William M. Reddy

Since 1995 I have been working on the history of "emotions"--a term that has to be in quotes because the concept itself has a history, a fascinating one, and is not known to most of humankind. Currently, my work is focusing on the thought-emotion interface, and I am focusing on the seventeenth century "age of reason." I am responding in part to the views of numerous neuroscientists including Luiz Pessoa and Lisa Feldman Barrett, who find that thought and emotion are not distinct in the brain. I am also taking into account the ongoing (and apparently open-ended) "crisis of reason" (Sandra Laugier) in philosophy. I am looking at Jesuit missionaries in 17th c South Asia as well as Huguenot refugees in the United Provinces, such as Pierre Bayle or Mme Dunoyer.

Navigation of Feeling has now appeared in Korean, and is coming out soon in French and Chinese. Since 2017, I am "emeritus" at Duke; since 2014, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. For more, see http://people.duke.edu/~wmr. Twitter: @williamreddy.