The Rationality of Emotion (Bradford Books) [Paperback]

Ronald de de Sousa (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bradford Books | Publication Date: March 14, 1990

In this urbane and witty book, Ronald de Sousa disputes the widespread notion that reason and emotion are natural antagonists. He argues that emotions are a kind of perception, that their roots in the paradigm scenarios in which they are learned give them an essentially dramatic structure, and that they have a crucial role to-play in rational beliefs, desires, and decisions by breaking the deadlocks of pure reason.The book's twelve chapters take up the following topics: alternative models of mind and emotion; the relation between evolutionary, physiological, and social factors in emotions; a taxonomy of objects of emotions; assessments of emotions for correctness and rationality; the regulation by emotions of logical and practical reasoning; emotion and time; the mechanism of emotional self-deception; the ethics of laughter; and the roles of emotions in the conduct of life. There is also an illustrative interlude, in the form of a lively dialogue about the ideology of love, jealousy, and sexual exclusiveness.Ronald de Sousa teaches philosophy at the University of Toronto. A Bradford Book.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Granting that some things we call emotions, e.g., moods, are subjective, de Sousa contends that emotions typically intend aspects of the objective world and can be rationally appraised. He alleges that we standardly learn the vocabulary of emotion by associating emotion-names with paradigm scenarios of early life that subsequent cultural experience reinforces. Thereafter, emotional objectivity arises in terms of the similarities between an emotion's new target-situation and its paradigm scenario. He works out his theory in considerable detail and with commendable clarity. Highly recommended for college philosophy collections. Robert Hoffman, York Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"De Sousa builds his case in a highly informed and readable way. He is in complete control of the literature on the emotions (historical, philosophical, physiological, and psychological). He also manages to bring in an extraordinary range of references from surprising places - Erica Jong, André Gide, Dorothy Dinnerstein. This sort of humane ease and wide-ranging vision makes for fun and often funny reading, but always, happily, in the service of the main argument. One of the virtues of de Sousa's book is that it offers an analysis of the emotions that will be congenial to many philosophers working in the cognitivist tradition." Owen Flanagan , Wellesley College

"De Sousa demolishes just about all the reasons there could be for thinking that there is anything intrinsically irrational or anti-rational about any interestingly wide class of emotions, and makes a good case for the claim that we are capable of rationality - thought, reasoned decision and social coordination - largely because we are the creatures with the emotions we have. This is an interesting and important claim." Times Higher Education Supplement

"One of the virtues of de Sousa's book is that it offers an analysis of the emotions that will be congenial to many philosophers working in the cognitivist tradition." Owen Flanagan , Wellesley College,

Product Details

• Paperback: 395 pages
• Publisher: A Bradford Book (March 14, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262540576
• ISBN-13: 978-0262540575
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,075,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some excellent ideas but heavy going., August 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Rationality of Emotion (Bradford Books) (Paperback)

An interesting book. It is also a unique book in that the author tackles a topic not many have dwelled upon in 20th century thought. He presents emotion as a kind of perception that guides or organizes reason, but I would like to have seen more on this since he touches upon it briefly. The rest of the book is an excursion into epistemology and the author's own thoughts and evaluations. The book would have benefited from more examples as well. Come with a rich vocabulary (e.g., homunculi) and be prepared to tolerate rereading and dense language in attempting to follow arguments. I am not quite sure about the intended audience, but it would seem to be editors of philosophy or psychology journals, or the staff of philosophy departments. The average reader would need 2 to 3 times the number of pages to understand what is being talked about. This is a pity because the topic is important. Interestingly he uses 'she' for general reference. Overall, although it seems to be more of a skeptical justification that is bogged down in the analytic, cognitive approach, it is worth reading for the excellent ideas but does require forbearance.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Philosophy is still the mother of science, February 13, 2009

By 

Guy Denutte "A concerned citizen" (Cali, Colombia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rationality of Emotion (Bradford Books) (Paperback)

I bought this book when I casually bumped into it in a bookshop. I was immediately captured by its intriguing title. The western culture we live in considers the rationality of emotion as absolute nonsense. (Some years later, I would read Antonio Damasio's "Descartes' Error" who takes this argument a step further, and convincingly shows that our emotional brain ultimately produces rationality !)

To prove his point, Ronald de Sousa focuses on the way our emotions evolve during our lifetime. He starts his investigation with the way philosophy has treated emotions so far, trying to classify them, but without being able to come up with the definitive list. He then formulates the following hypothesis : "... yet it cannot be denied that there are, in other animals as in human babies, modes of behavior that we take to express something like human emotions. I think we can understand, in principle, how our repertoire of emotions gets built up, without positing a set of "primary emotions" that get combined like basic blocks or even mixed like primary colors. We do need a repertoire of primitive instinctual responses, but emotions are not mere responses. My hypothesis is this : We are made familiar with the vocabulary of emotion by association with paradigm scenarios. These are drawn first from our daily life as small children and later reinforced by the stories, art, and culture to which we are exposed. Later still, in literate cultures, they are supplemented and refined by literature. Paradigm scenarios involve two aspects : first, a situation type providing the characteristic objects of the specific emotion-type, and second, a set of characteristic or "normal" responses to the situation, where normality is first a biological matter and then very quickly becomes a cultural one."

What makes us human is the development of our emotions, not the capacity to do mental arithmetic or read a map. Our neocortex is an extension of our limbic system, our emotional brain. That explains also why all our actions are motivated by our emotions. Morality goes hand in hand with underlying emotions.

Now, the beauty of philosophy lies in the fact that de Sousa has been proven right by scientific investigation *afterwards*, confirming once again that philosophy is the mother of science. Helen Fisher would show in her book "Why we love", published in 2004, that when brain scans are performed on people that recently fell in love, compared to people who have a stable relationship for some years, there is a clear displacement of brain activity from the limbic system to the neocortex, from "being in love" as a primary emotion to "love" as a moral emotion.

2 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too embued with subjectivism to be a really good book, August 7, 2000

By 

Ernest Brown (Columbia, MO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rationality of Emotion (Bradford Books) (Paperback)

De Souza's book is an interesting examination of a little-understood or discussed topic in philosophy, but it suffers from an excess of currently-fashionable subjectivism/skepticism.