Lisa Feldman Barrett

The principal contemporary voice against basic-emotion/natural-kinds assumptions, and thus against strong readings of autonomic-specificity. Cited by Friedman (2010) as the sharp counterpoint to the specificity tradition. See basic-emotions.

The natural-kinds critique

Barrett (2005, 2006) argues that treating emotions as discrete entities independent of human perception “reifies” them; consistent emotion-specific somatic patterns may not exist outside subjective/conceptual experience. Emotions are constructed from core affect (a valence × arousal state) plus categorization.

Contested appropriation of James

Both camps claim James. Barrett cites his acknowledgement of individual variation and his warning against treating “anger” as an “entitative” thing. Friedman/Ellsworth reply that James, read in full context, held within-emotion resemblance “trumps” individual variation and that his causal model presupposes basic emotions “that have a distinct bodily expression.” This exegetical dispute is part of autonomic-specificity-of-emotion — see william-james.