Emotion: The Science of Sentiment - Softcover

Evans, Dylan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019285433X ISBN 13: 9780192854339

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Was love invented by European poets in the middle ages, as C. S. Lewis claimed, or is it part of human nature? Will winning the lottery really make you happy? Is it possible to build robots that have feelings? These are just some of the intriguing questions explored in this new guide to the latest thinking about the emotions.
Drawing on a wide range of scientific research, from anthropology and psychology to neuroscience and artificial intelligence, Emotion: The Science of Sentiment takes the reader on a fascinating journey into the human heart. Illustrating his points with entertaining examples from fiction, film, and popular culture, Dylan Evans ranges from the evolution of the emotions to the nature of love and happiness to the language of feelings, offering readers the most recent thinking on real life topics that touch us all. But Emotion is also a book filled with surprises. Readers will discover, for instance, that the basic emotions are felt the world over--whether we live in the shadow of Times Square or in the depths of the rain forest, we all feel the emotions of disgust, joy, surprise, anger, fear, and distress. We find out that, according to research, winning the lottery does not cause a lasting increase in happiness--a short-lived euphoria is followed in almost every case with a return to our usual emotional state, if not worse. And we meet Kismet, an MIT robot that can express a wide range of emotions, from fear to happiness.
Fun to read and based on the latest scientific thinking, here is a stimulating look at our emotions.

About this title

About the Author

Dylan Evans is a Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at King's College London, where he directs a research project in the evolution of the emotions. In his previous lives he worked as a film-maker and psychotherapist.

Reviews

Does emotion hamper our ability to function as intelligent and responsible creatures, or ist it actually an evolutionarily determined mechanism? In this wide-ranging discussion of the relationship between intelligence, feeling and our capacity to make rational judgments, Evans (Introducing Evolutionary Psychology) taps the insights of such Western philosophers as Hume, Plato, Kant and C.S. Lewis. Arguing that many "basic" emotions such as joy and anger are universal rather than culturally specific, Evans suggests that emotions must have become part of our "common biological inheritance" because they were advantageous to us as a species. Unfortunately, he cites few psychological or scientific studies to buttress his claims about the "science of sentiment," relying instead upon seductive but unsupported statements such as "the reason that falling in love makes us happy is that those of our ancestors who liked falling in love were more likely to pass on their genes than those who preferred solitude." This volume's major flaw is Evans's resistance to fully defining the term "emotion" until the final chapter, insisting instead, "Definitions... can easily become intellectual straightjackets." Still, the book's simple, sleek design and eye-catching cover will draw attention.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019285433X
• ISBN 13: 9780192854339
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192