True to Our Feelings

Robert Solomon died on 2 January 2007, aged almost 65. Ronald de Sousa's obituary captures the essence of the man, and can be found at http://www.aesthetics-online.org/memorials/solomon.html. This book was his last, and thus reflects his final thoughts on a topic on which he had published much over his academic life. The emotions are a popular topic in philosophy these days. After an extended period of dominance by approaches that highlight the cognitive content of emotions, there is now a change of direction: in America, in particular, philosophical study has joined with those of the empirical sciences (both empirical psychology and neuroscience). Although there is no consensus, those working in this field incline to the view put forward by William James, that emotions are biological reactions to external events. James focused on the autonomic nervous system and endocrinal changes, while recent theories focus on the central nervous system, and on the brain in particular

Aesthetics · Cognition · Dominance (genetics) · Empirical psychology · Epistemology · Feeling · Focus (optics) · Obituary · Period (music) · Philosophy of psychology · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Theology · Cognitive Science and Education Research · Neuroscience · Philosophy · Psychology