Although much academic work has been done on the areas of mind, brain, and society, a theoretical synthesis of the three levels of analysis – the biological, the mental, and the social – has not until now been put forward. In Emotion and Reason, Warren TenHouten presents a truly comprehensive classification of the emotions.

The book analyzes six key emotions: anger, acceptance, aggressiveness, love, joy and happiness, and anticipation. It places them in historical context, relates them to situations of work and intimacy, and explains their functioning within an individuated, autonomous character structure. Divided into four parts, the book presents a socioevolutionary theory of the emotions – Affect-spectrum Theory (AST), which is based on a synthesis of three models, of the emotions, of social relationships, and of cognition.

This book will be of value to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as researchers, with an interest in the sociology of emotions, anthropology of emotions, social psychology, affective neuroscience, political science, behavioral neuroeconomics and philosophy.

Contents

Part I. Emotions and Social Relations 1. The Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Emotions 2. The Four Fundamental Problems of Social Life Part II. The Emotions of Formal Society 3. Anger, Anger Management, and Contested Place in the Social World 4. Anticipation and the Exploration of Nature and the Social World 5. Reactive and Instumental Aggression: Aggressiveness as a Secondary Emotion Part III. The Emotions of Rationality in Agonic Society 6. Cognitive, Conative, and Neurobiological Foundations of Weberian, Instrumental Rationality 7. Rationality, Emotions, Character Structure, and the Brain 8. The Ten Emotions of Rationality in Agonic Society Part IV. The Emotions of Rationality in Hedonic Community 9. Acceptance, Rejection, and the Self 10. Joy and Happiness: Virtue and the Sum of All Desires 11. From Passion to Commitment and Beyond: ClimbLadder of Love 12. Falling off the Ladder: Seven Emotions of Troubled Intimacy, and Disillusionment

Author Bio

Warren D. TenHouten, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles, is the author of nearly 100 publications, including Time and Society (2005) and A General Theory of Emotions and Social Life (2007). His interdisciplinary research interests have spanned the sociology of time, neurosociology, creativity, and life-historical and historiometric research methodology. His current work concerns emotions and the foundations of human rationality.