Recently a psychologist, Magda Arnold, wrote that ‘the psychology of emotion is difficult enough for the researcher and theorist … Because research is so prolific and results are so confusing, most psychologists working in this field either content themselves with an uncritical review of findings related to emotions, or restrict themselves to their own work and a short review of the findings of others in a very limited area … without any attempt to relate these results to a connected theory of emotion’ (introduction to Arnold, 1968). Even more recently Robert Solomon, a philosopher, wrote that ‘emotion has almost always played an inferior role in philosophy, often as antagonist to logic and reason … Along with this general demeaning of emotion in philosophy comes either a wholesale neglect or at least retail distortion in the analysis of emotion’ (Solomon, 1977).

Even if one thinks that these judgments are a little harsh, it is probably true to say that nowadays emotion is a relatively neglected topic in philosophy. When it is discussed, the tendency is to concentrate on specific problems to the neglect of any attempt to show how these problems might be related to one another or how proposed solutions to these problems might affect our overall view of the nature of emotion. Indeed the tendency is to concentrate on one particular canonical set of problems or areas of discussion, namely the distinction between feelings and emotions, the connection between emotion and object, emotions and belief, the expression of emotion, and the justification of emotions.