Feelings and emotions: The Amsterdam symposium

Emotions are central to human behavior and experience. Yet scientific theory and research during most of the twentieth century largely ignored the emotions until a quite dramatic change that took place during its last thirty years, which witnessed an upsurge of interest in emotions in a number of disciplines. Just after the turn of the century therefore seemed to be an appropriate time to take stock of current scientific reflection on emotions. This book arose from the twenty-four keynote papers presented at a symposium held in June 2001 that bore the same title. The aim of that meeting was to review the current state of the art of research on emotions from a multidisciplinary perspective. Each chapter here is authored by an acknowledged authority in the respective field. Together they provide an overview of what is currently being studied and thought about the emotions in disciplines ranging from neurophysiology and experimental psychology to sociology and philosophy.