Nussbaum on the cognitive nature of emotions

• Autor(a) principal: Millán, Gustavo Ortiz
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Manuscrito (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/manuscrito/article/view/8647292
• topic: The cognitive nature of emotions

Martha Nussbaum tells us that emotions are cognitive value judgments. She claims that her theory, the neo-Stoic theory of emotions, can handle traditional objections to cognitive theories of emotions. However, in this paper I hold that she improperly takes advantage of the ambiguity of the term “cognition”: she faces the problems that arise when the term “cognition” is used in a very narrow sense (which claims that emotions are beliefs), resorting to a very wide sense under which any mental process is cognitive. I argue that this move does not solve the problems of the traditional cognitive theories of emotions. In order to show this, I distinguish four senses in which the term “cognitive” is used in theories of emotions, I analyze the ways Nussbaum uses them and why this move does not solve the traditional objections.