Concluding Remarks

Abstract

This book has explored the connection between emotion, cognition, and the essentially embodied nature of consciousness. Its central aim has been to bring together important work being done in philosophy of mind, phil­osophy of emotion, and philosophical psychology so as to move toward a new theoretical framework in which all of our conscious experience and cognition can be understood as inherently arising out of active, living, essentially embodied, and emotive interactions with our surroundings. I have challenged the widely held philosophical assumption that the emo­tions are somehow in tension with or undermine cognition and intellect. Instead, I highlight how emotion and affect, which are essentially bound up with our lived bodily experience, allow for effective decision-making, moral evaluation, and the ability to understand others and ourselves. This discussion reveals, in my view, that human consciousness and cognition are desire-based emotive, essentially embodied, and enactive.