The New LeDoux: Survival Circuits and the Surplus Meaning of ‘Fear’

Philosophical Quarterly 70 (281):809-829 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

ABSTRACT LeDoux's pioneering work on the neurobiology of fear has played a crucial role in informing debates in the philosophy of emotion. For example, it plays a key part in Griffiths’ argument for why emotions don’t form a natural kind. Likewise, it is employed by Faucher and Tappolet to defend pro-emotion views, which claim that emotions aid reasoning. LeDoux, however, now argues that his work has been misread. He argues that using emotion terms, like ‘fear’, to describe neurocognitive data adds a ‘surplus meaning’: it attributes phenomenal properties to survival circuits which they don’t possess. This paper aims to explore LeDoux's new proposal, and examine the potentially devastating consequences that ensue for the aforementioned views. I end by addressing the worry that these lessons are conditional on LeDoux's own higher-order theory of emotional consciousness being true.

Similar books and articles

Fear and the focus of attention.Luc Faucher & Christine Tappolet - 2002 - Consciousness and Emotion 3 (2):105-144.
Emotions and Biology.John F. Bannan - 2004 - Review of Metaphysics 58 (2):279-304.
The slippery slope of fear.Joseph E. LeDoux - 2013 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17 (4):155-156.
A Higher-Order Theory of Emotional Consciousness.Joseph LeDoux & Richard Brown - 2017 - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114 (10):E2016-E2025.
Are Emotions Psychological Constructions?Charlie Kurth - 2019 - Philosophy of Science 86 (5):1227-1238.
The conceptual framework for the investigation of emotions.P. M. S. Hacker - 2009 - In Ylva Gustafsson, Camilla Kronqvist & Michael McEachrane (eds.), Emotions and Understanding: Wittgensteinian Perspectives. Palgrave-Macmillan.
The conceptual framework for the investigation of the emotions.Peter M. S. Hacker - 2004 - International Review of Psychiatry 16 (3):199-208.
Passive fear.Anthony Hatzimoysis - 2014 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13 (4):613-623.
Fear and the brain.Jacek Debiec & Joseph LeDoux - 2004 - Social Research: An International Quarterly 71 (4):807-818.
The neurobiology of emotion.[Chap. 15].J. E. LeDoux - 1986 - In David A. Oakley (ed.), Mind and Brain. Methuen. pp. 301--354.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-01-30

Downloads
1,421 (#6,907)

6 months
360 (#4,471)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Raamy Majeed
University of Manchester

Citations of this work

Rethinking the wrong of rape1.Karyn L. Freedman - 2021 - Philosophical Issues 31 (1):104-127.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Facing up to the problem of consciousness.David Chalmers - 1995 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (3):200-19.
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1965 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
What is it like to be a bat?Thomas Nagel - 1974 - Philosophical Review 83 (October):435-50.
Epiphenomenal qualia.Frank Jackson - 1982 - Philosophical Quarterly 32 (April):127-136.

View all 47 references / Add more references