The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion

This is a welcome and impressive contribution to the series of Oxford Handbooks, which reflects the growing interest in the subject and the high quality of work being produced by some of the more prominent researchers in the field. It is a tall order to meet the needs of prospective readers of this kind of volume. On the one hand, an obvious purpose of a handbook is to provide an overview of some particular field; this would best be satisfied by commissioning survey articles on central figures, issues, and arguments in the philosophy of emotion. On the other hand, the handbook must appeal to those actively engaged in research in the subject, who are typically familiar enough with the main contours of their field to want something new and original beyond survey articles. Peter Goldie has handled this difficult task with considerable skill, commissioning more general papers on areas typically neglected by contemporary philosophers of emotion (such as emotions in medieval philosophy), whilst also ensuring a good proportion of original research articles on live contemporary debates (such as the plausibility of sentimentalist accounts of value). The four papers that will, I assume, be of particular interest to readers of this journal manage an equally impressive balance between being informative on a particular issue, and making an original contribution to the research environment. Those interested in aesthetics should not, however, restrict themselves to those papers specifically directed to this field: they have much to gain from reading about positions and developments in other areas of the philosophy of emotion, just as researchers in these other areas stand to profit from work in the philosophy of art.