Jesse Prinz

Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Philosophy, Faculty Member

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Papers by Jesse Prinz

Level Headed Myterianism And Artificial Experience

Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2003

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Diachronic Identity and the Moral Self

Penetrating Beauty

James and Attention: Reactive Spontaneity

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 8, 2020

This chapter discusses William James’s analysis of attention in the Principles of Psychology (189... more This chapter discusses William James’s analysis of attention in the Principles of Psychology (1890). Though presented as an empirical review, it is really much more, since James offers original theoretical perspectives on attention, and attention becomes an important player in his theory of the mind, more broadly. It factors, for example, into his theories of perception, belief, and the will. The chapter then summarizes James’s treatment of attention and offers a theory of what attention is and what it does. It suggests that James postulates a kind of spontaneity in mental processes that are often regarded as merely receptive, and that this has implications for philosophical psychology, the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and even ontology.

Affect and Motion Pictures

Springer eBooks, 2019

Emotions play at least three key roles in cinema. First, many motion pictures present highly emot... more Emotions play at least three key roles in cinema. First, many motion pictures present highly emotional situations, involving characters who fall in love, who endure unbearable loss, and who become hell-bent on revenge. To make sense of movies, we must identify the emotions that drive their characters. Second, motion pictures seem to arouse emotions. We go to tearjerkers that make us cry, splatter films that make us writhe, and action films that keep us at the edges of our seats. Third, these emotional experiences are, ostensibly, part of cinema’s allure; we value movies that evoke strong feelings. One might summarize these three observations by saying that movie-going involves emotion attribution, arousal, and motivation. Each of these has been a domain of philosophical contestation. How are emotions attributed when experiencing a cinematic fiction? Are genuine emotions really aroused? And do emotional experiences really bring us to the box office? This discussion explores controversies along these three dimensions.

Investigating the Moral Self

The Golden Ratio is not always preferred in art

Cultural differences in the aesthetic appeal of complexity in art

Ways of Mindmaking

Andy Clark and His Critics, 2019

Andy Clark has been an agenda-setting figure since the dawn of his career, and, in book after boo... more Andy Clark has been an agenda-setting figure since the dawn of his career, and, in book after book, he has laid out grand theories that invite his readers to see the human mind in new ways. With each book, Clark delivers a new and exciting vision of how the mind works. His fans can hardly keep up, and each is left wondering which of Clark’s theories to sign up for. Are they progressive stages in one grand narrative? A protracted plea for pluralism? Or a succession of new paradigms that displace their predecessors? Some noted philosophers have early, late, and even middle periods. With Clark, one might ask if each book is a metamorphosis. If so, how do we decide which Clark to follow? This chapter is about that question, and about the broader issue, which it begs: What is a theory of mind?

Emotion Recognition as a Social Skill

The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Skill And Expertise, 2020

This chapter argues that emotion recognition is a skill. A skill perspective on emotion recogniti... more This chapter argues that emotion recognition is a skill. A skill perspective on emotion recognition draws attention to underappreciated features of this cornerstone of social cognition. Skills have a number of characteristic features. For example, they are improvable, practical, and flexible. Emotion recognition has these features as well. Leading theories of emotion recognition often draw inadequate attention to these features. The chapter advances a theory of emotion recognition that is better suited to this purpose. It proposes that emotion recognition involves scripts. Emotion scripts describe how people are likely to behave in different emotional contexts. Scripts can be improved with the addition of richer social knowledge, they are practical in that they describe and guide social interaction, and they are flexible because they must accommodate the fact that emotions have different behavioral impact depending on the agents involved and the circumstances at play. Learning to recognize emotions through scripts qualifies as a skill

Aesthetic Emotions Reconsidered

The Monist, 2020

We define aesthetic emotions as emotions that underlie the evaluative assessment of artworks. The... more We define aesthetic emotions as emotions that underlie the evaluative assessment of artworks. They are separated from the wider class of art-elicited emotions. Aesthetic emotions historically have been characterized as calm, as lacking specific patterns of embodiment, and as being a sui generis kind of pleasure. We reject those views and argue that there is a plurality of aesthetic emotions contributing to praise. After presenting a general account of the nature of emotions, we analyze twelve positive aesthetic emotions in four different categories: emotions of pleasure, contemplation, amazement, and respect. The emotions that we identify in each category, including feelings of fluency, intrigue, wonder, and adoration, have been widely neglected both within aesthetics and in emotion research more broadly.

Grounding evaluative concepts

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, Jan 5, 2018

Evaluative concepts qualify as abstract because they seem to go beyond what is given in experienc... more Evaluative concepts qualify as abstract because they seem to go beyond what is given in experience. This is especially clear in the case of moral concepts. Justice, for example, has no fixed appearance. Less obviously, aesthetic concepts may also qualify as abstract. The very same sensory input can be regarded as beautiful by one person and ugly by another. Artistic success can also transcend sensory accessible features. Here, we focus on moral badness and aesthetic goodness and argue that both can be grounded in emotional responses. Emotions, in turn, are grounded in bodily perceptions, which correspond to action tendencies. When we conceptualize something as good or bad (whether in the moral or aesthetic domain), we experience our bodily responses to that thing. The moral and aesthetic domains are distinguished by the emotions that they involve.This article is part of the theme issue 'Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.

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Against Outsider Art

Journal of Social Philosophy, 2017

Embodiment, Context-Sensitivity, and Discrete Emotions: A Response to Moors

Psychological Inquiry, 2017

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Poetic Opacity: How to Paint Things with Words

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The Aesthetic Self. The Importance of Aesthetic Taste in Music and Art for Our Perceived Identity

Frontiers in Psychology, 2021

To what extent do aesthetic taste and our interest in the arts constitute who we are? In this pap... more To what extent do aesthetic taste and our interest in the arts constitute who we are? In this paper, we present a series of empirical findings that suggest an Aesthetic Self Effect supporting the claim that our aesthetic engagements are a central component of our identity. Counterfactual changes in aesthetic preferences, for example, moving from liking classical music to liking pop, are perceived as altering us as a person. The Aesthetic Self Effect is as strong as the impact of moral changes, such as altering political partisanship or religious orientation, and significantly stronger than for other categories of taste, such as food preferences (Study 1). Using a multidimensional scaling technique to map perceived aesthetic similarities among musical genres, we determined that aesthetic distances between genres correlate highly with the perceived difference in identity (Study 2). Further studies generalize the Aesthetic Self Effect beyond the musical domain: general changes in visua...

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Accessed, Accessible, and Inaccessible: Where to Draw the Phenomenal Line

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2007

Abstract: How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural mac... more

Against Outsider Art

Journal of Social Philosophy, 2017

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Embodiment Context Sensitivity and Discrete Emotions

by Jesse Prinz, Gen Eickers, and Juan R Loaiza

Psychological Inquiry, 2017

Agnes Moors (this issue) argues for the eliminativism of discrete emotion categories. She present... more Agnes Moors (this issue) argues for the eliminativism of discrete emotion categories. She presents four objections against classical theories of emotion, such as affect program theory, which emphasizes emotional embodiment. These objections, however, do not refute discrete emotions. In this commentary we defend discrete emotion categories, arguing for both their functional coherence and the thesis that emotions are embodied.

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Is Love an Emotion?

by Arina Pismenny and Jesse Prinz

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2017

What kind of mental phenomenon is romantic love? Many philosophers, psychologists, and ordinary f... more What kind of mental phenomenon is romantic love? Many philosophers, psychologists, and ordinary folk treat it as an emotion. This chapter argues the category of emotion is inadequate to account for romantic love. It examines major emotion theories in philosophy and psychology and shows that they fail to illustrate that romantic love is an emotion. It considers the categories of basic emotions and emotion complexes, and demonstrates they too come short in accounting for romantic love. It assesses the roles of culture and evolution in shaping the romantic love phenomenon and evaluates the ways in which the norms of rationality that are applied to standard emotions fail to apply to love. It considers the category of sentiments and argue that despite coming close, it does not adequately capture the nature of romantic love. Finally, the chapter makes a case for love being best characterized as a syndrome.

Level Headed Myterianism And Artificial Experience

Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2003

Download

Diachronic Identity and the Moral Self

Penetrating Beauty

James and Attention: Reactive Spontaneity

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 8, 2020

Affect and Motion Pictures

Springer eBooks, 2019

Investigating the Moral Self

The Golden Ratio is not always preferred in art

Cultural differences in the aesthetic appeal of complexity in art

Ways of Mindmaking

Andy Clark and His Critics, 2019

Emotion Recognition as a Social Skill

The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Skill And Expertise, 2020

Aesthetic Emotions Reconsidered

The Monist, 2020

Grounding evaluative concepts

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, Jan 5, 2018

Download

Against Outsider Art

Journal of Social Philosophy, 2017

Embodiment, Context-Sensitivity, and Discrete Emotions: A Response to Moors

Psychological Inquiry, 2017

Download

Poetic Opacity: How to Paint Things with Words

Download

The Aesthetic Self. The Importance of Aesthetic Taste in Music and Art for Our Perceived Identity

Frontiers in Psychology, 2021

Download

Accessed, Accessible, and Inaccessible: Where to Draw the Phenomenal Line

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2007

Abstract: How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural mac... more

Against Outsider Art

Journal of Social Philosophy, 2017

Download

Embodiment Context Sensitivity and Discrete Emotions

by Jesse Prinz, Gen Eickers, and Juan R Loaiza

Psychological Inquiry, 2017

Download

Is Love an Emotion?

by Arina Pismenny and Jesse Prinz

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2017

Mind and Cognition (edited volume)

The Conscious Brain

Beyond Human Nature

The Emotional Construction of Morals

Gut Reactions

Furnishing the Mind

Dialogues on Disability: Shelley Tremain Interviews Jesse Prinz (posted at BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY)

by Shelley L Tremain and Jesse Prinz

Hello, I'm Shelley Tremain and I'd like to welcome you to the eleventh installment of Dialogues o... more Hello, I'm Shelley Tremain and I'd like to welcome you to the eleventh installment of Dialogues on Disability, the series of interviews that I am conducting with disabled philosophers and post here on the third Wednesday of each month. The series is designed to provide a public venue for discussion with disabled philosophers about a range of topics, including their philosophical work on disability; the place of philosophy of disability vis-à-vis the discipline and profession; their experiences of institutional discrimination and personal prejudice in philosophy, in particular, and in academia, more generally; resistance to ableism; accessibility; and anti-oppressive pedagogy.

My guest today is Jesse Prinz.

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