Situating Moods

The paper aims to better identify the relationship between moods and emotions showing their link to the overall environment. Adopting a Situated Approach to Emotions (Griffiths and Scarantino 2009; Mendonça Transactions of Charles Peirce Society, 48(2), 209–227, 2012; Stephan Emotion Review, 4(2), 157–162, 2012; Stephen et al. Philosophical Psychology, 27(1), 65–81 2014) enables showing that the link to emotions to the environment is best understood using the term situation, while moods’ link to the environment is best captured by the notion of context. Exploring the difference points out that what is selected as the situation versus the context in a given environment may explain the relationship between emotions and moods, and clarify why, for instance, certain emotions can alter a mood while others do not. The paper begins putting forward the general take on emotions from a Situated Approach to Emotions in line with contemporary discussions of the Situated Approach to Mind (Gallagher 2009; Griffiths and Scarantino 2009). Then, following John Dewey’s conception of situation, the paper distinguishes situation from context, and reviews the hypothesis of equating them with emotions and moods respectively. The analysis is then connected to previous research done on the difference between emotions and moods and, given the insightful outcomes of connecting moods and emotions to other theoretical aspects of the mind, it shows how the link to the environment is a crucial trait to understand emotions and moods dynamics.