The literature on affect, emotion, and feeling has been contested across philosophy and the cognitive sciences for over a century, with several principal positions still live. The framework engages each by name against a structural account previewed here and elaborated at [§8.2.2](<8.2.2 What is Required.md>): feeling is registration — the first-person aspect a recursion's own conditions take from inside — running on a substrate (the architectural layer registration operates on) at a recursive depth (how far that recursion extends). They are taken up again at [§8.2.5](<8.2.5 What is Concluded.md>) once the structural account is in view.

*James-Lange and somatic-marker traditions.* William James's thesis (William James, 1884) that emotions are perceptions of bodily changes (we do not cry because we are sad, we are sad because we cry) was largely displaced in mid-century psychology but recovered through Damasio's somatic-marker hypothesis.(Damasio, Antonio R., 1994); (Antonio R. Damasio, 1999); (Antonio R. Damasio, 2010) Damasio's work on patients with intact reasoning and damaged ventromedial prefrontal cortex (patients who can describe options but cannot decide between them) is the empirical face of the claim that affect is structurally prior to deliberation. Critics have raised methodological concerns about the Iowa Gambling Task specifically, while accepting the broader connection between affect and decision.e.g., (Tiago V. Maia; James L. McClelland, 2004) The framework reads the James-Damasio tradition as approximately right about the relation between affective signaling and reasoning, with the structural account supplying the deeper claim: feeling is the first-person perspective on the recursion's own conditions, surfacing as what it is to be the living thing right now: a literal description of the recursion's own operating state, not a merely evocative restatement of "affect."

*Basic-emotion theories.* Tomkins (Silvan S. Tomkins, 1962), Ekman (Paul Ekman, 1972); (Paul Ekman, 1992), and Panksepp (Panksepp, J., 1998) developed accounts of a small number of evolutionarily ancient, biologically distinct emotion systems: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, joy, surprise, plus Panksepp's seven primary systems (SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC, PLAY). The position remains influential but contested; cross-cultural facial-recognition replications have produced mixed results.(Maria Gendron; Debi Roberson; Jacoba M. van der Vyver; Lisa Feldman Barrett, 2014); (Carlos Crivelli; Sergio Jarillo; James A. Russell; José-Miguel Fernández-Dols, 2016) The framework's reading is that the primary systems Panksepp identifies are real architecturally distinct registrations the substrate supports, while the carve-up into discrete categorical emotions is partly the substrate and partly the conceptualization the perceiver imposes.

*Constructionist theories.* Lisa Feldman Barrett (Lisa Feldman Barrett, 2017) and Russell (James A. Russell, 2003) developed accounts on which discrete emotions are constructed by conceptual categorization of core affect (valence and arousal). The position has substantial empirical support: the cross-cultural variability in emotion concepts, the role of language in emotion perception, the neural variability across instances of "the same" emotion. The framework's reading is that the constructionist account picks up something real about the conceptual layer that elaborates affect, while underspecifying the substrate that valence and arousal themselves register at the architectural level Panksepp documents.

*Evaluativist and cognitive theories.* Solomon (Robert C. Solomon, 1976), Nussbaum (Nussbaum, Martha C., 2001), Roberts (Robert C. Roberts, 2003), and the broader evaluative-judgment tradition treat emotions as containing or constituted by judgments of value. Fear is constituted by judging something dangerous; grief by judging an irretrievable loss; anger by judging a wrong. The position captures the rational-evaluative structure of emotion but has trouble with affective experience in non-linguistic animals and pre-conceptual humans (infants, severe dementia). The framework reads evaluativism as correctly identifying the cognitive layer present at sufficient recursive depth, while denying that affect *requires* that depth to occur.

*Perceptual and representational theories.* Prinz (Jesse J. Prinz, 2004), Tye (Tye, Michael, 1995); (Michael Tye, 2008), and the broader perceptual-theory tradition treat emotions as perceptions of evaluative properties (pain perceives bodily damage, fear perceives danger). The accounts elegantly handle some cases but face disputes about how perception of evaluative properties differs from perception of natural properties. The framework reads perceptual accounts as picking up the registration-of-condition structure of affect, while supplying the structural fact the registration is registration *of*: the being's own conditions, surfacing from inside.

*Two-factor theories and appraisal.* Schachter and Singer (Stanley Schachter; Jerome E. Singer, 1962) launched a cognitive-attribution tradition continued in appraisal theories.(Richard S. Lazarus, 1991); (Klaus R. Scherer, 1984) The accounts treat emotion as physiological arousal plus a cognitive interpretation of what the arousal is about. The framework reads them as capturing how the conceptual layer interacts with the underlying registration, while the underlying registration runs whether or not the conceptual layer is engaged.

*Affect in non-human animals and the fish-pain debate.* Sneddon (Lynne U. Sneddon; Victoria A. Braithwaite; Michael J. Gentle, 2003); (Lynne U. Sneddon, 2015) and Brown (Culum Brown, 2015) have argued for nociception with cognitive features in teleost fish; critics deny that fish brains support the requisite architecture for pain experience.(Brian Key, 2016); (J. D. Rose; R. Arlinghaus; S. J. Cooke; B. K. Diggles; W. Sawynok; E. D. Stevens; C. D. L. Wynne, 2014) The dispute is methodologically substantive and live. The framework's reading is that the depth-gradient framing supplies the right resolution: shallow forms of affective registration are widespread across vertebrates and reach into some invertebrates, with the architecture supporting them not requiring the cortical structures the fish-pain skeptics emphasize.

*Hume's reason-passion priority.* Hume's claim (Hume, David, (1739–1740) 2000) that "reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions" remains a touchstone of meta-ethical and motivational debate. The framework reads Hume as correctly identifying that registration is structurally prior to reasoning, while misreading the priority as subordination: registration without the recursive fold that tests it does not yet rise to reasoning; reasoning operates on what registration delivers, but neither is master of the other.

The literature on affect divides over the James-Lange-Damasio line, basic-emotion vs constructionist accounts, evaluativism vs perception, two-factor and appraisal theories, the species distribution of affect, and the reason-passion priority. The framework commits to specific answers on each; they are taken up again at [§8.2.5](<8.2.5 What is Concluded.md>) after the structural account is in view.


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← [8.2 Feeling](<8.2 Feeling.md>) | [8.2.2 What is Required](<8.2.2 What is Required.md>) →
