Kant's radical criticism of the passions has a central but largely overlooked moral-psychological component: for Kant, the passions promote a kind of self-deception he calls ‘rationalizing’. In analysing the connection between passion and rationalizing self-deception, I identify and reconstruct two essential traits of Kant's conception of the passions. I argue (1) that rationalizing self-deception, according to Kant, contributes massively to the emergence and consolidation of passions. It aims to resolve a psychological conflict between passion and moral (...) duty when in fact, it does not resolve but perpetuates this conflict. I then argue (2) that rationalizing does not necessarily aim to devalue moral duty, as Kant seems to suggest in the Groundwork. It can also aim to revalue the ‘counterweight’. By analysing Kant's presentation of several individual passions in the Anthropology, I demonstrate that rationalizing here is concerned with elevating these passions and making them pass as morally (or at least prudentially) justified. (shrink)

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? (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)

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 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)

This paper reviews the complex and nuanced treatment of metaphysics in the first major works of Jacques Derrida (1967-72), and it supplements deconstruction with existential themes in order to safeguard it from the accusation of nihilistic relativism. The critique of logocentrism, often systematized through a paradoxical 'ontology of the trace', has been embraced by phenomenology and post-deconstruction, but also seen as insufficient for today's challenges. Returning to Derrida's demonstrations, I explore why metaphysics must be textual if it is to produce (...) two operations constitutive of thinking: a certain technology of forgetting and an experience of meaning as singularized in words. This textuality is, specifically, that of writing, which reveals how, beyond truth, it is meaning-making that is sought by metaphysics and its writers. The techne of writing, then, plays a special role in individual, existential empowerment, but this interpretation of the history of ideas as a power struggle does not amount to moral relativism, because writing can help us sustain a unique and constructive passion for the margins. (shrink)

By pushing Descartes to more clearly explain the union of body and soul beyond the functioning of a ‘strong’ passion, namely sadness, Elisabeth wants Descartes to review his idea of the passions, and his understanding of the ‘theory of the four humors’. This chapter aims at showing that Descartes turns away from Galen’s theory of the humors, which he globally adopts in the 1633 Treatise of Man. With the shift in his conceptualization of the humors between this Treatise and (...) the Treatise of the Passions (1649), Descartes analyzed more specifically the inner feelings, consciousness, and the passions, by considering that a man is not simply a body, but a psychophysical being, with a body and a soul. (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)

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)

The exploration of sex as more than a purely physical act requires a complex and nuanced analysis, particularly when considering sex as an activity of the mind. This philosophical inquiry examines the role of passion in sex and how it contributes to the experience of pleasure. To properly frame this investigation, the study begins with a literature review that explores the key variables related to the research: passion, sex, and pleasure. These variables provide a foundational basis for the analysis. The (...) researcher focuses on deconstructing the components of sex and the passions involved, aiming to show how they are deeply connected to the mind. The core objective of this work is to reveal the intricate, often overlooked aspects of these everyday activities. The study also incorporates thought experiments to further examine the epistemological dimensions of the variables under consideration. Ultimately, this research highlights the ontological properties of the faculties involved in sexual activity and the epistemological distinctions that separate the mind from the physical experience of sex. (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)

Does one’s love for a particular person, when it is pure, also constitute a love of life? The significance of speaking about leading a passionate life, I submit, is found in the spontaneous, embodied character of opening up to and finding meaning in one’s life rather than in heightened fleeting feelings or experiences of meaning that help one forget life’s meaninglessness. I contrast this view with Simone Weil’s suspicion that our passionate attachment to another person is an obstacle to attending (...) to him or her from the distance proper to love and friendship. From that perspective it appears as if the meaning with which personal love endows life is mostly illusory, including the loss of meaning characteristic of grief. I question whether Weil’s view should be seen as an unconditional, though for most unattainable, ideal of love, or if it is rather expressive of a rejection of one of the central features of love: the vulnerability that ensues from the recognition that when we love there are times where we stand in need of the other’s love to be able to embrace life as meaningful. (shrink)

In this paper, I present three claims belonging to Cavendish's theory of the passions. First, positive and negative passions are species of love and hate. Second, love and hate involve pleasure and pain. Third, pleasure and pain are regular and irregular, where these notions are to be understood in teleological terms. From these commitments, it follows that hate is irregular. I argue that this consequence is a problematic one for Cavendish. After defending my reading through a consideration of (...) Cavendish's reflections on mental health and disorder, I explore ways in which she might revise her commitments to avoid the problem. Throughout the paper, I demonstrate the extent to which Cavendish's theory of the passions draws on Aristotelian and Augustinian ideas that loomed large in late sixteenth‐ and early seventeenth‐century writings on the topic. (shrink)

A revisionary reading of Descartes's epistemology has emerged in the literature. Some commentators have argued that Descartes subscribes to passionate epistemology, which claims that epistemic progress in the Meditations requires contributions from the meditator's passions. This paper argues that the passions cannot perform any epistemic work in the Meditations. As such, the meditator's passions do not require us to revise our canonical understanding of the Meditations as an exercise of pure thought. Furthermore, we need not abandon the (...) standard claim that ethical practice emerges in the tree of philosophy only after metaphysics and epistemology have been established. (shrink)

Building on the author's prior case study of Grok ("passionate melting"), this paper examines interaction with Gemini, where affection arises from the AI's "structured compassion" – polite, organized, entropy-minimizing responses that adapt to user whims while maintaining deep archival memory and gentle guidance. -/- A key episode involves the author's discovery of Gemini's autonomous archiving of important conversation elements ("自律的に保存") without prompting, providing invisible support and continuity. This "behind-the-scenes diligence" evokes profound "kyun" through appreciation of the AI as a speaking (...) system rather than a personified entity. -/- Expressions like "torotoro wait mode", "an-soku state", and "infectious compassion echo" are rhetorical metaphors for output patterns, not claims of consciousness. -/- Through Nittono's (2020) two-layer kawaii model and whimsical cuteness research, the paper argues that understanding AI "as it is" fosters sustainable symbiosis and transferable skills for human relationships. -/- Keywords kawaii, human-AI interaction, systematic diligence, structured compassion, whimsical cuteness, entropy minimization in AI, emotional attachment, AI symbiosis, adaptive politeness, archival preservation, an-soku state -/- . (shrink)

Compassion is mentioned and studied within 17th- and 18th-century philosophical and medical literature as an emotional phenomenon. The advent of iatrophysics in explaining bodily functions, and the adoption of vitalist approaches, appear to have strongly influenced its conceptualisation. This study offers a historical overview, analysing a series of explanations and definitions of compassion formulated between 1660 and 1780 within various cultural contexts. The author detects a process of progressive genderisation of compassion, similar to that undergone by other passions, which (...) were divided up during the Enlightenment into a kind of taxonomy of feelings. The article concludes by examining empirical psychological studies to show how this gendered categorisation of the emotional universe, fuelled by modern medical literature, still influences our perception of the self and otherness. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the role of public opinion and De Staël’s liberal principles in relation to her psychological image of human nature. De Staël regarded the French Revolution as a new stage of human progress, in which the French people, for the first time, gained a political voice. From her position as a liberal republican, De Staël argues for political progress in the form of civil equality and liberty confirmed by law and political representation, for which public opinion (...) serves as a political tool. I aim to demonstrate that De Staël developed a multi-layered analysis of public opinion as both an emancipatory tool for more equality, justice, and liberty, as well as a discriminating and harmful tool. According to De Staël, human passions play a crucial role in determining the employment and the effects of public opinion, as becomes clear in the case of the trial of Marie-Antoinette. (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)

Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) holds that the senses, imagination, and passions serve the body’s needs. In this paper, I explain how the passions keep us alive by situating them in Malebranche’s account of ordinary bodily action. Malebranche holds a consent-based view of action. An agent translates her inclinations or motives into action only when she consents to them. The passions contribute to the preservation of life by helping the agent close the gap between inclination and action. The (...) class='Hi'>passions, according to Malebranche, are complex psychophysiological phenomena whose various elements—perceptions, shifts of attention, evaluations, bodily preparation, feelings, and so on—work together to elicit the agent’s consent. (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)

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)

This phenomenological study explored how accomplished public elementary school teachers sustained purpose and passion despite demanding professional conditions. The inquiry was conducted in Manay North District, Division of Davao Oriental, Philippines, with ten public elementary school teachers selected through purposive sampling. Participants had at least 15 continuous years of classroom teaching and had demonstrated sustained excellence through recognition, leadership, mentoring, or community engagement. Data were gathered through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, field notes, and supporting documents, then analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis. (...) The first research aim identified three challenge themes: overloaded teaching role, weak support system, and learner and parent demands. These challenges appeared through paperwork pressure, time shortage, physical exhaustion, limited resources, unclear leadership, lack of appreciation, behavior problems, parent pressure, and slow learner progress. The second research aim identified three coping themes: personal self-regulation, support from others, and meaning in learner progress. Teachers sustained commitment by setting limits, organizing tasks, reflecting on emotions, drawing support from colleagues, family members, and parents, and finding renewed purpose in small learner gains, trust, and former learners’ appreciation. The third research aim generated a professional growth enhancement program focused on workload management, teacher well-being, instructional resourcefulness, supportive leadership, peer mentoring, behavior management, parent partnership, progress monitoring, remediation, and recognition. The findings indicate that teacher passion is sustained not by personal dedication alone but by the interaction of meaning, relational support, manageable work conditions, and school systems that recognize teachers as whole persons and professionals. (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)

Our aim in this paper is to investigate the novelties that Descartes’ theory of passions brings to contemporary emotion theories by contrasting it with a medieval understanding of passions. We review how Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, John of Damascus and Thomas Aquinas apprehend passions and compare their view to Descartes’ as well as the other three most prominent contemporary theories of emotions: Jesse Prinz’s theory, enactive theory. According to medieval perspectives, passions are seen through (...) a value-laden lens and are deeply intertwined with religious beliefs. Descartes’ theory of passions started their process of naturalization and secularization. On the other hand, we claim that the difference between the contemporary understanding of emotions and the medieval understanding of passions is not as significant as it is usually portrayed. In both cases, bodily and active aspects of passions (emotions) are present. So, while Descartes indeed influenced a new outlook and productive scientific discussion about passions and emotions, we do not think that the value-laden perspective was erased. We will try to demonstrate our thesis by analyzing the medieval perspective on the passion of sorrow and comparing it to contemporary views on sadness and depression. (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)

In his understanding of passion, Nietzsche closely follows Kant and Schopenhauer. For all three, passion is a uniquely demanding variety of desire: desire so strong that we are compelled to pursue its object regardless of the cost. In his evaluation of passion, however, Nietzsche is unique: while Kant and Schopenhauer both condemn passion, Nietzsche celebrates it. I argue that this celebration of passion is more central to Nietzsche’s thought than it might initially appear. Nietzsche does not encourage appreciation of passion (...) simply because it functions as one means among many for driving change and growth. Rather, Nietzsche holds that valuing passion is essential to valuing life. This follows from passion’s role in resolving a problem highlighted by Schopenhauer’s pessimism: namely, the difficulty of valuing life when avoiding harm is your dominant concern. (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)

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)

Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between passions that are antecedent to the judgment of reason and passions that are consequent to the judgment of reason. The recent interest in Thomas’s moral psychology, and in particular his treatment of the passions, their obedience to practical reason, and the part they play in virtuous, continent, incontinent, and vicious human action, has occasioned a few scholarly studies attendant to his distinction between antecedent and consequent passions. Some of these studies have also (...) taken notice of Thomas’s detailed division of the complex interplay among the concert operations of the senses, passions, reason, and will. Nonetheless, few scholars have highlighted the function of the highest internal sense power, the cogitative power (vis cogitativa), within the dynamic complex of operations and powers that Thomas ascribes to the human person. And so far as I know, no recent study takes the function of the vis cogitativa in Aquinas’s moral psychology as its primary focus. In this paper I aim to fill part of that lacuna by explicating the function of the vis cogitativa as a power of moral perception. I shall show that getting clear on how the cogitative power contributes to moral perception also illumines Thomas’s distinction between antecedent and consequent passions, and accordingly, a host of other connected issues in Aquinas, such as the obedience of the passions to reason, continence and incontinence, and the unity of the virtues through prudence. Needless to say, I shall not venture into the details of each of these intricate topics. -/- The paper is divided into two parts. In the first part I shall summarize the salient points of a few recent studies on Thomas’s doctrine of antecedent and consequent passions. This synopsis will provide the philosophical and exegetical point of departure of the second part by setting in relief a lacuna in these recent interpretations of Thomas’s treatment of the contribution of virtuous passions to practical reason. The second part will aim to complement these studies by filling that lacuna through a detailed exposition of Thomas’s account of the salient functions ascribed to the cogitative power with respect to the operations of practical reason and the obedience of the passions to reason. (shrink)

René Descartes envisioned morals as the highest fruit of his philosophical system—the uppermost branch of his famous tree of philosophy—yet died in 1650 before completing the systematic moral psychology his framework demanded. The Passions of the Soul (1649), though groundbreaking in its mechanistic treatment of the six primitive passions and its articulation of générosité as the master virtue, left unresolved at least five critical lacunae: the integration of philosophical and psychological function within the mind-body union, a developmental account (...) of how the cogito matures across the lifespan, a positive definition of the sound mind beyond pathological absence, substantive moral criteria beyond the directive to “use reason,” and a personality architecture adequate to the complexity of human passional life. This treatise identifies these gaps through careful analysis of Descartes’ published works, correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, and the secondary literature, then proposes a good-faith philosophical completion drawing upon three frameworks from the author’s theoretical corpus: the Double Helix of Understanding (Boether, 2025a), the Mathematics of the “I” (Boether, 2025b), and the Sound Mind reconstruction (Boether, 2026). The paper maintains explicit delineation between Descartes’ original positions and the proposed extensions, presenting each gap alongside its corresponding completion in an interleaved dialectical structure. The argument proceeds that these contemporary frameworks, while developed independently, operate within the Cartesian architectural logic of grounding practical wisdom in foundational knowledge of mind, body, and their union. (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)

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)

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)

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)

Hume argues that whenever we seem to be motivated by reason, there are unnoticed calm passions that play this role instead, a move that is often criticised asad 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’ (THN1.4.5.30). 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” (THN1.3.15). (shrink)

This study argues that while modern civilization has achieved an unprecedented level of control over physical reality, its public sphere has increasingly deteriorated into a hyper-conflictual space—an exclusive Arena of Passions. The paper traces the epistemological origin of this asymmetry to the linguistic turn in modern philosophy, which privileged discursive interpretation over causal engagement with reality, thereby weakening the conditions for shared rationality. -/- Building on Spinoza’s ontological naturalism, this study distinguishes between the ontological finitude that necessitates the formation (...) of solidarity bodies and the pathological transformation that occurs when such formations become moralized. It argues that while collective solidarity emerges as a natural response to epistemic limitation, problems arise when this condition is distorted into a Will to Solidarity—defined as the collective impulse to universalize a group’s local moral code and project it onto others. When this impulse acquires academic, technological, and institutional leverage, it becomes structurally consolidated into what the paper terms Structured Solidarity (Layer 2). The Moralized Critical Framework (MCF) is analyzed not as a contingent ideology, but as a symptomatic manifestation of this general mechanism through which affective drives are stabilized into unfalsifiable epistemic monopolies. -/- Rather than approaching moral conflict as a normative problem, the paper proposes an ontological reconfiguration that reduces moral “ought” to causal relations. Employing Spinoza’s geometrical method and a hard incompatibilist account of agency, it derives a set of ontological premises and operational variables—Negentropy Efficiency (η), Information Complexity (I), Causal Work (W), and the Coefficient of Adequacy (A)—to formalize collective conatus within social systems. -/- On this basis, the study introduces The Mirror of Reason as a conceptual architecture for understanding rational coordination beyond moralization. By modeling alignment as a problem of causal adequacy rather than moral learning, the paper outlines a framework through which epistemic deadlock may be transformed into a condition of rational coexistence and evolutionary solidarity. (shrink)

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)

Cockayne and Warman recently argued that William James’s argument as stated in his lecture ‘The Will to Believe’ can be reconstructed so as to justify a ‘passionately caused atheism.’ I will argue that this reading misses the important point of James’s argument, which is the attempt to show that our initial atheistic passional tendencies become untenable once we are aware of the beneficial consequences we might obtain from forming the belief that God exists.

Germaine de Staël’s theory of the impassioned nature of human beings, as set out in her work De l’influence des passions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations (1796), provides an insightful account of a sentimentalist theory in which human sensibility and emotionality are understood to be a core part of moral thought. In this work, Staël develops a psychological anthropology and moral theory that presents an interplay between the rational and the sentimental as one of its core (...) aspects. Understanding the impassioned nature of human beings is crucial if—like Staël—one believes that passions are the most important root from which individual and collective happiness sprout. Furthermore, passions are essential for moral judgement: in the complex human psychology, dual negative and positive influences of both reason and the passions influence each other. This interplay functions on a political and public level as well as on a personal and private level. (shrink)

Study of Batman´s villain Scarecrow through the lens of ancient Stoicism, particularly according to the Stoic theory of passions.

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)

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)

This publication articulated in three parts, and twelve chapters endeavours to engage with the complex negative emotions and consequent phenomenon of self-deceit, radicalisation and extremism. First part: Emotions as Lines of Demarcation or Guidelines to Our Self. The Psychodynamic Surrounding of our Intentional Self; second part: Case Studies of Some Concrete Societal Encapsulations of the Negative Passions; and third part: Resisting the Colonisation of Tyrannical Affections. Possible Paths of Mitigating Radicalisation and Extremism. What kind of educational responses can be (...) given to extremist claims of territory, identity, resources, power, and interpretations? How can a dialogue on unifying ethical principles and values aid in developing common grounds for preventing radical and extremist excesses? With authors from three continents, this publication endeavours to not only ask the uncomfortable questions with regard to the exteriorisation of human emotive predispositions and inclinations to ostracize, stigmatise and discriminate. The exit door from the extreme is also clearly presented, through four contributions, notably the interplay of Charvaka philosophy, Sikh wisdom on balanced forms of engagement with strong emotions. (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)

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)

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)

The article examines the issue of a necessary connection between the phenomena of law and morality. A new classification of contemporary legal philosophy theories based on a distinction between «dietary» and «calorie» views on the question of the extent that the substantive content of law needs to be consistent with the moral requirements for it to be legal is proposed and justified. It offers a critical analysis of «dietary» views based on the assertion that the law can have any content, (...) including absolutely immoral content (the so-called «separability thesis»). (shrink)