Neither here nor there: the cognitive nature of emotion Remy Debes Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008 Abstract The philosophy of emotion has long been divided over the cognitive nature of emotion. In this paper I argue that this debate suffers from deep confusion over the meaning of ‘‘cognition’’ itself. This confusion has in turn obscured critical substantive agreement between the debate’s principal opponents. Capturing this agreement and remedying this confusion requires re-conceptualizing ‘‘the cogni- tive’’ as it functions in first-order theories of emotion. Correspondingly, a sketch for a new account of cognitivity is offered. However, I also argue that this new account, despite tacit acceptance by all major theories of emotion, in fact rules out some of the most fundamental and controversial claims of one side of the nature-of-emotion debate, emotional cognitivism. Keywords Emotion Á Cognition Á Emotional cognitivism Á Basic emotions Á Affect programs Á Affect program theory 1 Introduction Emotions have prima facie intentionality. When my cat paws over my cereal bowl full of milk, I don’t experience an objectless feeling of anger. I get angry about his tipping over the bowl because the state of affairs of his tipping the bowl is the ‘‘object’’ of my emotion. Likewise, in a bit of conceptual double-duty, the fluster I feel is directed at him; he is the ‘‘object’’ of it. 1 Moreover, it would be unintuitive and difficult to explain emotions or the actions emotions purport to rationalize R. Debes (&) Department of Philosophy, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA e-mail: rdebes@memphis.edu 1 These two senses of having an object could be pried apart, and their exact role in intentionality itself made more precise. For now, however, a rough and ready notion of intentionality will suffice. 123 Philos Stud DOI 10.1007/s11098-008-9242-0