How can we develop the sensitivity necessary for playing music or making crafts? How can teachers make their lessons interesting? In what ways can consumers avoid undue influence? How do we acquire refined tastes, or come to believe what we want to believe? Addressing these issues and providing an account for tackling personal and societal problems, Rolf Reber combines insights from psychology, philosophy, and education to introduce the concept of 'critical feeling'. While many people are familiar with the concept of critical thinking, critical feeling denotes the strategic use of feelings in order to optimize an outcome. Reber discusses the theoretical and empirical foundations of critical feeling and provides an overview of applications, including well-being, skill learning, personal relationships, business, politics, school, art, morality, and religion. This original and thought-provoking study will interest a broad range of researchers, students, and practitioners.

'Reber’s thorough and scholarly book presents refreshingly new and important insights on how feelings may be empowering.'

Ellen Langer - Harvard University

'How can we use our feelings as a source of information in making decisions that foster harmony between our thoughts, feelings, values, and actions? Drawing on insights from Western and Eastern philosophy, virtue education, and experimental research in psychological science, Critical Feeling takes the reader on an enriching and stimulating exploration that provides an important counterpoint to the more familiar exploration of critical thinking.'

Norbert Schwarz - University of Southern California

'This book exemplifies many important recent trends in research at the intersection of psychology, philosophy and educational theory: a renewed focus on the cognitive value of the emotions, a reappraisal of the importance of virtue ethics and self-cultivation techniques, and (perhaps most significantly) the increased conceptual sophistication and breadth we are seeing as psychologists take on board insights from philosophy, religious studies, history and other fields. An interdisciplinary tour de force.'

Edward Slingerland - University of British Columbia, and Director, Cultural Evolution of Religion Research Consortium

'This highly innovative book persuasively demonstrates that feelings can be strategically trained by appropriate practices. Such ‘critical’ feelings are shown to allow individuals to enhance their sensitivity to moral or artistic values, to broaden their learning abilities, to improve their reasoning and to foster their creative thinking. This important idea is centrally relevant to academic fields such as philosophy, psychology and the social sciences, but also should be a major source of inspiration for teachers, parents and for everyone interested in personal development.'

Joëlle Proust - Institut Jean-Nicod, Fondation Pierre-Gilles de Gennes pour la Recherche, École Normale Supérieure