Books on wonder and emotions
Aug. 21st, 2007 05:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeFuller's Wonder: From Emotion to Spirituality is one of the most poorly organized books I've ever read. I wonder if he had a thesis statement. That is, books usually try to take you from point A to point B, or they might clarify that some conditions would take you to point C instead, for example, but this one is more like a verbal collage. Musings on themes, without much effort to support his basic assertions, and leftover sage observations sprinkled here and there. It very much reads like it was written from index cards, with little serious attempt to organize them.
De Rivera's A Structural Theory of Emotions, on the other hand, is pretty interesting. It's not so much a theory as a thorough taxonomy of combinations of fundamental situations and perspectives for which we might be expected to have an emotion (with "emotion" rather broadly defined to include background affective states like security and confidence). I'm halfway done and looking forward to the rest.
De Rivera's A Structural Theory of Emotions, on the other hand, is pretty interesting. It's not so much a theory as a thorough taxonomy of combinations of fundamental situations and perspectives for which we might be expected to have an emotion (with "emotion" rather broadly defined to include background affective states like security and confidence). I'm halfway done and looking forward to the rest.