Emotions or feelings?

According to the biologist Charles Birch (1995: ix), ‘‘Feelings are what

matter most in life’’1. While it is debatable whether they really matter

‘‘most’’, they certainly matter a great deal; and it is good to see that after

a long period of scholarly neglect, feelings are now at the forefront of

interdisciplinary investigations, spanning the humanities, social sciences,

and biological sciences.Some would say: not ‘‘feelings’’, but ‘‘emotions’’

 – and the question‘‘which of the two (feelings or emotions)?’’ plunges

us straight into the heart of the central controversy concerning the

relationship between human biology on the one hand and language

and culture on the other.

Emotions or feelings?

Many psychologists appear to be more comfortable with the term

‘‘emotion’’ than ‘‘feeling’’ because ‘‘emotions’’ seem to be somehow

‘‘objective’’. It is often assumed that only the ‘‘objective’’ is real and

amenable to rigorous study, and that ‘‘emotions’’ have a biological

foundation and can therefore be studied ‘‘objectively’’, whereas feelings

cannot be studied at all.