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Are Emotions Psychological Constructions?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Charlie Kurth
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Abstract

According to psychological constructivism, emotions result from projecting folk emotion concepts onto felt affective episodes. While constructivists acknowledge there is a biological dimension to emotion, they deny that emotions are (or involve) affect programs. So they also deny emotions are natural kinds. However, the essential role that constructivism gives to felt experience and folk concepts leads to an account that is extensionally inadequate and functionally inaccurate. Moreover, biologically oriented proposals that reject these commitments are not similarly encumbered. Recognizing this has two implications: biological mechanisms are more central to emotion than constructivism allows, and the conclusion that emotions are not natural kinds is premature.

Type
Cognitive Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 86 , Issue 5 , December 2019 , pp. 1227 - 1238
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

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To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Western Michigan University, 1903 W. Michigan Ave., Mail Stop 5328, Kalamazoo, MI 49008; e-mail: charles.kurth@wmich.edu.

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