This chapter examines assumptions about emotions and aesthetics in science education research as well as in psychology and neurophysiology more generally. I demonstrate how certain conceptual distinctions typically are taken for granted, outlining the consequences these distinctions have for methodologies, and consider what can be discerned through research in these fields. Much of this research relies on a conception of emotion and aesthetics as mental states and as part of inner causal law-bound processes. The origin of these notions is traced to Western analytic philosophy and its historical roots of approaching meaning as objective certainty. Analytic assumptions are contrasted to alternative more synthetic philosophical schools, which have a more empirical approach to examining the continuity and roles of aesthetics and emotions as people proceed with their situated undertakings. The chapter concludes with an exposé of science education research that has begun to adopt synthetic approaches to examine the role of emotion and aesthetics.