The Science of Emotion: Mind, Body, and Culture

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Unfortunately, the article is not easy to evaluate in current form. In this review, I will present two assessments depending on the goals (as I suspect) the author of this article might have set for herself.

Based to the tone, the style and the choice of issues, it seems that the author presents an overview of his own research and the research particularly important for the development of his own approach to emotions. If my assumption is correct and this satisfies the editors of the special issue of Philosopies, the text is an interesting self-presentation and can be published with minor amendments.

However, if the text intended to be a review of current philosophical research on emotions, then, unfortunately, it does not deal with many important philosophical issues at the moment and requires much more serious additions. For example, despite of the author's appreciation of the 4E approaches, in the reviewed work, the findings on the role or the function of the body experience, or the physiological factors of emotions were almost completely ignored.

Regardless of the author's goal:

- The title of the paper is too general and it should be changed to better reflect its content;

- The author repeatedly writes that she presents arguments, but only presents theses, describes positions, etc. This could be improved.

- The author announces that she will refer to research that is important to her under 4E and after initial announcements, she does not return to these issue.

As additional doubts, it can be indicated that:

- the author makes extensive reference to the problem of natural kinds, in this case it is worthwhile to refer to the existing literature, for example the discussion on Barrett's article directly concerning natural kinds from „Perspectives on Psychological Science” (Barrett 2006).

- The functions of anger, disgust and shame mentioned at the end of the article seems controversial and separate from those existing in the literature, therefore they should be better presented together with a more detailed description of the self (not limited only to indicating a certain human character).

- In the literature, we find some works mentioning to the role of the pain (ultimately fear) in shaping the boundaries of the self, as well as the important role of shame (as a self-conscious emotion) in the formation of a typically human form of self-awareness (eg Lewis 2008). However the role of disgust and anger in shaping the boundaries of the self is surprising and, to put it mildly, not obvious. So, it should be described in more details.

Other:

121-124 It is not clear what exactly the author means here by mental;

125 - 144 It seems worth check to the current work arguing that patients with blindsight are minimally aware (Phillips 2021);

213 - 220 Why: "Thus, as I argued, the debate regarding the question of whether or not emotions are natural kinds or social constructions, or whether emotion is a natural kind or social construction, cannot be resolved by any evidence regarding the cultural diversity of a concept. ”?

- on the one hand, even the anecdotal examples cited by Danziger (1997, pp. 1-5) seems to contradict this;

- on the other hand, there is no argument in this passage;

229 - it seems that the term "cognitively penetrable" is used here completely non-canonically (it does not mean, for example, the influence of believes on perception) and either should be changed or described in more detailed way;

References - it is possible that this is a feature of referencs in Philosophies (unlike, for example, Entropy), but it is not clear to me why in many bibliographical items appears so many times (even five times), which makes the bibliography unnecessarily extensive.

Ref.:

Barrett LF. Are Emotions Natural Kinds? Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2006;1(1):28-58. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00003.x

Danziger, K. (1997), Naming the Mind. How Psychology Found its Language, Sage, London.

Lewis, M. (2008). Self-conscious emotions: Embarrassment, pride, shame, and guilt. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jones, & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 742–756). The Guilford Press.

Phillips, I. (2021). Blindsight is qualitatively degraded conscious vision. Psychological Review, 128(3), 558.

Author Response

 The referee's decision seems to be a mutually exclusive disjunction. I will note, however, that the aim of the paper is very clearly noted in abstract, the clarity of which Referee 2 praised; and I will not be changing the aim of this paper since it sufficiently fulfills the requirements noted in the CFP.

Reviewer 2 Report

The study is prepared with really good content, except for the formal side. This is evidenced by many bibliographic references. What can certainly be criticized is the absence of a separate conclusion. I require the author to separate the conclusion at the end of the study and develop it. I also require the elaboration of some discussion on the problem, where the results that the study arrived at would be summarized.

The authors aim to develop a study of how philosophy can inform the science of emotions. I appreciate the precisely written introduction. Furthermore, it is possible to positively appreciate the review of the literature, which is really very broad. The authors are trying to make a calculation of different points of view from which the issue can be understood. Among other things, they touch on Aristotle's hylemorphism. They also try to include meta-semantic pluralism and the extended mind thesis in the problem. The study also touches on the cultural context of the issue. The authors seek to discuss the question of cultural universality and diversity in the context of emotions. The authors recognize that there is a difference between expressing emotions and recognizing emotions. The study also tries to deal with the issue of the cultural revolution. The authors also touch on the coevolution of culture in the sense of the development of culture. They also discuss the topic of tribal instincts in the context of this evolution. In this sense, we consider their analysis to be sufficiently deep (Bicchieri-cluster etc.). Here they mainly rely on the theorists Kelly and Davis. The key term in this context is Minimal Account. The authors talk about different rules, for example, they try to capture exactly the emotion of anger. The authors consider the tribal instinct, which can be considered righteous anger, to be a normative motivation. Furthermore, the authors deal with the motivational effect of shame, especially moral shame. Despite the fact that at the end they also describe the consequence of the author's proposal, the study must contain a discussion and a conclusion. From this point of view, the study is not formally completed. There are plenty of bibliographical sources, including new current literature.

Author Response

Referee 2 seems not to have understood my paper to the extent that their comments would warrant any reply. I recommend that Reviewer 2 read the revised manuscript, which I already submitted, and reconsider their comments while keeping in mind that my paper is not a “study.” 

Revised Review Report (Reviewer 2):  I note that the author has implemented my reservations that I had against the previous version. Now the manuscript is fine. I recommend releasing it in its latest version.

Reviewer 3 Report

See the attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Referee 3,

Thank you for your comments and edits! Please see my replies in the attached PDF file. I hope my edits and replies are sufficient.

Best wishes, 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

None.

Author Response

Please see the revised version below.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf