Review by Choice Review
In a series of loosely related essays, Turski (Concordia Univ.) examines the relationship between the emotions and particular features of being human--intentionality, expression and language, sense of self, responsibility, self-deception, and moral agency. Turski's claim that the emotions play a rational role in lived experience is inspired by the Continental philosophers Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger. The emotions are "postures" or stances we adopt that reflect our engagement with the world. Turski's unique contribution to the growing philosophical literature about emotion is his departure from the rendering of emotions as private, subjective states, in favor of an analysis that locates the emotions in a social and cultural setting. Some implications of this contextual analysis: Nonhuman animals do not have emotions; there are no universal human emotions constant across cultures; and infants (or even young children) have emotional states that only vaguely resemble the emotional states of adults. A welcome companion to Ronald de Sousa's The Rationality of Emotion (1987). Graduate; faculty. B. A. Dixon; SUNY College at Plattsburgh
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
