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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Journal | Volume | Article

142735

R. Hufendiek, Embodied emotions

Imke von Maur

pp. 979-984

Abstract

In Embodied Emotions Rebekka Hufendiek offers an alternative to cognitivist and non-cognitivist theories of emotions by developing – as the subtitle announces – “a naturalist approach to a normative phenomenon”. Her aim is to neither over-intellectualize emotions, as she thinks cognitivists do by highlighting mind, nurture and culture, nor to be inadequately reductionist, as she claims non-cognitivists tend to be, by highlighting body, nature and evolution. Hufendiek defines emotions as “embodied action-oriented representations that are embedded within a social context”. What makes her theory an original contribution to current debates in the philosophy of emotions and 4-E approaches to the mind is inter alia her externalist explanation of emotions’ normative dimension (i.e. that they can be (in)appropriate): “It is an individual’s environment that is meaningful, and it is the whole organism that is well equipped to respond to the affective affordances in its environment.” (2016, 176)...

Publication details

Published in:

(2017) Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16 (5).

Pages: 979-984

DOI: 10.1007/s11097-017-9507-1

Full citation:

von Maur Imke (2017) „R. Hufendiek, Embodied emotions“. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 16 (5), 979–984.