Transtheoretical Understanding of the Emotions

Abstract

Individual theories of the emotions tend to isolate themselves from others and in doing so they necessarily lack the strengths of the other theories. The dogmatic spat between cognitive and non-cognitive theories of the emotions, which I explore here, is symptomatic of this insularity. To have a satisfying understanding of the emotions we must acknowledge the strengths and discard the weaknesses of each theory. As such, I argue that it is only through dialogue between theories that we can achieve a strong conceptualisation of the emotions.