Emotion: Thought and feeling.
Item
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Title
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Emotion: Thought and feeling.
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Identifier
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AAI3330368
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identifier
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3330368
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Creator
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Hitt, James Michael.
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Contributor
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Adviser: David M. Rosenthal
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Date
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2008
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Philosophy | Psychology, Cognitive
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Abstract
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The dissertation asserts emotions are essentially personal. I advance a particular version of intentionalism: Thought provides the individuation conditions among the varied emotions.;I explore two questions about The Principles of Psychology by William James: The question of whether the notion of the unconscious in The Principles captures the contemporary notion and the question of whether The Principles adopts heterophenomenology or autophenomenology. More importantly, I argue that James's theory of emotion is cognitive.;This discussion sets the stage for exploring the question of whether intentional approaches that center on the emotional experience provide a better explanation compared to approaches that center on thought. I provide a unified interpretation of Action, Emotion and Will by Anthony Kenny and show the text captures key features of an intentional approach that centers on occurrent thought. Such a view runs through the work of William Lyons and Robert Gordon.;I address criticisms presented by Patricia Greenspan, Peter Goldie, and Paul Griffiths and I am critical of Peter Goldie's and Robert Solomon's intentionalism that adopts a kind of feeling with content. I show the position relies for support on inference to the best explanation and rebut varied arguments that an intentionalism that centers on thought will fail to capture emotional experience. Furthermore, I make use of David M. Rosenthal's higher-order thought theory of consciousness and homomorphism theory to show that one can provide a naturalistic account of the phenomenal difference between bodily feeling and non-bodily feeling. Lastly, I argue that feeling fails to capture the personal nature of emotion.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
