The History of Emotions: An Introduction

Abstract

The history of emotions, a rocket taking off according to Jan Plamper, seems to be screaming ‘know thyself!’ at psychology in all its various forms, but most specifically at neuroscience. The development of a hard science of emotions has involved, with every step ‘forward’, the forgetting of the previous step. Emotions are always what they are now, and whatever the natural sciences thought they were last week is no longer relevant. But, and this is the slowly falling hammer blow of Plamper’s book, changes in the status of what emotions are must have some diachronic effect on what emotions mean, how they are experienced, and what things are done in their name.