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Reconciling Cognitive and Perceptual Theories of Emotion: A Representational Proposal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Louis C. Charland
Louis C. Charland*
Affiliation:
Clinical Trials Research Group, Biomedical Ethics Unit, McGill University
*
†Send reprint requests to the author, Clinical Trials Research Group, Biomedical Ethics Unit, Faculty of Medicine, 3690 Peel Street, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1W9.
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Abstract

The distinction between cognitive and perceptual theories of emotion is entrenched in the literature on emotion and is openly used by individual emotion theorists when classifying their own theories and those of others. In this paper, I argue that the distinction between cognitive and perceptual theories of emotion is more pernicious than it is helpful, while at the same time insisting that there are nonetheless important perceptual and cognitive factors in emotion that need to be distinguished. A general representational metatheoretical framework for reconciling cognitive and perceptual theories is proposed. This is the Representational Theory of Emotion (RTE). A detailed case study of Antonio Damasio's important new contribution to emotion theory is presented in defense of the RTE. The paper is intended for readers interested in the foundations of emotion theory and cognitive science.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 555 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1997

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank Evan Thompson and Andrew Wayne for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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