Emotions, Appraisals, and Embodied Appraisals

Abstract

Jesse Prinz’s recent perceptual theory of emotion honors the central Jamesian claim that the emotion follows, and is actually caused by, the syndrome of bodily changes which are typical of emotional reactions. Prinz also thinks that emotions essentially involve appraisals of the object of emotion but, in the light of certain arguments supporting the central Jamesian claim, he concludes that these appraisals must be in any case embodied. In this paper, I will first raise three concerns with Prinz’s view and, second, I will present an alternative, the multidimensional appraisal theory of emotion, and argue that this alternative can accommodate successfully the Jamesian arguments without any need to honor the central Jamesian claim.