I’m thinking about emotion as complementing perception and action to advance our understanding of what we can sense as real in experience. Not only do the objects we perceive and act upon furnish what we sense as real, but also the significances objects possess do—and this significance may be understood in terms of emotion. For example, one may fear a spider and sense as real its dangerous character, while still believing that it is harmless.

I’m interested in how emotional significance should be characterized. How does it relate to the propositional content of mental attitudes like belief and desire? Might the concept of emotion be distinctive in advancing our understanding of these issues, beyond concepts often used in this context such as affordances, skills, or knowledge-how?

I’m also working on doxastic voluntarism, self-deception, and imaginative resistance (which hinge upon similar issues, I’ve found). Please feel free to email me about any of these projects.