Dewey’s Rejection of the Emotion/ Expression Distinction

Abstract

In two short essays, Dewey develops what we might call a ‘hybrid’ model of emotions.¹ Drawing on both Darwin and James, Dewey rejects the supposition — still common in emotion research today — that emotions are comprised of states or processes physically located within the individual subject, and specifically within the subject’s brain.² Instead, Dewey argues that emotions are made up of both internal (neural and physiological activity, phenomenal properties, cognitive judgments) and external processes (expressive behavior, ongoing ‘transactions’ with the surrounding environment). All of these aspects are composite parts of emotions. Accordingly, to give one aspect explanatory priority at the expense of the others is to artificially sever a dynamically interrelated, distributed process spanning brain, expressive body, and world — what Dewey terms the ‘concrete whole’ of emotional experience. I specifically consider Dewey’s rejection of the distinction between an emotion and its behavioral expression. I show that, for Dewey, the latter is a constituent part of the former; the expressive behavior is part of the ontology of some emotions. I argue that Dewey’s hybrid model not only receives support from current research in cognitive and neuroscience but, additionally, that it highlights the central role that agency and the social world play in the development and experiential character of our emotional life.