Author Reply: We Don't Yet Know What Emotions Are (But Need to Develop the Methods to Find Out). (July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Adolphs, Ralph; Andler, Daniel
• Is Part Of: Emotion review. Volume 10:Number 3(2018:Jul.)
• Page Start: 233
• Page End: 236
• Publication Date: 2018-07
• Subjects: emotion -- feelings -- functionalism; Emotions -- Periodicals; Emotions -- Research -- Periodicals; 152.4
• DOI: 10.1177/1754073918772092
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1754-0739

Abstract

Our approach to emotion emphasized three key ingredients. (a) We do not yet have a mature science of emotion, or even a consensus view—in this respect we are more hesitant than Sander, Grandjean, and Scherer (henceforth "SGS") or Luiz Pessoa (henceforth "LP"). Relatedly, a science of emotion needs to be highly interdisciplinary, including ecology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. (b) We recommend a functionalist view that brackets conscious experiences and that essentially treats emotions as latent variables inferred from a number of measures. (c) But our version of functionalism is not definitional or ontological. It is resolutely methodological, in good part because it is too early to attempt definitions.