Emotion and Reasoning


Book Description

The interaction between emotion and cognition is a fundamental issue which has only recently been reintroduced as a legitimate object of study in experimental psychology. This book examines the significant impact that affective processes have on reasoning, and demonstrates how emotional reasoning cannot simply be equated with faulty reasoning. Emotion and Reasoning presents contributions from leading researchers from a variety of disciplines, including experimental cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, clinical neuropsychology, and experimental psychopathology. The opening chapters consider how emotions affect reasoning processes in individuals living with psychopathology. A second section focuses upon experimental investigations of emotion and basic reasoning processes, and a final section explores the physiological bases of emotion-reasoning interaction. Together, the chapters in this volume provide a multidisciplinary overview of key topics on emotion and reasoning, and a survey of recent research in this area. Emotion and Reasoning will be of great interest to advanced students, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of cognitive psychology, clinical psychology, and affective neuroscience.




Emotional Reasoning


Book Description

Neuroscience has made significant progress in understanding the brain, but the nature of consciousness remains elusive. At the same time, recent spectacular advancements in artificial intelligence promise the prospect of machines attaining human-like cognitive abilities. At the center of both systems is a fundamental dance of stimuli and response, requiring a profound comprehension of the physical environment. Thus, quantum mechanics and general relativity can be applied to the mysteries of human behavior, such as the difficulty of predicting, controlling, or retracing our thoughts. This landmark book explores the nature of consciousness through the lens of physics rather than neuroscience. Physics has been an explanatory force in diverse phenomena, and it can offer an entirely new vision of consciousness as an irreducible entity, similar to particles, the fundamental units of energy or matter. The fermionic mind hypothesis emerges as a tour-de-force synthesis and framework for understanding consciousness, reimagined as the elemental unit of intellect. It highlights particle organization, a fundamental structure that cannot be understood as the sum of its parts, as the essential analogy between fermions and consciousness. The book presents an engaging scientific narrative that explores some of humanity's oldest and most challenging questions. What is consciousness? What are emotions? How can a physical brain create subjective experience? Do we have free will? Engaging and penetrating, Emotional Reasoning represents a groundbreaking perspective that will surprise you at every turn. It will enhance your confidence through understanding yourself and your place in the cosmic order. Beyond neuroscience, the book holds profound implications for artificial intelligence research. It reveals the intricate link between consciousness and the physical universe, echoing the philosophical insight of theoretical physicist John Wheeler: "The physical world is, in some deep sense, tied to the human being."




Descartes' Error


Book Description

Since Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995. Antonio Damasio—"one of the world’s leading neurologists" (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.




Emotional Reason


Book Description

How can we motivate ourselves to do what we think we ought? How can we deliberate about personal values and priorities? Bennett Helm rejects the standard philosophical answers to these questions, which presuppose a sharp distinction between cognition and impulse, and develops a detailed alternative theory both of emotions, desires, and evaluative judgments and of their rational interconnections. The result is an innovative theory of practical rationality and how we can control not only what we do but also what we value and who we are as persons.




Emotion, Imagination, and the Limits of Reason


Book Description

The emotions pose many philosophical questions. We don't choose them; they come over us spontaneously. Sometimes emotions seem to get it wrong: we experience wrongdoing but do not feel anger, feel fear but recognise there is no danger. Yet often we expect emotions to be reasonable, intelligible and appropriate responses to certain situations. How do we explain these apparent contradictions? Emotion, Imagination, and the Limits of Reason presents a bold new picture of the emotions that challenges prevailing philosophical orthodoxy. Talia Morag argues that too much emphasis has been placed on the "reasonableness" of emotions and far too little on two neglected areas: the imagination and the unconscious. She uses these to propose a new philosophical and psychoanalytic conception of the emotions that challenges the perceived rationality of emotions; views the emotions as fundamental to determining one's self-image; and bases therapy on the ability to "listen" to one’s emotional episode as it occurs. Emotion, Imagination, and the Limits of Reason is one of the first books to connect philosophical research on the emotions to psychoanalysis. It will be essential reading for those studying ethics, the emotions, moral psychology and philosophy of psychology as well as those interested in psychoanalysis.




Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies


Book Description

"We all have aspects of ourselves that we would like to change, but many of us believe that a leopard can't change its spots – if that's you, stop there! Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies will help identify unhealthy modes of thinking – such as “a leopard can't change it's spots”! – that have been holding you back from the changes you want. CBT can help whether you're seeking to overcome anxiety and depression, boost self-esteem, lose weight, beat addiction or simply improve your outlook in your professional and personal life."




Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies


Book Description

An updated edition of the bestselling guide on reprogramming one's negative thoughts and behaviour Once the province of mental health professionals, CBT (or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) has gained wide acceptance as the treatment of choice for anyone looking to overcome anxiety, manage anger, beat an addiction, lose weight or simply gain a new outlook on life. Written by two CBT therapists, this bestselling guide helps you apply the principles of CBT in your everyday life-allowing you to spot errors in your thinking; tackle toxic thoughts; refocus and retrain your awareness; and finally, stand up to and become free of the fear, depression, anger, and obsessions that have been plaguing you. Includes tips on establishing ten healthy attitudes for living as well as ten ways to lighten up Helps you chart a path by defining problems and setting goals Offers advice on taking a fresh look at your past, overcoming any obstacles to progress as well as ways to maintain your CBT gains Includes new and refreshed content, including chapters on how to beat an addiction and overcome body image issues With indispensable advice on finding your way out of the debilitating maze of negative thoughts and actions, the book is brimming with invaluable suggestions that will have even a confirmed pessimist well armed for the journey forward.




Talking About BPD


Book Description

'I am Rosie. I have BPD. I am not an attention-seeker, manipulative, dangerous, hopeless, unlovable, 'broken', 'difficult to reach' or 'unwilling to engage'. I am caring, creative, courageous, determined, full of life and love.' Talking About BPD is a positive, stigma-free guide to life with borderline personality disorder (BPD) from award-winning blogger Rosie Cappuccino. Addressing what BPD is, the journey to diagnosis and available treatments, Rosie offers advice on life with BPD and shares practical tips and DBT-based techniques for coping day to day. Topics such as how to talk about BPD to those around you, managing relationships and self-harm are also explored. Throughout, Rosie shares her own experiences and works to dispel stigma and challenge the stereotypes often associated with the disorder. This much-needed, hopeful guide will offer support, understanding, validation and empowerment for all living with BPD, as well as those who support them.




Emotional


Book Description

We’ve all been told that thinking rationally is the key to success. But at the cutting edge of science, researchers are discovering that feeling is every bit as important as thinking. You make hundreds of decisions every day, from what to eat for breakfast to how you should invest, and not one of those decisions would be possible without emotion. It has long been said that thinking and feeling are separate and opposing forces in our behavior. But as Leonard Mlodinow, the best-selling author of Subliminal, tells us, extraordinary advances in psychology and neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well-being as thinking. How can you connect better with others? How can you make sense of your frustration, fear, and anxiety? What can you do to live a happier life? The answers lie in understanding your emotions. Journeying from the labs of pioneering scientists to real-world scenarios that have flirted with disaster, Mlodinow shows us how our emotions can help, why they sometimes hurt, and what we can learn in both instances. Using deep insights into our evolution and biology, Mlodinow gives us the tools to understand our emotions better and to maximize their benefits. Told with his characteristic clarity and fascinating stories, Emotional explores the new science of feelings and offers us an essential guide to making the most of one of nature’s greatest gifts.




Reason and Emotion


Book Description

This book brings together twenty-three distinctive and influential essays on ancient moral philosophy--including several published here for the first time--by the distinguished philosopher and classical scholar John Cooper. The volume gives a systematic account of many of the most important issues and texts in ancient moral psychology and ethical theory, providing a unified and illuminating way of reflecting on the fields as they developed from Socrates and Plato through Aristotle to Epicurus and the Stoic philosophers Chrysippus and Posidonius, and beyond. For the ancient philosophers, Cooper shows here, morality was "good character" and what that entailed: good judgment, sensitivity, openness, reflectiveness, and a secure and correct sense of who one was and how one stood in relation to others and the surrounding world. Ethical theory was about the best way to be rather than any principles for what to do in particular circumstances or in relation to recurrent temptations. Moral psychology was the study of the psychological conditions required for good character--the sorts of desires, the attitudes to self and others, the states of mind and feeling, the kinds of knowledge and insight. Together these papers illustrate brilliantly how, by studying the arguments of the Greek philosophers in their diverse theories about the best human life and its psychological underpinnings, we can expand our own moral understanding and imagination and enrich our own moral thought. The collection will be crucial reading for anyone interested in classical philosophy and what it can contribute to reflection on contemporary questions about ethics and human life.