Précis for “An Enactive Theory of Emotion” Aaron Kagan Introduction As I walk through the yard on a hot summer day, pleased that the winter is now over, I see a snake in the grass. I seize up and become frozen in fear. My body sweats. After what seems like an eternity, I slowly regain some of my bearings and start trembling. Eventually, I turn and bolt away in fear. I run into my house and, still trembling, struggle to lock the door, frantically looking around to make sure that the snake is still outside and has not followed me in. I know I am safe, but am still shaking despite my best efforts to calm down and get a hold of myself. I am terrified of snakes. Eventually, my fear subsides. The above is a very brief description of an individual, or ‘token’ emotional episode. At first blush, this dissertation’s topic is the ontology of emotion tokens. In particular, this work is an investigation of how such tokens are related to other tokens: behavioral, physiological, body movements, neurological processes involved in cognition and sensory experience, the grounds of certain dispositions, etc. Briefly put, I will advocate an enactive and perceptual theory of emotions. My aim is to construct a theory that adequately accounts for what John Dewey calls the “whole concrete emotional experience” (Dewey 1985, p.16). This experience is multifaceted; there is no one feature that necessarily takes precedence over others in our understanding of an emotion. As such, I will be arguing against theories that take emotion tokens to be physiological responses, behavioral dispositions, behavior tokens, cognitions, etc. The snake story provides a good example of how one will be tempted to carve out an “emotion proper” from the (whole) emotion episode. The following conception of the story is surely accurate: Aaron perceived the snake; he initially saw it as a garden hose;