Philosophy as Passion refutes the commonly held view of Simone de Beauvoir as no more than an acolyte of Jean-Paul Sartre. Karen Vintges delineates Beauvoir's independent, original ethics and philosophy, drawing on the moral philosophical treatises of the 1940's and 1950's along with The Second Sex, her novel The Mandarins, and autobiographical works.
TABLE OF CONTENTS: Translator's Introduction Introduction by Genevieve Rodis-Lewis The Passions of the Soul: Preface PART I: About the Passions in General, and Incidentally about the Entire Nature of Man PART II: About the Number and Order of the Passions, and the Explanation of the Six Primitives PART III: About the Particular Passions Lexicon: Index to Lexicon Bibliography Index Index Locorum
The subject of the passions has always haunted Western philosophy and, more often than not, aroused harsh judgments. For the passions represent a force of excess and lawlessness in humanity that produces troubling, confusing paradoxes.In this book, noted European philosopher Michel Meyer offers a wide-ranging exegesis, the first of its kind, that systematically retraces the history of philosophic conceptions of the passions in the work of such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Spinoza, Descartes, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, and Freud. The great ruptures that led to passion's condemnation as sin, and to its romantic exultation as the truth of existence, are meticulously registered and the logic governing them astutely explicated.Meyer thus provides new insight into an age-old dilemma: Does passion torture people because it blinds them, or, on the contrary, does it permit them to apprehend who and what we really are?
Passion and Action explores the place of the emotions in seventeenth-century understandings of the body and mind, and the role they were held to play in reasoning and action. Interest in the passions pervaded all areas of philosophical enquiry, and was central to the theories of many major figures, including Hobbes, Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Pascal, and Locke. Yet little attention has been paid to this topic in studies of early modern thought. Susan James surveys the inheritance of ancient and medieval doctrines about the passions, then shows how these were incorporated into new philosophical theories in the course of the seventeenth century. She examines the relation of the emotions to will, knowledge, understanding, desire, and power, offering fresh analyses and interpretations of a broad range of texts by little-known writers as well as canonical figures, and establishing that a full understanding of these authors must take account of their discussions of our affective life. Passion and Action also addresses current debates, particularly those within feminist philosophy, about the embodied character of thinking and the relation between emotion and knowledge. This ground-breaking study throws new light upon the shaping of our ideas about the mind, and provides a historical context for burgeoning contemporary investigations of the emotions.
This feminist classic explores the many manifestations of friendship between women and examines the ways women have created their own communities and destinies through friendship.
This text argues that justice is a virtue which everyone shares - a function of personal character and not just of government or economic planning. It uses examples from Plato to Ivan Boesky, to document how we live and how we feel.
Robert C. Solomon, who died in 2007, was Professor of Philosophy and Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Business at the University of Texas, USA. As the first book comprehensively to examine the breadth of Solomon’s contribution to philosophy, this volume ranks as a vital addition to the literature. It includes a newly published transcript of Solomon’s last talk, which responded to Arindam Chakrabarti on the concept of revenge, as well as the considered views of prominent figures in the numerous subfields in which Solomon worked. The content analyses his perspectives on the philosophy of emotion, virtue, business ethics, and religion, in addition to philosophical history, existentialism, and the many other topics that held this prolific thinker’s attention. Solomon memorably defined philosophy itself as ‘the thoughtful love of life’, and despite the diversity of his output, he was most drawn by central questions about the meaning of life, the essential role that emotions play in finding that meaning, and the human imperative to seek ‘emotional integrity’, in which one’s thoughts, emotions, and actions all contribute to a coherent narrative. The essays included here draw attention to the interconnections between the issues Solomon addressed, and evince the manner in which he embodied that integrity, living a life at one with his philosophy. They emphasize the central themes of passion, ethics, and spirituality, which threaded through his work, and the way these ideas informed his views on how we should approach grief and death. The multiplicity of topics alone make this keystone work an enlightening read for a full spectrum of students of philosophy, providing much to ponder and recounting a subtle and shining example of the emotional integrity Solomon worked so hard to define.
Paul Ricoeur's entire philosophical project narrates a "passion for the possible" expressed in the hope that in spite of death, closure, and sedimentation, life is opened by superabundance, by how the world gives us much more than is possible. Ricoeur's philosophical anthropology is a phenomenology of human capacity, which gives onto the groundless ground of human being, namely, God. Thus the story of the capable man, beginning with original goodness held captive by a servile will and ending with the possibility of liberation and regeneration of the heart, underpins his passion for the more than possible. The essays in this volume trace the fluid movement between phenomenological and religious descriptions of the capable self that emerges across Ricoeur's oeuvre and establish points of connection for future developments that might draw inspiration from this body of thought.
A compelling portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft that shows the intimate connections between her life and work Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, first published in 1792, is a work of enduring relevance in women's rights advocacy. However, as Sylvana Tomaselli shows, a full understanding of Wollstonecraft’s thought is possible only through a more comprehensive appreciation of Wollstonecraft herself, as a philosopher and moralist who deftly tackled major social and political issues and the arguments of such figures as Edmund Burke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith. Reading Wollstonecraft through the lens of the politics and culture of her own time, this book restores her to her rightful place as a major eighteenth-century thinker, reminding us why her work still resonates today. The book’s format echoes one that Wollstonecraft favored in Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: short essays paired with concise headings. Under titles such as “Painting,” “Music,” “Memory,” “Property and Appearance,” and “Rank and Luxury,” Tomaselli explores not only what Wollstonecraft enjoyed and valued, but also her views on society, knowledge and the mind, human nature, and the problem of evil—and how a society based on mutual respect could fight it. The resulting picture of Wollstonecraft reveals her as a particularly engaging author and an eloquent participant in enduring social and political concerns. Drawing us into Wollstonecraft’s approach to the human condition and the debates of her day, Wollstonecraft ultimately invites us to consider timeless issues with her, so that we can become better attuned to the world as she saw it then, and as we might wish to see it now.
