Theory of Constructed Emotion

Jared and Todd discuss the theory of constructed emotion and the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett. In contrast to a location-based understanding, in which discrete emotion categories consistently and specifically correspond to distinct brain regions, constructionism proposes that such emotion categories are constructed of more general brain networks not specific to those categories. We discuss degeneracy, the difference between affect and emotion, different forms of dualism, affinities to the philosophies of Kant and Wittgenstein, and the ways concepts and words have meaning.