Concluding Remarks
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks 2011 DOI: 10.1057/9780230297715_8 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that emotion and affect, grounded in lived bodily experience, are not in tension with cognition but enable effective decision-making, moral evaluation, and understanding of self and others, and proposes that human consciousness and cognition are desire-based, emotive, essentially embodied, and enactive. |
Abstract
This book has explored the connection between emotion, cognition, and the essentially embodied nature of consciousness. Its central aim has been to bring together important work being done in philosophy of mind, philosophy of emotion, and philosophical psychology so as to move toward a new theoretical framework in which all of our conscious experience and cognition can be understood as inherently arising out of active, living, essentially embodied, and emotive interactions with our surroundings. I have challenged the widely held philosophical assumption that the emotions are somehow in tension with or undermine cognition and intellect. Instead, I highlight how emotion and affect, which are essentially bound up with our lived bodily experience, allow for effective decision-making, moral evaluation, and the ability to understand others and ourselves. This discussion reveals, in my view, that human consciousness and cognition are desire-based emotive, essentially embodied, and enactive.