Basic emotions and their biological substrates

2001 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Zachar ◽  
Scott Bartlett

The thesis of this article is that an attitude akin to pragmatism is internal to the scientific enterprise itself, and as a result many scientists will make the same types of non-essentialistic interpretations of their subject matter that are made by pragmatists. This is demonstrably true with respect to those scientists who study the biological basis of emotion such as Panksepp, LeDoux, and Damasio. Even though these scientists are also influenced by what cognitive psychologists call the essentialist bias, their research programs are coherent with Peter Zachar’s rejection of natural kinds in favor of practical kinds. When the confrontation with complexity leads a scientist to offer non-essentialist interpretations, two popular options are to go eliminativist or go nominalist. Pragmatists prefer the nominalistic option, and we provide reasons for suggesting that scientists should as well.

Author(s):  
Susan A. Gelman ◽  
Elizabeth A. Ware

The article focuses on conceptual development in children. There are two primary components to psychological essentialism, which include the belief that certain categories are natural kinds and the belief that there is some unobservable property. Psychologists examine the psychological representations of concepts whereas philosophers have examined essentialism with the goal of addressing a range of issues such as psychological, semantic, and metaphysical. The study of essentialism in children provides insights into children's cognition and information regarding the roots of human concepts. Essentialism includes several component beliefs, including that categories have sharp, immutable boundaries, that category members share deep, nonobvious commonalities, and that category membership has an innate, genetic, or biological basis. Kamp and Partee suggest that categories are seen with absolutely sharp boundaries only in abstract domains. Essentialism does not require that categories be treated as absolute but essentialism is the claim that category boundaries are intensified. Essentialism emerges early and consistently, does not require formal schooling, and if anything may be even stronger in early childhood than later. The detailed studies of parental input to children about categories also suggest that parents do not provide explicit instruction about essentialist beliefs.


Diachronica ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Lass

SUMMARY Historical Linguistics is less realist and much more conventinal-ist than many of us think or like to think. Historical 'truth', by virtue of the epistemological status of the past, is not attainable in the same sense as 'truth' in nonhistorical disciplines. Theories and techniques are therefore partly constitutive of 'data': or the histo-riogaphy partly creates its own subject-matter. Theory-based creation enters via two kinds of interventions: (a) the use of present-based constraints as determinants of what historical events must have been or most probably were ('uniformitarianism'); and (b) the free creation of metaphors (verbal, geometric, etc.) that indicate potential 'natural kinds' which are then up for critical discussion. The example of metaphor-creation treated here in detail is the development of the notion 'chain-shift'. Within the Anglicist tradition the 'invention' of the Great Vowel Shift has had an enormous enriching effect on the domain of discourse — which remains, regardless of whether it was 'in fact' as Karl Luick and others thought it was. RÉSUMÉ La linguistique historique est moins 'réaliste' et plus 'conven-tionnelliste' que beaucoup parmi nous le pensent ou aiment de penser. 'La vérité' historique, en vertu du statut épistémologique du passé, ne peut pas être atteinte dans le même sens que 'la vérité' dans les disciplines non-historiques. Par consequent les théories et les techniques d'anakyse font part en partie des 'données': ou bien l'historiographie crée en partie son propre sujet. La création à la base d'une théorie y entre à travers deux sortes d'interventions: (a) l'utilisation des contraintes basées sur le présent comme des déterminants de ce que les événements historiques doivent avoir été ou très probable ment ont été ('l'uniformitarianisme'), et (b) la création libre des métaphores (verbales, géométriques, etc.) qui signalent des 'éspèces naturelles' qui par la suite se prêtent à la discussion critique. L'exemple d'une création métaphorique dont on traite ici en détail c'est la notion de 'changement en chaîne'. A l'intérieur de la tradition angliciste 1''invention' de la 'Great Vowel Shift' a eu un effet énormément enrichissant sur le domaine du discours scientifique — un effet qui reste irrespectivement s'il était 'en effet' ce que Karl Luick et d'autres ont pensé de ce phénomène. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Die historische Linguistik ist weniger 'realistisch' und mehr 'konventionalistisch' als viele von uns glauben oder glauben möchten. Historische 'Wahrheit' ist angesichts des epistemologischen Status' der Vergangenheit nicht in derselben Weise erreichbar wie die 'Wahrheit in den nicht-historischen Disziplinen. Theorien und Techniken machen daher einen Teil der 'Daten' aus; umgekehrt schafft die Historiographie teilweise ihren eigenen Untersuchungsgegenstand. Solche theoriebegründete Schaffung ergibt sich durch zweierlei Interventio-nen: (a) die Verwendung von der Gegenwart entnommenen Beschränkungen als Bestimmungsfaktoren für was geschichtliche Ereignisse gewesen seien oder höchstwahrscheinlich waren ('Uniformitarianismus') und (b) die freie Schöpfung von (verbalen, geometrischen usw. ) Metaphern, die mög-liche 'natürliche Sorten' anzeigen, die dann für die kritische Diskus-sion freigestellt werden. Hier wird als Beispiel einer Metaphern-Schöpfung das Konzept der 'Kettenverschiebung' und dessen Entwicklung ausführlich behandelt. Innerhalb der anglistischen Tradition hat die 'Erfindung' der 'Great Vowel Shift' einen enorm bereichernden Effekt auf dem Gebiete des wissenschaftlichen Austausches gehabt, und dieser bleibt unabhangig davon, ob sie 'tatsächlich' in der Weise bestanden hat wie Karl Luick und andere vermeinten.


Author(s):  
Günter P. Wagner

This chapter examines the implications of homology as a scientifically credible concept for the metaphysics of evolutionary biology, that is, the question of whether such words as “characters” can refer to real things. It first considers the relationship between philosophy and science before discussing how the notions of class, individuals, and natural kinds relate to the conceptual proposal in this book. To introduce the idea of a class, the chapter looks at the history of the concepts of acids and bases. It then describes the notion of natural kinds and emphasizes the usefulness of definitions and models in the study of character evolution and development. It concludes by arguing that characters can be understood as natural kinds, if the latter notion is appropriately modified.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Kseniya Vladimirovna Novikova

The subject of this research is the examination of capabilities of psychological correction of neuropsychiatric state of people who have suffered a stroke in the conditions of sensory room. The goal consists in correction of neuropsychiatric state of people who have suffered a stroke. The methodological framework is comprised on the provisions of V. L. Zhevnerov, L. B. Baryaeva, Y. S. Gallyamova on the therapeutic effect of sensory room; provisions on effect of color upon the emotional state of a person formulated by M. Lüscher., G. G. Vorobyov, V. V.  Nalimov. V. M. Elkin. The article provides the results of experimental research of the capabilities of psychological correction of neuropsychiatric state of people who have suffered a stroke in the conditions of sensory room. The theoretical importance of this work consists in systematization of theoretical positions on the subject matter. The practical significance consists in the fact that the acquired results can be applied by practical or clinical psychologist in working with people who have suffered a stroke, in rehabilitation institutions, as well as with people with disabilities. The scientific novelty lies in substantiation of the effect of color and light upon the improvement of neuropsychiatric state of people who have suffered a stroke. The acquired results can considerably expand the representations of capabilities of practical work of the clinical psychologist, as well use of the method of chromo therapy. The implementation of such method indicates the improvement of neuropsychiatric state of people who have suffered a stroke: reduction of anxiety; prevalence of hyperthymic type of mental state reflected in such basic emotions as interest and wondering; improvement of the indicators of emotional comfort, adaptivity, acceptance of self and others.


2007 ◽  
Vol 2007 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rochus Sowa

Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology which he characterized as an eidetic science of transcendentally reduced phenomena aims at least at material-apriori laws of a special kind, namely eidetic descriptive laws built up from pure descriptive concepts. The paper explicates Husserl’s notion of essence in the broad sense as a state-of-affairs-function (Sachverhaltsfunktion); this noematic function is the objective „correlate“ of the propositional function which we call a „concept“ and which is part of the proposition, i.e. the state-of-affairs-meaning (Sachverhaltsmeinung), in which a state of affairs is projected. Essences in the narrow or pregnant sense are pure essences which Husserl named „Eidé“. The concept of pure essence relevant for the phenomenological descriptive eidetics is elucidated through the explication of Husserl’s notion of a pure descriptive concept, so as to show how these concepts, which are pure type concepts, differ from impure descriptive concepts, especially from concepts denoting natural kinds. Grounded exclusively in pure descriptive concepts, the eidetic descriptive laws (Wesensgesetze) have special truth conditions and a need for special ways of examination. The proper place of the method called „eidetic variation“ is the examination, falsification or justification of presumed eidetic descriptive laws. Starting from familiar exemplary cases of states of affairs which confirm the presumed law, the free variation, which operates in pure fantasy, has the task of constructing possible counterexamples to falsify the presumed eidetic law. The property of being falsifiable by counterexamples constructed in pure fantasy allows for a distinction between empirical laws and the eidetic descriptive laws of Husserlian eidetics. The falsifiability by fictional and factual counterexamples shows that Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology is a scientific enterprise open to intersubjective examination precisely due to its eidetic character.


2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carroll E. Izard

Research on emotion flourishes in many disciplines and specialties, yet experts cannot agree on its definition. Theorists and researchers use the term emotion in ways that imply different processes and meanings. Debate continues about the nature of emotions, their functions, their relations to broad affective dimensions, the processes that activate them, and their role in our daily activities and pursuits. I will address these issues here, specifically in terms of basic emotions as natural kinds, the nature of emotion schemas, the development of emotion—cognition relations that lead to emotion schemas, and discrete emotions in relation to affective dimensions. Finally, I propose a new paradigm that assumes continual emotion as a factor in organizing consciousness and as an influence on mind and behavior. The evidence reviewed suggests that a theory that builds on concepts of both basic emotions and emotion schemas provides a viable research tool and is compatible with more holistic or dimensional approaches.


PMLA ◽  
1935 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 1320-1327
Author(s):  
Colbert Searles

THE germ of that which follows came into being many years ago in the days of my youth as a university instructor and assistant professor. It was generated by the then quite outspoken attitude of colleagues in the “exact sciences”; the sciences of which the subject-matter can be exactly weighed and measured and the force of its movements mathematically demonstrated. They assured us that the study of languages and literature had little or nothing scientific about it because: “It had no domain of concrete fact in which to work.” Ergo, the scientific spirit was theirs by a stroke of “efficacious grace” as it were. Ours was at best only a kind of “sufficient grace,” pleasant and even necessary to have, but which could, by no means ensure a reception among the elected.


Author(s):  
Glen B. Haydon

High resolution electron microscopic study of negatively stained macromolecules and thin sections of tissue embedded in a variety of media are difficult to interpret because of the superimposed phase image granularity. Although all of the information concerning the biological structure of interest may be present in a defocused electron micrograph, the high contrast of large phase image granules produced by the substrate makes it impossible to distinguish the phase ‘points’ from discrete structures of the same dimensions. Theory predicts the findings; however, it does not allow an appreciation of the actual appearance of the image under various conditions. Therefore, though perhaps trivial, training of the cheapest computer produced by mass labor has been undertaken in order to learn to appreciate the factors which affect the appearance of the background in high resolution electron micrographs.


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