Is Emotion a Natural Kind?

Abstract

Abstract In Griffiths 1997 I argued that it is unlikely that all the psychological states and processes that fall under the vernacular category of emotion are sufficiently similar to one another to allow a unified scientific psychology of the emotions. The psychological, neuroscientific, and biological theories that best explain any particular subset of human emotions will not adequately explain all human emotions. In a slogan, emotions are not a natural kind (14–17; 241–47). I argued that the same is probably true of many specific emotion categories, such as anger and love (17). On some occasions when a person is properly said to be angry, certain psychological, neuroscientific, and biological theories will adequately explain what is happening to that person.