Emotions in the Social Sphere

Using Dewey’s philosophical work to build a novel hypothesis for emotion inevitably means moving away from the description of emotions being described merely in terms of inner states or description of physically located within the individual. In a chapter intitled “Dewey’s Rejection of the Emotion/Expression Distinctions”, Kreuger shows how the early work of John Dewey which focuses specifically on the nature of emotion makes clear that emotions are also constituted by their bodily expressions (Kreuger 2014, 143). Though this early stage of Dewey’s philosophical work already shows how within his philosophical project it is possible to find a different interpretation of what is means to talk about emotional expression than the one found in current research on emotion theory (Kreuger 2014), it is a pity Dewey did not have the opportunity to return to this focus after his major works to update and publish the second part of the theory of emotion he had initially designed in 1895 as to also incorporate the reflection on emotion found in Art as Experience (1934). This would have made it easier to contrast his take with the current research an literature on emotion. The present chapter hopes to show some of the ways Dewey might establish a dialogue with the interdisciplinary work on emotion theory.