Friday, July 12, 2019

Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions are Made ***

The goal of this book is to argue for the theory of constructed emotion and against the classical essentialist theory of emotion. Our experience and interpretation of emotional states is not universal or innate but rather conceptual.

I was very impressed in the early chapters by Barrett's clear presentation of how constructionism works, how it differs from relativism, and how it doesn't deny the reality of the constructed experiences. Her examples are well chosen, such as how different cultures actually see different stripes within a rainbow. I am a strong constructionist, so I delighted in the friendly exposition and in the idea that Barrett had neurological evidence to back it up.

Things got a little wonky when Barrett delved deeper into the brain science. Her explanatory aptitude dried up: the explanations were neither informative nor illuminating. Then things went off the rails in the second half of the book. She wants to explore how the theory of constructed emotion affects -- or should affect -- our views on human nature, healthcare, and the law, but her observations are trite (try yoga! be aware of your biases!) and often don't follow from the theory (rational thought and emotional reactions are not independent, which could be equally true with an essentialist theory of emotion).

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