Abstract
The author argues that Peirce, James, and Dewey propose a version of emotional cognitivism (the position that an emotion is in effect a judgment and, as such, highly fallible). He goes on to highlight certain features of human emotions, conceived in this light, above all emotional reflexivity (the feelings we tend to have about our own feelings, e.g., the case of becoming angry at being angry in the first place or that of feeling ashamed at allowing oneself to be shamed). Given the highly fallible character of our emotional judgments, the reference to the “I,” in addition to that to the object, can hardly be overlooked. Deliberative agents are wise to confess, “I am angry,” without eliminating what James identifies as “the intensely objective reference” of such feelings as fear, anger, and rapture.
