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This paper argues that Aristotelian practical wisdom (phronēsis) is a state of conviction (pistis) in the goodness of our goals based on proper grounds. This state of conviction can only be achieved if rational arguments and principles agree with how things appear to us. Since, for Aristotle, passions influence appearances, they can support or undermine our conviction in the goodness of ends. For this reason, we cannot be practically wise without virtuous dispositions to experience appropriate passions. Along the way, I argue that this reading allows us to explain the shortcomings of self‐controlled and akratic agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper discusses the anthropology, ethics, and politics of Helvetius, focusing on the theme of power and the passions that gravitate around it, and highlighting the transition from a position that could be broadly defined as "anarchic" (all powers are bad) to one that realistically takes power for granted as an insurmountable horizon (and which leads to the future-laden idea of a "democratic despotism"). By analyzing these themes, it questions the common interpretation of Helvetius's thought as a compact block ("Le système d'Helvétius"), emphasizing the way in which the theoretical reworkings presented in De l'homme must be understood in light of the internal tensions of De l'esprit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bajo Palabra: Journal of Philosophy is the property of Bajo Palabra: Journal of Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the first half of Part 5 of the Ethics, Spinoza presents his directions for mitigating the passions through reason. He touts his account of the power of reason over the passions as ground-breaking and unique, while positioning himself squarely within the traditional debate of akrasia, or weakness of will. Spinoza claims he is the first to identify the affects through their characteristic effects, and demonstrate the way these effects can be countered by the mind's activity. It follows that Spinoza's claim for originality can be explained in (at least) two ways: first, passions themselves have been misunderstood, and second, previous philosophers have misunderstood the relationship between reason and the passions. In the first part of this paper, I place Spinoza's discussion of the passions and reason's power over them in a historical context. Next, I present Spinoza's definition of the affects, and his directions for 'destroying' the passions. In the third section I point to the differences between my interpretation and that of recent commentators. Finally, I discuss the way in which Spinoza's directions for mitigating the passions serve as the psychological basis for his moral theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Descartes' theory of the passions has important connections to his view that nonhuman animals are automata. In this paper, I show how critics of animal automatism exploited these connections. I interpret a criticism of animal automatism developed by Gabriel Daniel (1649–1728). Daniel argues that animal automatism commits Descartes to an implausible account of the phenomenology of conflicts between passion and reason. If animal bodies act by mere automatic mechanism, then when a human being resists their animal impulses they should experience a conflict between the disposition of their body and their rational soul. However, our experience of conflicts between passion and reason instead suggests that these conflicts are internal to the soul. Daniel's objection to Cartesian animal automatism was later criticized by David Renaud Boullier (1699–1759), but Boullier himself raises an objection to Cartesian animal automatism that develops insights from Daniel. I argue that Boullier succeeds in raising a powerful objection to Cartesian animal automatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By turning his focus to individuals – the profile of billionaires as the people they are – Peter Hägel offers in his book Billionaires in World Politics an interesting move towards agency, showing that their power, even if situated in a complex economic structure, also consists in bending, changing, or setting the rules of how the game is played. After having followed the move of the pendulum from structure to agency with Hägel, in this paper I suggest that moving back to structural analyses could again provide new insights. I argue that in order to have a more complete picture of the billionaires-and-politics puzzle, it is required to not only look at agency as a kind of reflexive phenomenon, but also to provide a more historically informed genealogy of the conditions under which billionaires' passions have been shaped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Descartes, the passion of generosity—defined as legitimate self-esteem— appears to be egocentric, the result of agents' contemplation of their nature. Yet Cartesian generosity is also intended to serve as the foundation for other-regarding passions, attitudes, and dispositions. This paper examines this tension as it is addressed in the writings of an early Cartesian feminist, Mary Astell. We uncover the social dimension of generosity in Descartes's Passions of the Soul and demonstrate how Astell extends the Cartesian concept in her Serious Proposal. We argue that while there is an internal relationship between Cartesian generosity and good will toward others, Astell's work recognizes that generosity can only be fully actualized under equitable social conditions. We thus provide a deeper analysis of the role that this master passion plays in Descartes's ethical thought as well as a greater appreciation of the impact of Cartesian ethics on early modern feminism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to contribute to the discussion of Hume's theory of personal identity, by examining a conflict regarding the vivacity of the self in his writings about sympathy. Although the mechanism of sympathy supposes that self is the liveliest perception of thought, when we consider sympathy through the perspective of the 'desire of company', we find that self lacks vivacity and, without alterity, it would be in reality nothing. Our objective is to present the conflict and show that, far from being a contradiction in Hume's thinking, it is consistent with how the philosopher conceives personal identity as a product of imagination, that is, a perception that, like any other, exists within the flow of perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adam and Eve served their passion of gastrimargy and their ambition to become gods without the grace of God. The result was their exile from Paradise and death. The incarnation of Logos, His crucifixion, His death on the cross and His resurrection gave a second chance of man's salvation. Unfortunately, people do not put into practice this gift of their reconciliation to God. In this paper, we will compare the opinion of two important Church Fathers, Isidore of Pelusium and Theodore Stoudite. It is important to underline for what kind of passions these Church Fathers speak. Do they relate the passions only with monks or general with Christians? How can we get rid of a passion? Can their teaching be put into practice in nowadays? Which is the worst passion according to them? Are diseases and pandemic a punishment of God for our sins? Of course, we should explain that the passions in the life of a Christian can be proved deadly but they have no connection with the view that diseases are punishments from God for our passions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hume appeals to a mysterious mental process to explain how to world appears to possess features that are not present in sense perceptions, namely causal, moral, and aesthetic properties. He famously writes that the mind spreads itself onto the external world, and that we stain or gild natural objects with our sentiments. Projectivism is founded on these texts but it assumes a reading of Hume's language as merely metaphorical. This assumption, however, conflicts sharply with the important explanatory role that "spreading" and "staining" are supposed to play, which, ironically, is the very appeal of Hume's texts to projectivists. In this paper, I first consider the difficulties readers of Hume have encountered in their attempts to ascertain nature of the key psychological process. I then identify in Hume's texts novel theoretical resources that allow Hume to produce a satisfying answer to the question of process, that is, an account of the precise nature of the key process. I offer this explanation assuming what I take to be Hume's austere conception of the elements involved in the process: sense impressions and "internal impressions" lacking intrinsic intentionality. On my reading, the spreading process explains the gap between the meager input and the rich, novel output: causal, moral and aesthetic judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focused upon Descartes' writings and letters, this paper considers the exponentially-charged relationship between sadness, melancholy, doubt and philosophical inquiry. The first sections examine the relation between sadness in the Cartesian corpus and melancholy as a traditional pathological classification, with both set against a larger seventeenth century intellectual discourse. The letters exchanged between the Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and the Palatine and Descartes between 1643 and 1649, that is, just prior to the death of the philosopher in 1650, reveal the central paradigm of this particular relationship between sadness and melancholy. The call to use philosophy as a cure against sadness also enters consideration, with the theatrical, artificial nature of the philosophical cure presented as essential not only to Descartes' relation to sadness, but also to philosophical method in general. The moral aspect of the establishment of mental habits and their emendation by philosophy hence yields central insights into the larger Cartesian project, here viewed as essentially premised upon a medical vocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Descartes's vision on how the dimensions of the organism connect with each other. Re-reading Descartes is proposed as an antidote against endemic cultural dualism, in a world in which medical institutions, still describe human beings using dualistic terms such as 'psychosomatic', 'body psychotherapy', or 'body-mind' systems. It also introduces Descartes as an early scientific medical researcher who developed a scientific interactionist and organismic approach of embodiment. This paper is framed by my interest in the development of an 'organismic psychology', which assumes that physiological, behavioural, and psychological routines are embedded heterogeneous cogwheels of a human being. I have observed that such an approach is particularly useful with psychosomatic patients, and most forms of body psychotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walter Charleton is an often-overlooked figure in the history of seventeenth-century philosophy, frequently thought of as a mere conduit for the ideas of others, rather than a significant thinker in his own right. As a self-described "eclectic," Charleton saw himself as avoiding dogmatism by selecting the best ideas from his sources and fitting them together into a new, coherent system. Here I argue his method allowed him to innovate on his sources, and led to attempts at overcoming the limitations of the systems he drew on. My focus is Charleton's Natural History of the Passions (1674) and what it takes from René Descartes's Passions of the Soul (1650). There are two benefits to this analysis. First, it will help contextualise Charleton's work and defend him against the accusation of lacking originality. Second, it will further our understanding of a hitherto understudied facet of Descartes's influence in early modern England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The works of Anne Finch, a writer doubly exiled as a female poet and Jacobite, stand out as eminently teachable examples of a compelling political outsider view that provokes us to consider how we can better attend to perspectives of principled opposition. Her poems in response to what has been called the "first modern revolution," together with her odes upon the deaths of King James II and Queen Mary Beatrice, showcase the subversive power of indirect articulation, expressing values through emotions and affects in veiled forms such as allegory and alternate history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to Sanem Soyarslan’s objections to my reading of Spinoza’s free person (homo liber). She argues that on my interpretation the free person, unlike the wise person (vir sapiens), while subject to passive affects, does not experience bondage to the passions; and so only the latter, but not the former, can serve as a viable “model of human nature.” I argue that, in fact, the free person and the wise person are, for Spinoza, one and the same indiviual, and thus constitute a single ideal model that we can more or less closely approximate.

The Discourse on Happiness is Émilie du Châtelet's most translated work, but there is no systematic interpretation of her account of the nature and means to happiness in the secondary literature. I argue that the key to understanding her account lies in interpreting the various roles of the "great machines of happiness." I show that Du Châtelet provides a sophisticated hedonistic account of the nature of happiness, in which passions and tastes are the means to self-perpetuating, increasing, and long-lasting sources of pleasure. In addition, I argue that the remaining "great machines of happiness" are not logically necessary conditions for happiness, but rather character traits that support our tastes and passions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current rise of populism is often associated with affects. However, the exact relationship between populism and affects is unclear. This article addresses the question of what is distinctive about populist (appeals to) affects. It does so against the backdrop of a Laclauian conception of populism as a political logic that appeals to a morally laden frontier between two homogenous groups, 'the people' and 'those in power', in order to establish a new hegemonic order. I argue that it is distinctive of populism that it breaks with the dominating feeling rules by overtly appealing to affects and reclaiming them for the realm of the political. The article explores three groups of affective phenomena: discontent, anger, and fear; empathetic, sympathetic, group-based, and shared emotions; and collective passions of enthusiasm and love. It shows how an appeal to these affects relates to the political logic of populism itself by contributing to the concretization, collectivization, and unification of affects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two ways of hearing Philo's unexpected endorsement of a version of the design hypothesis in the final part of Hume's Dialogues. We might register it in accordance with Cleanthes's descriptivist approach to religious speech, taking Philo to be reasoning with Cleanthes in Cleanthes's own way. Or we might hear Philo's words in accordance with his own expressivist account of religious speech, an account that Philo appears to have borrowed from Hobbes. I argue that Hume intended this double layering of meanings, presenting us with two distinct ways we might understand Philo's closing remarks. Each possible reading reveals a distinct Humean lesson about the limitations of natural theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vox Patrum is the property of Wydzial Teologii KUL and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of eHumanista is the property of Professor Antonio Cortijo-Ocana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While the more frequent historiographic tendency is to associate the early modern occurrences of “self-love” in English texts with the Augustinian template (the “infected love” of a postlapsarian “wicked will”), this paper aims to highlight several instances of a different usage. The seventeenth-century writings on the passions it will investigate work with a notion of “self-love” which only formally carries Augustinian echoes but whose content is rather in tune with notions belonging to a Stoic-inspired scenario of a cure of the soul (resistance to cure, failure of self-examination, narrowness of self – to be gradually shed off by means of a discipline of judgment, self and emotions). As such, they are interesting cases of a typical early modern phenomenon of eclectic discourse formation and mutual contamination of traditions of thought, and testify to a generally neglected early modern concern with a doctrine and a practice of the “cure of the soul” which typically aims to graft Christian theology onto ancient philosophy.

In this paper, I address two widespread misconceptions about Descartes’s theory of love. Descartes defines love as a passion that ‘incites [the soul] to join in volition to the objects that appear to be suitable to it’ (AT XI: 387/Voss: 62). Several commentators assume joining in volition is an act of judgment, since forming judgments is the primary function of the will in the Meditations. However, I argue joining in volition is an act of imagining a whole one forms with an object of love. I draw on Descartes’s account of volition in The Passions of the Soul to show forming images in one’s mind qualifies as a volition, on his view. Second, commentators often assume joining in volition is an essential part of love. However, I argue joining in volition is not an essential part of love because love is not identical to joining in volition, and love does not necessitate the soul to join in volition.

This article presents the semiotic analysis of Giedrė Kazlauskaitė poem Venecijietiška kaukė… The research aims to delve into the structures of the poetic world of Giedrė Kazlauskaitė, which is achieved through executing a detailed semiotic analysis of one poem. Accordingly, this paper follows the semiotic framework of the analytical trajectory, which encompasses the analysis through the means of discursive, narrative, and logical semantic levels. In addition, the study includes Yuri Lotman’s discourse of the concept of the mirror in cultural semiotics. Findings derived from the semiotic analysis suggest that the figures of the mask and the mirror become central representations at the discursive level of the poem, as they exist in a paratopic space - the make-up room. The mask and the mirror appear in Kazlauskaitė’s poetry as an essential tool for shaping one’s own identity. Moreover, the analysis of the poem is supplemented with the expression of the passions of anger and jealousy. Such approach highlights two different forms of anger: destruction arising from jealousy and a creative act. These forms suggest that the passion of anger drives the subject to the act of doing. Furthermore, in this poem, the figure of the poet is not presented as calm or accommodating, but rather as angry and unafraid to show contempt.