On Emotions (a conference report)

In this post our PhD student Isaura Peddis reports from the second annual conference of the European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotions (EPSSE).

The EPSSE is a young not-for-profit organisation, which was born to satisfy the demand for a deeper understanding in the subject of emotions and give a chance to those who, like me, are interested in this subject to connect together and share ideas.

The society hosted its second annual conference at the University of Edinburgh between the 14 and 17 July. 97 speakers from all around the globe participated in the conference and presented several topics and perspectives connected to the study of emotions; for example, aesthetic philosophy, theoretical philosophy, moral philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of mind and ancient philosophy.

I had the pleasure to attend the conference as a member of the audience and as a speaker. The number of speakers and the quality of their work, made it difficult for me to choose what talks to attend. Among all the talks available the ones that I most enjoyed, due to the nature of the topic, were those by Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl (“The challenge of forgiveness: Shallow and Deep, Moral and Non-Moral”), Laura Candiotto ("Aporetic State: The Shameful Recognition of Contradictions in the Socratic Elenchus") and Christina Werner ("How can we be moved by the Fate of an Abstract Artefact? Created Non-spatial Entities as Intentional Objects of Fictional Emotions").

I presented my paper, "Aristotle and his Archetypal Classical Cognitive Theory of Emotions: a Philosophical Myth", during the second day of the conference. It was a big surprise for me to discover that my paper was selected to be presented during the section dedicated to ancient philosophy. When it comes to ancient philosophy, I consider myself to be an amateur who has a soft spot for the ancient Greek philosophy; therefore it was an honour to have the opportunity to share my ideas with those who not only share my passion but also are competent in the topic. In my paper, I argue that Aristotle cannot be considered a cognitivist; my assertion is based on the analysis of passages where Aristotle sketches out the passions and those where he outlines the sensitive faculty and determines that, inside his philosophy, the body, together with the cognition, has a role in the arousal of emotions.

The annual conference is not the only occasion where the members meet. In order to encourage the interaction between its members, the EPSSE, runs workshop all year round. The two upcoming for the next year are “Love and Time” that will take place in Israel in March 2015 and “The meaning of Moods” that will be held in Basel in December 2015. 

Athens is the city chosen for the third annual conference in 2016, therefore, Aristotle, wait for me at the Lyceum and I will share with you my ideas!

Was Aristotle a Cognitivist about the Emotions?

Logo of the EPSSE

Our PhD student Isaura Peddis had her paper on Aristotle and the emotions accepted for presentation at a conference in Edinburgh in July 2015, organised by the European Philosophical Society for the Study of the Emotions. 

The paper is entitled: "Aristotle and his archetypal classical cognitive theory of emotions: a philosophical myth".

Contemporary Cognitive Theories of Emotions and Aristotle

Doctoral researcher Isaura Peddis considers whether cognitive theories of emotion are supported by the writings of Aristotle.

“The Emotions are all those feelings that so change men as to affect their judgments, and that are also attended by pain or pleasure. Such are anger, pity, fear and the like, with their opposites.” (Aristotle, 2008:1378a 24-26)

Aristotle is often quoted by researchers of cognitive theories of emotions to confirm the validity of their positions. However, he has never dedicated an entire piece of work to emotions; instead, he integrated them in larger topics of investigation - rhetoric in The Art of rhetoric, or happiness in Nicomachean Ethics. Therefore, in order to reconstruct Aristotle’s idea of emotions, one must compile sections referring to emotions in his different works to recreate his theory of emotions. Some of those sections have been misread and others were not considered at all, which has caused Aristotle to be wrongly labelled the “the prototypical cognitive theory of emotion”(Power and Dalgleish, 1997: 41).


Roughly speaking, the cognitive theories of emotions attribute a key role to judgments (or appraisals) in the arousal of emotions; I judge an object or situation and, from this evaluation along with the involvement of my body and its physical reactions, arises an emotion. For example, I see my father is kissing a woman, try to gain a clearer view of the situation and discover the woman is not my dad’s wife but his secretary. As a result of this judgement, I feel sad and start to cry. Emotions and feelings are different things, but emotions impact on our bodies through feelings.


Aristotle affirms that an emotion occurs when three conditions are satisfied: (Aristotle, 2008: 1378 a 24-33) a) the person must be in a suitable state of mind to experience the emotion, b) there must be a stimulus – internal mental state – of a certain type to generate the emotion, c) there must be an object – an external event – of the appropriate kind for the emotion to arise (Power and Dalgleish, 1997: 40). Anger, for example, is an emotion experienced by a person who, whilst in a particular state of mind, makes a judgement, such as this person wants to hurt my best friend, about someone.

It cannot be denied that Aristotle writes about judgement, as cognitivists do. Nevertheless, the same quotes that point to this common feature also point out a huge difference: the importance of the “state of mind”. Aristotle says that, to feel an emotion, one must be in a certain state of mind. Instead, the classical cognitive theories of emotion attribute a role to the state of mind, but define it as an opinion as an opinion or belief regarding an object. To Aristotle, the state of mind designates “a sort of feeling” which may well be connected with an opinion about an object elaborated previously, but can also influence how we feel about the opinion of another object that is not related to the previous one.


For example, if I have spent eight hours at work without a break, a lot of customers complaining for no reason, and cannot find a parking space for my car when I arrive home, I will be mad at my neighbour for parking in my spot without any authorisation. Instead, after spending a day off having fun with friends, I will react differently to the same situation and opinion related with it; I will still think that I cannot park because my neighbour’s car is on my spot, but I might not be mad because I am still in a good mood due to the wonderful day that I have had.


Aristotle. (2008) The Art of Rhetoric: Megaphone eBooks

Power M and Dalgleish T. (1997) Cognition and emotion : from order to disorder, Hove, East Sussex, UK:Psychology Press.