Understanding Emotions

This title was first published in 2002: At the end of the 20th century, the emotions ceased to be a neglected topic for philosophical consideration. The editor suggests that this may, in part, be due to a change in the way the subject is approached. The emotions were characteristically thought of by philosophers as states which give rise to perturbation in what might roughly be called "right-thinking". The basic idea was that practical reasoning, like theoretical reasoning, ought to be, and can be, dispassionate.