Afterword The Invention of Emotion?
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We are now accustomed to the idea that emotions are at least in some measure socially constructed and so have a history; but what of “emotion” itself? Is it a universal category? If not, how did the modern idea of emotion arise? I suggest that the category of emotion, as it is understood in the social sciences today, can be traced back to Aristotle, who first collected sentiments such as anger, love, pity, and shame under the heading of pathê (plural of pathos). In so doing, however, Aristotle did not simply identify a transhistorical faculty of emotion. Rather he selected a set of sentiments on which orators could play in order to manipulate the judgments of jurors or of citizens in the Assembly. This is why the pathê he discusses have a notably cognitive and moral dimension, and anticipate, for example, the orientation of the appraisal school today. Different conceptions of emotion were already emerging soon after Aristotle wrote, but the broad lineaments of his classification have remained influential to the present day.