Cognitive Theories of emotions have enjoyed great popularity in recent times. Allegedly, the so-called Perceptual Theory constitutes the most attractive version of this approach. However, the Perceptual Theory has come under increasing pressure. There are at least two ways to deal with the barrage of objections, which have been mounted against the Perceptual Theory. One is to argue that the objections work only if one assumes an overly narrow conception of what perception consists in. On a better and more liberal understanding of perception, the objections lose their force. The other is to stress that the differences between emotions and sensory perceptions can be explained by focusing on a new analogy. As I will argue, emotions have interesting similarities with magnitude representations, such as the representation of distance. Such representations are plausibly thought to be analog and non-conceptual, but by contrast to sensory perceptions, such as colour perceptions, they do not lie at the sensory periphery. This new analogy makes room for a novel and attractive theory of emotions, the Receptive Theory, which allows for a positive and epistemologically fruitful characterization of emotions.

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接受理论：一种新的情感理论

情绪认知理论近年来非常受欢迎。据称，所谓的感知理论构成了这种方法最有吸引力的版本。然而，感知理论面临着越来越大的压力。至少有两种方法可以应对针对知觉理论的一系列反对意见。一种观点是，只有当人们对知觉所包含的内容抱有过于狭隘的概念时，这些反对意见才有效。在对知觉有更好、更自由的理解时，这些反对意见就会失去其力量。另一个是强调情绪和感官知觉之间的差异可以通过关注一个新的类比来解释。正如我将要论证的，情绪与幅度表示（例如距离的表示）具有有趣的相似之处。这种表示似乎被认为是模拟的和非概念性的，但与诸如颜色感知之类的感官知觉相比，它们并不位于感官外围。这种新的类比为一种新颖且有吸引力的情感理论——接受理论——提供了空间，该理论允许对情感进行积极且在认识论上富有成效的表征。