The Person and Primary Emotions

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. The Person As a Unified Agent

   • Peter A. Bertocci

   Pages 1-39

3. The Person and the Unconscious

   • Peter A. Bertocci

   Pages 40-71

4. The Person’s Body

   • Peter A. Bertocci

   Pages 72-105

5. Feeling: Its Nature and Content

   • Peter A. Bertocci

   Pages 106-131

6. Considerations Basic to a Theory of Emotions in Persons

   • Peter A. Bertocci

   Pages 132-164

7. Can Primary Emotions Be Primary Motives?

   • Peter A. Bertocci

   Pages 165-196

8. A Theory of Primary Emotions

   • Peter A. Bertocci

   Pages 197-220

9. Primary Emotions: Sex and Organic Needs

   • Peter A. Bertocci

   Pages 221-246

10. Primary Emotions: Anger, Fear, and Tenderness

    • Peter A. Bertocci

    Pages 247-278

11. Primary Emotion: Zest

    • Peter A. Bertocci

    Pages 279-298

12. Primary Emotions: Sympathy, Wonder, Creativity

    • Peter A. Bertocci

    Pages 299-320

13. Back Matter

    Pages 321-340

    PDF

I shall propose that the unlearned motives of persons are primary emotions. I am not surprised that many informed readers will wonder where I have been for the last five decades when even the conception of unlearned motives (instincts, drives, urges) has been shown to be little more than the result of undisciplined investigation? And here I am proposing that in the nature and dynamics of some emotions that persons experience we can gain more adequate understanding of human motives at the unlearned level. During the last five decades I have spent most of my time teaching the histlDry of philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics and theory of value, the psychology of personali ty, and th~ philosophy of personality. Increasingly I have paid special attention to the ways in which claims about ~the nature of man I influence the theory of motives, emotions, and feelings. What kept impressing me is the way in which the viii interpretation of the "findings" about motives, feelings, and emotion reflect unargued conceptions of human nature, or that the views of fundamental motives, feelings, and emotions unduly dominate the underlying conception of the person. In focusing attention first on the essential nature of a person I shall be discussing issues that are actually basic to our more analytical interpretation of the nature and dynamics of the primary motives or primary emotions.

• Focusing
• attention
• creativity
• emotion
• ethics
• personality
• philosophy
• psychology

• Borden Parker Bowne Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Boston University, Boston, USA

  Peter A. Bertocci

Policies and ethics