The Science and Philosophy of Emotional Intelligence: A Pragmatic Perspective

This article is aimed at exploring the relevance of the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) from a pragmatic perspective. Although the empirical and conceptual articles are written and published on EI, however it does not suffice the purpose for a practitioner of EI who is naïve to the field of EI, either s/he does not understand the psychological literature or does not have time to study EI in great details. Hence, this article is written from a naïve perspective to make the concept useful and that could be used in our daily life. Drawn from psychological literature, this article is simplifying a complex relationship between human intelligence and emotions and clarifies our understanding about the cognitive and affective spheres of human personality. Further, the article also explains the evolutionary or biological basis of EI and also suggests a managerial use of EI for the field of leadership and decision making. The chapter concludes with a developmental focus of EI. The article is mainly using observations and anecdotes based on the author’s personal experience from his training programs with more than ten thousand managers in India and taught students in Denmark, Italy and South Africa.