ABSTRACT
SOME THEORISTS present no theory; in the phenomenology of theories there are those which deny the existence of anything to theorize about. This denial can take three forms: (a) denying the use of the concept 'emotion', or emotional concepts a place in psychology; (b) reducing the concept 'emotion' to other concepts; (c) polemicizing against emotions as things which call for explanations. The issue is spurious, the concept is not useful; emotion is no different from other more basic events. These theories all try to tell us what emotion is not. Let us look at the examples:
Why introduce into science an unneeded term, such as emotion, when there are already scientific terms for everything we have to describe? . . . I predict: The 'will' has virtually passed out of our scientific psychology today; the 'emotion' is bound to do the same. In 1950 American psychologists will smile at both these terms as curiosities of the past.
—M. F. Meyer, That Whale among the Fishes—The Theory of Emotions', Psychol. Rev., 1933, p. 300.