What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories (Science and Its Conceptual Foundations series) [Paperback]

Paul E. Griffiths (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226308723 | ISBN-13: 978-0226308722 | Publication Date: August 12, 1998 | Edition: 1

In this provocative contribution to the philosophy of science and mind, Paul E. Griffiths criticizes contemporary philosophy and psychology of emotion for failing to take in an evolutionary perspective and address current work in neurobiology and cognitive science. Reviewing the three current models of emotion, Griffiths points out their deficiencies and constructs a basis for future models that pay equal attention to biological fact and conceptual rigor.

"Griffiths has written a work of depth and clarity in an area of murky ambiguity, producing a much-needed standard at the border of science, philosophy, and psychology. . . . As he presents his case, offering a forthright critique of past and present theories, Griffiths touches on such issues as evolution, social construction, natural kinds (categories corresponding with real distinctions in nature), cognition, and moods. While addressing specialists, the book will reward general readers who apply themselves to its remarkably accessible style."—Library Journal

"What Emotions Really Are makes a strong claim to be one of the best books to have emerged on the subject of human emotion."—Ray Dolan, Nature

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Griffiths (philosophy, Otago Univ., New Zealand) has written a work of depth and clarity in an area of murky ambiguity, producing a much-needed standard at the border of science, philosophy, and psychology. Essentially, he argues that our concept of emotions, grounded in modern psychology, encompasses and thereby conflates utterly different human responses. As he presents his case, offering a forthright critique of past and present theories, Griffiths touches on such issues as evolution, social construction, natural kinds (categories corresponding with real distinctions in nature), cognition, and moods. While addressing specialists, the book will reward general readers who apply themselves to its remarkably accessible style. For academic and large public libraries.?E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 293 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (August 12, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226308723
• ISBN-13: 978-0226308722
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #908,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The concept of emotion is useless, July 22, 2001

By 

Stephen B. Wilson (Tacoma, Wa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories (Science and Its Conceptual Foundations series) (Paperback)

I found this book very useful for expandng my knowledge about how science and psychology form logical categories of emotion. I think he makes a good case for the lack of specificity or clarity of thinking in using one class, emotion, for all the different terms people use for the feelings and emotions in daily life. Since this book was written Antonio Damasio has a new book, "The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotions In The Making of Consciousness. This work answers some of questions raised by Griffith concerning the higher cognitive feelings and the disclaimed actions or, as if, feelings. I think this book should be read alongside James Hillman's "Emotion" to give a more rounded historical and philosphical view to the topic. His writing style is abstract in that he often does not turn his concepts into description, instead points to another concept or idea which assumes the reader clearly understands both which I did not at times. Nevertheless, I recommend the book and learned alot from it.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough, careful, and profoundly useful, December 28, 2000

By 

Todd I. Stark "Cellular Wetware plus Books" (Philadelphia, Pa USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories (Science and Its Conceptual Foundations series) (Hardcover)

This is a breath of fresh air, a thorough and detailed acccount of the scientific and philosophical issues behind human emotions that does justice to virtually all of the data. The author takes a definite stand against "propositional" theories of emotion (based on intuitively defined beliefs and desires), but makes very clear what the alternatives are and what data lies behind them from the major research programs.

One of the most interesting aspects is an excellent discussion of the power and limits of "adaptationism," where we may be able to explain emotions as evolved adaptive mechanisms, and where other explanations serve better.

This is a book that everyone with a slightly more than casual interest in evolutionary psychology or sociobiology can probably benefit from, whether they are proponents or critics. The reasoning behind evolutionary explanations and where they fall short is particularly good.

As might be expected, the author doesn't leave us with a specific theory of emotions so much as a renewed way of looking at the questions, and a better understanding of how to interpret data claimed to support a particular theory of emotions.

This book joins another one co-authored by Griffiths, "Sex and Death" also by Kim Sterelny, as two of the most useful books available for understanding the central issues for studying human psychology informed by biology.

28 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Modern psychology reviewed by modern philosophy, June 27, 2001

By 

Jean-Francois Virey (59500 DOUAI France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories (Science and Its Conceptual Foundations series) (Paperback)

Like so many modern philosophy books, *What Emotions Really Are* is not so much a systematic treatise as a loosely integrated collection of articles with its occasional gaps and redundancies - in the image of the ugly collage on the cover. It is divided into two parts : « Emotion » and « The Nature of Psychological Categories », the second of which contains a fifty-page digression on « natural kinds » with only a thin theoretical connection to the main topic of the book.

Griffiths does a good job reviewing the major modern theories of emotion and showing how the least defective of them do explain some of what folk psychology means by « emotion ». But his main thesis is that the latter category has to be rejected because it does not « carve nature at the joints » and actually covers a very heterogeneous collection of psychological phenomena. Griffiths proposes to replace it with several distinct categories like « affect programs », basic, stereotyped, transcultural and even transspecific responses ; more complex emotions that vary across cultures ; « socially sustained pretenses » based on some form of self-deception ; and « moods », a concept he parachutes in the last chapter.

The book contains a few interesting remarks on the nature / nurture dichotomy, explaining how even genetically encoded behaviour is not immune to environmental influences.

The more epistemological chapters, however, are typical of modern philosophy in their embarrassment with reality, their vacuous neologisms and their wonderfully droll verbal contorsions (« My concept of cat is about cats because its existence depends on cats by the particular kind of causal pathway appropriate to being about »). A particularly funny by-product of the absurdities blurted forward by modern philosophers is that commonsense gets to be « discovered » by even hipper philosophers who refer to it with such obscure jargon that you might not even recognize grandpa's down-to-earth wisdom. For instance, « Boyd 1991 » originated the principle of the « metaphysical innocence of theory construction », which tells us among other things that « the decision to classify certain events fifty years ago as child abuse has no effect on those events because no natural causal mechanism can reach them from the present. »

My favorite new concept is that of « causal homeostasis », which Griffiths introduces in an attempt to get rid of reality in his account of natural kinds. A category is said to have causal homeostasis if the correlations it identifies among its referents have « some underlying explanation that makes [the category] projectable », i.e. if the « theoretical significance » of these correlations is such that they can be extrapolated to « unobserved instances ». Apart from the jargon, this is not altogether silly. However, Griffiths uses it to give the concept of essence a « less metaphysical » (i.e. less reality-oriented) definition as « any theoretical structure that accounts for the projectability of a category »...

As a review of the psychological theories currently in vogue, this book can serve as a starting point for an exploration of these theories, if you really have to. But this is the most I can say for it.