Do we run because we are afraid of the bear or are we afraid of the bear because we run, or, alternatively, do we cry because we are sad or are we sad because we cry? I've thought about this problem since my Religion and the Emotions class sophmore year at Davidson and I've always been partial to James-Lange (we are afraid because we run, we are sad because we cry) because it makes more logical sense - we are evolved animals that arose from other evolved animals that didn't and don't need a therapy session to figure out whether we are afraid enough to run from predators, we just do, i.e., action, motion precedes feeling. Instinct and overt communicable signals (crying) comes first.

But humans are complicated as fuck, and now I think that this controversial question has no meaningful answer, bogged down by cumbersome convolutions scientific, semantic, and philosophical. Neither James-Lange nor Cannon-Bard are fully correct. Schacter and Singer offer little: "cognitions are used to interpret the meaning of physiological reactions to outside events." Thanks guys. Cognitions are used for everything.

The answer is that the question itself is simply beyond our capacity to answer precisely. But William James wins for having the coolest and most logical, aesthetically pleasing theory.