Epistemology and Emotions

by Brun,Georg

• ISBN13: 9780754661146
• ISBN10: 0754661148
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-08-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Undoubtedly, emotions sometimes thwart our epistemic endeavours. But do they also contribute to epistemic success? The thesis that emotions "skew the epistemic landscape", as Peter Goldie puts it in this volume, has long been discussed in epistemology. Recently, however, philosophers have called for a systematic reassessment of the epistemic relevance of emotions. The resulting debate at the interface between epistemology, theory of emotions and cognitive science examines emotions in a wide range of functions. These include motivating inquiry, establishing relevance, as well as providing access to facts, beliefs and non-propositional aspects of knowledge. This volume is the first collection focusing on the claim that we cannot but account for emotions if we are to understand the processes and evaluations related to empirical knowledge. All essays are specifically written for this collection by leading researchers in this relatively new and developing field, bringing together work from backgrounds such as pragmatism and scepticism, cognitive theories of emotions and cognitive science, Cartesian epistemology and virtue epistemology.

Table of Contents

A new role for emotions in epistemology?

Emotion and understanding

Epistemic immediacy, doubt and anxiety: on a role for affective states in epistemic evaluation

Virtues, emotions and fallibilism

Conflict without contradiction

Epistemic immediacy and reflection

Critical reflections on affective epistemology

Misleading emotions

How cognition meets emotion: beliefs, desires and feelings as neural activity

Epistemic feelings

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Undoubtedly, emotions sometimes thwart our epistemic endeavors. But do they also contribute to epistemic success? The thesis that emotions 'skew the epistemic landscape', as Peter Goldie puts it in this volume, has long been discussed in epistemology. Recently, however, philosophers have called for a systematic reassessment of the epistemic relevance of emotions. The resulting debate at the interface between epistemology, theory of emotions and cognitive science examines emotions in a wide range of functions. These include motivating inquiry, establishing relevance, as well as providing access to facts, beliefs and non-propositional aspects of knowledge.