In this article I articulate the Theory of Affective Pragmatics, which combines insights from the Basic Emotion View and the Behavioral Ecology View of emotional expressions. My core thesis is that emotional expressions are ways of manifesting one’s emotions but also of representing states of affairs, directing other people’s behaviors, and committing to future courses of actions. Since these are some of the main things we can do with language, my article’s take home message is that, from a communicative point of view, much of what we can do with language we can also do with nonverbal emotional expressions.

The theoretical construct of functional reference is the main tool used by animal communication researchers to explore how animals refer to the world in the absence of a language. Functionally referential signals are commonly defined as signals elicited by a specific class of stimuli and capable of causing behaviors adaptive to such stimuli in the absence of contextual cues. I will argue that this definition is conceptually flawed and propose an alternative definition according to which signals can functionally refer to things that rarely cause them while relying on the essential contribution of contextual cues.

Lindquist et al. have assumed that functional specialization requires a one-to-one mapping between brain regions and discrete emotions. This assumption is in tension with the fact that regions can have multiple functions in the context of different, possibly distributed, networks. Once we open the door to other forms of functional specialization, neuroimaging data no longer favor constructionist models over natural kind models.

I argue that Machery stacks the deck against hybrid theories of concepts by relying on an unduly restrictive understanding of coordination between concept parts. Once a less restrictive notion of coordination is introduced, the empirical case for hybrid theories of concepts becomes stronger, and the appeal of concept eliminativism weaker.

It is commonly assumed that the scientific study of emotions should focus on discrete categories such as fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, shame, guilt, and so on. This view has recently been questioned by the emergence of the “core affect movement,” according to which discrete emotions are not natural kinds. Affective science, it is argued, should focus on core affect, a blend of hedonic and arousal values. Here, I argue that the empirical evidence does not support the thesis that core affect is a more “natural” category than discrete emotions. I conclude by recommending a splitting strategy in our search for natural affective kinds.

I examine the central theoretical construct of ecological psychology, the concept of an affordance. In the first part of the paper, I illustrate the role affordances play in Gibson's theory of perception. In the second part, I argue that affordances are to be understood as dispositional properties, and explain what I take to be their characteristic background circumstances, triggering circumstances and manifestations. The main purpose of my analysis is to give affordances a theoretical identity enriched by Gibson's visionary insight, but independent of the most controversial claims of the Gibsonian movement.