What is missing in the "basic emotion vs. constructionist" debate?: Pragmatist insights into the radical translation from the emotional brain

The theoretical bases of affective neurosciences are going through a turbulent period. In answering the apparently naïve question "what is an emotion?" scholars supporting a basic emotion theory (BET) argue that emotions are discrete mental entities localized in the brain in the form of affect programs. Recently, psychological constructionists (PC) have attacked the stronghold of BET by defending an anti-essentialist position inspired by James's theory of emotion, arguing that emotions are cognitive-based and culturally constructed phenomena, and not natural kinds. Who is right? To answer this question, I will highlight some theoretical pitfalls related to the shared assumption that brain-imaging results are sufficient to delimit the boundaries of the playing field. In contrast, I will capitalize upon electrical stimulation studies, which demonstrate the existence of discrete emotions but, most importantly, emphasize the interpenetration of emotional experiences and expressions. The latter observation links emotions to action tendencies, in line with a longstanding tradition that goes back to the criticisms made by Dewey and Mead of James's theory of emotion, and survives today in contemporary embodied and enactive theories. This approach proves to be the best equipped to account for the fullness of available empirical data. Who is right, then? Neither of the two. The time has come for a theoretically sound, and empirically grounded, alternative to both BET and PC.