Overview

Charles Darwin is known as a biologist, geologist, and naturalist, but he was also a philosopher. This book uncovers Darwin's forgotten philosophical theory of emotion, which combines earlier associationist theories with his theory of evolution. The British associationists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries argued that the mind operates primarily through the association of ideas, and that emotions are strings of thoughts, feelings, and outward expressions, connected by habit and association. Charles Darwin's early notebooks on emotion reveal a keen interest in associationist philosophy. This book shows that one of his final works, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), is a work of associationist philosophy, and analyzes Darwin's revolutionary idea: that if the associations that produce emotions can be inherited, then the theory of evolution can explain how emotions first occurred in simpler organisms and then developed and were compounded into the complex experiences humans have today.

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9781009538244

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Reviews

'Darwin's Philosophy of Emotion provides an engaging, insightful, and thorough discussion of Darwin's work on emotions and expression in the context of psychological theories of the time. The claim that we are basically all wrong about Darwin's thinking about emotion is a bold one, but Glazer absolutely backs it up. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Darwin, the history of psychology, and theories of the emotions.' Mike Dacey, Bates College

Author Information

Trip Glazer is an associate professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Dayton. He has published a number of articles in journals including Biology and Philosophy, Inquiry, Hypatia, Synthese, and Consciousness and Cognition.

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