Thinking About Feeling: Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions

Philosophers since Aristotle have explored emotion, so the new emphasis on emotion in Anglo-American philosophy is the rediscovery of a discipline that is very old and has always been essential to the "love of wisdom." Today, it has become evident to most philosophers that emotions are ripe for philosophical analysis, a view supported by a considerable number of excellent publications. Emotions have now become mainstream. In this volume, I have tried to bring together some of the best Anglo-American philosophers now writing on the philosophy of emotion. I have solicited chapters from those philosophers who have already distinguished themselves in the field of emotion research and have interdisciplinary interests, particularly in the social sciences. It is impossible to study the emotions today without engaging with contemporary psychology and the neurosciences. Philosophy has always been (in its own mind, at least) "the queen of the sciences." Thus the essays included here should appeal to a broad spectrum of emotion researchers as well as philosophers interested or at least curious about their emotions.