Passion is a hidden issue behind or at the heart of, contemporary theoretical debates about nationalism, identity politics and religious fundamentalism. It is not that reason and passion cannot be conceptually distinguished. They are, however, always entangled in practice - and this entanglement itself requires a conceptual account. So it is my ambition to blur the line between reason and passion: to rationalize (some of) the passions and to impassion reason. Passionate intensity has a legitimate place in (...) the social world. This extension of rational legitimacy to the political passions seems to me a useful revision of liberal theory which has been too pre-occupied in recent years with the construction of dispassionate deliberative procedures. It opens the way for better accounts of social connection and conflict and for more explicit and self-conscious answers to the unavoidable political questions: which side are you on? Key Words: conviction • interest • liberalism • passion • politics • Yeats. (shrink)

I argue that Nietzsche’s criticism of the Kantian theory of disinterested pleasure in beauty reflects his own commitment to claims that closely resemble certain Kantian aesthetic principles, specifically as reinterpreted by Schiller. I show that Schiller takes the experience of beauty to be disinterested both (1) insofar as it involves impassioned ‘play’ rather than desire-driven ‘work’, and (2) insofar as it involves rational-sensuous (‘aesthetic’) play rather than mere physical play. In figures like Nietzsche, Schiller’s generic notion of play—which is itself (...) influenced by Kant’s claim that aesthetic pleasure is orthogonal to desire-satisfaction—becomes decoupled from his (further) Kantian view that aesthetic play essentially involves a harmony of sensuous receptivity and rational spontaneity. The result, I suggest, is a self-standing opposition between desires and passions. This motivates a recognizably Romantic vision of aesthetic disinterestedness, as freedom from desire realized in a state of creative determination by passion. (shrink)

In recent scholarship, moral theologians and readers of Thomas Aquinas have shown increasing sensitivity to the role of the passions in the moral life. Yet these accounts have paid inadequate attention to Thomas's writings on Christ's passions as a source of moral reflection. As I argue in this essay, Thomas's writings on Christ's human affectivity should not be limited to the concerns of Christology; rather, they should be integrated into a fuller account of the human passions. One upshot of this (...) approach for Thomists is that it sharpens our vocabulary when describing human nature and the conditions for the moral life. By considering the rubrics of creation, fall, and redemption – as Thomas does – we find that our resources for analyzing the passions are greatly enriched. (shrink)

Anger dominates debates in the public sphere. In this article I argue that there are diverse forms of anger that merit different responses. My focus is especially on two types of anger that I label respectively arrogant and resistant. The first is the characteristic defensive response of those who unwarrantedly arrogate special privileges for themselves. The second is often a source of insight and a form of moral address. I detail some discursive manifestations of these two types of anger. I (...) show that arrogant anger is responsible for attempts to intimidate and humiliate others with whom one disagrees. Whilst resistant anger can be intimidating, it is also essential in communicating moral demands. (shrink)

Hume views the passions as having both intentionality and qualitative character, which, in light of his Separability Principle, seemingly contradicts their simplicity. I reject the dominant solution to this puzzle of claiming that intentionality is an extrinsic property of the passions, arguing that a number of Hume’s claims regarding the intentionality of the passions (pride and humility in particular) provide reasons for thinking an intrinsic account of the intentionality of the passions to be required. Instead, I propose to resolve this (...) tension by appealing to Hume’s treatment of the ‘distinctions of reason’, as explained by Garrett (1997). (shrink)

Commentators commonly assume that Descartes regards it as a function of the passions to inform us or teach us which things are beneficial and which are harmful. As a result, they tend to infer that Descartes regards the passions as an appropriate guide to what is beneficial or harmful. In this paper I argue that this conception of the role of the passions in Descartes is mistaken. First, in spite of a number of texts appearing to show the contrary, I (...) argue that Descartes does not regard it as the role of the passions to inform us about what is beneficial or harmful. Second, although Descartes calls the passions good and useful, I argue that Descartes does not think we should allow ourselves to be guided by them. When we recognize that the function of the passions is largely motivational and not informative, we can more easily understand Descartes's practical advice in The Passions of the Soul that happiness requires us to guide our passions instead of letting our passions guide us. (shrink)

Spinoza claims we can control any passion by forming a more clear and distinct idea of it. The interpretive consensus is that Spinoza is either wrong or over-stating his view. I argue that Spinoza’s view is plausible and insightful. After breaking down Spinoza’s characterization of the relevant act, I consider four existing interpretations and conclude that each is unsatisfactory. I then consider a further problem for Spinoza: how his definitions of ‘action’ and ‘passion’ make room for passions becoming (...) action. I propose two solutions to this problem, both of which yield a hint regarding what act Spinoza has in mind. Using that hint, I propose that we can appreciate Spinoza’s insight by considering how philosophizing about a feeling can 'kill the mood.' The act of grasping how a passion exemplifies certain general truths, I hold, is a distinctly rational activity that has all the features Spinoza describes. I conclude by showing how this interpretation fits with Spinoza’s larger views on rational knowledge, rational joy, the comprehensibility of passions, and the relation between second- and first-order ideas. (shrink)

In this essay, I propose a reading of two contrasting passions, two kinds of erōs, in the "Symposium." On the one hand, there is the imperialistic desire for conquering and possessing that Alcibiades represents; and on the other hand, there is the productive love of immortal wisdom that Diotima represents. It’s not just what Alcibiades says in the Symposium, but also what he symbolizes. Alcibiades gives a speech in honor of Socrates and of his unrequited love for him, but even (...) here Alcibiades recounts his attempted seduction of Socrates as a failed conquest, as an unsuccessful attempt to violently take possession of something that Socrates has within him. Even more importantly, in 416 BCE (the dramatic date of Agathon’s symposium) Alcibiades was soon to encourage his fellow countrymen to set off on the ruinous Sicilian expedition. Alcibiades’s actions behind-the-scenes of the "Symposium" reveal the clearest manifestation of his imperialistic erōs (for political power in Athens). They also constitute some necessary background to the dialogue, which Plato’s Athenian readers would have had in mind. Where else can we catch a glimpse of this disastrous desire? It is best illustrated in Thucydides’s "History." I show that the beginnings of this political passion can already be seen in Pericles’s funeral oration (2.35-46, specifically 2.43.1) and that after Pericles’s death, Alcibiades stokes this erōs to such a fevered pitch that the Athenians agree to launch the tragic venture against Sicily. Opposed to this political passion, is Diotima’s. She tries to reorient this misguided erōs and presents an alternative form of desire for everlasting wisdom (philosophia). (shrink)

I criticize an increasingly popular set of arguments for the justifiability of punishment. Some philosophers try to justify punishment by appealing to what Peter Strawson calls the reactive attitudes – emotions like resentment, indignation, remorse and guilt. These arguments fail. The view that these emotions commit us to punishment rests on unsophisticated views of punishment and of these emotions and their associated behaviors. I offer more sophisticated accounts of punishment, of these emotions and of their associated behaviors that are consistent (...) with Abolitionism, the view that punishment is unjustified. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the influence of Cambridge Platonism and materialist philosophy on Mary Astell's early feminism. More specifically, I argue that Astell co-opts Descartes's theory of regulating the passions in his final publication, The Passions of the Soul, to articulate a comprehensive, Enlightenment and body friendly theory of feminine self-esteem that renders her feminism modern. My analysis of Astell's theory of feminine self-esteem follows both textual and contextual cues, thus allowing for a reorientation of her early feminism vis-a-vis contemporary feminist (...) theory . An entire chapter in the dissertation is devoted to Astell's use of Descartes's theory of regulating the passions to render women more substantial and inherently worthy. This rendering becomes more concrete in Astell's feminist framework as she employs the language of the social contract in her fourth publication, Reflections Upon Marriage, to depict wives as contractual slaves. I argue that her assertion concerning women's slavery is theoretically consistent when read in light of her theory of feminine self-esteem, since this theory is based on the Enlightenment principles of self-mastery, independence and self-preservation. Further, I align Astell's early feminism in a dialogic sense with the Continental "querelle des femmes," especially as presented in writings by Christine de Pizan and Agrippa. Astell, I argue, contributes to the "querelle" by framing the feminist problem she wishes to solve concerning women's equality in a robust , philosophical manner that uncannily prefigures Wollstonecraft's call for the universalization of human virtues and the reform of of women's education. (shrink)

This chapter presents Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy as modern fictions with ancient-skeptical ambitions. Whether in the affective domain (Flaubert) or in the cognitive (Beckett), the aim is to help the reader achieve a position of studied neutrality—ataraxia, époché—thanks not to an a priori decision but to the mutual cancellation of opposing tendencies. Understanding Flaubert and Beckett in this way allows us, first, to enrich our sense of what “catharsis” may involve; second, to see why the apparently (...) odious Charles, in Madame Bovary, suddenly becomes a deeply touching figure; and third, to recognize the severe limitations of empathy-based moralist theories of fiction. (shrink)

Many scholars have claimed that the psychology of the indirect passions in the Treatise is meant to capture how we come to regard persons as morally responsible agents. My question is exactly how the indirect passions relate to responsibility. In elucidating Hume’s account of responsibility, scholars have often focused not on the passionate responses themselves, but on their structural features. In this paper, I argue that locating responsibility in the structural features is insufficient to make sense of Hume’s account of (...) responsibility. I argue this on the grounds that without reference to the passions, Hume does not have the resources to distinguish between responsible and non-responsible entities. Instead, I attribute to Hume a distinctive, sympathy-based response-dependent conception of responsibility. (shrink)

In §18 of Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason, Leibniz says: ”Thus our happiness will never consist, and must never consist, in complete joy, in which nothing is left to desire, and which would dull our mind, but must consist in a perpetual progress to new pleasures and new perfections.” -/- This passage is typical in Leibniz’s Nachlass. Universal perfection creates in us joy or pleasure of the mind and its source is our creator, God. When this joy (...) is constant, we reach happiness and wisdom which is a kind of standing state of virtue, readiness to practice charity in the best of all possible worlds. However, it also indicates that our knowledge is never perfect. Perfecting our knowledge is a never-ending process which gives us joy in itself and motivates us to act in imitation of God. In this way some passions advance our knowledge and we can create ourselves a passionate habit of knowing more about the world and its perfection. In this paper I try to see this process of self-perfection from a cognitive rather than ethical point of view. While it is clear that in the final stage of wisdom we act mostly on our volitions which are founded on clear and distinct perceptions, it is less clear what cognitive status is to be attributed to our initial perceptions of perfection, our emotions and finally, the intellectual emotions which lead us to perfection and God. I will also reflect the role of the minute perceptions in our struggle for happiness. My argument is that a central cognitive role in Leibniz’s views on self-perfection is held by clear, but confused perfections which are subjective, undemonstrable impressions, shades, feelings. Therefore our ethical action is largely founded on passing, minute feelings rather than on deliberated conscious volitions, although the goal in Leibniz’s moral theory is to change this fact. -/- My discussion is founded on several texts from Leibniz’s later philosophy, such as the discussion following from New System of the Nature and the Communication of Substances of 1695, Leibniz’s letter to Queen Sophie Charlotte of 1702 (also known as On What is Independent in Sense and Matter), New Essays on Human Understanding (1704), Theodicy (1710) and naturally Leibniz’s most important epistemological text, Meditations of Truth, Knowledge and Ideas (1684). (shrink)

Some natural philosophers in the 17th century believed that they could control their own innards, specifically the animal spirits coursing incessantly through brain and nerves, in order to discipline or harness passion, cognition and action under rational guidance. This chapter addresses the mechanisms thought necessary after Eden for controlling the physiology of passion. The tragedy of human embedding in the body, with its cognitive and moral limitations, was paired with a sense of our confinement in sequential time. I (...) use two strands of 17th-century natural philosophy to exemplify forms of the perceived connection between physiology, memory, and the passions. I deal at length with Cartesian mechanism, and more briefly with Restoration natural philosophy in England. These are fruitful historical domains for connecting cognition and culture, since relations of domination, disruption, or accommodation between present and past are in play for both selves and societies. Despite the difficulty of integrating affect with cognition in theories of brain and mind, the capacity to treat passion and memory together is crucial for future cognitive science to address issues which outsiders care about. (shrink)

I argue for a thorough reinterpretation of Hume’s “common point of view” thesis, at least within his moral Enquiry. Hume is typically understood to argue that we correct for sympathetically produced variations in our moral sentiments, by undertaking an imaginative exercise. I argue that Hume cannot consistently claim this, because he argues that we automatically experience the same degree of the same moral sentiment towards all tokens of any one type of character trait. I then argue that, in his Enquiry (...) at least, Hume only believes that we correct for variations in our non-moral sentiments. When he claims that we sometimes choose a “common point of view,” he just means that we sometimes choose to verbally express our calm, moral sentiments, and no other passions, when we publicly evaluate people’s characters. (shrink)

We analyse competition for statuses on urban areas and rural settings to intend to respond to several philosophycal and anthropological questions about conflit, violence (domestic violence) and several items on human nature.

The investigation of the act of Sex protrudes an intricate analysis more so if thus should be justified as an activity of the Mind and not purely physical. This philosophical endeavor investigates on the matter of incorporating Passion in the assertion of Sex as such that will beget Pleasure. In order for the proper direction setting of this inquest, the opus posited a literature review that is akin to the variables of this research. It is therefore qualifiable to assert (...) the variables of Passion, Sex, and Pleasure. As such, these properties allow the rudiments which shall be tackled on the explication. The researcher delved on the investigation on anatomizing Sex and even the Passions involve for it to be protruded in a state that is occupied by the Mind. The very purpose of the opus is to intricately expose the inner workings of the activities that ought to be done in banality. There is also an explication of thought experiments to highlight the integration to the epistemological property of the variable exposed in this endeavor. In the canopy of this research, the highlight is on the ontological property of the faculties ascertained and the epistemological qualification of the properties that are seemingly isolated from the Mind. It is therefore, phenomenological since it protrudes the nature of the properties as they exist in the current circumstance, as such it is less existential simply because what it ascertains is the circumstance upon which the action attributes itself to. -/- . (shrink)

Critical notice of Mark Schroeder's Slaves of the Passions.

Chapter 20 of book II of John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, titled ‘Of Modes of Pleasure and Pain’ is the most extensive discussion of emotions available in Locke’s corpus. Likewise, Nouveaux essais sur l’entedement humain, II, xx, together with the following chapter xxi remains the chief source of Leibniz’s views of emotions. They offer a very interesting and captivating discussion of moral philosophy and good life. The chapter provides also a great platform to study Leibniz’s argumentative techniques and (...) the differences between the philosophers in general. Locke strives to explain the emotions with a single, unifying notion of uneasiness while Leibniz’s view of the mind is much more complex and he finds more unique ways of explaining different emotions. My paper focuses on Leibniz’s critique of Lockean uneasiness as an explanans for emotions. He views uneasiness as a unavoidable part of all our mental states and therefore it is not sufficient to explain passions or moral wrong-doing of men. I will discuss such passions as love, joy, sorrow, hope, fear, despair, anger, envy and shame and consider Locke’s possible response to Leibniz’s critique. (shrink)

Žižek has argued in his books on Christianity and modernity that institutional Catholic Christianity has placed its members in a double bind by insisting on belief in a nonexistent God of Being. The laws of this God of the Symbolic are perverse in that they impose impossible requirements on all believers. By the mid-twentieth century, however, Catholicism was experiencing the revolutionary reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Dogmatic Law at this time gave way to a renewed emphasis on the community (...) of love associated in early Christianity with the Holy Spirit. This God of the Real is inherently Trinitarian: God-Father-Thing, Spirit as community of believers, and Christ as the imaginary Real gap between them. The American gothic writer Flannery O’Connor in her short story “A Temple of the Holy Ghost” provides a meditation on this Real Trinity. In O’Connor’s story a hermaphroditic circus freak becomes an emblem of the deadlock of sexual difference and a monstrous Christ-figure in the Žižekian sense. Its place is theologically incoherent and represents the passion for the Real emerging out of the perverse situation of mid-century Catholic orthodoxy. (shrink)

The theme of the conflict between the different interpretations of Spinoza’s philosophy in French scholarship, introduced by Christopher Norris in this volume and expanded on by Alain Badiou, is also central to the argument presented in this chapter. Indeed, this chapter will be preoccupied with distinguishing the interpretations of Spinoza by two of the figures introduced by Badiou. The interpretation of Spinoza offered by Gilles Deleuze in Expressionism in Philosophy provides an account of the dynamic changes or transformations of the (...) characteristic relations of a Spinozist finite existing mode, or human being. This account has been criticized more or less explicitly by a number of commentators, including Charles Ramond. Rather than providing a defence of Deleuze on this specific point, which I have done elsewhere, what I propose to do in this chapter is provide an account of the role played by “joyful passive a affections” in these dynamic changes or transformations by distinguishing Deleuze’s account of this role from that offered by one of his more explicit critics on this issue, Pierre Macherey. An appreciation of the role played by “joyful passive affections” in this context is crucial to understanding how Deleuze’s interpretation of Spinoza is implicated in his broader philosophical project of constructing a philosophy of difference. The outcome is a position that, like Badiou in the previous chapter, rules out “intellect in potentiality” but maintains a role for the joyful passive affects in the development of adequate ideas. (shrink)

Descartes claims that the passions of the soul are “all in their nature good” even though they exaggerate the value of their objects, have the potential to deceive us, and often mislead us. What, then, can he mean by this? In this paper, I argue that these effects of the passions are only problematic when we incorrectly take their goodness to consist in their informing us of harms and benefits to the mind-body composite. Instead, the passions are good in their (...) motivational function, which they carry out by representing objects and situations as having various properties and thereby appearing to be “reasons of goodness.” Further, I argue that the main way in which the passions are problematic is merely an occasional physiological byproduct of a well- functioning system. I show, therefore, that the passions’ motivational function, representationality, and accompanying physiology are all significant and interrelated aspects of their goodness. (shrink)

It is not usually morally permissible to desire the suffering of another person, or to act so as to satisfy this desire; that is, to act with the aim of bringing about suffering. If the retributive emotions, and the retributive responses of which they are a part, are morally permitted or even required, we will need to see what is distinctive about them. One line of argument in this paper is for the conclusion that a retributive desire for the suffering (...) of the wrong-doer, and the aim to bring this about, can (contra recent arguments from Hanna 2008) be morally justified. -/- It has been suggested that by reflecting on the role of the retributive emotions in interpersonal relationships, and the alleged legitimacy of the aim for the suffering of the wrong-doer within them, support can be garnered for retributive practices of punishment by the state (Duff 1986 and 2001, Bennett 2002 and 2003). The conclusion of the second line of argument in the paper is that whilst the retributive responses can permissibly aim at suffering, the way in which this is so in interpersonal relationships cannot provide support for retributive state punishment. (shrink)

An apathetic life is not the sort of life that most of us would want for ourselves or believe that we have a duty to strive for. And yet Kant argues that we have a duty of apathy, a duty to strive to be without affects (Affecten) and passions (Leidenschaften). But is Kant’s claim that there is a duty of apathy really as problematic as it sounds? In arguing that it is not, this paper investigates in detail in Kant’s accounts (...) of affects and passions and defends Kant’s argument that we have a duty of apathy. This investigation reveals Kant’s nuanced view on the role that sensible motivating states play in moral agency and the development of a virtuous character. (shrink)

The problem of divine impassibility, i.e., of whether the divine nature in Christ could suffer, stands at the center of a debate regarding the nature of God and his relation to us. Whereas philosophical reasoning regarding the divine nature maintains that the divine is immutable and perfect in every respect, theological needs generated an ever-growing demand for a passionate God truly able to participate in the suffering of his creatures. Correlating with the different approaches of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns (...) Scotus, the paper develops an incarnation model that aims, on the one hand, to solve the dualistic problem between the divine and human natures, and on the other hand to make room for both impassible and passible elements in God, and so to make room within the patristic impassible model for genuine suffering in God. The discussion, though centered around Christ's im/passibility and passions, can easily be modified to approach the body-mind problem since the essence of the problems is the same. (shrink)

Précis of Slaves of the Passions Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11098-010-9658-1 Authors Mark Schroeder, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116.

A review of a book on Popper's encounter with Wittgenstein.

In this paper, I explore parallels between philosophical and tyrannical eros in Plato's Republic. I argue that in arguing that reason experiences eros for the forms, Plato introduces significant tensions into his moral psychology.

Plant diseases are numerous in the world of agriculture. These diseases cause a lot of trouble to most farmers. Among these common diseases, we single out the diseases that affect the Passion fruit, which is affected by about seven diseases, with different symptoms for each disease. Today, technology is facilitating human life in all areas of life, and among these facilities are expert system, a computer program that uses artificial-intelligence methods to solve problems within a specialized domain that ordinarily (...) requires human expertise. The first expert system was developed in 1965 by Edward Feigen Baum and Joshua Lederberg of Stanford University in California, U.S. Dendral, as their expert system was later known, was designed to analyses chemical compounds. Expert systems now have commercial applications in fields as diverse as medical diagnosis, petroleum engineering, and financial investing and other areas, and with reference to expert systems and their importance to humans, an integrated expert system has been created in the agricultural field that diagnoses Passion diseases using CLIPS Expert System language. The system was used to design and implement the proposed expert system. The system facilitates the diagnosis of Passion -related diseases. There is no doubt that this expert system will help farmers and those involved in the agricultural field to diagnose Passion -related diseases. Objectives: is to help farmers diagnose Passion diseases in the correct way and how to treat these diseases. Method: The system contains a program project that diagnoses 7 diseases that affect Passion and the seven diseases are: Brown spot, Septoria spot, Root and crown rot, Fusarium wilt, Anthracnose, Woodiness virus, Scab. Results: The expert system was evaluated by farmers and praised for helping them with it. Conclusion: The expert system for diagnosing Passion diseases is effective and usable. (shrink)

This chapter examines the mechanistic psychology of Descartes in the _Passions_, while also drawing on the _Treatise on Man_. It develops the idea of a Cartesian “psychology” that relies on purely bodily mechanisms by showing that he explained some behaviorally appropriate responses through bodily mechanisms alone and that he envisioned the tailoring of such responses to environmental circumstances through a purely corporeal “memory.” An animal’s adjustment of behavior as caused by recurring patterns of sensory stimulation falls under the notion of (...) “learning,” behavioristically conceived. Indeed, Descartes’s animal-machine hypothesis may well be a distant ancestor to Watsonian behaviorism, via T. H. Huxley (1884). The final two sections of the chapter take stock of what psychological capacities Descartes ascribed to mind, body, or both, and consider those capacities that we might now plausibly construe as being explicable by nonmentalistic mechanisms as opposed to those that at present remain unreducedly mentalistic. -/- This chapter derives from a lecture delivered at the University of King's College (Halifax, Nova Scotia) as part of a year-long series on Descartes and the Modern. The lecture series was co-sponsored by the programs in History of Science and Early Modern and Contemporary Studies. (shrink)

I begin this paper with a survey of the textual evidence for a new Cartesian subject, a post-Cartesian Cartesian individual, for whom the life of the body, its passions, and its relationships are central. In the second section, I consider his remarks on hatred, which complicate his view embodied life. Even if Descartes’s study of the passions in his treatise as well as his correspondence calls for a more nuanced understanding of the Cartesian person, we will find in his attention (...) to embodiment a conflicted and wary human being for whom relationships can be nourishing and sweet just as easily as they can be noxious and bitter. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that John Henry Newman was right to think that our passional nature can play a legitimate epistemic role. First, we unpack the standard objection to Newman’s understanding of the relationship between our passional nature and the evidential basis of faith. Second, we argue that the standard objection to Newman operates with a narrow definition of evidence. After challenging this notion, we then offer a broader and more humane understanding of evidence. Third, we survey recent scholarship (...) arguing that emotions, a key aspect of our passional nature, are cognitive. In this light, they plausibly have a proper epistemic role. Fourth, we defend Newman’s reliance on the passional nature in epistemic matters by showing how reasonable it is in light of this recent work on evidence and the nature of emotions. Newman’s insistence that the formation of a right state of heart and mind is crucial for epistemic success is far from untenable. (shrink)

For this special issue, dedicated to the historical break in what one might call ‘the politics of feeling’ between ancient ‘passions’ (in the ‘soul’) and modern ‘emotions’ (in the ‘mind’), I will suggest that the pivotal difference might be located instead between ancient and modern conceptions of the passions. Through new interpretations of two exemplars of these conceptions, Plato’s Phaedrus and Descartes’ Passions of the Soul, I will suggest that our politics today need to return to what I term Plato’s (...) ‘psychological virtue’ (drawing on virtue’s dual senses as ‘goodness’ and ‘power’), defined as a dynamic tension among mindful desire (nous), carnal desire (epithumia) and societal desire (thumos) achieved through rational discourse (logos). The upshot of this concept of psychological virtue, is that mind, at least via discourse, is also a desiring force, and thus capable of helping create new actions for souls in the political world. (shrink)

Hume argues that whenever we seem to be motivated by reason, there are unnoticed calm passions that play this role instead, a move is that is often criticised as ad hoc (e.g. Stroud 1977 and Cohon 2008). In response, some commentators propose a conceptual rather than empirical reading of Hume’s conativist thesis, either as a departure from Hume (Stroud 1977), or as an interpretation or rational reconstruction (Bricke 1996). -/- I argue that conceptual accounts face a dilemma: either they render (...) the conativist thesis trivial, or they violate Hume's thesis that 'a priori, any thing may produce any thing'. I defend an empirical construal of Hume’s conativist thesis. I provide two theoretical frameworks within which Hume’s appeal to the calm passions may be justified: first, by the framework of theoretical virtues, and secondly, by lights of his own ‘rules by which to judge of causes and effects’ (THN 1.3.15). (shrink)

Scholars have long recognised that Mary Astell builds her feminist critique of society on a foundation of Cartesian views about human nature and the passions. At the same time, the full extent of the influence of Descartes’ view of embodiment on the solution Astell proposes in her Serious Proposal to the Ladies is only beginning to come to light. In this paper, I contribute to this ongoing project by arguing that Astell builds on Descartes’ ideas by addressing a blind spot (...) in his view, namely, that that the embodied self is socially situated, and that therefore, our social context plays a crucial formative role in the development of our passions. In doing so, I show Astell extends Cartesian philosophy beyond an egalitarian feminist critique of society, but also to a positive political theory offering a solution to the problems she identifies. Thusly, Astell shows the political potential of Cartesian philosophy as a framework for social critique and to seek solutions to the problems such a critique can bring out. (shrink)

This book describes how scientists bring their own interests and passions to their work, illustrates the dynamics between researchers and the research community ...

What is the feeling of religious longing and how, if at all, can religious longing justify religious beliefs? Starting with an analogy between religious longing and basic physical needs and an analogy between religious longing and musical longing, I argue that the feeling of religious longing is characterized by four features: its generality, its indeterminate transcendent object which by its nature is not capable of empirical verification or falsification, its mode of being infinitely interested in passion and its ambiguity (...) with regard to our own power and powerlessness. Religious longing can neither epistemically nor pragmatically justify religious beliefs. If we want to account for the rationality of religious beliefs motivated by religious longing, we have to consider passionate rationality as a third kind of rationality. We wholeheartedly take as true what we experience as a condition of the possibility of life. (shrink)

It is Chantal Mouffe’s contention that the central weakness of consensus-driven forms of liberalism, such as John Rawls’ political liberalism and Jurgen Habermas’ deliberative democracy, is that they refuse to acknowledge conflict and pluralism, especially at the level of the ontological. Their defence for doing so is that conflict and pluralism are the result of attempts to incorporate unreasonable and irrational claims into the public political sphere. In this context, unreasonable and irrational claims are those that cannot be translated into (...) universalizable terms. However, for Mouffe, it is this intentional exclusionary act itself that is detrimental to a well- functioning democratic polity. It is only through the inclusion of a diverse body of subject positions that a democratic polity can be said to be truly representative of the polity, and therefore constitute a functioning and inclusive democracy. -/- This paper will examine Mouffe’s account of agonistic pluralism. In doing so, it will demonstrate that instead of being a source of instability within the democratic discourse and therefore relegated into the private non-political sphere, passions and values that are constitutive of these subject positions ought to be incorporated into the public political sphere. Mouffe’s rationale for doing so is that it is precisely through their incorporation that citizens will retain their allegiance to the democratic polity. However, as part of this examination, this paper will also draw attention to an under-developed aspect of Mouffe’s account of agonistic democracy, specifically problems regarding both participation and exclusion. Whilst Mouffe does provide a robust counterpoint to both Rawls’ political liberalism and Habermas’ deliberative democracy, it is my contention that she fails to explain adequately what it is that persuades participants to act democratically and adhere to the requirements of agonal respect, nor what should happen when the ethico- political principles of liberty and equality are not accepted. (shrink)

Resumo: Neste artigo exploramos a concepção estoica de πάθος, suas causas e consequências. Inicialmente abordamos o modo como as paixões se encaixam na ética estoica, uma vez que elas se mostram como impedimentos para aquele que quer viver melhor. Logo depois, analisamos os debates realizados no seio da escola, os acréscimos e os aperfeiçoamentos teóricos. Por fim, mostramos a distinção entre πάθη, προπάθειαι e εὐπαθεῖαι, pois isso propicia uma melhor compreensão da dimensão emocional da psicologia da Stoa, servindo principalmente para (...) evitar interpretações precipitadas que podem ocorrer ao se ler um texto estoico. -/- Abstract: In this article the stoic conception of πάθος is explored, its causes and consequences. Initially, it is approached how passions fit Stoic ethics, since they appear as impediments to those who want to live better. Afterwards the debates within this school are analyzed, its additions and the theoretical improvements. Finally, the distinction between πάθη, προπάθειαι and εὐπαθεῖαι is presented, since this provides a better understanding of the emotional dimension of Stoa’s psychology, mainly to avoid precipitous interpretations that may occur when reading a Stoic text. (shrink)

Descartes’s mechanistic account of the passions is sometimes dismissed as one which lacks the resources toadequately explain the cognitive aspect of emotion. By some, he is taken to be “feeling theorist”, reducing thepassions to a mere awareness of the physiological state of the soul-body union. If this reading of Descartes’spassions is correct, his theory fails not only because it cannot account for the intentional nature of the passions,but also because the passions cannot play the role in Descartes’s moral theory they (...) are meant to play. I arguethat Descartes’s account is not best read as a feeling theory. I defend a reading of the Cartesian passions whichacknowledges their mechanistic nature, arguing that for Descartes, passions are modes of the soul withcognitive significance, they are perceptions of relational axiological properties. Thus, Descartes’s theory of thepassions has the resources to connect it with an account of good conduct. As a means of elaborating on thenormative nature of the passions I consider the role of generosity in Descartes’s moral theory. (shrink)

Simon Blackburn has not shied away from the use of vivid imagery in developing, over a long and prolific career, a large-scale philosophical vision. Here one might think, for instance, of ‘Practical Tortoise Raising’ or ‘Ramsey's Ladder’ or ‘Frege's Abyss’. Blackburn develops a ‘quasi-realist’ account of many of our philosophical and everyday commitments, both theoretical (e.g., modality and causation) and practical (e.g., moral judgement and normative reasons). Quasi-realism aims to provide a naturalistic treatment of its targeted phenomena while earning the (...) right to deploy all of the ‘trappings’ of realism—i.e., while eschewing any idea that our normal thought and talk about such phenomena are pervasively in error. The quasi-realist project is that of explaining how (as Huw Price puts it here) ‘the folk come to “talk the realist talk” without committing ourselves—us theorists, as it were—to “walking the metaphysical walk”’ (p. 136). Quasi-realism, too, can speak of truth, facts, properties, belief, knowledge, and so on. The imagery in this collection also abounds, though, in capturing a different view of quasi-realism: No fewer than three of the contributors picture Blackburn as wanting to have his cake and eat it too (Louise Antony asking, in addition, ‘Who doesn't? It's cake’ [p. 19]). (shrink)

This article is devoted to the analysis of the passion of self-love. The first part aims to retrace some of the main landmark cases within the history of modern philosophy (Descartes, Hobbes and the Jansenists), highlighting how the distinction between self-preservation and pride becomes the main explanatory model of human agency. We find a meaningful case of such an anthropology in Mandeville’s categories of self-love and self-liking. We consider the theory of self-liking the attempt to establish a fully-fledged ‘philosophy (...) of vainness’. The second part deals with the contemporary use of self-love. We stress how it can be considered not only as the proper theoretical background for the current debate on recognition. It is also an anti-dualistic analytic tool which contests any Manichean understanding of power. We conclude with an interpretation of Primo Levi’s testimony which ideally stands for an extreme confirmation of modern theories on self-love. (shrink)