:
James claimed emotions were the perception of certain feelings or sensations (not perceptions or judgments of states of affairs in the world that bring about the feelings, as the cognitivists claim). For James, we have these sensations in response to states of affairs in the world, and then we perceive those sensations (we perceive our cold sweat and raised heartbeat as fear). It is our perception of this sensation that IS the emotion.
Now, the upshot of James's theory is that our emotions are arational or irrational irruptions in an otherwise rational life.
Cognitivists have contested this. Authors such as Solomon in The Passions, Kenny in his now classic Action, Emotion and Will, Goldie in The Emotions, the cognitivist psychologist Richard Lazarus in his Emotion and Adaptation, Nussbaum in her (much maligned) Upheavals of Thought, Gabriele Taylor in her Pride, Shame, and Guilt and so on have all argued, contra James, that emotions are constituted by judgements or evaluative beliefs (or intentional feeling in Goldie's version).
Prinz seeks to rehabilitate James but in a manner that doesn't imply that emotions are arational or irrational. He wants to revive James's theory though made more robust through the adoption of some of the insights of cognitivism--chiefly Lazarus's version. Prinz does this by imbuing those gut reactions with psychosemantic content by rendering Lazarus's notion of core relational themes sub-personal. You might find this move of Prinz's to be either an ingenious piece of philosophical theory or a peice of hopelessly flawed metaphysics. Phil Hutchinson has argued forcefully in his Shame and Philosophythat the latter depiction is most accurate (and he then offers an alternative framework for understanding emotion: "world-taking cognitivism"). Wherever one stands, Prinz's book should not be ignored. Just, don't believe the hype!