Dylan Evans | London School of Economics and Political Science (original) (raw)
Papers by Dylan Evans
Emotion: A Very Short Introduction
The word ‘emotion’ is fairly recent. Before the 19th century, people talked instead about ‘passio... more The word ‘emotion’ is fairly recent. Before the 19th century, people talked instead about ‘passions’, ‘sentiments’, and ‘affections’. ‘What is an emotion?’ begins by outlining the complex history of these words before exploring the variety of emotional experience in different cultures. However, our common emotional heritage binds humanity together in a way that transcends cultural difference. It is now widely accepted among anthropologists and emotion researchers that some emotions, at least, are not learned, but innate. The universality of basic and higher cognitive emotions argues strongly for their biological nature, shaped by our common evolutionary history.
Emotion: A Very Short Introduction, 2019
‘The evolution of emotion’ argues that emotions were—and still are—vital for survival. Ever since... more ‘The evolution of emotion’ argues that emotions were—and still are—vital for survival. Ever since Plato, many Western thinkers have tended to view emotions as obstacles to intelligent action. We are all familiar with cases in which an excess of emotion prevents people from acting intelligently. The opposite idea—the positive view of emotion—is that emotions are vital for intelligent action. Until recently, this idea had not been popular among philosophers and psychologists, but considerations drawn from evolutionary theory and neuroscience now argue in its favour. The evolution of emotions such as fear, anger, joy, disgust, guilt, love, and revenge are considered along with the relationship between emotions and morality.
Oxford University Press, Sep 26, 2019
When people speak of cognition and emotion, or of reason and the passions, they are usually refer... more When people speak of cognition and emotion, or of reason and the passions, they are usually referring to two distinct mental faculties. One of them is cool, calm, and collected and works towards its conclusions slowly by means of explicit logical rules. The other is hot, colourful, and jumps to conclusions by consulting gut feelings. However, just because the heart works independently of reason does not mean it lacks reasons. On the contrary, the Afterword concludes that the things that emotions do all have their reasons, and sometimes these reasons are very good ones. Not only are there passions within reason, but there are reasons within passion.
Emotion: A Very Short Introduction, 2019
The range of things that can make us joyful or distressed is simply vast. Is there any pattern un... more The range of things that can make us joyful or distressed is simply vast. Is there any pattern underlying this bewildering diversity? ‘How to be happy’ explores what makes us happy by considering some of the main findings in contemporary research on the psychology of positive emotions and happiness. It discusses the ‘technologies of mood’ that promise to provide us with short cuts to happiness, from psychotherapy and art to drugs and meditation. It asks whether or not they work and discusses the dangers that beset some of these attempts to circumvent the more circuitous path to happiness that natural selection laid out for us.
In 1977 Luce Irigaray published a passionately written article in the journal Critique, entitled ... more In 1977 Luce Irigaray published a passionately written article in the journal Critique, entitled 'The Poverty of Psychoanalysis'. The text is a richly woven tapestry of diverse references and poetic resonances, and merits a close reading. However, rather than using Irigaray's essay as an exercise in textual analysis, I will use it here as a springboard for discussing certain aspects of the relationship between historicism and psychoanalytic theory. * This relationship is evoked by the very title of Irigaray's text. This title, which Irigaray declared would be incomprehensible to most of the analysts at whom the article was directed, I alludes to the title of a book by Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy (1847). Marx's work is an attack on the economic doctrines of Proudhon, whom he accuses of ignoring the historical relativity of economic categories. Marx argues that Proudhon is guilty of one of the characteristic fallacies of bourgeois ideology: in dehistoriciz...
In the past few decades, research in the psychology of emotion has benefited greatly from being l... more In the past few decades, research in the psychology of emotion has benefited greatly from being located in a firm evolutionary framework. It is argued that research in the psychology of mood might attain equal rigour by taking a similar approach. An evolutionary framework for mood research would be based on evolutionary psychology, the main thesis of which is the Massive Modularity Hypothesis. Translating the folk-psychological language of moods into the scientific language of modules might clarify many theoretical questions and provide a sound basis for empirical research. It is argued that such an evolutionary approach would reveal mood to be a much more heterogeneous category than emotion. While the six basic emotions identified by Paul Ekman are probably each subserved by a single module, prototypical moods such as elation, depression, anxiety and irritability are likely to be subserved by a wide range of modules. An evolutionary approach to mood might therefore lead to the elim...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020
Medical errors are a troubling issue and physicians should be careful to scrutinize their own dec... more Medical errors are a troubling issue and physicians should be careful to scrutinize their own decisions, remaining open to the possibility that they may be wrong. Even so, doctors may still be overconfident. A survey was here conducted to test how medical experience and self-confidence can affect physicians working in the specific clinical area. Potential participants were contacted through personalized emails and invited to contribute to the survey. The “risk-intelligence” test consists of 50 statements about general knowledge in which participants were asked to indicate how likely they thought that each statement was true or false. The risk-intelligence quotient (RQ), a measure of self-confidence, varies between 0 and 100. The higher the RQ score, the better the confidence in personal knowledge. To allow for a representation of 1000 physicians, the sample size was calculated as 278 respondents. A total of 1334 individual emails were sent to reach 278 respondents. A control group o...
Revista de Psicología, 2019
Este ensayo ha sido publicado en 2005 con el título de "From Lacan to Darwin" en The Li... more Este ensayo ha sido publicado en 2005 con el título de "From Lacan to Darwin" en The Literary Animal. Evolution and the Nature of Narrative (pp. 38-55), editado por Jonathan Gottschall y David Sloan Wilson, en la ciudad de Evanston, por la Northwestern University Press. La traducción al español estuvo a cargo de Joel J. Lorenzatti. El autor obtuvo por parte de Northwestern University Press el permiso correspondiente, de carácter no exclusivo, mundial, para el idioma español, y para las versiones impresa y electrónica. Copyright © 2005 by Notwhwestern University Press. Published 2005. All rights reserved.
Natural Language Processing, 2010
In a recent book entitled Love and Sex with Robots, the British scholar David Levy has argued tha... more In a recent book entitled Love and Sex with Robots, the British scholar David Levy has argued that relationships with robot Companions might be more satisfying than relationships with humans, a claim which I call “the greater satisfaction thesis” (GST). The main reason Levy provides in support of GST is that people will be able to specify the features of robot Companions precisely in accordance with their wishes (which I call the total specification argument or TSA). In this paper, I argue that TSA is wrong. In particular, the argument breaks down when we consider certain behavioral characteristics that we desire in our partners. I illustrate my argument with a thought-experiment involving two kinds of robot – the FREEBOT, which is capable of rejecting its owner permanently, and the RELIABOT, which is not
Handbook of Risk Theory, 2012
... Part 3:- Evolution and the Rationality of Emotion, 7: Chandra Sripada & Stephen S... more ... Part 3:- Evolution and the Rationality of Emotion, 7: Chandra Sripada & Stephen Stich: Evolution, culture and the irrationality of the emotions, 8: Gianmatteo Mameli: The role of emotions in ecological and practical rationality, 9: Dylan Evans: The search hypothesis of emotion, 10 ...
Citeseer
Abstract. The non-classical thesis of emotion (NCE) states that the conceptual resources of class... more Abstract. The non-classical thesis of emotion (NCE) states that the conceptual resources of classical cognitive science cannot adequately account for certain important features of emotion. It also states that these features can be adequately accounted for by employing the con-ceptual ...
Acupuncture, 2013
The standard way to establish the scientific credentials of a medical treatment is to show that i... more The standard way to establish the scientific credentials of a medical treatment is to show that it is more effective than a placebo. With pharmaceuticals, it is relatively easy to make a suitable placebo, but with acupuncture things are not so straightforward. A variety of placebos have been used in acupuncture trials. This paper examines the implications of the choice of placebo for (1) proper blinding, and (2) the nature of the hypothesis being tested in any given trial.
Emotion, Evolution, and Rationality, 2004
... Emoción: la ciencia del sentimiento. Información General. Autores: Dylan Evans; Editores: Tau... more ... Emoción: la ciencia del sentimiento. Información General. Autores: Dylan Evans; Editores: Taurus Ediciones; Año de publicación: 2002; País: España; Idioma: Español; ISBN : 84-306-0472-3. Otros catálogos. Bibliotecas Universitarias en las que se encuentra ( REBIUN ). ...
Http Www Libreriasaulamedica Com, 2003
Emotion: A Very Short Introduction
The word ‘emotion’ is fairly recent. Before the 19th century, people talked instead about ‘passio... more The word ‘emotion’ is fairly recent. Before the 19th century, people talked instead about ‘passions’, ‘sentiments’, and ‘affections’. ‘What is an emotion?’ begins by outlining the complex history of these words before exploring the variety of emotional experience in different cultures. However, our common emotional heritage binds humanity together in a way that transcends cultural difference. It is now widely accepted among anthropologists and emotion researchers that some emotions, at least, are not learned, but innate. The universality of basic and higher cognitive emotions argues strongly for their biological nature, shaped by our common evolutionary history.
Emotion: A Very Short Introduction, 2019
‘The evolution of emotion’ argues that emotions were—and still are—vital for survival. Ever since... more ‘The evolution of emotion’ argues that emotions were—and still are—vital for survival. Ever since Plato, many Western thinkers have tended to view emotions as obstacles to intelligent action. We are all familiar with cases in which an excess of emotion prevents people from acting intelligently. The opposite idea—the positive view of emotion—is that emotions are vital for intelligent action. Until recently, this idea had not been popular among philosophers and psychologists, but considerations drawn from evolutionary theory and neuroscience now argue in its favour. The evolution of emotions such as fear, anger, joy, disgust, guilt, love, and revenge are considered along with the relationship between emotions and morality.
Oxford University Press, Sep 26, 2019
When people speak of cognition and emotion, or of reason and the passions, they are usually refer... more When people speak of cognition and emotion, or of reason and the passions, they are usually referring to two distinct mental faculties. One of them is cool, calm, and collected and works towards its conclusions slowly by means of explicit logical rules. The other is hot, colourful, and jumps to conclusions by consulting gut feelings. However, just because the heart works independently of reason does not mean it lacks reasons. On the contrary, the Afterword concludes that the things that emotions do all have their reasons, and sometimes these reasons are very good ones. Not only are there passions within reason, but there are reasons within passion.
Emotion: A Very Short Introduction, 2019
The range of things that can make us joyful or distressed is simply vast. Is there any pattern un... more The range of things that can make us joyful or distressed is simply vast. Is there any pattern underlying this bewildering diversity? ‘How to be happy’ explores what makes us happy by considering some of the main findings in contemporary research on the psychology of positive emotions and happiness. It discusses the ‘technologies of mood’ that promise to provide us with short cuts to happiness, from psychotherapy and art to drugs and meditation. It asks whether or not they work and discusses the dangers that beset some of these attempts to circumvent the more circuitous path to happiness that natural selection laid out for us.
In 1977 Luce Irigaray published a passionately written article in the journal Critique, entitled ... more In 1977 Luce Irigaray published a passionately written article in the journal Critique, entitled 'The Poverty of Psychoanalysis'. The text is a richly woven tapestry of diverse references and poetic resonances, and merits a close reading. However, rather than using Irigaray's essay as an exercise in textual analysis, I will use it here as a springboard for discussing certain aspects of the relationship between historicism and psychoanalytic theory. * This relationship is evoked by the very title of Irigaray's text. This title, which Irigaray declared would be incomprehensible to most of the analysts at whom the article was directed, I alludes to the title of a book by Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy (1847). Marx's work is an attack on the economic doctrines of Proudhon, whom he accuses of ignoring the historical relativity of economic categories. Marx argues that Proudhon is guilty of one of the characteristic fallacies of bourgeois ideology: in dehistoriciz...
In the past few decades, research in the psychology of emotion has benefited greatly from being l... more In the past few decades, research in the psychology of emotion has benefited greatly from being located in a firm evolutionary framework. It is argued that research in the psychology of mood might attain equal rigour by taking a similar approach. An evolutionary framework for mood research would be based on evolutionary psychology, the main thesis of which is the Massive Modularity Hypothesis. Translating the folk-psychological language of moods into the scientific language of modules might clarify many theoretical questions and provide a sound basis for empirical research. It is argued that such an evolutionary approach would reveal mood to be a much more heterogeneous category than emotion. While the six basic emotions identified by Paul Ekman are probably each subserved by a single module, prototypical moods such as elation, depression, anxiety and irritability are likely to be subserved by a wide range of modules. An evolutionary approach to mood might therefore lead to the elim...
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020
Medical errors are a troubling issue and physicians should be careful to scrutinize their own dec... more Medical errors are a troubling issue and physicians should be careful to scrutinize their own decisions, remaining open to the possibility that they may be wrong. Even so, doctors may still be overconfident. A survey was here conducted to test how medical experience and self-confidence can affect physicians working in the specific clinical area. Potential participants were contacted through personalized emails and invited to contribute to the survey. The “risk-intelligence” test consists of 50 statements about general knowledge in which participants were asked to indicate how likely they thought that each statement was true or false. The risk-intelligence quotient (RQ), a measure of self-confidence, varies between 0 and 100. The higher the RQ score, the better the confidence in personal knowledge. To allow for a representation of 1000 physicians, the sample size was calculated as 278 respondents. A total of 1334 individual emails were sent to reach 278 respondents. A control group o...
Revista de Psicología, 2019
Este ensayo ha sido publicado en 2005 con el título de "From Lacan to Darwin" en The Li... more Este ensayo ha sido publicado en 2005 con el título de "From Lacan to Darwin" en The Literary Animal. Evolution and the Nature of Narrative (pp. 38-55), editado por Jonathan Gottschall y David Sloan Wilson, en la ciudad de Evanston, por la Northwestern University Press. La traducción al español estuvo a cargo de Joel J. Lorenzatti. El autor obtuvo por parte de Northwestern University Press el permiso correspondiente, de carácter no exclusivo, mundial, para el idioma español, y para las versiones impresa y electrónica. Copyright © 2005 by Notwhwestern University Press. Published 2005. All rights reserved.
Natural Language Processing, 2010
In a recent book entitled Love and Sex with Robots, the British scholar David Levy has argued tha... more In a recent book entitled Love and Sex with Robots, the British scholar David Levy has argued that relationships with robot Companions might be more satisfying than relationships with humans, a claim which I call “the greater satisfaction thesis” (GST). The main reason Levy provides in support of GST is that people will be able to specify the features of robot Companions precisely in accordance with their wishes (which I call the total specification argument or TSA). In this paper, I argue that TSA is wrong. In particular, the argument breaks down when we consider certain behavioral characteristics that we desire in our partners. I illustrate my argument with a thought-experiment involving two kinds of robot – the FREEBOT, which is capable of rejecting its owner permanently, and the RELIABOT, which is not
Handbook of Risk Theory, 2012
... Part 3:- Evolution and the Rationality of Emotion, 7: Chandra Sripada & Stephen S... more ... Part 3:- Evolution and the Rationality of Emotion, 7: Chandra Sripada & Stephen Stich: Evolution, culture and the irrationality of the emotions, 8: Gianmatteo Mameli: The role of emotions in ecological and practical rationality, 9: Dylan Evans: The search hypothesis of emotion, 10 ...
Citeseer
Abstract. The non-classical thesis of emotion (NCE) states that the conceptual resources of class... more Abstract. The non-classical thesis of emotion (NCE) states that the conceptual resources of classical cognitive science cannot adequately account for certain important features of emotion. It also states that these features can be adequately accounted for by employing the con-ceptual ...
Acupuncture, 2013
The standard way to establish the scientific credentials of a medical treatment is to show that i... more The standard way to establish the scientific credentials of a medical treatment is to show that it is more effective than a placebo. With pharmaceuticals, it is relatively easy to make a suitable placebo, but with acupuncture things are not so straightforward. A variety of placebos have been used in acupuncture trials. This paper examines the implications of the choice of placebo for (1) proper blinding, and (2) the nature of the hypothesis being tested in any given trial.
Emotion, Evolution, and Rationality, 2004
... Emoción: la ciencia del sentimiento. Información General. Autores: Dylan Evans; Editores: Tau... more ... Emoción: la ciencia del sentimiento. Información General. Autores: Dylan Evans; Editores: Taurus Ediciones; Año de publicación: 2002; País: España; Idioma: Español; ISBN : 84-306-0472-3. Otros catálogos. Bibliotecas Universitarias en las que se encuentra ( REBIUN ). ...
Http Www Libreriasaulamedica Com, 2003