Jon Elster has written a comprehensive, wide-ranging book on the emotions in which he considers the full range of theoretical approaches. Drawing on history, literature, philosophy and psychology, Elster presents a complete account of the role of the emotions in human behaviour. While acknowledging the importance of neurophysiology and laboratory experiment for the study of emotions, Elster argues that the serious student of the emotions can learn more from the great thinkers and writers of the past, from Aristotle to Jane (...) Austen. He attaches particular importance to the work of the French moralists, notably La Rochefoucauld, who demonstrated the way esteem and self-esteem shape human motivation. The book also maintains a running dialogue with economists and rational-choice theorists. Combining methodological and theoretical arguments with empirical case-studies and written with Elster's customary verve and economy, this book has great cross-disciplinary appeal. (shrink)

Emotions shape the landscape of our mental and social lives. Like geological upheavals in a landscape, they mark our lives as uneven, uncertain and prone to reversal. Are they simply, as some have claimed, animal energies or impulses with no connection to our thoughts? Or are they rather suffused with intelligence and discernment, and thus a source of deep awareness and understanding? In this compelling book, Martha C. Nussbaum presents a powerful argument for treating emotions not as alien forces but (...) as highly discriminating responses to what is of value and importance. She explores and illuminates the structure of a wide range of emotions, in particular compassion and love, showing that there can be no adequate ethical theory without an adequate theory of the emotions. This involves understanding their cultural sources, their history in infancy and childhood, and their sometimes unpredictable and disorderly operations in our daily lives. (shrink)

A useful contribution to theories of argumentation and public address criticism, this book uses a pragmatic approach to understanding conversation as a way of elucidating the use of appeals to pity and sympathy.

Jon Elster has written a comprehensive, wide-ranging book on the emotions in which he considers the full range of theoretical approaches. Drawing on history, literature, philosophy and psychology, Elster presents a complete account of the role of the emotions in human behaviour. While acknowledging the importance of neurophysiology and laboratory experiment for the study of emotions, Elster argues that the serious student of the emotions can learn more from the great thinkers and writers of the past, from Aristotle to Jane (...) Austen. He attaches particular importance to the work of the French moralists, notably La Rochefoucauld, who demonstrated the way esteem and self-esteem shape human motivation. The book also maintains a running dialogue with economists and rational-choice theorists. Combining methodological and theoretical arguments with empirical case-studies and written with Elster's customary verve and economy, this book has great cross-disciplinary appeal. (shrink)

Appeals to emotion—pity, fear, popular sentiment, and _ad hominem_ attacks—are commonly used in argumentation. Instead of dismissing these appeals as fallacious wherever they occur, as many do, Walton urges that each use be judged on its merits. He distinguished three main categories of evaluation. First, is it reasonable, even if not conclusive, as an argument? Second, is it weak and therefore open to critical questioning for argument? And third, is it fallacious? The third category is a strong charge that incurs (...) a critical burden to back it up by citing evidence from the given text and context of dialogue. Walton uses fifty-six case studies to demonstrate that the problem of emotional fallacies is much subtler than has been previously believed. Ranging over commercial advertisements, political debates, union-management negotiations, and ethical disputes, the case studies reveal that these four types of appeals, while based on presumptive reasoning that are tentative and subject to default, are not always or necessarily fallacious types of argumentation. (shrink)

Is appealing to emotions in argumentation ever legitimate and, if so, what is the best way to analyze and evaluate such appeals? After overviewing a normative pragmatic perspective on appealing to emotions in argumentation, I present answers to these questions from pragma-dialectical, informal logical, and rhetorical perspectives, and note positions shared and supplemented by a normative pragmatic perspective. A normative pragmatic perspective holds that appealing to emotions in argumentation may be relevant and non-manipulative; and that emotional appeals may be analyzed (...) as strategies that create pragmatic reasons and assessed by the standard of formal propriety or reasonability under the circumstances. I illustrate the explanatory power of the perspective by analyzing and evaluating some argumentation from Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.” I conclude that a normative pragmatic perspective offers a more complete account of appealing to emotions in argumentation than a pragma-dialectial, informal logical, or rhetorical perspective alone, identifies a range of norms available to arguers, and explains why appealing to emotions may be legitimate in particular cases of argumentation. (shrink)

Reprinted in Aristotle's Ethics, edited by T. Irwin, Garland Press, 1995; revised in Essays on Aristotle's Rhetoric, edited by A. Rorty, University of California Press, 1996.

When "Aristotle on Emotion" was first published it showed how discussion within Plato's Academy led to a better understanding of emotional response, and how that understanding influenced Aristotle's work in rhetoric, poetics, politics and ethics. The subject has been much discussed since then: there are numerous articles, anthologies and large portions of books on emotion and related topics. In a new epilogue to this second edition, W.W. Fortenbaugh takes account of points raised by other scholars and clarifies some of his (...) earlier thoughts, focusing on the central issue: how Aristotle conceived of emotional response. Among other matters, he considers laughter, emotion in relation to belief and appearance, the effect of emotion on judgement, and the involvement of pain and pleasure in emotional response. (shrink)

The book also comes with an exhaustive array of study aids that enable the reader to monitor and enhance the learning process.

What are 'emotions'? This book offers a balanced survey of facts and theory.

Pour contrer le scepticisme au sujet de la connaissance des valeurs, la plupart soutiennent avec John Rawls qu’une croyance comme celle qu’une action est bonne est justifiée dans la mesure où elle appartient à un ensemble de croyances cohérent, ayant atteint un équilibre réfléchi. Christine Tappolet s’inspire des travaux de Max Scheler et d’Alexius von Meinong pour défendre une conception opposée au cohérentisme. La connaissance des valeurs est affirmée dépendre de nos émotions, ces dernières étant conçues comme des perceptions des (...) valeurs. (shrink)

In "Upheavals of Thought", Martha Nussbaum offers a theory of the emotions. She argues that emotions are best conceived as thoughts, and she argues that emotion-thoughts can make valuable contributions to the moral life. She develops extensive accounts of compassion and erotic love as thoughts that are of great moral import. This paper seeks to elucidate what it means, for Nussbaum, to say that emotions are forms of thought. It raises critical questions about her conception of the structure of emotion, (...) and about her conception of compassion, in particular. Finally, the paper seeks to show how analyzing the structure, as well as the moral value, of the emotions ultimately requires entering the realm of religious ethics. (shrink)

Scare Tactics, the first book on the subject, provides a theory of the structure of reasoning used in fear and threat appeal argumentation. Such arguments come under the heading of the argumentum ad baculum, the `argument to the stick/club', traditionally treated as a fallacy in the logic textbooks. The new dialectical theory is based on case studies of many interesting examples of the use of these arguments in advertising, public relations, politics, international negotiations, and everyday argumentation on all kinds of (...) subjects. Many of these arguments are amusing, once you see the clever tactic used; others are scary. Some of the arguments appear to be quite reasonable, while others are highly suspicious, or even outrageously fraudulent. In addition to the examples taken from logic textbooks, other cases treated come from a variety of sources, including political debates, legal arguments, and arguments from media sources, like magazine articles and television ads. The purpose of this book is to explain how such arguments work as devices of persuasion, and to develop a method for analyzing and evaluating their reasonable and fallacious uses in particular cases. The book shows how such arguments share a common structure, revealing several distinctive forms of argument nested within each other. Based on its account of this cognitive structure, the new dialectical theory presents methods for identifying, analyzing, and evaluating these arguments, as they are used in specific cases. The book is a scholarly contribution to argumentation theory. It is written in an accessible style, and uses many colorful and provocative examples of fear and threat appeal arguments that are suitable for classroom discussions. The matters treated will be of interest to professionals and students in law, critical thinking, advertising, speech communication, informal logic, cognitive science, rhetoric, and media studies. (shrink)

Il faut renoncer à cette idée que le pathétique forme un royaume inférieur. Il faut renoncer à cette idée que la passion soit trouble ou obscure et que la raison soit claire, que la passion soit confuse et que la raison soit distincte, disait Péguy. Les liens que la rhétorique entretient avec les passions semblent le confirmer, pour elle aussi, les passions sont claires comme l'eau de la fontaine et son principal office consiste à les émouvoir. Cet essai se propose (...) de réexaminer le rôle attribué à la visée "movere" dans la théorie du discours persuasif, de la logique des passions dessinée par Aristote à la passion du discours qui enflamme Cicéron. L'analyse des affections qui perturbent l'équilibre de l'âme et livrent l'auditeur à la merci de l'orateur a des incidences sur la poétique des siècles classiques, lorsque les "genres d'écrire" se donnent pour but d'émouvoir, mais aussi sur l'écriture et la lecture de la poésie. L'écrivain ne renonce pas à séduire quand bien même il feint de vouloir déplaire. L'entreprise de séduction se trouve précisément au coeur de l'exercice oratoire. La rhétorique interroge la parole vive dans sa relation au désir. Texte de couverture SOMMAIRE Avant-propos Introduction - L'empire rhétorique La rhétorique et les passions La logique des passions La passion du discours Portraits de l'orateur Figures de la passion Incidences de la rhétorique : la poétique de la Renaissance et les passions Rhétorique de la peinture : la séduction des images Ethique et rhétorique : les passions aux XVI et XVII siècles Conclusion : La passion de la passion. (shrink)