The nodes of controversy detected by the commentators on “Once More into the Breach” center on the meanings of words and the strategies for classifying observations rather than on empirical facts. This rejoinder explains why I continue to believe that: (1) consequences are not a useful criterion for classifying emotions, (2) the utility of the concept of basic emotions remains ambiguous, and (3) psychologists should spend more time probing the conditions that contribute to robust phenomena rather than trying to affirm the validity of popular emotional words that fail to specify the agent, the incentive, or the local setting.
