Robert C. Solomon, the
editor of Thinking About Feeling, is himself a central force in the
recent renaissance of philosophical discussion of the emotions.  This
collection allows him and other major figures to document the current state of
the field as it enters its fourth decade.  The contributors include such
prominent philosophers as Martha Nussbaum, Jon Elster, and Ronald De Sousa.  The
main issues addressed include the question of whether the emotions should be
viewed as primarily cognitive phenomena — judgments about the world —
or as aspects of the brain’s biology; the relationship between "primitive"
"animalistic" emotions and more refined and complex emotions; the
relationship between emotions and felt conscious states; the contribution of
culture to emotion; the extent of our responsibility for our own emotions; and the
connection between emotions and personal values.  The book’s last section of
essays asks whether it even makes any sense to talk about "the emotions"
as a usefully homogeneous category worthy of study in its own right.  It
concludes with Amelie Oksenberg Rorty’s paper, "Enough Already with ‘Theories
of the Emotions,’" which brilliantly exposes the tactics used by various
philosophers to conceptually gerrymander the category of "emotions"
in order to leave counterexamples to their own theories safely out in the cold.

While Thinking About
Feeling offers a good overview of the field, it cannot really serve as an
introduction to it.  No attempt is made to stoke-up the reader’s interest; it
is assumed people come to this book already convinced of the importance of its
topic. While some of the articles, such as Jerome Neu’s "Emotions and
Freedom" and John Deigh’s "Primitive Emotions" should pose no
problem to the intelligent general reader, others are loaded with passing
references to the professional literature.  The latter offer invaluable
roadmaps of the intellectual terrain for researchers and graduate students, but
make rather rough going for the lay reader.  

The book’s secondary title, Contemporary
Philosophers on Emotions, points to two further aspects of the book that
limit its usefulness for the non-specialist.  Firstly, its scope is limited to contemporary
discussion, much of which is consciously built upon the work of the Greek
philosophers (i.e., Aristotle and the Stoics) and of modern classical philosophers
such as Spinoza, David Hume, and William James.  It is worthwhile gaining some
acquaintance with those earlier authors first-hand before approaching today’s
debates.  Secondly, all of the authors included are philosophers.  The strict
disciplinary segregation of philosophy from psychology and cognitive
neuroscience does not really make sense when they are all engaged in the same
intellectual project – the formulation of a viable theory of the emotions.  Many
of the articles are deeply engaged with the work of scientists, but only
card-carrying philosophers are allowed to speak for themselves.

All-in-all this book is an
invaluable resource for people who already acquainted with the philosophy of
the emotions and who are interested in sharpening their understanding of the
current debate.  Beginners would be much better served by Solomon’s own What
Is an Emotion?: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Oxford University Press,
2003).

© 2005 Berel Dov Lerner

Born in Washington, D.C., Berel Dov Lerner studied at Johns
Hopkins and the University of Chicago,
before becoming a member of Kibbutz Sheluhot in Israel’s
Beit Shean Valley.  He completed his Ph.D. at Tel-Aviv University, and currently teaches philosophy at the Western Galilee Academic College.  His first book, Rules, Magic and Instrumental
Reason was published in 2001 by Routledge.

Categories: Philosophical