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3 - What Is Emotion?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2023

Tim Wharton
Affiliation:
University of Brighton
Louis de Saussure
Affiliation:
Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
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Summary

The goal of this chapter is to answer the question: what is emotion? We begin by presenting a brief overview of the early history of emotion studies, charting a trajectory from the study of emotions from Aristotle in classical times through to the work of St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and from Descartes to Hume. and We then move on to those thinkers who are, arguably, responsible for the very beginnings of modern enquiry into emotion study: Charles Darwin and William James. We offer a summary of the three main theoretical approaches to affective science that exist today: the so-called basic emotion view, the psychological-constructionist view and appraisal theory. We will claim there are a number of reasons to favour the appraisal theory account, one of the principal of which is of these being that there are good reasons to suggest it is the one that marries most successfully with relevance theory, the pragmatic framework we adopt. As such, it offers a route ahead for genuinely interdisciplinary research involving those working in pragmatics and those working in affective science.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • What Is Emotion?
  • Tim Wharton, University of Brighton, Louis de Saussure, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
  • Book: Pragmatics and Emotion
  • Online publication: 13 December 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108869867.003
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  • What Is Emotion?
  • Tim Wharton, University of Brighton, Louis de Saussure, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
  • Book: Pragmatics and Emotion
  • Online publication: 13 December 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108869867.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • What Is Emotion?
  • Tim Wharton, University of Brighton, Louis de Saussure, Université de Neuchâtel, Switzerland
  • Book: Pragmatics and Emotion
  • Online publication: 13 December 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108869867.003
Available formats
×