We're completing our treatment for now of Thomas Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings, discussion sec. 15, "Feelings." This recording features Mark, Wes, and Seth. Listen to at least part three first, also about the mind. Passions are defined as passive ("passio" in Latin), and the puzzle again is how to fit the Aristotelian model of the soul (with its passive and active Continue Reading …
Ep. 365: Scheler on Love (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. We conclude our treatment of Max Scheler's The Nature of Sympathy (1922). We briefly revisit Part I to connect sympathy to love: If you love someone, you can't help but have sympathy with them when they suffer. Feeling sympathy without love, i.e. mere pity, will actually injure the pride of Continue Reading …
Ep. 365: Scheler on Love (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On The Nature of Sympathy (1922), Part II: "Love and Hatred." The end of part I on fellow-feeling clarifies that we can only sympathize at the deepest level with someone if we love them, so what is love exactly, and how does it relate to ethics? Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at Continue Reading …
Ep. 365: Scheler on Love (Part Two for Supporters)
We conclude our treatment of Max Scheler's The Nature of Sympathy (1922). We briefly revisit Part I to connect sympathy to love: If you love someone, you can't help but have sympathy with them when they suffer. Feeling sympathy without love, i.e. mere pity, will actually injure the pride of your object. Listen to part one first, or better yet, start with ep. 364 where we start Continue Reading …
Ep. 365: Scheler on Love (Part One for Supporters)
On The Nature of Sympathy (1922), Part II: "Love and Hatred." The end of part I on fellow-feeling clarifies that we can only sympathize at the deepest level with someone if we love them, so what is love exactly, and how does it relate to ethics? For Brentano (Scheler's chief ethical influence), love was amoral in itself but is a component in our ethical intuitions: Something Continue Reading …
Ep. 364: Max Scheler on Sympathy (Part Two)
Subscribe to get parts 1, 2, and 3 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. Continuing from part one on The Nature of Sympathy (1913/1922), Part I: "Fellow Feeling," Ch. 1-4. We look more closely at the text, getting further into how fellow feeling relates to ethics, and why the moral sentimentalists (like Hume) were wrong about this. We also get more into the Continue Reading …
Ep. 364: Max Scheler on Sympathy (Part Three for Supporters)
Mark, Wes, and Dylan reconvened for one more hour on Part I, "Fellow Feeling" (ch. 3-4) in The Nature of Sympathy (1913/1922). Start with part one of the discussion. We continue to try to figure out the razor's edge of "fellow feeling proper" that does not rely on the sympathizer identifying in any way (including comparing himself to) to object of sympathy. Ch. 3 ("Genetic Continue Reading …
Ep. 364: Max Scheler on Sympathy (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free, plus tons of bonus content. On The Nature of Sympathy (1913, expanded 1922), Part I: "Fellow Feeling," Ch. 1-4, featuring Mark, Wes, Seth, and Dylan. What is it to feel sympathy (or as Scheler repeatedly calls it "fellow feeling") for another person? Scheler was a phenomenologist highly influenced by Husserl and his Continue Reading …
Ep. 364: Max Scheler on Sympathy (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on The Nature of Sympathy (1913/1922), Part I: "Fellow Feeling," Ch. 1-4. We look more closely at the text, getting further into how fellow feeling relates to ethics, and why the moral sentimentalists (like Hume) were wrong about this. We also get more into the types of fellow feeling, from "genuine fellow feeling" that takes the other person's Continue Reading …
Ep. 364: Max Scheler on Sympathy (Part One for Supporters)
On The Nature of Sympathy (1913, expanded 1922), Part I: "Fellow Feeling," Ch. 1-4, featuring Mark, Wes, Seth, and Dylan. What is it to feel sympathy (or as Scheler repeatedly calls it "fellow feeling") for another person? Scheler was a phenomenologist highly influenced by Husserl and his teacher Brentano, who immediately before this work had written a lengthy ethical Continue Reading …
Closereads: Hume on Passions (Part One)
Sign up for Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get additional parts of this reading, as well as our previous and future installments of this new podcast. On Book II of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), this time reading sections 1 and 2 in Part I, "Pride and Humility." How does David Hume deal with human emotions, given his empiricism that begins with the Continue Reading …
PEL Nightcap Early September 2021
Recorded 8/16/21. Seth thinks about how to continue reading Hegel and some initial political ranting about Texas and gerrymandering ensues. We think about what to read in aesthetics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of sport. (Update: the sport episode is not happening soon.) For the main event, we try to see what we can remember about the philosophy of emotions. Continue Reading …
Ep. 247: Aristotle on Rhetoric and Emotions (Part Two)
Continuing on the Rhetoric (ca. 335 BCE) book 1, ch. 1–6 and book 2, ch. 1–5, 18–24. We finish up with enthymemes (rhetorical arguments), maxims, and signs. We then move to emotions, where we chiefly talk about anger: Is it always a matter of status injury, or is frustration equally (or more) foundational? Begin with part one, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition Continue Reading …
Ep. 247: Aristotle on Rhetoric and Emotions (Part One)
On the Rhetoric (ca. 335 BCE) book 1, ch. 1–6 and book 2, ch. 1–5, 18–24. What role does persuasion play in philosophy? In Plato's Gorgias, Socrates condemns the sophists who taught rhetoric for merely endowing their students with social power over others, power that would make them neither happy nor virtuous. Philosophy should be about getting at the truth. Aristotle Continue Reading …
Ep. 247: Aristotle on Rhetoric and Emotions (Citizen Edition)
On the Rhetoric (ca. 335 BCE) book 1, ch. 1–6 and book 2, ch. 1–5, 18–24. What role does persuasion play in philosophy? In Plato's Gorgias, Socrates condemns the sophists who taught rhetoric for merely endowing their students with social power over others, power that would make them neither happy nor virtuous. Philosophy should be about getting at the truth. Aristotle Continue Reading …
Episode 180: More James’s Psychology: Self and Will (Part Two)
Concluding on William James's Psychology, the Briefer Course (1892). We briefly cover emotions and spend the bulk of our time on will. Talking about emotions allows us to refresh on James's overall theory of mind: An organism's activity basically involves various signals coming in through the senses and going out to produce reaction. This chain can reach to a greater or Continue Reading …
Ep. 180: More James’s Psychology: Self and Will (Citizen Edition)
On Psychology, the Briefer Course (1892), chapters on "The Self," "Will," and "Emotions." Continuing from ep. 179, we talk about the various aspects of self: The "Me" (the part of me that I know) that's divided into physical, social, and spiritual aspects, and the "I" (the part of me that has experiences), which is pretty problematic, but which we need not posit as a "soul," Continue Reading …
Martha Nussbaum on Emotions, Ethics, and Literature
Martha Nussbaum has been recently described as a "philosopher of feelings" and indeed, throughout her career, she has written on disgust, shame, desire, sex, patriotism, love, empathy, and most recently, anger. According to Nussbaum, there is ethical value in emotions, and we are wrong to ostracize them outside the sphere of philosophical relevance. Understanding our emotions Continue Reading …
Episode 144: Guest Martha Nussbaum on Anger
On Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice (2016). What role should we allow anger to play in our public life? Should systems of punishment be strictly impartial, or should they be retributive, i.e., expressive of public anger? Nussbaum thinks that anger necessarily involves the desire for payback, and that this is nearly always unhelpful. We should instead use Continue Reading …
Ep. 144: Guest Martha Nussbaum on Anger (Citizen Edition)
On Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice (2016). What role should we allow anger to play in our public life? Should systems of punishment be strictly impartial, or should they be retributive, i.e., expressive of public anger? Nussbaum thinks that anger necessarily involves the desire for payback, and that this is nearly always unhelpful. We should instead use Continue Reading …